Defensive India needs to take firmer stand against China

Brahma Chellaney

September 18, 2014

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has bent over backwards to befriend China. Yet Chinese President Xi Jinping’s India visit has been marred by border incursions, including one that ranks, in terms of the number of intruding troops, as the worst in many years. Modi coined his “inch toward miles” slogan to underscore how India-China collaboration could positively transform Asia. But the slogan more aptly describes the salami-slice strategy of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to use stealthy incursions to incrementally change facts on the ground.

The PLA is taking advantage of its rising political clout at home to escalate border incursions. It has been undeterred even by Xi’s visit. After all, in the run-up to Premier Li Keqiang’s New Delhi visit last year, the PLA staged a deep, three-week-long intrusion into Indian territory.

Enjoying increasing autonomy and soaring budgets, the PLA of late appears ready to upstage even the Communist Party of China. Ideologically adrift, the party is becoming dependent on the PLA for its political legitimacy and to ensure domestic order. The PLA sees itself as the power behind the throne, encouraging it to assert its primacy.

China’s expanding ‘core interests’ and its willingness to take on several neighbours simultaneously point to how the PLA is calling the shots. With the PLA gaining political muscle and boasting financial assets and enterprises across the nation, it is seizing opportunities to nibble at neighbouring countries’ territories, besides driving an increasingly muscular foreign policy.

The more powerful the PLA has become at the expense of the civilian collective leadership, the more China has presented itself as a tiger on the prowl by discarding Deng Xiaoping’s dictum ‘tao guang yang hui’ (keep a low profile and not bare your capabilities). It is as if China has decided that its moment has finally arrived.

This structural transformation parallels the one that occurred in Imperial Japan, which rose dramatically as a world power in one generation after the 1868 Meiji Restoration. Boosted by war victories against Manchu-ruled China and Tsarist Russia, the Japanese military gradually went on to dictate terms to the civilian government, opening the path to aggression and conquest.

The PLA’s increasing clout has led China to resurrect territorial and maritime disputes and assert new sovereignty claims. Such assertiveness also helps the party to turn nationalism into the legitimating credo of its monopoly on power. But as the latest Ladakh intrusions show, the PLA is ready to strike even at the risk of drawing attention to the wrong issues during a Chinese presidential visit.

Whereas the Indian military continues to be shut out from the policymaking loop in a way unmatched in any other established democracy, the PLA has repeatedly blindsided government leaders with military actions, weapon displays or hawkish statements, prompting US defence secretary Robert Gates in 2011 to warn of “a disconnect between the military and the civilian leadership” in China. The recent rise of a new Chinese dynasty of ‘princelings’ or sons of revolutionary heroes who have close contacts in the military has narrowed that disconnect.

Two lonely powers

by Pratap Bhanu Mehta

September 19, 2014 

The process of giving up on hubris has left America neither feared nor loved.

If one steps away from the exigencies of different global crises and contemplates the existential predicament of the two pre-eminent global powers, the United States and China, what strikes you most is their peculiar loneliness. Of course, the US and China are as different as you can imagine. But, despite their power, they are, in distinctive ways, struggling to carry the world with them.

Take the two big challenges preoccupying the US at the moment: the IS and Russia. President Obama’s address to the American people, calling for action against the IS, seemed like a sad speech at many levels. It did not carry much conviction. It could not disguise the fact that it reversed what was left of Obama’s ideological identity as president: disengagement from war. For all his ruthlessness in going after terrorism, and the Libyan misadventure, Obama’s reversal of US expansionism was genuine. He cuts a bit of a sorry figure for doing much of what he said he would do: withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan. The American people wanted it; and the world saw this as a recovery of American leadership from the moral hubris of the Bush years.

But it is precisely this process of giving up on hubris that has left America neither feared nor loved. Both the left and the right in the US, somewhat disingenuously, criticise this relative modesty as an abdication of leadership. And the rest of the world says, giving up on nation-building hubris is all right, but please clean up the mess before you leave. And thus the central paradox of American power: cleaning up requires the exercise of power that the world will not accept; not cleaning up earns you a reputation for weakness. And this is exactly what those who want to taunt the US exploit: the IS seems to very explicitly want to draw the US back in, knowing full well that the scale of intervention will never be powerful enough to fix the region.

So while there is global condemnation of the brutality of the IS, the alliance against it is very tepid. This is for familiar reasons. It is not easy to be too enthusiastic about siding with many of the region’s powers, such as Saudi Arabia, which helped create the ideological conditions for the IS to flourish in the first place. The US’s colossal misjudgements on politics in the Middle East make it a liability to partner with. It has sided with dictatorships against political movements in the region, often short-circuiting a necessary process of churning; Libya was a misjudgement that made building future international coalitions difficult.

Hindi-Chini 2.0

Yoginder K Alagh 

September 18, 2014

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan. 

The visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping is an important event. Unlike other countries, which want to cooperate with us because they have business interests here, China wants to cooperate and compete with us at the same time. China and India are civilisations, and this fact lends complexity to diplomacy and trade.

Personally, Xi’s visit brings back memories of an earlier event. Then Chinese President Jiang Zemin visited India in 1996, and I was the Indian minister-in-attendance. Jiang was a technocrat. Like most high-level leaders of the socialist world, he was well informed about societal developments. He asked me what I thought of Francis Fukuyama. I told him Fukuyama had got it all wrong. How could history come to an end just when it was China and India’s turn to take centrestage? At his farewell press conference, Jiang mentioned that he had discussed cultural matters and chaos theory with me.

China and India must learn to compete and cooperate

Simply put, foreign policy is an attempt to extend the national pursuit of certain objectives to the global plane. The Chinese, like others, are very focused on this. In August 1982, I was asked to be deputy leader of the first large official delegation to China since the early-Sixties. P.N. Haksar had written a non-paper with a senior Chinese colleague after a series of meetings in hill stations in India and China. It argued that trade and contact between Indian and Chinese people should resume. This first delegation comprised social scientists, led by G. Parthasarathy, who, apart from being a formidable diplomat, was the first vice chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University and was the chairman of the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) at the time. Back then, I was on deputation to Delhi, but my parent institution, the Sardar Patel Institute of Economic and Social Research at Thaltej, had just become a national ICSSR institute on the centenary of Sardar Patel’s birth.

When we reached Beijing, we were told that the great Deng Xiaoping would meet us for 10 minutes. This was a great honour and the meeting in the famous Great Hall of the People was quite an event. Deng began with “we are now opening, but you already know them”, referring to Western countries. “Our experience is that the richer they are, the meaner they are, so we want to cooperate with you.” He then told us about the developmental trajectory he expected China to trace. And that is indeed the way China developed. That country has travelled a lot since then. My point is that China and India are not just nation states, they are civilisations, and we have to learn to compete and cooperate in spite of our conflicts.

Ten slips between cup and lip

Wang Yiwei

19 Sep 2014

President Xi Jinping is visiting India, where, among other things, he celebrated the birthday of his equally strong-handed counterpart, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Public opinion expects that the visit will help usher in a new era for the Sino-Indian relationship. However, in order to realise these expectations, the misunderstandings between the Chinese and Indians must be overcome.

First, the Chinese people believe that India is taken advantage of by America and Japan to contain China, whereas the Indians think that it is China that is containing India. The self-fulfilling prophecy is only expedited as China has entered the Indian Ocean and India, on its part, has entered the South China Sea. Remarks by some Indians often give expression to their unrealistic hope of protecting their own interests while being utilised by America and Japan. Indians believe that China is encircling India, for it builds ports in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and what they seriously take to heart is the establishment of an all-weather relationship between China and Pakistan as they believe that China by doing so is balancing Pakistan and India. Besides, Indians hold that China adopts double standards on the nuclear programmes of India and Pakistan. China opposing the nuclear capacity of India, in their eyes, is to oppose a more powerful India, whereas it gives its consent to the nuclear programme by Pakistan.

Second, the Chinese people are proud of not having the experience of being fully colonised by the West, which leads them to deeming themselves as the primary party from the Eastern world in handling the Sino-western relations or East-West relations. Indians take pride in being the largest democracy in the world, which in the view of Chinese is merely a synonym for Full Colonisation. Therefore, the Chinese are not inclined to recognise India as the spokesperson for the rise of Asia, and instead they believe it is the wish to be on an equal footing with the West that prompts India to overestimate itself.

Third, the Chinese observe India from the perspective of their own strong state-weak society mode, while the Indians examine China from the standpoint of the strong society-weak state mode. Hence the mutual misunderstandings and complaints. All the local officials from China in their visits to India have hoped to meet with Indian leaders, and confined their destinations to the Indian capital, both of which are incredibly queer to the Indians.

Fourth, the Chinese value unity over diversity, which is that the state is an integral whole while the society can be a diverse ground. They are proud of their history of “Great Unification”. The Indians on the other hand attach greater importance to diversity and uphold it all along. They are thus afraid of the unity and strength of China. The Chinese are proud of the fact that China has been unified ever since the era of Qin Shi Huang, and belittle India for its having not had a single great strongman to integrate the whole state but only numerous maharajas that tore the country apart. The Indians, however, take pride that not a single foreign tribe can rule India completely, Great Britain included. Although India is a member of the British Commonwealth, it never agrees that the queen of Britain is the head of India.

Fifth, the Indians are proud of having not been conquered by Genghis Khan, whereas Chinese take pride in that the territory of China reached its maximum during the rule of Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan.

Europe in forefront

ARUNABHA BAGCHI,The Statesman

19 Sep 2014

At the end of the Second World War, the defeated countries, Germany and Italy, abandoned any hope to be world powers again. The Suez debacle ended any pretensions of England and France to act as superpowers. With looming Soviet threat, America took over the security of Europe and a new World Order emerged. Losing dominant international role and total sovereignty, Europeans instead concentrated on economic growth and social welfare. The result was an idyllic society with 13 (or even 14) months’ salary, vacation pay, seven weeks of paid holidays, one-year paid maternity leave, royal unemployment benefit, low retirement age with full benefits and even 35-hours workweek in some southern countries. The fall of the Soviet Union and the unification of Germany gave the feeling of nirvana to most Europeans. Many even dreamt of peaceful cooperation with Russia, and her inclusion in the new European family of nations. International stability was left to the Americans.

Europeans were suddenly forced to wake up from their slumber by unexpected events that intensified during the last two months. It all started with Ukraine. Last November, the then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych reneged on an earlier commitment to sign an association treaty with the European Union under intense pressure from Moscow. This led to a chain of events, aided and abetted by the West, that led to the storming of the Ukrainian Parliament by (mostly ultra right-wing) protesters, fleeing of the President, formation of a new government with the installation of a new President and the takeover of Crimea by the Russians to “protect law and order” there. Despite Russia’s historical claim to Crimea, it was a blatant violation of current international agreements. Soon thereafter, Russian-speaking people of Eastern Ukraine demanded autonomy, and even integration with Russia. Baltic countries with a large Russian population got alarmed, as was Poland with a long history of Russian domination. Europe collectively had to react, however reluctantly.

Germany volunteered to act as the interlocutor. Being neighbouring empires, Prussia and Russia had a long history of contacts. The Austro-Hungarian Empire had a large Slavic population. Until recently, Angela Merkel enjoyed good relationship with Vladimir Putin, both being fluent in each other’s mother tongue. Negotiations, however, became increasingly difficult as Ukrainian rebels established their stronghold in the provincial capitals of Donetsk and Luhansk in Eastern Ukraine and started expanding their control to the surrounding areas. Putin pledged not to support the rebels in their efforts at secession, but only their demand for more autonomy. Then the Ukrainian Army counterattacked and was gaining ground amidst the downing of the Malaysian airliner. There was a dramatic turn of events when the rebels suddenly took over the offensive in the last two weeks. Russia has been obviously sending heavy equipment and un-uniformed soldiers clandestinely to tilt the balance in favour of the rebels. Putin is still denying any involvement, but negotiation options for Ms Merkel have all but evaporated.

The real fear is Russia’s possible intention to create a land bridge to the Crimea.

Europe was finally forced to declare sanctions against Russia with some bite. Russia retaliated by banning the import of all agricultural products from the West. The worst sufferers are the Dutch farmers with huge export to Russia. Already prices of some fruit and vegetables here have collapsed in the supermarkets. The farmers are clamouring for subsidy from the EU and unemployment in the agricultural sector is soaring. Although a tentative ceasefire between the Ukrainian government and the rebels have been announced, Europe is planning the next round of tougher sanctions... just in case. In the latest NATO meeting held in early September in Wales, most countries agreed to send more troops to Poland and the Baltic States in contravention of the 1997 Founding Act on Mutual Relations between NATO and Russia. The rapid intervention force is on the alert. Although there is no possibility of European soldiers actually entering Ukraine in support of the government there, the tranquillity in Europe is lost and the future is full of uncertainty.

49 years on, India-Pak disputes still intractable

An important lesson from the India-Pakistan war of 1965 is the need to have a clear strategy before going to war. If a strategic aim had been formulated, we could have gone for decisive gains in J&K before agreeing to a ceasefire. But, the then political leadership did not quite comprehend long-term strategic issues of war and peace.

Kanwar Sandhu

The then Prime Minister Lal Bhadur Shastri atop a captured Patton tank after the 1965 India-Pakistan war. A file photograph

*The chart does not include the full range of weaponry of both sides

EVEN 49 years after India and Pakistan fought an indecisive war over it, the Western Front, bordering Kashmir, remains extremely volatile. Clearly, the two neighbours learnt few lessons from the bloody clash, because the contentious border issues that led to the 1965 war have grown only more sensitive.

Pitched battles

After Partition, though the two armies had clashed in 1947-48 over Kashmir, it was only in September 1965 that the two fought pitched battles. It was for the first time since World War II that a conventional war using armour and air force on such a scale was fought. The conflict sounded alarm bells across the world.

Although by the end of it, there was a stalemate of sorts, the Indian Army managed to redeem its image that had taken a beating in the 1962 war with China. At the same time, since Pakistan was able to hold off a bigger neighbour, its military and political leadership got emboldened. This perhaps led to the 1971 war with India, resulting in its dismemberment and the creation of Bangladesh.

The clouds of war had started forming in January-February 1965 when foot patrols on both sides started probing the Rann of Kutch area to set up border posts. In April, Pakistan launched an attack to evict the Indian guards from some of the posts. Both armies joined in and after a few weeks of fighting, a ceasefire was brokered by the then British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson on June 30, 1965.

Operation Gibraltar

A statement of Zhou Enlai: sixty-four years ago

ByClaude Arpi
18 Sep , 2014

http://www.indiandefencereview.com/news/a-statement-of-zhou-enlai-sixty-four-years-ago/

After several days of extensive talks between the Prime Minister of India (Jawaharlal Nehru) and the Premier of the State Council of China (Zhou Enlai), the latter held a press conference on April 15, 1960 at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Before the beginning of the press conference, Zhou Enlai read the following statement.

To change an ambassador the day before a Head of a State arrives in a country, is really a first in diplomatic annals. What is behind this sudden move?

Sixty four years later, very little seems to have changed in the Sino-Indian relations.

I presume that President Xi Jinping could read a very similar statement on Friday evening before leaving for Beijing.

The scoop of the present visit of Presidnet Xi Jinping is the sudden transfer of the Chinese Ambassador to India (Mr. Wei Wei). A day before the arrival of his supreme boss, he has been replaced by Le Yucheng, earlier posted as Assistant Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Le Yucheng also served as Director-General of the Policy Planning Department for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Minister to the Embassy of PRC in the Russian Federation, and Counselor to Permanent Mission of the PRC to the United Nations.

To change an ambassador the day before a Head of a State arrives in a country, is really a first in diplomatic annals.

What is behind this sudden move?

Premier Chou En-lai’s written statement

At the invitation of Prime Minister Nehru, I have paid a friendly visit in India from April 19 to 25, 1960. I am pleased to have this opportunity to visit once again the great Republic of India and extend greetings to the great Indian people. During the visit, we have been accorded a cordial welcome and hospitality by the Indian Government and Prime Minister Nehru. For this, Vice-Premier Chen Yi and I, as well as my other colleagues, wish to express our hearty thanks.

The Chinese and Indian peoples are two great nations of Asia. From the remote past, there have always existed between the two peoples mutual friendship and mutual sympathy, but never mutual antagonism or aggression against each other. Since our two countries successively achieved independence, particularly since we jointly initiated the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, the profound friendship between the two peoples has undergone further development on a new basis. There is no basic conflict of interests between our two countries. Our two countries have every reason to remain friendly to each other for thousands and tens of thousands of years to come. During the past one year or two, although disputes have arisen between the two countries on the boundary question left over by history, our two peoples have nonetheless consistently cherished the desire to be friendly to each other. We are convinced that it is entirely possible to achieve, through peaceful consultations, a fair and reasonable settlement of the boundary question between the two countries. It is precisely with this conviction that we have come here.

SIX THOUSAND PLUS KILLED: THE NAXAL IDEOLOGY OF VIOLENCE – ANALYSIS

By Dr. Bibhu Prasad Routray

SEPTEMBER 17, 2014

Source Link

Areas with Naxalite activity in India.

How does one analyse the killings of 6105 civilians and security forces in incidents related to left-wing extremism between 2005 and 2013?

Given that the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist), since its formation in 2004, has been responsible for majority of these killings, conventional analyses have mostly focused on big and small incidents that produced these victims. While such methods are useful in terms of attempting to grasp the growing or declining capacity of the outfit, it is also useful to analyse the unceasing violence as upshot of an ideology that has for decades underlined the necessity to shed the enemy’s blood to bring about a change in social and political order.

Three leaders – Charu Mazumdar, Kanu Sanyal and Kondapalli Seetharamaiah – dominate the discourse on Naxalism, which began in the 1960s. Mazumdar, in his ‘Eight Documents’ in 1965, exhorted the workers of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) to take up armed struggle against the state. He underlined that action and not politics was the need of the hour. Such calls resulted in a number of incidents in which the CPI-M workers started seizing arms and acquiring land forcibly on behalf of the peasants from the big landholders in Darjeeling. These incidents went on to provide the spark for the 1967 peasant uprising.

Following the formation of the All India Coordination Committee of Revolutionaries (AICCR), that emerged out of the CPI-M in November 1967 and was renamed as All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR) in May 1968, Mazumdar further reiterated his idea of khatam or annihilation of class enemies. Although incidents of individual assassinations influenced by khatam resulted in repressive state action targeting the naxalite cadres, the Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninist (CPI-ML), which was formed in 1969 breaking away from the CPI-Marxist, continued professing violence as the key tool of revolution.

While Mazumdar’s preference for using violence to overthrow existing social order and seizing state power remained the CPI-ML’s mode of operation till 1972, a counter ideology with a stress on agrarian consolidation preceding an armed struggle was reiterated by Kanu Sanyal following Mazumdar’s death. Sanyal was not against the idea of an armed struggle per se. However, he opposed Mazumdar’s advocacy of targeted assassination.

In the subsequent years, the CPI-ML split into several factions. Although Sanyal himself headed a faction, he gradually grew redundant to the extreme left movement and committed suicide in 2010. Towards the last years of his life, Sanyal maintained that the CPI-Maoist’s reliance on excessive violence does not conform to original revolutionary objectives of the Naxalite movement. On more than one occasion, Sanyal denounced the “wanton killing of innocent villagers”. In a 2009 interview, Sanyal accused the CPI-Maoist of exploiting the situation in West Bengal’s Lalgarh “by using the Adivasis as stooges to carry forward their agenda of individual terrorism.”

What Do Pakistan's Protests Mean for India?

By Shairee Malhotra

September 17, 2014

Pakistan’s political turmoil suggest that any improvement in bilateral relations will have limits. 

Yet another chapter in Pakistan’s political saga is unfolding, but this time with civilian threats to the incumbent government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), and Tahir ul Qadri’s Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT). Both sides are calling for the unseating of Sharif, albeit with different arguments. Cricketer turned politician Khan insists that the elections that brought Sharif to power were rigged, while the Canadian-born cleric Qadri accuses the government of corruption and autocracy. Neither Pakistan nor Sharif himself are strangers to such protests, which are reminiscent of Sharif’s ousting by Prime Minister Benzair Bhutto in 1993, and his overthrow by the General Pervez Musharraf-led coup in 1999.

While the current impasse sees the leaders of both sets of protestors exhibiting partisan motivations, the elephant in the room is the Pakistan Army, whose involvement in the protests remains ambiguous, yet highly probable. Indeed, Army Chief General Raheel Sharif was called upon to mediate between the government and the protestors. While it is highly unlikely the military will risk a direct coup at this time, for fear of losing much-needed international support including $3 billion in U.S. aid, the present turmoil is in all probability suggestive of the Army’s attempt to continue to rule implicitly. In a country with a history of military interventions, the standoff presents an opportunity for the military to exploit schisms and shoulder responsibility, ultimately maintaining its de facto control over Pakistani politics. Analysts speculate that the latest schism is being supported by the country’s security apparatus, and is likely a pretext for the military to maintain its control over security and foreign policy, which since the inception of Pakistan in 1947 have been completely under its purview. Defense Analyst Hasan Rizvi concedes, “The military wants to force a change but without direct assumption of power.” According to Dawn, “These events were highly choreographed and scripted by some power other than Imran Khan and Tahir ul Qadri.”

The protests could potentially have negative implications for relations between Pakistan and its neighbor and rival India, which recently seemed to be on a rather promising path. The triumph of Pakistani democracy last year and India’s recent election laid the groundwork for an encouraging revamp of the relationship. Sharif’s civilian government signaled a hopeful, impending shift in its traditionally precarious relations with its larger neighbor. The margin of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s electoral victory provides him with a rare foreign policy opportunity in a challenging neighborhood. Importantly, the propensity of both Sharif and Modi to favor business could potentially de-link sensitive issues from broader economic engagement. The relationship began with a promising early start, with Sharif’s attendance at Modi’s swearing-in ceremony, and the saree-shawl diplomacy that ensued.

Relations between Sharif and the Army have historically been shaky. Sharif’s qualms about the Army, which ousted him in the 1999 coup led by Musharraf, are well founded. Over the previous year, Sharif’s policies have been widely disturbing to the military, particularly concerning his peace overtures to India, the treason case against Musharraf, and negotiations with the Pakistani Taliban. Ceasefire violations across the border by the Army, even as Sharif sent mangoes to Modi in a diplomatic gesture, illustrate the tensions in strategic policy in a country that lacks a cohesive power center.

China’s Pakistan Syndrome and India

Sushant Sareen, Senior Fellow, VIF

http://www.vifindia.org/article/2014/september/16/china-s-pakistan-syndrome-and-india

As two giant countries sharing a common border, India and China have a host of issues between them that they need to sort out and work together. From border disputes to concerns over river waters, from trade imbalances to safety of investment and market access, from freedom of navigation in the maritime space to ensuring energy security, from mutual suspicions over containment policies and strategies being pursued for counter-balancing to building on mutual interests in bilateral, regional and global security, including the issue of terrorism, it is an endless list of things that both countries have to deal with. Many of these will come up for discussion when the Chinese President Xi Jinping visits India. But there is one major irritant, or if you will, fly in the ointment – Pakistan – which if addressed will go a very long way in lowering many of India’s concerns and suspicions regarding China.

For around fifty years now, China’s Pakistan Syndrome has been a red rag for India. The way India sees it the glue that has bound China with Pakistan has been India. There is enough evidence on record to back India’s assessment that both China and Pakistan embraced each other in order to contain and constrain India. For China, Pakistan was a perfect tool to keep snapping at India’s heel, and for Pakistan, China served as the big guy on the block to keep a check on India. Other than this, there is little that China has to gain from Pakistan, except perhaps for the fact that it serves as a dumping ground for many of its products and technology coupled with the benefit that China gets from the sort of neo-colonial economic and strategic relationship it has built with Pakistan. The icing on the cake is not only the massive commissions that accompany the deals with Pakistan, but also the ease with which anything that China sells is accepted by Pakistan in order to preserve and buttress its ‘all-weather friendship’ with China.

While a cynical case – enemy’s enemy is a friend – could have been made for China-Pakistan compact fifty years back, that time is now long gone. Persisting with this sort of a strategy is now only going to yield diminishing returns, more for China than for Pakistan. Today the dictum that China needs to follow is “a wise enemy [in case of India, a competitor and not enemy] is better than a foolish [and destructive] friend”. To put it differently, China has far more to gain – diplomatically, strategically, and economically – from engaging India than from remaining wedded to Pakistan. The choice before China is to either play for the small benefits it gets from its neo-colonial relationship with Pakistan or to make a pitch for the big game and benefits that will come by engaging India and disengaging from Pakistan.

With India’s economic, diplomatic and strategic options opening up in terms of its budding relationship with the US, Japan and other countries on China’s rim, China will need to make a call on whether Pakistan even serves any useful purpose anymore, more so in light of the steady slide of Pakistan towards failure and extremism, something that forced President Xi Jinping to ‘postpone’ the Pakistan leg of his tour. Despite the heartburn and embarrassment that the ‘postponement’ caused in Pakistan, and notwithstanding the reassuring words uttered by Mr Jinping about China’s commitment to its relationship with Pakistan, this is as good a time as any for China to re-evaluate its Pakistan policy.

For a couple of years now, there are some indications and pointers that there is growing concern in China about Pakistan. There is also some sort of an incipient rethink underway in Beijing, which is borne out by the fact that the Chinese are now engaging India to talk about both Afghanistan and Pakistan (something that they never did before). The reasons for this are clear. There is growing disquiet in China over the export of radical Islam and terrorism from Pakistan into China. Although the Pakistanis are ostensibly leaning over backward to address Chinese concerns – the Operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan is partly aimed to reassure China – the Pakistanis are known to play double-games, especially where it involves the Jihadists. Even if these double-games do not have China in the cross-hairs, there is bound to be a spill-over of Pakistani flirtation with Jihadism in China’s restive Xinjiang province and beyond. Questions are also starting to be asked about how secure Chinese investments in Pakistan will be, especially if Pakistan continues to slide towards chaos and anarchy. This is a question that acquires even greater salience in light of ambitious plans involving an investment of anywhere between $30-50 billion to develop an Economic Corridor from Gwadar to Kashgar.

China’s 4 Principles in the South China Sea Dispute

By Jiye Kim

September 16, 2014

China is slowly crafting a policy for its regional maritime disputes. Could it open the door to negotiation? 

China’s principles regarding the South China Sea (SCS) dispute are erratic, yet becoming clearer as the regional status quo is threatened by littoral actors, led by China itself.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi suggested four principles to guide the SCS dispute during a recent visit to Australia, in preparation for Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit in November this year. First, he said that the dispute over the sovereignty of some reefs in the Nansha (Spratly) Islands is a leftover problem of history. He said historical facts should come first in handling the dispute. Second, he requested that other countries respect international laws, specifically referring to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Third, he said that direct dialogue and consultation between the countries involved should be respected. Last, he said that the efforts China and ASEAN have made to maintain peace and stability should be respected. He also limited the roles of the countries outside the region to “constructive” ones.

These principles are comparable to those mentioned in China’s 2011 white paper on peaceful development, which put forth the directive to “shelve disputes and seek joint development” as guidelines for upholding peace and stability in maritime areas. These same two principles appeared in Deng Xiaoping’s speech in 1984, as well as in another speech during his subsequent visit to Japan in 1986. Since then, Premier Li Peng and foreign ministers Qian Qichen, Tang Jiaxuan, Li Zhaoxing, Yang Jiechi, and Wang have continuously underscored the shelving principle in their public speeches.

However, Deng’s proposal was too abstract to produce any effective negotiation, especially when the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) lost its ability to maintain the status quo in the region. In the early 2000s, China joined various multilateral regimes concerning economic cooperation, scientific exploration, joint development, and the peaceful resolution of territorial disputes, such as the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation and Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking. However, the likelihood of amicable diplomacy in the SCS fell away rapidly once China firmly associated its core interests with the SCS in the late 2000s. Moreover, China’s participation in many regional regimes in the SCS kept the country from moving towards a resolution of the core dispute: maritime delimitation based on sovereignty.

The Four Respects suggested by Wang confirm China’s priorities in the SCS dispute, and could effectively guide China’s diplomatic efforts. Since the DOC was signed in 2002, China’s diplomatic strength has grown, and has been tested in various attempts to change the status quo. Beijing might now use the Four Respects in proactive bilateral negotiations and to suggest preconditions for the involvement of external actors.

Chinese Leader Visits Sri Lanka, Challenging India’s Sway

By DHARISHA BASTIANS and GARDINER HARRIS

SEPT. 16, 2014

Source Link

President Xi Jinping of China, right, with President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka in Colombo on Tuesday.CreditEranga Jayawardena/Associated Press

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — President Xi Jinping of China arrived in Sri Lanka on Tuesday for a 23-hour trip to this island nation to sign a raft of agreements as China chips away at India’s traditional dominance in the region.

Mr. Xi’s plane traveled from nearby Malé, the capital of the Maldives, where he signed an agreement to upgrade the airport and build a bridge, a housing project and a road. The airport project had been given to an Indian construction giant, GMR. But the Maldives abruptly canceled that contract in 2012 and instead gave it to China.

In Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital, on Tuesday, Mr. Xi inaugurated the final phase of a coal-fired power plant financed by Beijing and built by China Machinery Engineering Corporation. And he and the Sri Lankan president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, agreed to cooperate on the Colombo Port City project, a $1.3 billion plan to build an artificial island off Colombo.

On Wednesday, Mr. Xi is expected to visit the Colombo South Container Terminal, in which the Chinese government has a controlling stake through the state-run China Merchant Holdings.

Mr. Xi was given a grand welcome at Colombo’s airport, with decorated elephants and traditional dancers on hand to greet him. Mr. Xi then traveled to the capital along a Chinese-built expressway.

In a letter published on Tuesday in a Sri Lankan government newspaper, Mr. Xi wrote that China “resolutely opposes any move by any country to interfere in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs under any excuse.” The statement was an obvious reference to growing pressure on Sri Lanka from the United States and other Western countries to investigate the killing of civilians during its civil war.

China's Military Gets More Bang for the Buck

By Noah Smith

Source Link

Whenever anyone brings up the rising military power of China, Russia and other U.S. rivals, some pundit usually pops up to remind us that America is still overwhelmingly dominant both in terms of military capability and spending. The pundit will generally offer you a chart like this one, which shows American military spending dwarfing everyone else’s. The message, of course, is that the U.S. outspends all its rivals, ensuring its continued military dominance.

But there are several problems with this perennial talking point. The first is that these dollar numbers aren't adjusted for the cost of anything that any of these militaries buy. The lowest-paid U.S. soldiers earn about $18,000 a year. In comparison, in 2009, an equivalent Chinese soldier was paid about a ninth as much. In other words, in 2009, you could hire about nine Chinese soldiers for the cost of one U.S. soldier.

Even that figure doesn't account for health care and veterans’ benefits. These are much higher in the U.S. than in China, though precise figures are hard to obtain. This is due to higher U.S. prices for health care, to higher prices in general, and because the U.S. is more generous than China in terms of what it pays its soldiers. Salaries and benefits, combined, account for a significant percentage of military expenditure.

But labor costs aren't the only thing that is cheaper in China. Notice that China’s gross domestic product at market exchange rates is only two-thirds of its GDP at purchasing power parity. This means that, as a developing country, China simply pays lower prices for a lot of things. Some military inputs -- oil, for example, or copper -- will be bought on world markets, and PPP won't matter. For others, like complicated machinery, costs are pretty similar. But other things -- food or domestically manufactured products -- will be much cheaper for the U.S.’s developing rivals than for the U.S.

China’s 4 Principles in the South China Sea Dispute

By Jiye Kim

September 16, 2014

China is slowly crafting a policy for its regional maritime disputes. Could it open the door to negotiation? 

China’s principles regarding the South China Sea (SCS) dispute are erratic, yet becoming clearer as the regional status quo is threatened by littoral actors, led by China itself.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi suggested four principles to guide the SCS dispute during a recent visit to Australia, in preparation for Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit in November this year. First, he said that the dispute over the sovereignty of some reefs in the Nansha (Spratly) Islands is a leftover problem of history. He said historical facts should come first in handling the dispute. Second, he requested that other countries respect international laws, specifically referring to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Third, he said that direct dialogue and consultation between the countries involved should be respected. Last, he said that the efforts China and ASEAN have made to maintain peace and stability should be respected. He also limited the roles of the countries outside the region to “constructive” ones.

These principles are comparable to those mentioned in China’s 2011 white paper on peaceful development, which put forth the directive to “shelve disputes and seek joint development” as guidelines for upholding peace and stability in maritime areas. These same two principles appeared in Deng Xiaoping’s speech in 1984, as well as in another speech during his subsequent visit to Japan in 1986. Since then, Premier Li Peng and foreign ministers Qian Qichen, Tang Jiaxuan, Li Zhaoxing, Yang Jiechi, and Wang have continuously underscored the shelving principle in their public speeches.

However, Deng’s proposal was too abstract to produce any effective negotiation, especially when the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) lost its ability to maintain the status quo in the region. In the early 2000s, China joined various multilateral regimes concerning economic cooperation, scientific exploration, joint development, and the peaceful resolution of territorial disputes, such as the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation and Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking. However, the likelihood of amicable diplomacy in the SCS fell away rapidly once China firmly associated its core interests with the SCS in the late 2000s. Moreover, China’s participation in many regional regimes in the SCS kept the country from moving towards a resolution of the core dispute: maritime delimitation based on sovereignty.

The Four Respects suggested by Wang confirm China’s priorities in the SCS dispute, and could effectively guide China’s diplomatic efforts. Since the DOC was signed in 2002, China’s diplomatic strength has grown, and has been tested in various attempts to change the status quo. Beijing might now use the Four Respects in proactive bilateral negotiations and to suggest preconditions for the involvement of external actors.

China Pushes 'Maritime Silk Road' in South, Southeast Asia

By Shannon Tiezzi

September 17, 2014

The MSR is embraced by Sri Lanka and the Maldives, but may hit a snag over South China Sea tensions. 

Xi Jinping is three countries into his four country tour of Central and South Asia. After a stop in Tajikistan for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, Xi visited the Maldives and Sri Lanka. As Ankit pointed out yesterday, cooperation on the Maritime Silk Road (MSR) was a centerpiece of Xi’s visits to the latter two countries. As island nations in the Indian Ocean, the Maldives and Sri Lanka are both crucial to the initiative and also stand to reap benefits from being situated as stops on a larger maritime trade route.

Accordingly, leaders from both countries were enthusiastic about joining the project. In an interview withXinhua, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa expressed his country’s eagerness to join in the process of building the MSR. Actually, Sri Lanka is already part of the initiative. The island received $1.4 billion from China to build the “Colombo Port City,” part of a bid to mold the island country into a rival to thriving ports in Singapore and Dubai. Xi is expected to attend an inauguration ceremony at Port City during his brief stay in Sri Lanka.

Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen was similarly supportive of the MSR project, telling Xi and reporters that “the Maldives is honored to now feature among China’s partners in building the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.” The Maldives has not enjoyed Chinese investment on the same level as Sri Lanka has, but that is beginning to change. During Xi’s visit, China and the Maldives signed agreements for China to upgrade the Maldives’ airport and to build a bridge from Male, the capital, to the island hosting the Maldives’ international airport. President Yameen suggested that the new bridge could be called “the ‘China Bridge’ to symbolize the friendly ties between the two countries.”

The Indian Ocean states are interested in the project — even India has expressed interest in joining, although there are few specifics at the point (something likely to be on the agenda for Xi’s visit this week). Ironically, the MSR may prove to be a tougher sell closer to home.

Xi Jinping: China's "Game Changer"?

Richard Javad Heydarian

September 16, 2014 

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/xi-jinping-chinas-game-changer-11285?page=show

China's new leader is certainly making waves. Could he calm waters in the South China Sea? 

The ascent of Xi Jinping, beginning in late-2012, to the helm of China’s political system has coincided with growing tensions across the South China Sea. Far from calming the boiling waters on China’s peripheries, the new Chinese leader has upped the ante by expanding the country’s paramilitary patrols, as well as construction and energy-exploration activities across disputed features, from the Paracels to the Spratly chain of islands. Beijing has also flatly rebuffed recent attempts by the Philippines and the U.S. to de-escalate tensions in the South China Sea, particularly the widely-supportedTriple Action Plan (TAP), which calls for a freeze on construction activities and other forms of provocative actions in the disputed areas, the development of a legally binding Code of Conduct (CoC), and the resolution of the disputes in accordance with international law. Recently, Filipino authorities have also warned about the presence of Chinese surveillance ships close to the hydrocarbon-rich Reed Bank, which lies well within the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

China’s maritime jostling, under the Xi administration, has come as a huge disappointment to neighboring countries such as the Philippines, which back in 2012, fervently hoped that the departure of the Hu Jintao administration would pave the way for the emergence of a more confident and stable leadership in Beijing. In the view of some neighboring governments, the Hu administration lacked the wherewithal and political capital to rein in hardline elements within the Chinese state apparatus, both civilian and military, who advocated for a more forceful Chinese posturing in the Western Pacific. After all, the Hu administration was overwhelmed by brewing socioeconomic troubles at home, as Beijing struggled to maintain robust growth rates and contain spiraling inflation, corruption and protests in the heady aftermath of the 2007-08 Great Recession. Historically, autocratic regimes, lacking democratic legitimacy, tend to compensate for domestic vulnerability by projecting a tough image abroad. As perceptive scholars such as Robert Rossobserved: “Beijing’s tough [territorial] diplomacy stemmed…from a deep sense of insecurity born of several nerve-racking years of financial crisis and social unrest.”

Unlike China’s paramount leaders, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, President Hu lacked the necessary charisma and bureaucratic prowess to inject discipline into the country’s floundering territorial diplomacy, which encouraged many neighboring states to welcome a greater American strategic footprint in East Asia—undermining a decades-long Chinese strategy aimed at establishing a “sphere of deference” in the region.

Can Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi establish an economic partnership?

Jayadeva Ranade, Center for China Analysis and Strategy
http://asiasociety.org/policy-institute/china-india/experts-weigh-in/jayadeva-ranade

Jayadeva Ranade is President of the Center for China Analysis and Strategy.



The September 17-19, 2014 meeting in Delhi between India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China’s President Xi Jinping is important and coincides with a crucial juncture in the Asia-Pacific region’s geopolitical balance. With China, India, and Japan competing for strategic space and all three led by strong leaders, a major objective of Xi’s visit will be to ensure that India does not unduly lean towards Japan.

The son of a veteran senior communist cadre, 61-year-old Xi has wide administrative experience, is self-confident, and comfortable in exercising power. The authoritative Chinese Communist Party (CCP) journal Qiu Shi (June 2014), has already described him as “one of China’s greatest communist leaders.”

Nonetheless Xi, despite having suffered during the Cultural Revolution and being sent to the country-side for “political re-education as a peasant” when his father was purged, later joined the CCP exhibiting unwavering belief and faith in the CCP, its ideology, and China’s destiny. Many of his present colleagues in the Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC), who suffered similarly, did likewise. This leadership comprises tough, doctrinaire apparatchiks intent on restoring China to its self-perceived rightful status in international affairs, and who will be unyielding on issues of sovereignty and territorial concessions. The “China Dream,” which includes “rejuvenation of China,” has particular resonance with them. The major push in the South China Sea and territorial dispute with Japan is pursuant to this.

Though Modi and Xi are both strong leaders with a definite vision for the future of their respective countries and an exhibited capacity to take bold initiatives, the doctrinaire approach of China’s leadership and rising nationalism in China, may impose definite limits on settlement of the border dispute between India and China.

Economic cooperation, on which both leaders are focused, however, has immense untapped potential, including to gradually build trust. India is the world’s largest market capable of absorbing the huge capital required for building its infrastructure and offering returns on investment. There is scope for huge Chinese investment and participation in clearly demarcated non-sensitive sectors like road, rail, housing, and certain manufactured products. India is keen to attract manufacturing enterprises including for re-export. Bilateral trade, however, will certainly need to be encouraged by opening access to Indian companies and products to redress the imbalance.

(The contributor is Member of the National Security Advisory Board and former Additional Secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India. The views expressed are personal.)

XI JINPING AND THE MARITIME SILK ROAD: THE INDIAN DILEMMA – ANALYSIS

By Vijay Sakhuja

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

New Delhi is abuzz with speculation that President Xi Jinping could raise the issue of Maritime Silk Road (MSR) during his visit to India this week and explore business, investments and trade opportunities for China in India. At least three reasons can be identified to uphold the above assumption; first, the issue of MSR was raised during President Hamid Ansari’s visit to China in July this year and the Indian side had indicated that New Delhi would examine the idea. The Chinese would be keen for a response from the Indian side and India may push for the BCIM (Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar) corridor to which it has offered wholehearted support and it serves the interests of all the partners.

The second reason is that the MSR is a pet project of the Chinese President and is believed to have been driven by his knowledge of ancient Chinese cultural and trade connections with the outside world. Apparently, between 1985 and 2002, Xi had personally taken interest in the Quanzhou Maritime Museum, and according to the curator, Xi had perused through the ancient historical records, artifacts and exhibits at the museum and may have ‘learnt a lot about China’s maritime history’ which could have been the driver for his interest in MSR. Xi even secured substantial government grants for the museum. Incidentally, Quanzhou is home to several ancient shrines and temples built by Tamil communities who had established trading contacts with the Chinese during the Song (960-1279) and Yuan (1279-1368) periods. Given his knowledge of ancient maritime trade and cultural connections between India and China, Xi may recall the cultural and Buddhist connections between the two countries. It is pertinent to mention that China has committed US $1 million for the Nalanda University.

Third, Xi Jinping has been hard selling the MSR among a number of countries in Asia, Africa, and as far as Europe. The MSR was first discussed in 2013 with the ASEAN countries and apparently they were a little apprehensive about the idea. But now Singapore has come out in full support and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has indicated that the MSR could act as a catalyst for development of the region. In South Asia, Sri Lanka and Maldives appear to be favourably disposed about the opportunity to build maritime infrastructure and the idea is fast gaining traction in Bangladesh. Xi Jinping would have discussed the MSR with Pakistan too but Beijing had to postpone the visit to Islamabad due to prevailing political situation in the country. Interestingly, the MSR was also discussed with Iran. The MSR foot print in Africa is in Kenya and a few European countries appear to be onboard.

An Indian Response to the MSR

What could be India’s response in case MSR comes up for discussions or Xi makes a reference to it during the visit? But before doing that, it is useful to understand the dominant discourse in India about the MSR. The Indian strategic community believes that the MSR can potentially help China consolidate its naval / maritime strategy of access and basing in the Indian Ocean in support of PLA Navy’s future operations. Further, the MSR is essentially a Chinese ploy to dismiss the notion of ‘string of pearls’ strategy, dispel the ‘China threat’ in the Indian Ocean, and legitimize its engagement in various maritime infrastructure projects along the route. China is also facing a number of problems in East and South China Sea over the Senkaku Island with Japan and South China Sea with the Philippines and Vietnam. It must also contend with the United States with whom these is a near continuous ‘silent tension’ which at times shows up in the form of incidents at sea and now in the air. In essence, China has its hands full with a number of strategic ‘hot spots’ that can affect its ambitions and aspirations of its ‘peaceful and harmonius’ development.

Don’t Worry, Obama Isn’t Sending U.S. Troops to Fight ISIS

But the next president might. 

By Fred Kaplan

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill on Sept. 16, 2014 in Washington.

We’ve seen this dreaded movie before. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared before a Senate committee on Tuesday and said that, under certain circumstances, he might recommend that President Obama send U.S. ground forces to help fight ISIS, the terrorist group known as Islamic State.FRED KAPLAN

The front-page headlines were predictable, as was the New York Timeseditorial fuming, “There is no way to read this other than as a reversal from the firm commitment Mr. Obama made not to immerse the country in another endless ground war in the Middle East,” adding that “the Obama administration has turned on a dime in record time.”

This is overblown. First, “the Obama administration” hasn’t turned on anything. As a rule, the White House doesn’t review congressional testimony by the JCS chairman. The Times editors are simply wrong when they write, “It’s impossible to believe that General Dempsey was speaking just for himself.” It’s in fact quite likely that he was.

Second, Dempsey was careful to say that he thought Obama’s current approach—U.S. air power supporting Iraqi ground troops—would work, noting only that if he turned out to be wrong about this, he “would go back to the president and make a recommendation that may include the use of U.S. military ground forces.” Even then, he said, the idea would be for American advisers to accompany Iraqi soldiers onto the battlefield but not to engage in the fighting directly. That is what the JCS chairman is supposed to do: give the president his military advice on what’s needed to complete a mission. It’s up to the president to accept or reject that advice on the basis of his own broader strategic goals (or for whatever reason he chooses).

That said, the Times editors do have a point; their worries are well in line, and anyone with a sense of history would be daft to disagree. The dreadful movie we’ve seen before is, of course, the Vietnam War, and while Vietnam parallels are often stretched beyond reason, the similarities here are worth noting.

What’s worth a shudder is thinking about what Obama’s successor might do.

America’s involvement in that war began when President Dwight Eisenhower sent U.S. weapons and advisers to help the South Vietnamese army stave off the Viet Cong guerrillas. In 1959, after eight of these Americans were shot in their dining hall while watching a movie (two of the men were killed), Eisenhower ordered the advisers, who now numbered in the thousands, to accompany their trainees onto the battlefield. The advisers were not to engage with the Viet Cong directly, though “rules of engagement” let them in self-defense fire back if fired upon.

Kissinger’s Order

By Amitai Etzioni

September 16, 2014

Henry Kissinger’s new book World Order is a must-read for anyone with a serious interest in Asia, or foreign policy. 

If you have a serious interest in Asia or in foreign policy in general – whether you’re a policy wonk, an academic, or just a good citizen – I have a suggestion for you. Send an email to all of those to whom you owe service, such as employers and children, and ask for a three-day leave. Then take Henry Kissinger’s remarkable new book, World Order, to a hilltop without cell phone or television reception and read it, nay, study it. I assure you that you will feast on it for years to come.

The book is erudite for a professor who long ago left the library stacks to become a public servant and, more recently, a super-consultant. For example, Kissinger points out, “Until the arrival of modern Western powers, no Asian language had a word for ‘Asia.’” (Few of us would be able to make such a statement given the number of Asian languages.) Hence, Kissinger suggests, in my words, that the concept of Asia is a Western construct. He uses this observation to highlight that Asia and, even more so, the East are much less homogenous than the West. Asia has no shared history – no equivalent of the Roman Empire or the Napoleonic Wars – no shared religion, and no set of shared, secular core values. Kissinger concludes that this is one major reason that the peoples of the region are much more given to the pursuit of national agendas than to pooling sovereignty or to forming strong, multilateral institutions or alliances.

The book benefits from a cultural sensitivity, nurtured by Kissinger’s command of history, that is not found in many American writings on international relations. For example, Kissinger’s overview of Chinese history notes that for more than a thousand years China considered itself to be the center of the world and believed that its emperor was the ruler of “All Under Heaven.” Other peoples were offered a variety of rituals by which to pay homage to the emperor, but they were not granted an opportunity to play a role in shaping the world order. Thus, China’s tendency was to conceptualize the world order in hierarchical rather than balance of power terms.

The book’s core subject is the tension between two major foundations of American foreign policy. On the one hand, Kissinger writes, the United States draws on a perspective first spelled out for the nation by Theodore Roosevelt – that is, a strongly realist perspective focused on national interests, geopolitical considerations, and the use of raw power. On the other, the United States draws on Woodrow Wilson’s idealism, which sought to implement on a global scale the kind of democratic regime the United States fashioned for its own people, to be achieved through international law and diplomacy rather than force. At times, the earlier Kissinger – the hard-core realist – shows up in the book; he almost mocks Wilson as a naïve man who moved into the presidency from academia after only two years in politics. After reviewing the various initiatives Wilson undertook, Kissinger states flatly that “no significant elements of these initiatives survived.” Moreover, Wilson’s idealistic approach to the world, which Kissinger shows all subsequent presidents evoked, did lead to disappointments, frustrations, and sudden shifts from overextensions to abrupt withdrawals: in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.