China, world leader in nuclear and viruses proliferation!

By Roland Jacquard

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Chinese cargo ship, Da Cui Yun, owned by China’s COSCO Shipping Corporation and sailing from Jiangyin port of Jiangsu province of China to Pakistan’s Port Qasim in Karachi, was detained by Indian customs and security authorities at the port of Kandla in western India in early February. The reason for the detention was one cargo, an industrial autoclave, a dual use product that can be used in the manufacture of long range ballistic missiles or construction of satellite’s motors. The product had been mis-declared as an industrial dryer and was meant for delivery to an Islamabad-based company, United Construction Company.

The suspected cargo was seized by Indian authorities and off-loaded from the ship, following which the Da Cui Yun was allowed to continue with its journey.

The seized cargo was brought for inspection by scientists from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), a premier Indian R&D organisation. After the examination, DRDO experts have concluded that the seized product was indeed a dual use industrial autoclave .

A China-Centered Order Is Not Inevitable

By Valérie Niquet and Walter Lohman
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For many years now, discussions about the future of the international system have revolved around the rise of China and a related shift of global attention to Asia. Yet, while it is true that the numbers point in that direction, this need not entail a change in global leadership. The United States and Europe will maintain vast reservoirs of power – particularly economic – far into the future. More importantly, their commitment to the values that undergird this power – rule of law, representative government, and liberal freedoms – is a strength that will continue to drive global trends. In brief, the world is not rushing into a China-led order.

Over the last several years, despite a slowdown, China’s economic growth remained strong. Internationally, its economic model and Belt and Road Initiative vehicle – enjoying seemingly unlimited investment capacities – looked set to overtake the world. Meanwhile, interpretations of the Trump administration’s America First foreign policy gave credence to those who equate U.S. power with Chinese and see in their contest only a rivalry between two self-interested great powers.

The COVID-19 crisis threw this analysis into question. This pandemic, which appeared in the People’s Republic of China for reasons related to the very nature of the system, revealed the regime’s internal limits, unsuited to the status of world leader.

Australia, all is not lost despite China’s trade tantrums

JAMES LAURENCESON

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When Canberra called for an international, independent inquiry into Covid-19 in April, Beijing deployed trade restrictions measures against Australian beef and barley the next month.

And so when the Australian government responded firmly to China imposing a sweeping national security law in Hong Kong at the end of June, the Australian Financial Review’s Andrew Tillett and Mike Smith wrote that “the government [was] privately bracing for a trade backlash as punishment”.

Sure enough, what followed was an anti-dumping investigation into Australian wine, another meat processor having its certification to supply the Chinese market suspended, and barley exports from a major Perth-based grain company barred on food safety grounds.

Trade minister Simon Birmingham says that “Australia is certainly not engaging in any type of trade war [with China]”. The Perth USAsia Centre’s Jeff Wilson concurred to the extent it was more a one-way “trade bashing”.

Yet Weihuan Zhou of the University of New South Wales also observes that “Australia itself has been one of the most frequent users of anti-dumping measures, particularly against China”.

The Last Farewell to the Mighty Mekong

By Tom Fawthrop

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The miracle of the Mekong, where the pulsating force of the monsoon-driven river every year pushes its tributary to back up and reverse its flow into the great Tonle Sap lake in Cambodia, has again been disrupted and obstructed by dams, drought, and climate change.

“This is a terrible disaster for the whole Mekong region,” Thai academic Chainarong Setthachua declared. He told The Diplomat, “If we lose the Tonle Sap we lose the heart of the biggest inland fisheries in the world.”

The lake is a critical fishing ground for Cambodia, as well as supporting fish migrations along the entire Mekong. Back in 2014, Chheng Phen, the former director of Cambodia’s Inland Fisheries Research and Development Institute, told the New York Times, “If the Tonle Sap does not function,” he said, “then the whole fishery of the Mekong will collapse.” That is exactly what the Mekong region is facing today.

China’s new economic strategy may not sit well with its people

David Uren
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China’s export machine has shifted up a gear, with global sales close to a record levels in July and August as its manufacturers respond to the demand generated by Covid-19 stimulus programs in Europe and the United States.

With global trade volumes facing a steep fall and prices also depressed, China’s share of world exports, which reached 13.5% last year, is likely closer to a record 16% now, which would be almost double the share of the US.

China’s imports are down because its own economy is still feeling the effects of the pandemic, so its surpluses are rising. China’s efforts to stimulate its economy have focused on supplying business credit, rather than supporting the incomes of displaced workers, which has been the primary response among most rich countries.

Leading trade economist Brad Setser, with the US Council on Foreign Relations, says that with rising exports and falling imports, China appears headed for a current account surplus of US$400 billion by the first quarter of next year, which he predicts will become a source of global friction.

The new China consensus: How Europe is growing wary of Beijing

Janka Oertel 

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Since the onset of the covid-19 crisis, there has been a new convergence of EU member states’ assessment of the challenges China poses to Europe.

The Sino-European economic relationship lacks reciprocity, and there are mounting concerns within the EU about China’s assertive approach abroad, as well as its breaches of international legal commitments and massive violations of human rights in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

Overall, there is growing scepticism about the future trajectory of the relationship, which provides an opportunity for a more robust and coherent EU policy on China.

In its remaining months, the German Council presidency could use this momentum to create institutional structures to improve the EU’s capacity to act.

In doing so, it will be crucial to ease concerns about Franco-German dominance of the China agenda – especially those of eastern and southern European countries – while enabling all member states to become more engaged in shaping the EU’s future approach to China.

INTRODUCTION

The Pandemic Is Showing What the EU Is Good For

By Joseph de Weck, Elettra Ardissino

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COVID-19 is testing plenty of aspects of the conventional wisdoms, including that the United States always bounces back from an economic crisis faster than old Europe. From the oil shock-induced stagnation in the 1970s, to the blasting of the dot-com bubble at the turn of the new millennium, to the 2008-2009 financial crisis, that axiom has always been true. But this time may be different.

After a moment of hesitation early in the pandemic, European countries took decisive action starting in mid-March to contain the virus and set up vast furlough schemes to preserve their economies until reopening could begin. The European Union even decided to take on nearly $890 billion in debt to assist its hardest-hit members. And with European consumption creeping back up, the recovery is underway. In July, EU retail trade volumes were even marginally up year-on-year. And Google data shows that visits to shops and restaurants are now close to pre-pandemic levels.

In the United States, however, massive fiscal spending by Washington has not prevented a chaotic health response from wrecking the economy. Job losses are translating into company foreclosures. And next to income losses, the heft of the second wave of infection has pushed many Americans to keep their consumption low as they adapt their behavior to avoid catching the coronavirus. In fact, U.S. data shows that mobility is still well below baseline.

Air University Press

Journal of European, Middle Eastern, and African Affairs, Fall 2020, v. 2, no. 3

Lassoing the Haboob

The Use of Helicopters against Guerrillas

The Revolution in Drone Warfare

It Is Time to Embrace the European Union’s Strategic Autonomy in Space

Islamic Radicalization in Belgium

Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, Fall 2020, v. 3, no. 3

India, the Blue Dot Network, and the “Quad Plus” Calculus

All Quiet on the Eastern Front?

Repression and Revolt in Balochistan

The United States and South Korea in the Indo-Pacific after COVID-19

Confronting China’s Maritime Expansion in the South China Sea

Fresh Whole Blood for the Near-Peer and Immature Theater Conflict

India’s Deterrence Goldilocks Dilemma in South Asia

Untapped Potential between India and Japan in the Indo-Pacific

Building the Next Generation of Chinese Military Leaders

India’s Indian Ocean Region Strategy

Avoiding Thucydides’ Trap in the Western Pacific through the Air Domain

Is the Donald Trump 2020 Campaign Nearly Broke?

by Jacob Heilbrunn 

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His presidential campaign has apparently burned through almost $800 million of the $1.1 billion it raised, including wasting 11 million on Super Bowl ads and another 4 million at Trump hotels and restaurants. Meanwhile, the Biden campaign, which has been focusing on Zoom events, in contrast to Trump who despises them, raised a record $365 million in August. The Trump campaign raised $165 million in July has not yet released its numbers for August, with the president apparently unhappy with the results.

Perhaps none of this should really come as a surprise. Trump, the most gifted pitchman in American history, a branding genius who eclipses any other celebrity, has moved on seamlessly from one bankruptcy to the next, always promising greener vistas just beyond the horizon, only to decamp once things get ugly, whether it’s Trump University or his United States Football League team. Now the presidency itself serves as his personal soapbox with the White House essentially conscripted into Trump enterprises. The recent Republican Convention showed just how far Trump has amalgamated the GOP itself into the family brand. Family members predominated; politicians were scarce. The GOP has become Trump’s own brand and he hopes to pass it on to his heirs as a kind of personal family trust.

But fiscal cracks are already starting to show up. It isn’t just that America itself is about to run a federal debt exceeding its GNP. It’s that Trump’s own campaign, which has traditionally served as a marker for a politician’s ability to govern, may be going belly-up.

Yes the U.S. Army's Artillery Can Act as Missile Defense

by Kris Osborn

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An M109 Paladin 155mm Howitzer made history recently by shooting down a fast-moving maneuvering cruise missile with a “hypervelocity projectile” able to travel at speeds up to Mach 5, according to an Air Force announcement. Historically, armored vehicles such as tanks, howitzers or infantry carriers have not operated with an ability to destroy fast-moving, long-range cruise missiles, yet the successful demonstration breaks new ground. 

The shoot-down, which took place at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, destroyed a “surrogate” Russian cruise missile target using the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS). 

In development for several years now, ABMS represents an Air Force technical initiative to engineer a “meshed” network of otherwise disconnected sensor “nodes” throughout a theater of combat operations. While an Air Force program, the effort is intended by all estimations to inform the Pentagon’s broader Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) technological system. 

The concept with JADC2 is to integrate sensor-to-shooter capabilities across air-land-sea-space and cyber domains in real-time, decreasing latency, expediting attacks and bringing new dimensions to “joint warfare.” 

How to Talk About Nuclear Weapons

by Zack Brown

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“The first media audit we did showed that, on the opinion pages, we were being beat three to one,” she said in an interview with the podcast, Press The Button. “For every one argument we made for arms control and disarmament, our opposition was making two and calling ours naive.”

At first glance, this editorial record might seem like a minor datapoint in the grand scheme of nuclear politics. But in a fast-moving democracy whose attention span is only as long as the shortest news cycle, wins in the court of public opinion—even small ones—can affect government policy in real ways.

For instance, arms control groups can occasionally influence nuclear-related legislation. But these victories, when unrecognized by the American public, can prove frustratingly fleeting. Any language, once placed in a draft bill, “can just as quickly be taken out if you don’t have a powerful constituency to back it up.”

It goes without saying, then, that building that constituency is a sine qua non of arms control. And this, according to Fahselt, is best accomplished by effective communication. In short, talking to people about nuclear policy—and making them care.

What Russia Really Has in Mind for Belarus

By Michael Carpenter and Vlad Kobets
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Popular protests against the authoritarian regime of Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus have left Western leaders anxious about how Russia will respond. Forceful intervention would not seem out of character for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has noted on state television that Lukashenko asked him to keep riot police at the ready in case “the situation gets out of control.” But such a course of action is almost certainly not Putin’s preference in Belarus. The Kremlin invaded and occupied territory in Georgia and Ukraine to prevent those countries from moving geopolitically westward. But in doing so, the Kremlin’s neoimperialists planted deep roots of resistance to Russian occupation and intensified popular support for Euro-Atlantic integration—especially among younger Georgians and Ukrainians. Belatedly, Moscow is learning that no amount of disinformation can reverse these trends.

For this reason, Putin has a different plan in mind for Belarus. Instead of deploying “little green men” to occupy Belarusian territory, Moscow is aiming for something we have called “soft annexation.” The strategy is to “boil the frog” gradually, starting with economic integration and a common currency, followed by political integration through a common foreign and defense policy, and culminating in a full-fledged Union State that would mean the de facto absorption of Belarus into Russia.

The Revenge of the Special Relationship

IAN BURUMA

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NEW YORK – Seventy-five years ago, the prestige of the United States and the United Kingdom could not have been higher. They had defeated imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, and they did so in the name of freedom and democracy. True, their ally, Stalin’s Soviet Union, had different ideas about these fine ideals, and did most of the fighting against Hitler’s Wehrmacht. Still, the English-speaking victors shaped the post-war order in large parts of the world.

The basic principles of this order had been laid down in the Atlantic Charter, drawn up in 1941 by Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt on a battleship off the coast of Newfoundland. What they had in mind, after the eventual defeat of the Axis powers, was a world of international cooperation, multilateral institutions, and the right of peoples to be independent and free. Although Churchill resisted extending this right to Britain’s colonial subjects, Roosevelt believed that the Anglo-American relationship was too important to quarrel about it too much.

For many decades, despite a number of reckless wars, eruptions of Cold War hysteria, and opportunistic support for some very undemocratic allies, the UK and the US maintained their image as models of liberal democracy and internationalism.

In the age of Donald Trump and Brexit, this image has been shattered. Of all the older democracies, it is in Britain and the US that right-wing populists have taken over conservative parties and rule their respective countries. The same has happened in Hungary and Poland, but they were never models of liberalism, and also in India, but its democracy is not as old.1

The Great Services Illusion

CÉLESTIN MONGA
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CAMBRIDGE – As the world prepares for the post-pandemic era, the quest for sustainable economic growth is becoming ever more intense – especially for developing countries. It is tempting to call for these countries – the main engine of global growth in recent decades – to shift their development strategies from industrialization to services. As new technologies increasingly allow services to be produced and traded just like goods, some economists even suggest that low-income economies should skip the manufacturing stage of development altogether and go directly from traditional agriculture to the new “growth escalator” of services.

The belief that services represent the new holy grail for developing countries stems in part from empirical studies showing that trade in services has increased faster than trade in manufactured goods since 2000, and in particular since 2011. The disruption of global value chains caused by COVID-19 has only reinforced this belief.

Moreover, new technologies such as 5G networks and cloud computing are fragmenting service processes and opening up new possibilities to outsource high-wage and costly activities. These trends are driving a so-called “third unbundling,” whereby some previously non-tradable services become tradable. With the world’s largest economies engaged in tariff wars and global trade declining sharply, many regard services as the most appropriate growth and employment engine, because they can be digitized and are less susceptible to customs and other logistical barriers.

The Solidarity America Needs

ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER, SHARON E. BURKE

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WASHINGTON, DC – The same deep tension lies at the heart of the fight against COVID-19 and climate change, particularly in democracies. In each case, the measures necessary to save everyone entail costs that widen existing inequalities. At a time when the United States and other democracies need solidarity, the resulting civic turmoil and division are feeding (and being fed by) populism.

In the US, the disastrous response to the pandemic has exacerbated class, racial, ethnic, and age divisions. Shutting down 60% of the economy for months, and then reopening it in an uneven state-by-state fashion, has pitted those who can work remotely and want to stay safe against those who cannot and thus regard public-health measures as tantamount to economic suicide.

The 40% of the economy that has remained open all along is staffed by millions of “essential workers,” who disproportionately comprise low-paid black and brown Americans. They are up to five times more likely than whites to be hospitalized for COVID-19, and – with more than 37,000 black Americans having now died from the disease – more than twice as likely to die. Intersecting these divides is the coronavirus’s differential impact on younger and older Americans, although jokes about COVID-19 being the “boomer remover” have faded as every age group suffers deaths and serious health consequences.

Retiring Abenomics

DANIEL GROS

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BERLIN – The official reason given for Shinzo Abe’s departure as Japan’s longest-serving prime minister was personal health. And now, his signature economic-policy program may be headed for a similar fate.

“Abenomics” was ushered in with great fanfare in 2013, so it is worth considering what it has accomplished over the past seven years. The official version on the Japanese government’s website has always featured three “policy arrows” targeted at aggressive monetary policy, flexible fiscal policy, and growth strategy, including structural reform.

Of these, monetary policy was clearly the biggest focus. The Bank of Japan (BOJ) launched a massive quantitative-easing (QE) program to buy up government debt, of which it now owns about half. But while the official goal was to push up annual inflation to 2%, that target has yet to be reached.

The low efficacy of QE was predictable from the outset, given that long-term interest rates were already low in early 2013, at around 0.6%. Since 2016, they have fluctuated around zero. One might thus attribute to Abenomics’ monetary “arrow” a fall of 0.6 points, not enough to ignite inflation.

Some observers took the second arrow of Abenomics, “flexible fiscal policy,” to mean fiscal stimulus, while others foresaw fiscal consolidation. In the event, the policies pursued have mostly fallen into the latter category. Just before Abe returned to power in December 2012, the fiscal deficit was over 8% of GDP; by 2016-19, it had been reduced to 3-4%.

Herd Immunity Is Not a Strategy

BY JAMES HAMBLIN

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One of the pandemic’s most insidious misconceptions is getting closer to explicit national policy. On Monday, The Washington Post reported that a top Trump medical adviser, Scott Atlas, has been “urging the White House to embrace a controversial ‘herd immunity’ strategy.” Atlas subsequently deniedthe report, though during his time as a Fox News commentator he consistently argued in favor of fringe approaches that go hand in hand with the idea: namely that city and state shutdowns are deadlier than the coronavirus itself.

The idea of abandoning preventive measures and letting the virus infect people has already gotten traction in the administration. Just last week, Atlas moved to ease up on the most important strategy to fight the virus—widespread testing—by telling the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to change its guidelines to advise against testing asymptomatic people. On Monday night, the president referenced the concept in an appearance on Fox News, explaining, “Once you get to a certain number—we use the word herd—once you get to a certain number, it’s going to go away.”

But “herd-immunity strategy” is a contradiction in terms, in that herd immunity is the absence of a strategy. Herd immunity is an important public-health concept, developed and used to guide vaccination policy. It involves a calculation of the percentage of people in a population who would need to achieve immunity in order to prevent an outbreak. The same concept offers little such guidance during an ongoing pandemic without a vaccine. If it were a military strategy, it would mean letting the enemy tear through you until they stop because there’s no one left to attack.

It Will Take More Than a Vaccine to Beat COVID-19

By Dhruv Khullar

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The first outbreak of polio in the United States struck Rutland County, Vermont, in the summer of 1894. The disease began with fever, sore throat, and fatigue; it sometimes went on to damage the brain and spinal cord, paralyzing or even killing its hosts. Charles Caverly, a local physician, chronicled the devastation using detailed maps and notes. “Boy, 10 years; died within twenty-four hours with convulsions,” he wrote. “Boy, 10 months; died on sixth day, all extremities paralyzed. . . . Girl, 11 years; died on third day, no paralysis noted. . . . Male, 22 years; died on third day, both legs paralyzed.” Within weeks, a hundred and thirty-two people, mostly children, had been paralyzed, and eighteen had died.

In the coming decades, polio became a familiar menace. Summer, when the virus exacted its heaviest toll, was dubbed “polio season.” The virus crippled children and adults, often paralyzing their respiratory muscles and confining thousands to iron lungs. In 1916, New York City recorded nine thousand cases of polio and six thousand deaths. In August of 1921, Franklin Roosevelt, then a thirty-nine-year-old lawyer, fell off a sailboat and into the icy waters of the Bay of Fundy; the next day, he noticed lower-back pain, and within a week he could no longer stand. The pace and size of outbreaks accelerated. Even though the polio death rate declined in the decades that followed, owing to advances in medical care, the virus still disabled more than thirty-five thousand people a year during the nineteen-forties. In 1952—the year the virus peaked in America—nearly sixty thousand people were infected, and more than three thousand died. Parents refused to let their kids play outside. Cities introduced social-distancing measures. Summer camps were cancelled; schools were shut down; bars and theatres closed.

Is America a Myth?

By Robin Wright

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The United States feels like it is unravelling. It’s not just because of a toxic election season, a national crisis over race, unemployment and hunger in the land of opportunity, or a pandemic that’s killing tens of thousands every month. The foundation of our nation has deepening cracks—possibly too many to repair anytime soon, or, perhaps, at all. The ideas and imagery of America face existential challenges—some with reason, some without—that no longer come only from the fringes. Rage consumes many in America. And it may only get worse after the election, and for the next four years, no matter who wins. Our political and cultural fissures have generated growing doubt about the stability of a country that long considered itself an anchor, a model, and an exception to the rest of the world. Scholars, political scientists, and historians even posit that trying to unite disparate states, cultures, ethnic groups, and religions was always illusory.

“The idea that America has a shared past going back into the colonial period is a myth,” Colin Woodard, the author of “Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood,” told me. “We are very different Americas, each with different origin stories and value sets, many of which are incompatible. They led to a Civil War in the past and are a potentially incendiary force in the future.”

Costs of War

David Vine, Cala Coffman, Katalina Khoury, Madison Lovasz, Helen Bush, Rachel Leduc, and Jennifer Walkup

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Since President George W. Bush announced a “global war on terror” following Al Qaeda’s September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, the U.S. military has engaged in combat around the world. As in past conflicts, the United States’ post-9/11 wars have resulted in mass population displacements. This report is the first to measure comprehensively how many people these wars have displaced. Using the best available international data, this report conservatively estimates that at least 37 million people have fled their homes in the eight most violent wars the U.S. military has launched or participated in since 2001. The report details a methodology for calculating wartime displacement, provides an overview of displacement in each war-affected country, and points to displacement’s individual and societal impacts. 

Wartime displacement (alongside war deaths and injuries) must be central to any analysis of the post-9/11 wars and their short- and long-term consequences. Displacement also must be central to any possible consideration of the future use of military force by the United States or others. Ultimately, displacing 37 million—and perhaps as many as 59 million—raises the question of who bears responsibility for repairing the damage inflicted on those displaced.

Trump Draws Eisenhower Comparisons After Criticizing Military-Industrial Complex

BY DAVID BRENNAN 

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President Donald Trump's difficult week with the military got a little worse on Monday, when the commander in chief accused the Pentagon leadership of pushing for conflicts in order to keep defense contractors profitable.

The president later shared tweets comparing himself to former President Dwight Eisenhower, who warned Americans about the rising power of the military-industrial complex in a 1961 speech marking the end of his time in office.

Trump has long framed himself as a staunch ally of the military and claimed enduring support among service members for his administration. The president has pushed to expand America's gargantuan military budget and repeatedly bragged about the strength of the U.S. armed forces.

But the president has also grappled with multiple military controversies, accused of using service members as political props, criticized for maligning prominent veterans, putting troops in harm's way unnecessarily and, according to an Atlantic report last week, dismissing U.S. war dead as "losers."

Army Chief Denies Trump’s Claim That Generals Make War for Arms Makers

BY KATIE BO WILLIAMS

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Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville on Tuesday pushed back on President Trump’s assertion that Pentagon leaders go to war to please arms manufacturers.

“I can assure the American people that the senior leaders would only recommend sending our troops to combat when it’s required for national security and a last resort,” McConville said during an interview with Defense One online. “We take this very, very seriously how we make our recommendations.”

“I feel strongly about that,” he said.

McConville was careful to say that he was not responding to Trump’s claim, made to White House reporters on Monday, that “the top people in the Pentagon” don’t like him “because they want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy.”But asked directly whether Trump’s characterization was accurate, McConville said that “many” of the senior leaders in the U.S. military have sons and daughters in uniform. 

“When I take a look at the senior leaders in the United States military, many of these leaders have sons and daughters that served in the military,” he said. “Many of these leaders have sons and daughters who have gone to combat who may be in combat right now.”

Eternal Brexit

By George Friedman

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In 2016, the British government called for a referendum on whether the United Kingdom should remain a member of the European Union. The British people voted to leave. Since then, there has been a struggle in Britain to reverse the decision and a struggle between Britain and the EU on the terms of the departure. It’s now 2020, and the process still isn’t finished. Given that the EU is based merely on a treaty – not a federation – sovereignty is a matter for individual states, not the “government” in Brussels. Treaties are arrangements between nations, not a merger of nations, and therefore are reversible.

Since we are about to see a new and presumably final round of negotiations on the divorce, with the EU now calling for a rapid resolution, even as the Irish question is now the blocker, the real issue is how this matter has dragged on so long. To anyone who has been divorced or seen one, it makes sense: Divorces are almost always filled with rage, recrimination, desires to inflict pain and sometimes the desire that the old affection be resurrected. The children are made pawns. Friends must choose sides. The difference, of course, is that Britain’s relationship to the EU is simply a matter of national interest and not the result of a love affair. Britain and the EU lived together when they had to, but they never married. And so the lawyers continue to meet as each side creates more barriers to an amiable disengagement.

Taliban Return to Doha, Setting Stage for Afghan Peace Talks

By Kathy Gannon

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In this photo provided by Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, right, greets members of a Taliban political team on their arrival at the Foreign Ministry for talks, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2020.Credit: Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs via AP

Taliban officials say a senior delegation returned early Saturday to Qatar, paving the way for the start of peace talks with the Afghan government that are expected to take place in the tiny Gulf state. 

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The delayed negotiations are the second, critical part to a peace deal the U.S. signed with the Taliban in February in Doha.

The Taliban delegation’s arrival in Qatar, where the group keeps its political office, came as a top Afghan government body blamed the militants for delays in starting talks.

In a tweet on Saturday, the spokesman for Kabul’s High Council for National Reconciliation, Faraidoon Khwazoon, said the government was ready to start direct negotiations. 

Can Nepal’s Army Become a Threat to Its Democracy?

By Sushav Niraula

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Since the overthrow of monarchy in Nepal in 2006, there has been a lot of twists and turns in the country’s politics. These twists and turns have constantly changed the fortunes of Nepal’s political parties. From the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist, the party of former guerrillas, to their ideological opposite — the monarch supporting dyed-in-the-wool conservative Rastriya Prajatantra Party — all at some point have sat in power in Kathmandu. Like parties in clientelist democracies, when in power Nepali political parties have weakened state institutions with partisan appointments. This has not only decreased citizen trust in state institutions but also decreased trust in political parties. The 2017 survey by the Asia Foundation shows just 7 percent Nepalis “fully trust” political parties.

Amid decreasing trust in political parties and other state institutions, the Nepal Army has continuously guarded and expanded its sphere of influence while keeping public trust intact. The same survey reported 29 percent of Nepalis “fully trust” the army. This is more than the trust expressed for the judiciary, government, or the other two security agencies: Nepal Police and Armed Police Force. All this is remarkable given that this is the same army which was seen as being close to the former Shah monarchs.

Abe Ruined the Most Important Democratic Relationship in Asia

BY S. NATHAN PARK
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The reviews of the foreign policy of Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who announced his resignation on Aug. 28 citing health reasons, have been largely positive. The overall assessment is that Abe was a “pragmatic realist,” strengthening the alliance with the United States, finding new partnerships with rising powers like Australia and India, promoting free trade and the liberal order, and striking a more assertive and influential posture on the international stage. But such assessments miss one critical point: Abe took Japan’s relationship with South Korea, one of Japan’s most important security and trade partners, and drove it into a ditch for reasons neither realistic nor pragmatic.

In a Gallup Korea poll from November 2019, Abe’s favorability among the South Korean public clocked in at miserable 3 percent, lower than Russia’s Vladimir Putin (17 percent), China’s Xi Jinping (15 percent), and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un (9 percent). To be sure, Abe does not deserve a lower favorability rating than Putin, Xi, or Kim, irrespective of his faults. Abe’s low favorability is also not entirely his fault; rather, in no small part, it is a reflection of the fact that he interacted mostly with former South Korean President Park Geun-hye, the radioactively unpopular leader who was impeached and removed from office in 2017. Nevertheless, it remains true that Abe took a thriving relationship, if one still haunted by historical issues, and left it in pieces.

Why China Is Trying to Copy Japan’s Old Political Plan for Declaring Primacy in Asia

by Patrick Mendis Joey Wang

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In its continuing tensions with Japan, China sailed its ships near the Senkaku (Diaoyu in Chinese) Islands for 111-days straight beginning on April 14 until August 3, ending Beijing’s pressure on Tokyo only due to the approaching Typhoon Hagupit. These uninhabited islets in the East China Sea are claimed by China and Taiwan even as Beijing continues to challenge Washington in the South China Sea, Taipei in the Taiwan Strait, and New Delhi on border issues. If history is any guide, then China’s overall actions appear to be following the pattern of post-Meiji restoration (1868–1912) Japan. 

Like China, Japan in the nineteenth century was too weak politically and too backward economically to repel the advances of the West. However, Japan’s view of its role in the world would depart from that of China. Whereas China’s place in the world remained largely unchanged well into the middle of the twentieth century, Japan would embark on modernization before 1900, build on a successful “industrial economy” and preserving the “empire,” according to William Beasley in his definitive book, Japanese Imperialism, 1894–1945. 

China’s Most Strained Relations Are With Its Most Valuable Trading Partners

By Bala Ramasamy, Mathew Yeung, and Wu Howei
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In the last three years, tensions among major powers have escalated, with China involved, willingly or otherwise, in several episodes. These include the trade war with the United States, border frictions with India, maritime issues with several Southeast Asian countries in the South China Sea, industrial espionage accusations involving Huawei, the U.K. and other Western countries’ reaction to the national security law in Hong Kong, and more recently controversy surrounding the origins of the novel coronavirus.

Who are China’s foes? To what extent can China rely on its friends? Given the importance of the international sector in the Chinese economy, these are important questions to consider. Trade sanctions, as in the past, can be used to punish China. If such sanctions are carried out, to what extent will China’s international trade be affected?

We took the 26 major trading partners, which make up 80 percent of China’s total trade, and then excluded Taiwan due to data inconsistency and Hong Kong due to Chinese goods being re-exported from the city. We classified the remaining 24 countries based on their relationship with China using big data. We counted the number of articles in the Financial Times and South China Morning Post, over the period of January to June 2020, that contained negative sentiments such as “tension,” “disagreement,” “dispute,” “accusation,” and “war” involving China and its trading partners. We categories the countries with the largest of negative connotations as “red” while the green countries are those with the least. The yellow ones are those around the average.

America has to invest in advanced chipmakers or lose battle to China

BY JAMES ANDREW LEWIS

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The United States is in the fierce competition with the hostile country of China. This is a new kind of conflict in which technological leadership is critical. Our opponents learned from us that such an advantage provides influence and authority in international affairs, and this is vital for military strength. They seek the technological leadership that we have held, and there is a real risk that the United States could lose its edge.

China has one clear advantage in that it is willing to spend money. China is not like the sluggish Soviet Union. Even if it was more like the old Soviet Union, the United States no longer makes the federal investments needed for competition. We spend much less today than during the golden age of American technology. In contrast, research and development spending by China reached $550 billion back in 2018, more than that of Japan, France, Germany, South Korea, and the United Kingdom combined. It is unrealistic to be in a competition with China without more spending.

Semiconductors are the strategic industry of the modern era. They power our economy and our weapons. China knows this, which is why it plans to spend over $58 billion on investments for semiconductors, including this corporate tax exemption lasting one decade for firms that make advanced chips and a pledge of another $60 billion from local governments, as well as other policies aimed at improving the production of chips. These other policies aim to bolster the workforce, expand research and development, and incentivize foreign companies to relocate to China, which also hires away engineers and engages in espionage to fuel its efforts.

Chinese chip giant SMIC 'in shock' after US trade ban threat

By Leo Kelion
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China's largest chip manufacturer's stock sank after the US revealed it could be its next trade ban target.

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) said it was "in complete shock and perplexity" after the Pentagon revealed it had proposed the firm be added to a government blacklist.

This would restrict suppliers from providing it with American-based tech without special permission.

Beijing said it was "firmly opposed".

A foreign ministry spokesman accused Washington of "blatant bullying" and using supposed national security concerns to break international trade rules .

The move could make SMIC the next focus of a trade clash that has already threatened Chinese tech firm Huawei's survival and forced Bytedance to negotiate the sell-off of video-sharing app TikTok's American operations.

SMIC has a less advanced production line than some of its rivals - it cannot make transistors as small as they can, limiting its ability to produce some of the cutting-edge chips featured in the latest smartphones.