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ASEAN: Concerned Over AUKUS Alliance! QUAD Sidelined?
Power Crunch Is Just the First Step!
AUSTRALIA’S moniker of “deputy sheriff” is back in circulation again with last week’s announcement of the Aukus trilateral military alliance involving the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.
The agreement, under which the US and the UK would provide Australia the technology to build nuclear-powered submarines for the first time, was declared in a joint virtual press conference by US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian PM Scott Morrison on Sept 15.
The three Anglo Saxon nations declared that the new deal is meant to protect and defend shared interests in the Indo-pacific amid “regional security concerns which had grown significantly”.
The epithet “deputy sheriff of the US” first gained infamy 22 years ago when then Australian PM John Howard used it in an interview to describe the country’s projected role in regional peacekeeping.
In an interview with The Bulletin magazine, he defined Australia as a medium-sized, economically strong regional power, “acting in a deputy role to the US in maintaining peace”.
He also said Australia had a responsibility within its region to do things “above and beyond”, bringing into play its unique characteristics as a Western country in Asia.
The remarks led to both ridicule at home and diplomatic backlash from regional leaders who rebuked
Australia for taking orders from the United States while being geographically closer to Asia. History repeats itself often, and Australia’s partnership in Aukus has brought the focus back on that lackey image.
Besides drawing indignation from China, which condemned the deal as “extremely irresponsible, narrowminded and severely damaging regional peace”, Aukus – the abbreviation representing the initials of the three countries – has also ruffled feathers within Asean and divided the 10-member grouping.
Based on the reactions over the past few days, two camps have emerged. Malaysia and Indonesia are clearly opposed to it on the grounds that it would unsettle the region. Thailand, a traditional US ally which has a close economic relationship with China, is also of the view that the security pact would undermine stability.
On the opposite side, the Philippines has taken a totally contrary stand. It has declared support, with its foreign minister Teodoro Locsin arguing that Aukus would address the imbalance in the forces available to the Asean member states and that the enhancement of Australia’s military capacity would be beneficial in the long term.
Vietnam, which recently hosted US vice-president Kamala Harris, has not commented on the pact although its spokesperson Le Thi Thu Hang offered this ambiguous response: “All countries strive for the same goal.”
Meanwhile, Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan has stated that the city state is “not unduly anxious” about the new strategic alliance because of its longstanding relationship with the three countries.
The four other countries in the grouping have been largely silent on the issue.
Malaysia was swift and forthright in making its position clear. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob warned that Aukus would spark a nuclear arms race and provoke other powers to act more aggressively in the region, especially in the South China Sea.
In his phone call to Morrison, he also raised the importance of abiding by existing positions on nuclearpowered submarines operating in Malaysia’s waters, including rules under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 (UNCLOS) and the Southeast Asian Nuclear-weapon-free Zone Treaty (SEANWFZ).
The questions being asked now are: How will China react to Aukus? Will it intensify the arms technology race in the region by increasing military expenditure for its navy or create more missile launch facilities, also known as underground missile silos, for the storage and launching of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMS)?
That is what is being predicted by the hawks in the US military establishment, who have been consistently exaggerating China’s supposed military threat.
Among the talk is that China would boost the number of missile silos to 100 over the next two decades. For the record, the US already has at least 450 such facilities.
It is no secret that China has been building up its navy although it is still a long way from matching the marine power of the United States or the United Kingdom with just two aircraft carriers and a third still under construction. In comparison, the United States has 11 aircraft carriers and the United Kingdom two, but only one has been commissioned.
The US has 72 submarines – all nuclear-powered – compared with China’s 56, out of which only six are nuclear-powered.
With the entry of this newfangled military pact, Asean nations are now caught in a quandary. The quest for a Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality in South-east Asia (Zopfan) declared on Nov 27, 1971, when the world was in the midst of a Cold War between the US and its Western allies and the USSR, looks like a distant dream today.
Zopfan was mainly aimed at preventing the world’s big powers from competing for influence and military prowess in the region.
The concept was inspired by the UN’S principles of respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states, abstention from threat or use of force, peaceful settlement of international disputes, equal rights and self-determination, and non-interference in the affairs of member states.
But as Dr Laura Southgate, a specialist in South-east Asian regional security and international relations, highlighted in a recent article in The Diplomat, Aukus has clearly exposed Asean’s lack of cohesion.
As she put it, driven by different threat perceptions and geo-strategic interests, it had become very difficult for Asean member nations to speak with one voice, although many states hope to maintain a balance between China and the US and its allies.
Media consultant M. Veera Pandiyan likes this observation by Niccolò Machiavelli: “Wars begin when you will, but they do not end when you please.” The views expressed here are the writer’s own.
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A Royal Australian Navy submarine is seen during a drill with the Indian Navy in Darwin on September 5. Australia is buying a fleet of nuclear submarines as part of a new defence pact. Photo: TNS
THE empire strikes back. So it seemed as United States President Joe Biden announced recently at a press conference attended virtually by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his British counterpart Boris Johnson, the conclusion of a new military and security agreement between their three nations.
The agreement smacks of the old “Anglo” arrangements made a century ago between what used to be called the “Mother Country” and two of her major English-speaking siblings. And President Biden’s jovial reference during the latest press conference to the Australian Premier as “that fellow Down Under” only heightened the “retro” feel of the entire enterprise.
But appearances can be deceiving, and what may look and sound like a blast from the past could well turn out to be a major pointer of the world of tomorrow. For there is little doubt that the new Aukus arrangement – as this pact is rather ungainly called – is already being rated as a fundamental step change in Asian and, perhaps, even global security structures.
Professor Rory Metcalf of the Australian National University and one of his country’s most prominent strategic experts, is not a man known to exaggerate. But on this occasion, no exaggeration seemed too much: Australia, he wrote after the Aukus deal was announced, “has crossed a strategic Rubicon, bitten the bullet, nailed its colours to the mast”. In short, no expression, however grand or over-used, is out of place in expressing the significance of the new deal.
French fury over subs deal
Following the announcement, most of the attention concentrated on the impact of the Aukus agreement on Australia’s existing contract with France for the delivery of a new generation of conventional, diesel electric powered submarines. That deal has been cancelled and will be replaced with the supply of nuclear-powered submarines based on Us-developed technology.
The French were predictably apoplectic at the loss of a contract for the construction of 12 Barracuda submarines, a mega deal worth at least Us$88bil in today’s prices, and a critical part of France’s struggle to maintain an indigenous naval industry.
Officials in Paris were particularly indignant about being kept in the dark by the Australians about their negotiations for a nuclear submarine replacement deal. French Foreign Minister Jean-yves Le Drian called the entire episode a “stab in the back”; junior politicians in Paris have used even more colourful language, and French officials have been steeling themselves for a prolonged legal battle with Australia over what they claim is a broken contract.
As is often the case with military deals which contain many confidential clauses, the conclusion may well be that both sides to the dispute are right.
The French may be correct to point out that Australia could have gone for the purchase of nuclear submarines back in 2016, when the initial deal was signed. It was Canberra that insisted on the diesel variety partly because the anti-nuclear mood was strong among Australians then, and one of the chief attractions of picking France’s Barracuda submarines at that time was precisely the fact that the submarines could be switched from diesel to nuclear power. So, it looks odd that the Australians are now ditching a French contract by arguing that it does not offer them the technology which they could have had from the start, but rejected.
However, the Australians may also be right in claiming that the French submarine project is both behind schedule and more than double the initial budget, and that the promises initially made by Paris to transfer 90% of the work to shipyards in Adelaide were subsequently whittled down to not more than half of the construction capacity, thereby failing to create the national Australian submarine manufacturing capability which Canberra craved.
But all these arguments, although weighty, are marginal. For what persuaded the Australian government to go for the deal was the unique access it offers to the technology which no other nation has, apart from the US and the United Kingdom.
Only six nations in the world have nuclear-powered submarines: Britain, China, France, India, Russia and the US. The Americans have never shared their technology with any other country apart from Britain, and even that technology-sharing deal was concluded back in the late 1950s.
There is no question, therefore, about the significance of the latest agreement for Australia. A senior American official who briefed the media about the Aukus deal on condition of anonymity underlined the “very rare” nature of the arrangement and the “extremely sensitive” technology that will be shared.
“This is, frankly, an exception to our policy in many respects. I do not anticipate that this will be undertaken in any other circumstances going forward; we view this as a one-off,” he told journalists.
The French were wondering why they were not offered a part in one shape or another in this Australia-britain-us triumvirate. The answer is quite simple and, of course, fully known in Paris.
The French have spent decades trying to develop technologies which are independent from the US and offered as alternatives to American platforms. President Emmanuel Macron uses every opportunity to urge the rest of Europe to develop “strategic autonomy” from the US. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that the Americans are taking France at its word and propose to respect French “autonomy” by excluding it from sensitive military projects.
The Five Eyes
In reality, the Aukus deal builds on almost 80 years of intelligence cooperation within the so-called Five Eyes arrangement in which the Australians, Brits and Americans are also joined by New Zealanders and Canadians. The unique flow of classified information between them served as not only the foundation for the current deal, but also the basis for common threat assessment.
Australia has decided that it needs nuclear-powered submarines because they are stealthier and can endure far longer periods submerged, but also because the submarine deal is a curtain-raiser to something far bigger: the development and transfer of technology with the Americans and British involving a variety of other fields, including cyber, artificial intelligence and quantum technology.
Furthermore, senior US officials are now talking about setting up “a new architecture of meetings and engagements” between relevant defence and technology teams from the three countries which will not only identify joint areas of research and development, but also promote “deeper interoperability” across the entire spectrum of a future battlefield. This is, to all intents and purposes, a new alliance.
And the longer-term political ramifications are just as substantial.
In a 30-minute phone call on Wednesday, the French and US presidents agreed to try to find a way forward and will meet in Europe at the end of next month.
But there is no doubt that the conclusion of the Aukus deal marginalises Europe. The Europeans have spent the past 18 months proclaiming their desire to elaborate a new policy towards the Indopacific region, and particularly towards China, one which will supposedly entail both a “critical engagement with China” and a friendly engagement with the US.
Yet when the chips were down, the only European partner the US was interested in enlisting was Britain. The fact that the announcement of the Aukus deal came literally hours before the European Union unveiled its own Asia policy paper only added to the continent’s sense of marginalisation.
The deal with Australia is also a huge boon for British PM Johnson. He was castigated for pulling Britain out of the EU, something which supposedly made his country irrelevant. But the Aukus pact seems to confirm Johnson’s claims that out of the EU, the Brits have plenty of global engagement alternatives. The deal with Australia also demolishes the argument that the Johnson government is not taken seriously in Washington.
The Aukus deal also ensures that Britain’s existing intelligence and technology cooperation links with the US are now being recast as part of a global effort to keep up with the perceived Chinese threat, a useful advantage for the British, who often fretted that, with the old confrontation against Russia now less important, the US would lose interest in cooperation with them.
America’s China strategy
But the most significant aspect is what the Aukus deal tells us about America’s long-term strategy on China.
For years, the discussion in many world capitals was about the feasibility of creating a broad, global Us-led coalition to contain China, one which includes most Asian countries, and mimics the Nato alliance in Europe during the Cold War. But that was never feasible in Asia, and probably was never even considered in Washington.
Instead, what President Biden is seeking to promote is several more restricted alliance and partnership arrangements, some overlapping and some complementing each other. The Quad is one such arrangement, the Aukus another, and there will be others in the offing.
The approach has the advantage of enhancing the existing hub-andspokes arrangements whereby the US is crucial to every single regional arrangement but is not presiding over a uniform region-wide alliance.
The overlapping nature of these arrangements is intended to increase the cost which China may have to pay in any future confrontation, but at the same time does not isolate the Chinese or condemn the region to a Cold War-style confrontation. Still, the Aukus military pact is not without its own potential difficulties.
The fact that it is seen as a public rebuff of France and of the EU is decidedly unhelpful. The US needs EU cooperation in Asia, and particularly French cooperation. Next to the British, the French have the most capable European military force, and the only one apart from the British with true long-range expeditionary capabilities. France is also a Pacific power: It has two million citizens in the region.
So, urgent steps must be taken to include France in any future regional projects.
Because of its privileged and exclusive nature, the Aukus deal can also create tensions with other US allies such as Japan and South Korea, which may wish to get similar technology-sharing deals.
So, it’s better if, after the initial publicity splash, the Aukus copies the example of America’s nuclear submarines and dives into the depth of secrecy, never to be talked of again. Most of its added value is by working behind the scenes.
There will also be political difficulties. Critics in Australia will claim that their country is losing its independence by getting too close to the US. And critics in Britain – including former prime minister Theresa May – are already warning that the Aukus deal makes the British too dependent on US policy towards China, with potentially grave consequences.
Still, none of this detracts from the conclusion that, in seeking to counter China, the US has lost none of its ability to innovate and surprise. And decision-makers in Beijing would be well advised to reflect on how their own actions of condemning Australia, boycotting Australian goods and, more recently, presenting a set of humiliating conditions to the Australians as a precondition for the restoration of normal relations have contributed to the creation of the Aukus alliance.
Far from achieving what Beijing would regard as Canberra’s “good behaviour”, the pressures have resulted in an Australia which will be better armed and more closely aligned with the US, precisely the outcome China sought to avoid.
Jonathan Eyal is the Europe correspondent at The Straits Times, a member of the Asia News Network (ANN), which is an alliance of 24 news media entities. The Asian Editors Circle is a series of commentaries by editors and contributors of ANN.
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https://www.thestar.com.my/aseanplus/aseanplus-news/2021/09/27/australian-aukus-subs-are-chinas-fears-of-a-nuclear-arms-race-in-the-indo-pacific-founded
https://www.pressreader.com/canada/the-beacon-herald/20210925/281496459432994
When the 9/11 attacks hit New York and Washington in 2001 and the U.S. armed forces went on full alert, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice got on the direct line to Moscow and told Vladimir Putin the United States was not going to attack…
The declared aim of a new defense agreement comprising the U.S., U.K. and Australia, christened AUKUS, is to maintain a “free and open IndoPacific,” with nuclearpowered submarines potentially on patrol. But you can add it to the list of arrangements among democracies attempting to counter China’s growing power. The so-called Quad partnership, created after the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and even the World War II-era “Five Eyes” spy alliance now seem overwhelmingly focused on Beijing. The growing web has provoked fury from Beijing and worries in some Asian states that the new groupings could fuel a dangerous arms race in the region.
Q: Q:What is AUKUS?
A: A:A new security partnership that will see Australia acquire nuclearpowered submarine technology – but not nuclear weapons – from the U.S. and U.K. While it could take more than a decade for Australia to build its first sub, the agreement shows the U.S. seeking to form a more cohesive defense arrangement in Asia to offset China’s rapidly modernizing military. Australia has long tried to balance security ties with the U.S. and its close economic ties with China, insisting it didn’t need to pick sides. But Beijing’s barrage of punitive trade reprisals following Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s push for an investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic appears to have drastically changed the strategic calculus in Canberra.
Q: Q:Why are the submarines important?
A: A:Nuclear-powered vessels are vastly superior to their diesel-electric counterparts: They’re faster, can stay submerged almost indefinitely, and are bigger – allowing them to carry more weapons, equipment and supplies. Given Australia’s remote location and the fact its subs may operate in waters stretching from the Indian Ocean up to Japan, these are big pluses. Until now, only six nations – the U.S., U.K., France, China, Russia and India – have had the technology to deploy and operate nuclear-powered subs. France was enraged by the Aukus deal, which came as a surprise, because Australia simultaneously canceled a $66 billion agreement it had had with Paris for conventional subs.
Q: Q:What’s the Quad?
A: A:It brings the U.S., Japan, India and Australia together in an informal alliance of democracies with shared economic and security interests that span the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Formed to coordinate tsunami relief efforts, it lay dormant for years afterward until 2017, when it was revived under then-U.S. President Donald Trump as his administration sought to challenge China from every angle. Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, organized the first-ever gathering of the Quad leaders in March, at which they pledged to accelerate production of Covid-19 vaccines and distribute them across Asia. Although their statement doesn’t mention China, the talks came amid a flurry of U.S. diplomacy designed to build a common approach to dealing with Beijing.
Q: Q:What’s Five Eyes?
A: A:It’s a decades-old intelligence-sharing arrangement among the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It’s so good at keeping secrets that its existence wasn’t publicly revealed until the mid-2000s. It isn’t clear how much intelligence is shared, but most of whistle-blower Edward Snowden’s vast 2013 dump of classified U.S. National Security Agency data, for instance, was marked FVEY, meaning it was available to other Five Eyes members. Advocates say the collaboration was used to positive effect in the Afghanistan war as well as in counter-terrorism operations in the Philippines and East Africa. Snowden attacked it as unanswerable to democratic oversight by national governments. Cracks emerged this year over China, when New Zealand distanced itself from moves to broaden the group’s remit and take positions on issues such as Beijing’s human rights record.
Q: Q:Why so much focus on China?
A: A:Its rise has steadily become one of the biggest foreign policy challenges not just for the U.S., but for almost every Chinese neighbor and democracies around the world. China’s rapid military development is a particularly acute threat to neighboring countries such as India and the Philippines, which have active maritime or border disputes. But it also threatens the U.S. military presence that has underpinned Asia’s security architecture for decades. Researchers at the University of Sydney, for example, warned last year that China’s growing missile arsenal could wipe out America’s bases in Asia during the “opening hours” of any conflict. China’s global economic reach has also greatly expanded as state-owned companies buy up strategic assets such as ports around the world that could be harnessed in times of war. Its statecraft – spearheaded by “wolf warrior” diplomats – has also grown more aggressive, particularly throughout the Covid pandemic.
Q: Q:What’s China’s reaction?
A: A:It has consistently lashed out at what it calls a “Cold War mentality,” denouncing such partnerships as anti-China cliques. Chinese officials argued that Aukus will stoke an arms race in the Asia-Pacific region. In their view, its members are trying not just to compete, but to contain China’s rise – to throw a military net around it in vital waterways like the South China Sea and undermine the country’s economic development. Relations have been getting tenser on all sides. Biden, like Trump, has trained his energies on preventing the world’s second-largest economy from pulling ahead. Beijing also has sparred with the U.K. over Hong Kong and Canada over detained citizens, while Europe has called China a “systemic rival.”
US-Australia nuclear arms deal
On September 15, the heads of government of Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States announced the formation of AUKUS, “a new enhanced trilateral security partnership” among these three countries. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson joined US President Joe Biden to “preserve security and stability in the Indo-Pacific,” as Johnson put it.
While China was not explicitly mentioned by these leaders at the AUKUS announcement, it is generally assumed that countering China is the unstated motivation for the new partnership. “The future of the Indo-Pacific,” said Morrison at the press conference, “will impact all our futures.” That was as far as they would go to address the elephant in the room.
Zhao Lijian of the Chinese Foreign Ministry associated the creation of AUKUS with “the outdated Cold War zerosum mentality and narrow-minded geopolitical perception.” Beijing has made it clear that all talk of security in the IndoPacific region by the US and its NATO allies is part of an attempt to build up military pressure against China. The BBC story on the pact made this clear in its headline: “Aukus: UK, US and Australia launch pact to counter China.”
What was the need for a new partnership when there are already several such security platforms in place? Morrison acknowledged this in his remarks at the press conference, mentioning the “growing network of partnerships” that include the Quad security pact (Australia, India, Japan and the United States) and the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the United States).
A closer look at AUKUS suggests that this deal has less to do with military security and more to do with arms deals.
Morrison announced that the “first major initiative of AUKUS will be to deliver a nuclear-powered submarine fleet for Australia.” Two red flags were immediately raised: first, what will happen to Australia’s pre-existing order of diesel-powered submarines from France, and second, will this sale of nuclear-powered submarines violate the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)?
In 2016, the Australian government made a deal with France’s Naval Group (formerly known as Direction des Constructions Navales, or DCNS) to supply the country with 12 diesel-electric submarines.
A press release from then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and his minister of defense (who is the current minister of foreign affairs), Marise Payne, said at the time that the future submarine project “is the largest and most complex defense acquisition Australia has ever undertaken. It will be a vital part of our defense capability well into the middle of this century.”
Australia’s six Collins-class submarines are expected to be decommissioned in the 2030s, and the submarines that were supposed to be supplied by France were meant to replace them. The arms deal was slated to cost (in Australian dollars) “about $90 billion to build and $145 billion to maintain over their life cycle,” according to The Sydney Morning Herald.
Australia has now canceled its deal with the French to obtain the nuclear-powered submarines. These new submarines will likely be built either in the US by Electric Boat, a subdivision of General Dynamics, and Newport News Shipbuilding, a subdivision of Huntington Ingalls Industries, or in the UK by BAE Systems; BAE Systems has already benefited from several major submarine deals.
The AUKUS deal to provide submarines to Australia will be far more expensive, given that these are nuclear submarines, and it will draw Australia to rely more deeply upon the UK and US arms manufacturers.
France was furious about the submarine deal, with Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian calling it a “regrettable decision” that should advance the cause of “European strategic autonomy” from the United States.
https://www.pressreader.com/zimbabwe/the-zimbabwe-independent-9fa3/20210924/281702617860012
WHEN the 9/11 attacks struck New York and Washington in 2001 and the United States armed forces went on full alert, National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice immediately got on the direct line to Moscow and told Vladimir Putin not to worry:…
https://www.pressreader.com/india/hindustan-times-lucknow/20210925/281762747404122
Last week witnessed the aukward birth of a new security alliance — AUKUS — bringing together Australia, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US), coupled with a deal involving the US and the UK building eight nuclear attack…Hindustan Times (Lucknow)
The story so far: On September 15, U.S. President Joe Biden, along with Prime Ministers Scott Morrison and Boris Johnson of Australia and the U.K. respectively, announced the formation of a new trilateral security partnership called…
Last week witnessed the aukward birth of a new security alliance — AUKUS — bringing together Australia, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US), coupled with a deal involving the US and the UK building eight nuclear attack…
Washington, Sept. 23: The United States has ruled out adding India or Japan to the new trilateral security partnership with Australia and Britain to meet the challenges of the 21st century in the strategic Indo-Pacific region. On September…
Washington, Sept. 23: The United States has ruled out adding India or Japan to the new trilateral security partnership with Australia and Britain to meet the challenges of the 21st century in the strategic Indo-Pacific region. On September 15, US President Joe Biden, Australian PM Scott Morrison and British PM Boris Johnson jointly announced the formation of the trilateral security alliance AUKUS under which Australia would get a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines for the first time.
“The announcement of AUKUS last week was not meant to be an indication, and I think this is the message the President also sent to (French President Emmanuel) Macron, that there is no one else who will be involved in security in the Indo-Pacific,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at her daily briefing on Wednesday.
Ms Psaki was responding to a question if countries like India and Japan whose leaders would be in Washington this week for the first in-person Quad summit would be made part of the new security alliance.
“On Friday you’ll have the Australians there (for the Quad summit). But then you also have India and Japan. Would you envision for them a similar kind of military role that you’ve now defined for the
Australians?” a journalist asked.
“AUKUS? What would it become? JAUKUS? JAIAUKUS?” Ms Psaki then quipped, before giving an answer to the question. The trilateral security alliance AUKUS, seen as an effort to counter China in the IndoPacific, will allow the US and the UK to provide Australia with the technology to develop nuclear-powered submarines for the first time. China has sharply criticised the trilateral alliance, saying such an
exclusive grouping has no future and will gravely undermine regional stability and aggravate the arms race and hurt international non-proliferation efforts.
The move also angered France, an European ally of the US, which said it had been “stabbed in the back” and publicly voiced its outrage at the AUKUS alliance. It recalled its ambassadors to the US and Australia after the AUKUS security deal was announced.
France is furious. The announcement of the new Australia-UK-US alliance (Aukus) and the ditching of a previous French-Australian submarine deal has led France’s foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, to term the pact “a stab in the back”.
Beijing’s…
Leaders of the US, Japan, India and Australia were scheduled to meet in person as a group for the first time on Friday for a summit expected to bring progress on COVID-19 vaccines, infrastructure and technological cooperation. The…China Daily (Hong Kong)
In its first reaction to AUKUS, the new partnership between Australia, the U.S. and the U.K., India has made it clear that it does not welcome the announcement, nor does it wish to link AUKUS to Indian interests.
Foreign Secretary Harsh…
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China Is Greeting Meng Wanzhou As A National Hero. How About Two Michaels?
Meng Wanzhou waves to a cheering crowd as she steps out of a charter plane at Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport in Shenzhen, south China’s Guangdong Province, Sept. 25, 2021.(Photo: Xinhua)
When many Chinese woke up Saturday morning surprisingly learning that the return of Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou to China became a reality, some said it was the best news in quite a while.
The high-profile case of Meng, which has become a political dilemma significantly affecting the global geopolitical landscape, has been settled through both legal channels and political wrestling, experts said, noting that China, the US and Canada have seen the best scenario with much compromise made by the Biden administration in resolving the matter. It also helped pave the way for the positive interaction between the world’s largest economies in the near future amid strained China-US relations.
It was also one mistake of the US administration that has been corrected in line with the request of China, as China put forward two lists to the US during the bilateral talks in Tianjin in July, including the List of US Wrongdoings that Must Stop which urged the US to release Meng, showing that Beijing’s US policies began taking effect and remaining mistakes of the US have to be corrected.
Meng Wanzhou speaks to media outside the British Columbia Supreme Court in Canada on Friday. Photo: cnsphoto
After being separated for more than 1,000 days, she finally reunited with her family and such an emotional moment also aroused reactions from ordinary Chinese people who firmly believe that the motherland will always be “on their back” and save them from crisis.
“The color red, symbolizing China, lightens the brightness in my heart,” Meng said in a post shared on her WeChat moment on her fight back home, noting that she deeply appreciates the motherland and the leadership of the Communist Party of China, as without them, she would not have been freed.
An official report by the Xinhua News Agency said thanks to sustained efforts by the Chinese government, Meng left Canada on a chartered plane arranged by the Chinese government on Friday local time. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian also welcomed her return in a post on his personal Weibo account.
“Meng’s return once again shows China’s steadfast position in defending the rights and interests of Chinese citizens in its diplomacy with the US and overall foreign diplomacy,” Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations at China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Saturday.
Such firm position is also being taken as the backbone for Chinese citizens and companies overseas, inspiring numerous Huawei staff amid the US-led severe crackdown on its 5G technologies and sanctions over the past three years. On her return, dozens of Huawei employees shared the moment on their personal accounts, saying that with the support of the government, they would never yield to any unilateral foreign sanctions or bullying.
Many ordinary Chinese cheered Meng’s return, posting welcome notes on social media. Chinese netizens were also thrilled at the news. Topics related to Meng’s return topped the search list of Sina Weibo for almost the whole day, with relevant posts being read more than 100 million times.
The Global Times reporter saw crowds gathering at Shenzhen Baoan Airport with Welcome Home banners, and they cheered on Meng’s return. Some were family members and relatives of Huawei staff, and they hailed the senior executive as a role model in facing US hegemony and a national hero, while more than 30 million netizens watched her arrival on livestream.
The Ping’an International Financial Center, a landmark skyscraper in Shenzhen, was lit up on Saturday evening to welcome Meng’s return.
Meng waves to the crowd after her arrival at the Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport.(Photo: Xinhua)
Hard-won victory
It has never been an easy fight for the defense team of Meng over the past two years, who has been battling with the help of the Western legal tools against extradition to the US, and reached a “pretty good” result in the eyes of both Chinese and foreign legal experts after the marathon-like legal proceedings.
Meng appeared virtually in an American federal courtroom in Brooklyn on Friday, and reached a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) in a case of federal charges against her for bank and wire fraud. Under the terms of the agreement, Meng will not be prosecuted further in the US and the extradition proceedings in Canada will be terminated, according to a statement of William Taylor, one of the lawyers who represented Meng.
“She has not pleaded guilty and we fully expect the indictment to be dismissed with prejudice after 14 months. Now, she will be free to return home to be with her family,” he said.
The senior executive of Huawei was arrested by Canadian authorities in December 2018 at the behest of the US, who remained under detention in Canada pending a Canadian judge’s ruling on the US’ extradition request for nearly three years. Meng and her defense team made the final push against extradition to the US, and the legal proceedings ended on August 18 without a decision.
A statement from the US Department of Justice (DOJ) said that under the terms of the DPA, Meng acknowledged that she knowingly made false statement to a financial institution in Iran-related transactions, and agreed not to commit other federal, state or local crimes.
“It’s a pretty good deal,” Gary Botting, a Canadian legal expert and author of several books on extradition, told the Global Times on Saturday, noting that through the case, many believe that the US is in no position to lead the world like a “police,” and hopefully, the US judge presiding over the prosecution of Meng will see that.
Some Chinese legal experts said that it’s not accurate to take a DPA as a guilty plea agreement, like some Western media reported, as any arrangement should be accepted by all parties. Without paying a hefty fine or admitting guilt in court is also considered a good arrangement, experts said, noting that the US would make much more compromise to “pull out a nail set by the US” in China-Canada and China-US relations.
Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times early Saturday that there are multiple factors driving the US to resolve this issue, including the consistent attitude of the Chinese government in urging the US and Canada to release Meng, and the mounting pressure that Canada has been facing as it clearly knows that if it insists on the extradition of Meng to the US, it would create irretrievable negative consequences on China-Canada relations, and also the unjustified procedures with the lack of evidence throughout the legal proceedings in Canada would further extend the legal battle many years.
Photo:Cui Meng/GT
Political wrestling
The day Meng flew back home, Canadian media reported that two Canadians – Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor – left China on a plane to Canada. Spavor was sentenced in August in China to 11 years in prison after being convicted of spying on China’s national secrets. He was ordered deported from China.
Although some Western media outlets and politicians claimed the release of the two Canadians was an example of “hostage diplomacy,” experts said Meng was a “political hostage” taken by the US and Canada, noting that mounting evidence throughout the legal proceedings during Meng’s fight against extradition showed she was the victim of political prosecution.
“In Spavor’s case, imposing the order of deportation means he may not serve his jail time in China but will be deported to Canada. It leaves room for indictment while unleashing a gesture of goodwill,” Qin Qianhong, a constitutional law professor at Wuhan University, told the Global Times on Saturday.
Kovrig and Spavor were charged by the Prosecutor General’s Office in China for crimes undermining China’s national security in June 2020. Spavor was convicted of spying on China’s national secrets and was ordered deported from China, a court in Dandong, Northeast China’s Liaoning Province, announced on August 11.
Spavor was found to have taken photos and video of Chinese military equipment on multiple occasions and illegally provided some of those photos to people outside China, which have been identified as second-tier state secrets, a source close to the matter told the Global Times on September 1.
Chinese officials and diplomats reiterated that the incident of Meng is different from the cases of the two Canadians in nature.
China’s position on Meng’s case is consistent and clear, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said on Saturday. Facts have fully proved that this is an incident of political persecution against Chinese citizen, with the purpose of suppressing China’s high-tech enterprises, she noted.
The accusation of Meng’s so-called “fraud” is purely fabricated, she said, noting that even HSBC, which the US refers to as a “victim,” has issued documents sufficient to prove her innocence. The actions of the US and Canada were typical arbitrary detention, the spokesperson added.
“There are flexibilities in legal proceedings around the world with different factors considered, which is sometimes embedded with the nature of humanity. Releasing the two Canadian citizens unlocks the bottleneck in China-Canada ties, which was expected,” Lü said.
For Canada, which made a wrong political choice of being an accomplice of the US, it is still bearing the “bitter fruits.” The deal can also help it ease strained ties with China, especially in trade, experts said.
He Weiwen, a former senior Chinese trade official, said Canada should make a further step if it wants to mend ties with China. “For instance, to show a positive attitude in China’s participation in the CPTPP.”
The deal indicates that the US has started to face up to the bottom lines China has drawn for further cooperation, and Washington is now “correcting mistakes it has made,” experts said, noting that “it might be a turning point for China-US relations.”
China in July put forward two lists to the US during talks in North China’s Tianjin, one of which was the List of US Wrongdoings that Must Stop and the other the List of Key Individual Cases that China Has Concerns with.
China’s attitude toward the US and Meng’s case has been clear: her release is a must, and it seems bilateral ties are moving forward based on the two lists China put forward, Gao Lingyun, an expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, told the Global Times on Saturday.
In the List of US Wrongdoings, China urged the US to revoke the extradition request for Meng among other requests.
In the list, China also urged the US to unconditionally revoke the visa restrictions over CPC members and their families, revoke sanctions on Chinese leaders, officials and government agencies, and remove visa restrictions on Chinese students.
In the other List of Key Individual Cases, China expressed serious concerns to the US on some key individual cases, including some Chinese students’ visa applications being rejected, Chinese citizens receiving unfair treatment in the US, Chinese diplomatic and consular missions being harassed and rammed into by perpetrators in the US, growing anti-Asian and anti-China sentiment, and Chinese citizens suffering violent attacks.
Gao said the US’ decision was obvious, since many things in the world such as climate change and the pandemic fight require China-US cooperation. And the US has been hurt from the deteriorating ties – inflation and debt – which made it urgent for the US to mend ties with China.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said she would seek to improve US business ties with China. Raimondo said she plans to lead delegations of US chief executives overseas, including to China, to hunt for business and discuss longstanding trade issues, though nothing has yet been put on the calendar.
The US also realizes that measures that aim to suppress and contain China are useless. In the end, the world’s two largest economies must return to the right track of cooperation, Gao said.
Landmark buildings in Shenzhen exhibit giant slogans welcoming Meng’s return.(Photo: Xinhua)
Not to lose guard
Although the deal with the DOJ ended up with no crime and no punishment as Meng admitted wrongdoing but without a guilty plea, the agreement pertains only on Meng, Reuters said, noting that the DOJ said it is preparing for a trial against Huawei and looks forward to proving its case in court.
Huawei said in a statement on Saturday that the company expected Meng’s return and reunion with her family. Meanwhile, the company will safeguard its interests in the lawsuit in the Eastern District of New York.
Some experts also warned that though the landmark progress of the incident created a positive atmosphere for China-US ties to return to the right path, Washington has created too much trouble over the past few years in confronting China, and some severely challenged Beijing’s sovereignty. It will unlikely give up its plan of suppressing China’s high-tech development.
“It will be difficult to see fundamental changes in the bilateral relationship in the next few years, unless the US takes more brave and active moves in improving ties,” Li said.
Meanwhile, China-Canada relations have entered a period of debugging. Obstacles to the smooth development of China-Canada relations have been clearly removed. It also created conditions for Trudeau’s China policy afterwards, he noted.
For Huawei, struggling on its track of transforming from a hardware maker to software provider amid the still tight US chip ban is still a long-term work, which has been gradually making progress.
“The transformation process is painful, since it’s a transformation of the business model. But the good news is that we have gradually changed,” Xu Zhijun, Huawei’s rotating chairman, said during a roundtable interview Friday, noting that a frequent reshuffle of its senior executives is a reflection of how hard the transformation process is.
Key events in Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou’s case. Graphic: GT
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Meng Wanzhou Photo:AFP
Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou reached a landmark deal with the US Justice Department on Friday that allows her to return to China, under which the senior executive of the Chinese company has not pleaded guilty. It marks the end of Meng’s nearly three-year detention in Canada, and may help ease the frozen China-Canada tie and frictions between China and the US, experts said.
Meng has been released after reaching the agreement.
Thanks to sustained efforts by the Chinese government, Meng Wanzhou left Canada on a chartered plane by the Chinese government on Friday local time. She will return to the motherland and reunite with her family, according to a report from the Xinhua News Agency.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said he welcomes the return of Meng in a post on his personal Weibo account.
In a video footage seen by the Global Times, a GPS tracker ankle bracelet that Meng had worn for over two years has been removed, and she addressed the public after the hearing, expressing gratitude for the Canadian judge and court upholding the rule of law. She also thanked the Chinese embassy in Canada, her defense team and her colleagues. Although it has been a very difficult time, there’s always hope, Meng said.
Meng appeared virtually in an American federal courtroom in Brooklyn on Friday, and reached a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) in a case of federal charges against her for bank and wire fraud. Under the terms of this agreement, Meng will not be prosecuted further in the US and the extradition proceedings in Canada will be terminated, according to a statement of William Taylor, one of the lawyers who represent Meng.
“She has not pleaded guilty and we fully expect the indictment will be dismissed with prejudice after fourteen months. Now, she will be free to return home to be with her family,” he said.
It’s exciting news that the US and Meng have finally reached an agreement, which would also be a landmark deal that may help ease frictions in the China-US relations, Chinese experts said.
At the request of the US government, the Canadian government, based on so-called accusations of fraud levelled by the US, on December 1, 2018 illegally detained Meng, who is also the daughter of Ren Zhengfei, founder of Huawei.
Meng and her defense team made the final push against extradition to the US, and the legal proceedings ended in mid-August without a decision. The judge was supposed to convene a case management conference on October 21. During the conference, she would indicate a date when the decisions will be given, according to a court note the Global Times obtained at the time.
The earlier-than-expected deal with the US made all the following process “unnecessary.” On the same day, the Canadian court also signed off on a discharge order for Meng, withdrawing the US extradition order and allowing her to return to China.
Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times early Saturday that there are multiple factors driving the US to resolve this issue, including the consistent attitude of the Chinese government in urging the US and Canada to release Meng, and the mounting pressure that Canada has been facing as it clearly knows that if it insists on the extradition of Meng to the US, it would create irretrievable negative consequences on China-Canada relations.
Over the past years, Chinese diplomats and experts have urged the Trudeau administration many times to correct its mistake of serving as Washington’s willing accomplice that has dragged China-Canada relations to freezing point.
The souring bilateral relationship has also disrupted the once stable trade relations between the two countries, and some Chinese businesspeople have been looking for a “plan B” over the past two years to diversify their import sources other than Canada.
“Canada has been persuading the US to drop the case. For the Biden administration, it has been evaluating US-China relations from the position of strength over the past eight months, and it understands that if it drops the charges against Meng, such progress would meet the expectation for improving bilateral ties,” Lü said.
On the same day Meng flew back home, Canadian media outlets reported that two Canadians – Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor – left China on a plane back to Canada. Spavor was sentenced in August in China to 11 years in prison after being convicted of spying on China’s national secrets. He was ordered to be deported from China.
Although some Western media outlets and politicians claimed the releasing of the two Canadians was an example of “hostage diplomacy,” experts said Meng was indeed a “political hostage” taken by the US and Canada, noting that mounting evidence throughout the legal proceedings during Meng’s fight against extradition showed she was the victim of political prosecution.
“In Spavor’s case, imposing the order of deportation means he may not serve his jailtime in China but will be deported back to Canada. It leaves certain room for indictment while unleashing a gesture of goodwill,” Qin Qianhong, a constitutional law professor at Wuhan University, told the Global Times.
Kovrig and Spavor were prosecuted by the Prosecutor General’s Office in China for suspected crimes undermining China’s national security in June 2020.
Kovrig was accused of using an ordinary passport and business visa to enter China to steal sensitive information and intelligence through contacts in China since 2017, while Spavor was accused of being a key source of intelligence for Kovrig.
Spavor was found to have taken photos and videos of Chinese military equipment on multiple occasions and illegally provided some of those photos to people outside China, which have been identified as second-tier state secrets, a source close to the matter told the Global Times on September 1.
Chinese officials and diplomats reiterated that the incident of Meng is entirely different from the cases of the two Canadians in nature.
Another factor behind the resolution of the matter is that Canada and the US can’t ignore the strong public call to release Meng, experts said. Her release has been widely considered as the best scenario among China, Canada and the US, as the incident of Meng has become a dilemma that froze China-Canada relations and dragged China-US ties into a spiraling downturn over the past few years.
Nearly 15 million netizens from over 100 countries and regions including major allies of the US, such as the UK, Australia and Canada, signed a petition launched by the Global Times on August 18, and an open letter was sent to Canadian Ambassador to China Dominic Barton, demanding Meng’s immediate and unconditional release, and protesting the ugly acts of the Canadian government.
On her flight back home, Meng said in a public note that she deeply appreciated the motherland and the leadership of the Communist Party of China, as without them, she would not have been freed. “The color red, symbolizing China, lightens the brightness in my heart,” she said.
China’s national power ensures Meng’s different outcome from Alstom executive: Global Times editorialIt is China’s national power that shaped this final result. A country will be surrounded with more troubles as it gets stronger, but only a strong country can enable us to deal with those troubles with dignity. Whenever we encounter a challenge, we neither have to risk it all in the fight, nor do we need to compromise our dignity.
China state-affiliated media 
Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou reached a landmark deal with the US Justice Department on Friday that will allow her …
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In custody: A profile of Meng is displayed on a
computer at a Huawei store in Beijing. The Chinese government, speaking through its embassy in Canada, strenuously objected to the arrest, and demanded Meng’s immediate release. — AP |
> https://youtu.be/WvrXDbRy8dU
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US President Joe Biden, in announcing on video the Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States (Aukus) pact
LAST week, US President Joe Biden, in announcing on video the Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States (Aukus) pact, called Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison “that fellow from Down Under” in what appears to be a senior moment.
Considering that the military alliance has upset a lot of people from China, France and even their own commentators should not have been surprising.
Has Australia, one of the four advanced Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development or OECD countries from the Asian region (Japan, South Korea and New Zealand) seriously thought through Aukus implications on her Asian neighbours?
First, do eight nuclear submarines by 2040 make serious military sense for Australian security?
We can understand that a maritime power in the South Pacific with lots of coastal waters to patrol needs a strong navy.
But as former Prime Minister Paul Keating rightly pointed out, China is a land-based power and being over 3,200km away from Australia, does not present a military threat to Australia.
Assuming that the nuclear submarines will be similar to those planned by the United States, which will acquire 12 of the Columbia class nuclear submarines for US$128bil (RM535bil) by 2030 (the US Government Accountability Office), Australia may be paying at least US$85bil (RM355bil) for equipment that may be obsolete by the time they come onstream.
By 2040, even the US director of National Intelligence has admitted that China’s gross domestic product or GDP (22.8% of world GDP) would outclass the United States (20.8%). Twenty years is a long time to improve defences against submarine attacks.
Submarines have at best deterrent effects under conventional warfare, but their real threat comes from carrying nuclear missiles. But even the potential of carrying such missiles would invite enemy nuclear retaliation.
This is exactly why Asean countries like Malaysia and Indonesia showed serious concern that the Aukus deal may become a catalyst to the nuclear arms race.
If that is the case, Australia would lose her status as a haven for nuclear-free living, something that New Zealand cares seriously about, which is why she distanced herself from the deal.
Second, which businessman would spend nearly the same amount of money that he earns to point a gun at his best customer?
China imported US$100bil (RM418bil) in 2020 from Australia, with the latter earning a trade and service surplus of USS$55.5bil (RM235bil).
Then to spend US$85bil (RM355bil with likely huge over-runs based on past experience) on defence against your top trading customer defies business logic.
Third, the Anglosphere military alliance created a split with Europe, already sore after Brexit and Kabul. France is not only the first foreign ally (helping in the US Independence War against Britain) of the United States, but also has serious Indo-Pacific interests with 93% of her maritime economic exclusivity zone (10.2 million sq.km) – the second largest in the world – located there.
Fourth, you have to ask whether Australian military intelligence is an oxymoron when it recently ordered 70-tonne US Abram tanks that are too heavy to carry by train across Northern Territory bridges nor by road to defend the northern Australia coast.
Climate change
Her Asian neighbours would be much happier if Australia took the lead in the Asia-Pacific region on climate change, rather than spending on arms.
Amongst the rich countries, Australia has the highest per capita emission rate, similar to the United States.
But out of 200 countries, Australia ranks fifth or sixth as the biggest global emitter, so her voice on fulfilling the requirements of the Paris Accord matters.
Unfortunately, given the huge influence of the mining lobby, Australia may not even achieve her Paris agreement to cut emissions by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2030, let alone improve on that commitment by the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties or COP26.
Australia may be rich enough to mitigate against her own risks of climate warming, but the effect of climate change on her neighbours, particularly the Pacific Islands is going to be devastating.
In 2019, Pacific island nations such as Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Timor Leste and Tonga declared that by 2030, their land could become uninhabitable by rising seas, water salination, reef destruction and more natural disasters.
Biodiversity decline
The latest World Bank model suggests that the global decline in biodiversity and collapse in ecosystem services such as wild pollination, food from marine fisheries and timber from native forests could result in US$2.7 trillion (RM11 trillion) decline in global GDP by 2030.
The injustice is that the poorest countries, including those in Asia-Pacific will bear most of such eco-system and GDP losses.
In particular, many indigenous people who depend on nature will bear the costs of loss of habitat and livelihood.
Why are we not surprised that on Sept 13, 2007, when the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by 144 member countries, the four votes against were the Anglosphere countries of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States? In all four rich countries, the record of treatment of the indigenous people have been shameful, such as the unmarked graves of indigenous school children in forced assimilation schools in Canada.
Human rights
According to Human Rights Watch, aboriginal and Torres Islander people comprise 29% of the Australian adult prison population, but just 3% of the population.
In the United States, states with large native populations have incarceration rates for American Indians of up to seven times that of whites.
The Aukus military alliance essentially signals to the world that money spent on real war is preferred to money spent on social justice at home and concerns for people and planet.
Who really profits from the nuclear submarine contract?
Look no further than the exclusive submarine suppliers such as General Dynamics (from the United States) and British Aerospace.
The Aukus deal confirms essentially that Australia opts to sink or swim with their rich Anglosphere few, rather than the global many.
Who said the world was fair?
Andrew Sheng writes on global issues from an Asian perspective. The views expressed here are the writer’s own
.
Tan Sri Andrew Sheng (born 1946) is Hong Kong-based Malaysian Chinese banker, academic and commentator. He started his career as an accountant and is now a distinguished fellow of Fung Global Institute, a global think tank based in Hong Kong.[1] He served as chairman of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) before his replacement by Martin Wheatley in
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President Xi’s words match his thoughts, while Biden’s speech plays with words and ideas
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday addresses the general debate of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly via video, calling for jointly addressing global threats and challenges to build a better world for all. Photo: Xinhua
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday addresses the general debate of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly via video, calling for jointly addressing global threats and challenges to build a better world for all. Photo: Xinhua
Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed a Global Development Initiative in his speech at the 76th general debate of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), injecting confidence and calling to jointly address global threats and challenges to build a better world for all.
In contrast, US President Joe Biden, who spoke before Xi at the same event on Tuesday, focused his remarks justifying US acts that have intensified the tensions worldwide and triggered concerns of a new cold war.
Xi made the remarks via video from Beijing on Tuesday New York time, as the world is facing the combined impacts of changes unseen in a century compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic. In his speech, Xi talked about the fight against the pandemic, economic recovery, international relations and global governance, and proposed a series of new initiatives and measures.
Zhang Jun, Permanent Representative of China to the UN, told media that after Xi’s speech, many countries’ representatives to the UN spoke highly of the speech, “as they consider the remarks… brought confidence and strength, and also showed China’s courage and sense of responsibility as a responsible major power.”
Observers said when the world is facing serious challenges and needs major powers to play a more responsible role, China is eyeing the greater good for humanity, multilateralism and responsibility, but the US is trying to whitewash problems and mistakes it made that harmed many countries worldwide, including its allies. It is attempting to force the world to accept its problematic and arrogant “leadership.”
“The keynote of Xi’s speech is moderate and calm in general. China has no intention to spark conflict with any country or alliance formed by multiple states, and China is not interested in having furious debates with any country on international order,” said Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations of China Foreign Affairs University.
China will never exploit the UN platform to accuse others or lecture them, and the message China sent is about positive, inclusive and farsighted initiatives that are able to respond to common challenges and concerns shared by the majority of the international community, Li said.
Comparing the speeches delivered by the two leaders from China and the US, we can find many differences between the two countries’ political systems and cultures, said Wang Yiwei, director of the institute of international affairs at the Renmin University of China.
“China can make long-term, certain and verifiable promises to the world as its political system is stable and reliable, but when the US promises something, other countries will definitely question Washington’s credibility, because the political system in the US will bring huge uncertainties,” Wang noted.
“Some voices from the US might want to hype that China and the US had a war of words at the UN, but it was not the case. Comparing the words and deeds of China and the US, it’s obvious who’s safeguarding and who’s undermining world peace and development,” Li told the Global Times
Responsibility
The COVID-19 pandemic that is still raging globally must be addressed with global efforts. “We must beat COVID-19 and win this decisive fight crucial to the future of humanity,” Xi said, voicing confidence that “we humanity will surely overcome it and prevail” despite the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic may appear overwhelming.
Biden also mentioned the pandemic in his speech, but somewhat awkwardly. He said “Indeed, today, many of our greatest concerns cannot be solved or even addressed through the force of arms. Bombs and bullets cannot defend against COVID-19 or its future variants.”
“Who uses bombs and bullets to fight COVID-19? This strange thinking could only emerge in the mind of American elites like Biden,” Lü Xiang, a research fellow and an expert on US studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.
This shows that the Biden administration has no proper plan to handle the pandemic. Everyone knows the US has done the worst job of containing the pandemic, with the most deaths and infections in the world, “but still, Biden repeatedly says the US will lead the world to fight COVID-19. It’s truly a joke,” Lü noted.
Coronavirus: 43,404,877 Cases and 699,748 Deaths
Xi, in his speech, called to put people and lives first, take a science-based approach in origins tracing, enhance the coordinated global COVID-19 response and minimize the risk of cross-border virus transmission. Noting that vaccination is a powerful weapon against COVID-19, Xi said the pressing priority is to ensure fair and equitable distribution of vaccines globally.
Xi reiterated the pledge that China will strive to provide 2 billion doses of vaccines to the world by the end of this year. “In addition to donating $100 million to COVAX, China will donate 100 million doses of vaccines to other developing countries in the course of this year.”
“We should care about the special needs of developing countries. We may employ such means as debt suspension and development aid to help developing countries, particularly vulnerable ones facing exceptional difficulties, with emphasis on addressing unbalanced and inadequate development among and within countries,” Xi said.
Vulnerable nations must include countries like Afghanistan, Lü said, stressing the country has been occupied by the US for 20 years when it experienced serious internal chaos. The coming winter will be a challenge for Afghan people. The expert said China offers hope for this kind of vulnerable countries to find a new way when the West, especially the US, failed to help, instead leaving them in turmoil.
Xi’s pledge on Tuesday that China will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad is seen by observers as a sign that Beijing is devoted to curbing global warming with the “firmest determination and greatest efforts,” in order to achieve its green commitment on schedule and build a better future.
In contrast to Biden’s hollow promises on climate change, COVID-19 and global unity, on which the US hasn’t contributed much or, in some cases, even sabotaged progress, experts hailed Xi’s remarks and said they show a devotion to solving humanity’s most crucial issues.
Multilateralism
Biden, the president chanting the slogan “America is back,” did not mention the word “multilateralism” in his speech while Xi mentioned it four times and stressed China’s stance to uphold this core value of the UN. Biden apparently prefers the word “allies,” mentioning it eight times, even as it just betrayed one of its core allies France with the AUKUS deal.
President Xi said “the year 2021 is a truly remarkable one for the Chinese people”, as it marks the centenary of the Communist Party of China as well as the 50th anniversary of the restoration of the lawful seat of the People’s Republic of China in the United Nations, a historic event that China will solemnly commemorate.
Xi said “we must improve global governance and practice true multilateralism. In the world, there is only one international system, i.e. the international system with the United Nations at its core. There is only one international order, i.e. the international order underpinned by international law. And there is only one set of rules, i.e. the basic norms governing international relations underpinned by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.”
Biden said in his speech the US will cooperate with multilateral institutions like the UN, but the word “multilateralism” in the White House vocabulary has a different definition compared to the Chinese one, said experts, as the international system that the US prefers is one with “the US at the core,” but the one that China advocates is “with the UN at its core.”
As long as the US keeps its exclusive alliances that target other countries, there will be no real multilateralism in US diplomacy and strategy, and even within the US-led alliances, the US will still harm and cheat its allies, Lü said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping addresses the general debate of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly via video, in Beijing on Tuesday. Photo: Xinhua
Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a vital address by video on Tuesday at the general debate of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). As US President Joe Biden had made a speech to the UNGA just hours earlier, in comparison, Xi’s speech reflects the broad-mindedness of the Chinese top leader, and his fairness and reason when he discussed issues and challenges. The two speeches demonstrated the different political thinking and working logic between China and the US, as well as the different values of the two countries’ foreign policies.
Xi’s speech was based on the idea of a community with a shared future for mankind. From its theme to the specific initiatives, it focused on the common interests of mankind and the world. The Global Development Initiative, which Xi proposed, is for all countries. To promote the initiative, Xi called for staying committed to development as a priority, a people-centered approach, benefits for all, and result-oriented actions. Xi also highlighted the importance of innovation-driven development and the harmony between humanity and nature. They are universal and do not contain any political exclusion. They are a true practice of strengthening international solidarity and meeting challenges together.
Biden also mentioned the phrase “all people” a lot in his speech. But this was more like the sentimental “rhetoric” part of the whole speech. The actual subject of Biden’s speech is the US, together with its allies and partners. From making rules to seeking benefits, it all revolves around this chain of subjects. Other countries are either foils or the challengers of the US that Biden did not name.
President Xi stressed in his speech that the world should embrace civilizations of various forms, and must accommodate diverse paths to modernization. He then emphasized that democracy is not a special right reserved to an individual country, but a right for the people of all countries to enjoy. And military intervention from the outside and the so-called democratic transformation will entail nothing but harm. In the speech, Xi promotes the common values of humanity and rejects the practice of forming small circles and zero-sum games. Such claims either vividly reflect various practices of countries or summarize some important lessons from today’s world. For instance, while defending the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, the Biden administration has admitted that it is impossible to remake other countries through large-scale military operations.
Biden’s speech not only distinguished its allies and partners from other countries. Disregarding the fact that the US just encountered the fiasco of democratic reconstruction in Afghanistan, Biden continued to blaze the dichotomy which divides the world into “democracy” and “authoritarianism.” He gave some of the worst turmoil and wars a fancy label of “democratic vitality.” Joint development is the main thread for China to drive global change, while that of the US is to engage in a “democracy movement.” China advocates construction, but the US incites contradiction and destruction. The victims of destruction are the vast majority of the developing countries, while the US and the Western world have benefited from it.
Xi’s speech is backed and followed up by China’s solid actions. For example, China is responding to the UN climate action. It is accelerating the transition to a green and low-carbon economy, and all Chinese people can feel this change. In his remarks, Xi also promised that China would not build new coal-fired power projects abroad. This is widely seen as the latest major commitment China has made.
The incumbent US government is keen on “leading” the global climate action. It has announced its “grand” targets of emissions for 2030 and 2050, and used them to force other countries to take actions. But it’s highly uncertain whether the US will accomplish its own goals. The previous Trump administration even pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement. If the next US administration is again a Republican one, the promises Biden made will be very likely rescinded. Even if another Democratic administration is elected, what kind of confidence and resources will it have and use to honor its emissions reduction commitments?
China’s deeds match its words, while the US says one thing but does another. A promise made by China is worth a thousand ounces of gold, but the succeeding US government often doesn’t admit what its predecessor said and it dares to say anything in order to win an election. This has become an increasingly stereotyped and prominent distinction between China’s international images and those of the US.
Neither the Chinese leader nor the US leader named the other’s country and capital in their speeches at UNGA. But Biden mentioned “Xinjiang,” an autonomous region in Northwest China. By comparison, the contents of both addresses can be widely interpreted as “targeting China” in the speech of the US was greater than”targeting the US” in the speech of China. Biden said the US isn’t “seeking a new Cold War,” but it’s obvious that Washington is on the offensive that launches an all-round crackdown on China. The US has kept advocating suppressing China. Although the latest remarks by Biden have shown some restraint, the content still conveyed the often-seen US aggressiveness.
Justice naturally inhabits man’s mind. The heads of state of China and the US both addressed the UN at this special occasion. It’s believed the world has the ability to judge who the true defender and promoter of peace and development is, and who the instigator and initiator of division and confrontation is.
https://www.thestar.com.my/aseanplus/aseanplus-news/2021/09/23/overcoming-challenges-together
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The Mid-Autumn Festival holidays, which ended on Tuesday this year, have witnessed a tendency that this traditional Chinese festival was celebrated by galas that focused on sending out positive energy and inviting competent singers, rather than wasting money on idols in a bid for ratings.
One of the most-anticipated galas was the Mid-Autumn Festival Concert in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) 2021, jointly held by the Bauhinia Culture Holdings Limited and China Central Television in Shenzhen,South China’s Guangdong Province,on Tuesday night.
Featuring some 200 top singers from the Chinese mainland, the island of Taiwan and the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, such as Jackie Chan, Wang Fei and TFBOYS, the gala was anticipated by many Chinese audience as a rare gathering of top musicians from across the country, given the tough period of the COVID-19 epidemic.
“In my eyes, apart from showing the development of the GBA, the highlight of the gala was the gathering of stars from the mainland, Taiwan island, Hong Kong and Macao. Among those, I most looked forward to their chorus of the songs Pearl of the Orient and Country,” Lin Yumei, 26, a lawyer from Fuzhou, East China’s Fujian Province, told the Global Times.
On July 1, 1997, Hong Kong officially returned to the motherland. That night, Hong Kong hosted its largest-ever “TV karaoke,” with millions of Hong Kong residents singing along to Pearl of the Orient while it played simultaneously on TV.
“Although I was only 2 years old at the time and don’t have many memories of the momentous occasion, I grew up listening to my parents and teachers describe the exhilaration of that time. Today I can finally enjoy and witness a great cast perform this significant song once again,” she added.
Lin noted that Country is a song dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and the original intention of the creation was to reflect on the fate of China and its people standing together after the earthquake, snow disaster and hosting of the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008.
“These songs with strong positive energy, and performed by representative stars from all over the country, are bound to resonate with the feelings of family and country, and the homesickness of our compatriots in different places,” Lin said.
The gala was held as some in Hong Kong were being reported to have helped incite violence in the 2019 anti-extradition bill movement in the city, such as Anthony Wong Yiu-ming.
It also followed recent controversies involving some Taiwan entertainers, for example female host Dee Hsu and singer Jolin Tsai, over their political stances.
It was viewed as a great opportunity to enhance cohesion and convey patriotism amid the controversies.
Five middle-aged entertainers who recently rebranded themselves as the boy band GBA on the latest episode of the variety show Call Me by Fire, were also scheduled to attend the gala.
The five members of GBA, which include 54-year-old Jordan Chan and 49-year-old Julian Cheung, aroused Chinese netizens’ nostalgia for the heydays of the Hong Kong entertainment industry.
Besides the GBA gala, galas held by the Henan provincial TV station and the Bilibili website also attracted much attention.
While galas held by Chinese online platforms and TV stations used to be luxury events that involved heavy spending for popular idols to ensure high audience ratings, these galas focused on restoring traditional Chinese programs and scenes of how people celebrated the festival in ancient times.
Under the “Clear and Bright” campaign led by the relevant departments, those in the Chinese entertainment industry who received invitations to perform at the Mid-Autumn Festival Gala this year were mainly powerful singers and actors with representative works.
There were fewer idols with huge fan bases, and the concept behind the galas was also more exquisite, no longer simply competing with the popularity of the artists, but emphasizing themes and presentation, a senior entertainment industry insider surnamed Sun told the Global Times on Tuesday.
Sun noted that this year’s show also brought more attention to truly talented but relatively unknown artists, and allowed the audiences to enjoy a higher level of performance.
“The performance of the galas highlighted family sentiment and traditional Chinese culture. There was less controversy among netizens on social platforms, and the discussion of the Mid-Autumn Festival Galas was more focused on the festival and the performances.
“This is a pleasing phenomenon for the entire entertainment industry,” Sun said.
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Knock knock. This is your delivery-man Tianzhou-3, and please confirm your package receipt and may you have a happy Mid-Autumn Festival!
Carrying the Tianzhou-3 cargo spacecraft, the Long March-7 Y4 rocket lifted off from Wenchang Space Launch Center located in South China’s Hainan Province on Monday afternoon, one day ahead of this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival – one of the happiest family reunion holidays for the Chinese people.
The lift-off gave the nearby forest of palm trees quite a shake in the Hainan tropical haze, the same way it excited many who came to witness the historic moment at the Wenchang beach on Monday afternoon.
As the fourth of 11 missions scheduled to build China’s three-module space station, Tianzhou-3 mission came shortly after the historic Shenzhou-12 mission in which three taikonauts spent a record 90 days in the China’s space station core module and safely returned to Earth on Friday.
After a flight time of around 597 seconds, the spacecraft separated with the rocket and entered preset orbit. At 3:22 pm, the solar panels onboard the spacecraft smoothly unfolded, with all functions in normal operating condition, marking the success of the third launch of a spaceship to the space station core cabin, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA.)
The Monday mission is tasked to bring supplies, equipment and propellant to get Tianhe ready for the next three-taikonaut Shenzhou-13 mission in October for their six-month stay. It is the Tianzhou spacecraft series second supply delivery run to the orbiting Tianhe module following a first by the Tianzhou-2 mission launched on May 29.
Although the launch of Tianzhou-2 by Long March-7 Y3 rocket was a successful one, it experienced two delays and met problems of leaking of injected fuels.
The Tianzhou-2 cargo spacecraft was originally slated to be launched at around 1:30 am on May 20 and to head to China’s Tianhe space station core cabin, which was launched into orbit on April 29, for a supply run. However, the launch was scrubbed narrowly following an announcement from CMSA on the early morning of May 20 for “technical reasons.”
Research teams were dispatched immediately to check system functions, while the command center prepared for an attempt to recover the mission, which had been set to a day later in the early morning of May 21. However, after liquid oxygen was refueled eight hours before the scheduled launch time, abnormal signals once again occurred.
Drawing lessons from the previous launch, the Long March-7 rocket developer with the China Academy of Launch Vehicles have further optimized the quality examination process before and after the lift-off and make detailed emergency plans. This is to ensure the launch mission is on time with zero errors, the academy told the Global Times on Friday.
Photo:Deng Xiaoci/Global Times
To sustain Taikonauts’ longer stay in space
Global Times learned from the mission insiders that Tianzhou-3 mission will lay ground for the upcoming October Shenzhou-13 mission, just the way Tianzhou-2 mission prepared for the epic Shenzohu-12 manned spaceflight mission. The October mission is expected to last six months, renewing the record of the longest stay in space for a Chinese astronaut in a single mission.
The spacecraft developer China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) told the Global Times in a statement that just like the Tianzhou-2, Tianzhou-3 will carry a range of goods including daily necessities, drinking water, gas supplies, consumables for extravehicular activities [spacewalk,] as well as experiment payloads.
Yang Sheng, Chief designer of the Tianzhou-3 spacecraft system, told the Global Times that “As Tianzhou-3 mission will sustain taikonauts’ 6-month-long stay in space, the density of cargo is greater on Tianzhou-3 than on Tianzhou-2, and Tianzhou-3’s loading capability is also higher than that of Tianzhou-2. The number of packages onboard Tianzhou-3 is 25 percent more than on Tianzhou-2.”
There were 6.8 tons of supplies onboard the Tianzhou-2, including some 160 parcels of goods and two tons of propellants, CAST told the Global Times previously.
One of the most expensive items to be onboard the Tianzhou-3 would be one piece of spacesuit specially designed for spacewalk missions that weighs some 90 kilograms, the CAST highlighted in the Friday statement. Tianzhou-2 had sent two pieces of spacesuits for Taikonauts’ spacewalk with each weighing some 100 kilograms.
Also, onboard Tianzhou-3 is the replacement parts of the urine treatment system to ensure the device is in the best condition for the Shenzhou-13 crew, Global Times learned from the system developer 206 Research Institute of the Second Academy of the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC).
“The system has processed some 600 liters of urine into over 500 liters of water which was used to generate oxygen and for clean-up purpose during the Shenzhou-12 crew’s three-month stay. Shenzhou-13 crew will install those parts when moving into the China’s space station core module,” Cui Guangzhi, the project leader, told the Global Times.
The Tianzhou-3 cargo spacecraft is expected to also execute a fast and automatic rendezvous and docking with the Tianhe core module, just like the Tianzhou-2 spacecraft did in May, which took some eight hours after lift-off,according to Deng Kaiwen, assistant of the Tianzhou-3 cargo spacecraft’s chief commander from the spacecraft developer
Compared to the Tianzhou-1’s rendezvous and docking with Tiangong-2 in 2017, which took about two days, Tianzhou-2 took a mere eight hours to achieve the feat in May.
Tianzhou-3 will dock to the Tianhe module from the rear. Before such development, CMSA updated on Saturday, Tianzhou-2 had flown around Tianhe and conducted an automatic docking to the craft’s front, which took four hours.
Shenzhou-13 will later rendezvous with the Tianhe module and conduct a R-Bar or vertical docking with the orbiting craft, which Shenzhou-12 had practiced on Friday before heading back to Earth.
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The US, UK, and Australia have announced the establishment of a security alliance known as AUKUS. One of the key elements of this military alliance is that Washington and London will help Canberra develop nuclear-powered submarines.
It is an act by the US and UK, two nuclear-weapon states, to secretly support and provide carriers of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear technology, and nuclear materials to Australia, a non-nuclear-weapon state, within the Anglosphere. But the move apparently runs counter to the objectives and core obligations set by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
First, the AUKUS move will lead to the proliferation of carriers of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the world. Although the nuclear-powered submarine is not a type of nuclear weapon itself, it still has the potential to carry nuclear weapons. It also belongs to an important platform for carrying WMD.
There are only six countries in the world that have nuclear submarines, including China, the US, Russia, the UK, France, and India, all of which possess nuclear weapons as well. It is clear that nuclear-powered submarines and nuclear weapons are inextricably linked with each other.b
Second, AUKUS will spread fissionable material that could be used to make nuclear weapons. The second paragraph of Article III of the NPT states that each member party to the Treaty undertakes not to provide special fissionable material to any non-nuclear-weapon state unless subject to various safeguards.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has no authority to supervise nuclear materials for submarines because of their military implications, which has objectively created conditions for Australia to make nuclear weapons. In history, Australia once planned to build up its own nuclear arsenal, while the UK conducted its first nuclear test in Australia in 1952.
Third, the partnership between the UK, the US and Australia may lead to the proliferation of uranium enrichment technology.
Washington and London’s nuclear-powered submarines run on highly enriched uranium, while Canberra is rich in uranium deposits. If the US and the UK transfer the uranium-enriching technology to Australia to help it become self-sufficient in nuclear fuel, it would be no better than the international nuclear black market reported by the media in the early 2000s.
Fourth, the AUKUS move will negatively impact the international nuclear non-proliferation regime. Since Australia can openly acquire nuclear materials by developing nuclear-powered submarines, other non-nuclear-weapon states may follow suit, resulting in the endless risks of nuclear proliferation on our living planet. Therefore, James Acton, co-director of the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, called the recent action of the three countries “a terrible precedent.”
And, finally, the trilateral security partnership is almost certain to trigger a regional arms race.
Canberra’s peace record in the Indo-Pacific region is not unblemished. There were Australian troops participating in unjust wars in countries such as Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. Thus, Australia’s enhanced underwater attack capability is no good news for its neighbors that may be forced into a vicious circle of the arms race to protect their own national security.
Looking at the latest changes in nuclear policies of the US and the UK, it is needless to say that what these countries have done has disappointed the world. US President Joe Biden once campaigned in his election campaign to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in the US security policy. However, less than eight months after entering the White House, he is eating his campaign pledge.
The same is also true with the UK. In March this year, the country adjusted its nuclear strategy drastically and took a significant step backward in its nuclear arms control. It not only increased its nuclear weapon stockpile cap from 180 to 260 warheads, but moved to lowered the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.
Peace, development, and nuclear non-proliferation are what most countries in the world yearn for. The actions of the US, the UK, and Australia to challenge the bottom line of nuclear non-proliferation, won’t bode well for our living world.
The author is director of Arms Control Studies Center, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn
As discussion about Evergrande Group has continued to ferment, the Chinese real estate giant said it will pay interest to professional investors starting on Thursday for corporate bonds issued in 2020, with interest paid at 58 yuan ($8.98), tax included, per lot with a par value of 1,000 yuan.
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The rise of the populist variant in the West and the rapid ascent of China in the East have prompted a rethinking of how democratic systems work – or don’t. The creation of new classes of winners and losers as a consequence of globalisation and digital capitalism is also challenging how we think about the social contract and how wealth is shared. – Nathan Gardels and Nicolas Berggruen
http://media.asiasociety.org/video/1901010-Berggruen-Renovating-Democracy.mp4
Police officers watch as protesters take part in a rally against Covid-19 vaccine mandates, in Santa Monica, California, on Aug 29, 2021.PHOTO: AFP
The rise of populism in the West, the rise of China in the East and the spread of peer-driven social media everywhere have stirred a rethinking of how democratic systems work—or don’t. The creation of new classes of winners and losers as a result of globalization and digital capitalism is also challenging how we think about the social contract and how wealth is shared.
The worst fear of America’s Founders—that democracy would empower demagogues—was realized in the 2016 US presidential election, when the ballot box unleashed some of the darkest forces in the body politic. Similarly, in Europe an anti-establishment political awakening of both populism and right-wing neonationalism is consigning the mainstream centrist political parties that once dominated the post–World War II political order to the margins.
Donald Trump’s election and the populist surge in Europe did not cause this crisis of governance. They are symptoms of the decay of democratic institutions across the West that, captured by the organized special interests of an insider establishment have failed to address the dislocations of globalization and the disruptions of rapid technological change. To add danger to decay, the fevered partisans of populism are throwing out the baby with the bathwater, assaulting the very integrity of institutional checks and balances that guarantee the enduring survival of republics. The revolt against a moribund political class has transmuted into a revolt against governance itself.
Because neither the stakeholders of the waning status quo nor the upstarts of populism have offered any effective, systemic solutions to what ails the West, protracted polarization and paralysis have set in.
These trials of the West are bound up with, and to a significant extent driven by, two related developments: the growing fragmentation of mass society into diverse tribes fortified by the participatory power of social media, and the advent of digital capitalism, which is divorcing productivity and wealth creation from employment and income.
We argue that these shifts present twin paradoxical challenges for governance.
First, the paradox of democracy in the age of peer-driven social networks is that, because there is more participation than ever before, never has the need been greater for countervailing practices and institutions to impartially establish facts, deliberate wise choices, mediate fair trade-offs, and forge consensus that can sustain long-term implementation of policies. Despite expectations that the Internet Age would create an informed public more capable of self-government than ever before in history, fake news, hate speech, and “alternative facts” have seriously degraded the civic discourse.
Second, the paradox of the political economy in the age of digital capitalism is that the more dynamic a perpetually innovating knowledge-driven economy is, the more robust a redefined safety net and opportunity web must be to cope with the steady disruption and gaps in wealth and power that will result.
To meet these challenges, we propose a novel approach to renovating democratic institutions that integrates new forms of direct participation into present practices of representative government while restoring to popular sovereignty the kind of deliberative ballast the American Founding Fathers thought so crucial to avoiding the suicide of republics. We further propose ways to spread wealth and opportunity fairly in a future in which intelligent machines are on track to displace labor, depress wages, and transform the nature of work to an unprecedented degree.
When populists rail against globalization that has undermined their standard of living through trade agreements, they mostly have China in mind. Few reflect that China was able to take maximum advantage of the post–Cold War US-led world order that promoted open trade and free markets precisely because of its consensus-driven and long-term-oriented one-party political system. China has shown the path to prosperity is not incompatible with authoritarian rule.
In this sense, China’s tenacious rise over the past three decades holds up a harsh mirror to an increasingly dysfunctional West. The current US president, who rode an anti-globalization wave to power, relishes battling his way through every twenty-four-hour news cycle by firing off barbed tweets at sundry foes. By contrast, China’s near-dictatorial leader has used his amassed clout to lay out a roadmap for the next thirty years.
If the price of political freedom is division and polarization, it comes at a steep opportunity cost. As the West—including Europe, riven now by populist and separatist movements—stalls in internal acrimony, China is boldly striding ahead. It has proactively set its sights on conquering the latest artificial intelligence technology, reviving the ancient Silk Road as “the next phase of globalization,” taking the lead on climate change, and shaping the next world order in its image. If the West does not hear this wake-up call loud and clear, it is destined to somnambulate into second-class status on the world stage.
This is not, of course, to suggest in any way that the West turn toward autocracy and authoritarianism. Rather, it is to say that unless democracies look beyond the short-term horizon of the next election cycle and find ways to reach a governing consensus, they will be left in the dust by the oncoming future. If the discourse continues to deteriorate into a contest over who dominates the viral memes of the moment, and if democracy comes to mean sanctifying the splintering of society into a plethora of special interests, partisan tribes, and endless acronymic identities instead of seeking common ground, there is little hope of competing successfully with a unified juggernaut like China. Waiting for China to stumble is a foolish fallback.
Unlike the Soviet Union at the time of the Sputnik challenge in the late 1950s and early 1960s, China today possesses an economic and technological prowess the Soviet Union never remotely approached. Whether in conflict or cooperation, China will be a large presence in our future.
It is in that context that we examine the strengths and weakness of China’s system as a spur to thinking through our own challenges. To turn the old Chinese saying toward ourselves, “The stones from hills yonder can polish jade at home.”
To set the frame for rethinking democracy and the political economy, we argue that the anxiety behind the populist reaction is rooted in the uncertainties posed by the great transformations under way, from the intrusions of globalization on how sovereign communities govern their affairs, to such rapid advances in technology as social media and robotics, to the increasingly multicultural composition of all societies. Change is so enormous that individuals and communities alike feel they are drowning in the swell of seemingly anonymous forces and want to “take back control” of their lives at a scale and stride they can manage. They crave the dignity of living in a society in which their identity matters and that attends to their concerns. Effectively aligning political practices and institutions so as to confront these challenges head-on will make the difference between a world falling apart and a world coming together.
Critics of globalization argue that nation-states and communities must retrieve the capacity to make decisions that reflect their way of life and maintain the integrity of their norms and institutions, decisions the maligned cosmopolitan caste has handed over to distant trade tribunals or other global institutions managed by strangers. Those decisions, they rightly say, ought to be made through “democratic deliberation” by sovereign peoples. Yet that neat logic ignores the reality of decay and dysfunction we have already noted. Therefore, “taking back control” must, first and foremost, mean renovating democratic practices and institutions themselves.
The most responsible course of change in modern societies is renovation.
Renovation is the point of equilibrium between creation and destruction, whereby what is valuable is saved and what is outmoded or dysfunctional is discarded. It entails a long march through society’s institutions at a pace of change our incremental natures can absorb. Renovation shepherds the new into the old, buffering the damage of dislocation that at first outweighs longer-term benefits. In the new age of perpetual disruption, renovation is the constant of governance. Its aim is transition through evolutionary stability, within societies and in relations among nation-states and global networks.
In this book, we propose three ways to think about how to renovate democracy, the social contract, and global interconnectivity in order to take back control:
Empowering participation without populism by integrating social networks and direct democracy into the system through the establishment of new mediating institutions that complement representative government
These proposals, of course, do not exhaust the answers to the panoply of daunting challenges we have raised. But they do suggest ways we might think about how to change present social and political arrangements for addressing those challenges. We do not insist that we are somehow the font of all wisdom but regard our endeavor as a point of departure that deepens and expands the debate. Without concrete propositions to criticize and amend, the discourse about change is only an airy exchange that fails to move the needle.
Nicolas Berggruen and Nathan Gardels are the founders of the Berggruen Institute and the authors of Intelligent Governance for the 21st Century: A Middle Way between West and East (2012). Their latest work, Renovating Democracy: Governing in the Age of Globalization and Digital Capitalism (2019), is the first in a Berggruen Institute series on the “Great Transformations” published by the University of California Press (UC
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