Global Economies

The piece, originally published in The Globalist, identifies three major shifts in U.S. perceptions of China in the context of the 2012 Presidential campaign.

Click here to find the article at The Straits Times.

Click here to read it at China US Focus.

The article was adapted from Firestein's speech given at the 2012 Affordable World Security Conference, viewable here:

Earlier this week the European Commission opened a formal antitrust investigation against the Russian gas company for allegedly hindering competition in Central and Eastern European gas markets. 

Click here to read the article in EurActiv.

A new debate has started on the nature of a redefined Indian foreign policy that takes into account the country’s transformed relations with the United States of America. The latter is openly seeking a close political, economic and security relationship with India. The rhetoric is at times high-flown, calling US ties with India indispensable for the 21st century and describing India as a lynchpin of America’s ‘re-balancing’ towards the Asia-Pacific region.

Some experts would prefer a ‘non-alignment 2.0’ policy for India to deal with the reconfiguration of geo-politics caused by the relative decline of the US and the West and the rise of China. While this nomenclature may arouse misgivings in some quarters because of its ideological overtones and, more so, its political irrelevance in a world no longer divided into rival alliances, in reality the authors of this concept propose issue-based collaboration with diverse partners depending on the confluence of interests. This seems pragmatic and non-ideological.

Many advocate a foreign policy of ‘strategic autonomy’ for India. This implies that India retain its independence in foreign policy making, and not be obliged to follow any powerful actor or a set of actors in any course of action that does not conform to its long term national interest. Rather than be caught in strategic rivalries between countries that are hurtful to its interests, it should have the freedom to engage with opposing sides if that is useful.

This debate would suggest that India’s foreign policy remains in a fluid state and is seeking to discover its moorings, with the implication that India has not yet come to terms with the radically altered global situation of today. It carries the nuance that India is under pressure to tilt towards one side (the US), which India should not succumb to.

In reality, there should be no need to define Indian foreign policy in core conceptual terms. Defining it thus does not give it a coherence, a sense of purpose and clarity that might be otherwise missing. The big powers do not seem to need to define their foreign policies for conceptual clarity. They just conduct their foreign affairs, based on certain broad principles and practical considerations. An analysis of their positions on a range of international issues would bring out the prominent features of the policies they pursue, but encapsulating them in one or two words would hardly be enlightening.

How would one, in any case, define US or Chinese foreign policies? No single-word definition is possible. US foreign policy, for instance, is full of contradictions. It is supposedly anchored in the promotion of democracy worldwide but it supports some of the most anti-democratic regimes in the world. Military intervention to support human rights in one country is contradicted by military protection to other countries that suppress the fundamental human rights of their population. Religious extremism is fought on the one hand and promoted on the other. Overdependence on China is coupled with hedging strategies against its rise that is seen as adversarial.

China claims that its rise is not a threat, that it wants a peaceful periphery, yet it is developing powerful military capabilities, asserting extensive land and maritime claims in the South China Sea, thriving on Japanese investments but has a visceral hatred of Japan, it is benefiting hugely from its partnership with the US even as in East Asia it is US power that it principally confronts. In other words, it, too, manages contradictions.

In this background, only confusion is caused by seeking to define in political shorthand India’s foreign policy as non-alignment 2.0 or strategic autonomy. India’s foreign policy can simply be loosely described as protecting its national interests as effectively as possible in a globalized world that demands cooperative solutions and a competitive world that demands management of conflicting interests without confrontation. This would eliminate the implicit intrusion of the US factor in explaining the core of our foreign policy objectives. In a situation where India can, by skilful handling, gain much from its improved relations with the US, it would be undesirable to frame its foreign policy objectives in terms of the strategic distance it wants to maintain from the US.

In actual fact, this debate about strategic autonomy is behind the times. India’s post Cold War policies testify to its desire to maintain ‘strategic autonomy’ in a situation of strategic shifts in global power equations. India, for example, has established strategic partnerships with several countries that include, besides the US, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Japan and so on. It has a strategic dialogue even with China, its principal geo-political adversary. By establishing such partnerships with countries with key differences and conflicting interests amongst themselves, India is, in fact, expanding its strategic room for manoeuvre.

India is member of the Russia-India-China or RIC dialogue, with member countries opposing regime change policies and interference in the internal affairs of sovereign countries, and supporting multipolarity. It is member of BRICS, which, by including Brazil and South Africa, extends strategic understandings on some basic norms of international conduct to key countries in South America and Africa. India supports the US led Community of Democracies, capitalizing on its democratic credentials, even if the sense of the grouping is directed against countries like China and even Russia. India has agreed to a trilateral US-India-Japan dialogue, including naval exercises, with its anti-Chinese thrust quite clear although officially denied. The intensive US-India naval exercises in the Indian Ocean have a China related strategic purpose, even as India is open to maritime cooperation with China in the Indian Ocean area. India cooperates with China in the climate change and World Trade Organization negotiations because it serves a common purpose of countering the US/European attempts to avoid equity in agreements.

India respects Russia’s special interests in Central Asia but is open to US strategic moves to promote strategic energy links between Central Asia and South Asia. It is willing to strengthen its role in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization even if the US sees it as an arrangement to limit US influence in Central Asia. India supports an extended US presence in Afghanistan even though Iran is opposed to it. India is avoiding getting caught in the Shia (Iran)-Sunni (Saudi Arabia) conflict building up in the Gulf. It successfully resisted Western pressures to reduce its engagement with Myanmar.

India’s independent posture explains why it has obtained support for its Security Council permanent membership from both the West and Russia. Russia’s position as India’s biggest partner for defence supplies has not prevented India from now expanding its defence ties with the US. The US seems reconciled that India will not be an ally and will want to retain its independence in foreign policy decisions. It will nevertheless seek to tie India closer to itself in a way that India’s pragmatic choices will pull India in that direction. If India continues to have a clear-sighted view of its longer term interests, it will be able to balance its relationship with all the major players in a constructive way. But without a domestic defence manufacturing base, high rates of economic growth and improvement in decision-making, our independent foreign policy will always have weak foundations.

Photo: "Indian Flag - The Mall - Shimla - Himach" (CC BY-SA 2.0) by Adam Jones, Ph.D. - Global Photo Archive

Some of these tensions are directly related to Russia’s WTO membership application. Now that Russia has joined the WTO, the United States finds itself in violation of WTO rules that require an unconditioned trade relationship. Back in 1974, Congress passed the Jackson-Vanik amendment that tied free trade to free emigration in non-market economies as a means of pressuring the Kremlin to allow Soviet Jews to emigrate. Russian officials have pointed out for years that this is an anarchic piece of legislation since Russia is neither a non-market economy nor does it restrict emigration. Yet despite the efforts of successive U.S. presidential administrations to graduate Russia from the Jackson-Vanik amendment, Congress has thus far refused to act. In part, this is because many members of Congress continued to view Russia through a Cold War prism.

Now that Russia has joined the WTO, such attitudes are changing—up to a point. Both the House and the Senate are considering bills that would graduate Russia from Jackson-Vanik and grant permanent normal trade relations (PNTR). There is a possibility—although far from assured—that Congress could act when it returns from the August recess. The price, however, will be tying PNTR to passage of the Magnitsky bill, which focuses on human rights abuses by government officials in Russia. These human rights objections are not as easily dismissed as those rooted in outdated Cold War thinking.

The Obama administration has sought to delink Magnitsky and human rights issues from PNTR, but Russia’s recent increasingly heavy-handed treatment of political dissenters has undercut those efforts. Congressional and other critics of its human rights record point to the recent trial and two-year jail sentence for the punk band Pussy Riot, opposition leader Garry Kasparov’s arrest, the relentless pursuit of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the efforts to undermine non-governmental organizations that receive foreign funding by subjecting them to frequent audits and labeling them as “foreign agents,” and increased penalties for protestors.

Those same critics argue that the Obama administration has turned its head as the Russian government moves backwards on human rights with such actions. Such criticism is not entirely fair. The administration has imposed visa bans on officials linked to the Magnitsky case (the Magnitsky bill seeks to do something similar, but on a broader scale) and has used official channels to quietly press the Kremlin on human rights. The problem, however, is that the Obama administration has not been able to engage the Putin administration on these issues. The Russian government rejects all such criticisms of its human rights practices, calling them an intolerable meddling in its domestic affairs.

So the bilateral relationship is dealing with—or, perhaps more accurately, not dealing with—several significant stressors. And the U.S. presidential contest is certain to shine an uncomfortable spotlight on the strained relationship as the Romney team seeks to undermine any foreign policy successes that the Obama administration claims, such as New START and Russia’s WTO accession. Mitt Romney already launched one broadside against Russia, calling it the “greatest geopolitical foe.” While the Republican candidate has quietly dropped such inflated rhetoric, he is unlikely to soften his overall tone. And given Putin’s tough measures against dissenters and his policy on Syria that is widely seen as obstructionist, even Obama is likely to feel compelled to distance himself from Russia’s actions at home and abroad. For now, the once-touted notion of a “strategic partnership” between Russia and the United States is, at the very least, on hold. It would take some major course corrections to give it a new push.

Jacqueline McLaren Miller is a Senior Associate in EWI's Strategic Trust-Building Initiative, where she runs the U.S. program.

“The dynamic of change is the people themselves, which is what makes this exciting and unpredictable at the same time,” said Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center and fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. “This is a process that is long overdue.”

Others saw both opportunities and perils in the new situation. Egyptian Foreign Ministry official Tamim Khallaf described the changes as part of a larger process of de-militarization of Arab governments, and he hailed the first free presidential elections in his country. Turkish economist Gökhan Bacik called the Arab Spring “a great economic opportunity for Turkey.”

But others warned of the dangers of populism when the early euphoria turns to disappointment as economic problems persist, and expressed concerns about new divisions, particularly within Islamic movements. “We are witnessing centrifugal forces at work that are pulling at the old religious and tribal divides,” said Isobel Coleman of the Council on Foreign Relations.

While some panelists disagreed on whether to call the upheavals in the region a revolution or an awakening, there was consensus that, whatever label is used, the magnitude of the changes cannot be denied. “This is not something seasonal or brief,” said Dan Arbell, Minister of Political Affairs at the Israeli Embassy in Washington. “I see this as a tectonic shift.”

Predictably, there were sharp disagreements on Iran’s nuclear program. Ambassadior Seyed Hossein Mousavian, who served as Iran’s spokesman during its nuclear negotiations with the European Union from 2003 to 2005, declared: “Iran is prepared to accept a deal based on maximum transparency measures.” But according to Israeli diplomat Arbell, “The window for the diplomatic option is closing.”

Panelists also discussed the Syrian crisis, the internal disagreements in Israel about that country’s future, the impact of the regional upheavals on women and minorities, and the prospects for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.

For more information on speakers and panel sessions, click here to download the agenda.

MP3s of panel sessions:

Panel I: Unfinished Transformations in the Middle East and their Effect on the Regional Security Dynamic (1:43:38)

Panel II: The Two-Level Game: How are Current Domestic Politics Affecting Foreign Policy Decision-making? (1:37:34)

Panel III: Chances for Rapprochement: What Role for Multilateral Initiatives? (1:28:18)

Portions of the livestream recording are available for viewing here via EWI's Ustream channel:

Click here for more coverage of the event by the Inter Press Service.

From June 16 to 19, 2012, senior retired flag officers of the U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force met with Chinese retired senior generals of the People’s Liberation Army to discuss pressing issues in the U.S.-China military-to-military relationship.  This fourth iteration of the bilateral talks between retired senior officers, known as the Sanya Initiative, spanned two days of private dialogue at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD, and two days of meetings with senior elected officials and policy experts in Washington, D.C. 

The six principal Chinese delegates, in order of seniority, were:

• Gen. Li Qianyuan, former Commander of PLA Lanzhou Military Region
• Gen. Zhu Qi, former Commander of PLA Beijing Military Region
• Adm. Hu Yanlin, former Political Commissar of PLA Navy
• Gen. Zheng Shenxia, former President of the Academy of Military Sciences
• Lt. Gen. Wang Liangwang, former Deputy Commander of PLA Air Force
• Lt. Gen. Zhao Xijun, former Deputy Commander of the PLA Second Artillery Force

The six principal U.S. delegates, in alphabetical order, were:

• Gen. James Cartwright, Former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
• Gen. Kevin Chilton, Former Commander of U.S. Strategic Command
• Lt. Gen. Dave Deptula, Former Deputy Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force
• Adm. William Fallon, Former Commander of U.S. Central Command
• Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, Former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
• Adm. William Owens, Former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

For the first time in the Sanya Initiative’s four-year history, the EastWest Institute (EWI) was involved in the coordination of this meeting, in cooperation with the Chinese Association for International Friendly Contact.  EWI’s President and CEO John Edwin Mroz, Vice President for the Strategic Trust-Building Initiative and Track 2 Diplomacy David J. Firestein, Chief of Staff James Creighton, and China Program Senior Associate Piin-Fen Kok also participated in the discussions. 

The Annapolis talks covered a range of topics of military and political importance to the United States and China.  Delegates held sessions on the U.S. rebalancing, or “pivot,” to Asia, North Korea, the South China Sea, U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, America’s Air-Sea Battle Concept, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and managing the U.S.-China military-to-military relationship.  While there was consensus on some issues and disagreement on others, both sides agreed that cultivating communication and mutual understanding between the militaries of the United States and China is essential for fostering the cooperation between the two nations necessary to address the world’s most difficult issues.

“We are two strategic nations, and we must act in strategic ways because of influences we have around the globe and because of the leadership that we demonstrate around the globe for all other nations,” Gen. Cartwright noted in his remarks in Annapolis. “[But] it’s very important for all of us at this table to realize that if the United States fails as a nation or if China fails as a nation, we both fail.”

 Gen. Li Qianyuan, the Chinese delegation leader, expressed a similar sentiment. 

“The U.S. and China have a shared desire to strengthen coordination and cooperation on most major issues and to develop a new type of state-to-state relationship to the benefit of both of our peoples and the peoples of the world. Coming together through the Sanya Initiative, we will surely help to deepen mutual understanding, build mutual trust, reduce misunderstanding, and promote the great cause of friendship between our two countries.”

The second half of the Sanya Initiative meeting took place in Washington, D.C., where the U.S. and Chinese delegates held discussions with Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and John McCain (R-AZ), respectively Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Arms Services Committee, and Representatives Charles Boustany (R-LA) and Rick Larsen (D-WA), Co-Chairmen of the House U.S.-China Working Group.  The delegates visited the Pentagon to meet with Mark W. Lippert, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs, and Lieutenant General Terry Wolff, Director, Strategic Plans and Policy, Joint Staff, J5.  At the State Department, the delegates spoke with Kurt Campbell, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.  The delegates were also invited to dinner by former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and former Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt.  Prior to traveling to Annapolis and Washington, the Chinese delegation held meetings with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Chairman of the Starr Foundation Maurice Greenberg, and the CEO of NYSE Euronext Duncan Niederauer in New York.

The Sanya Initiative meeting was made possible with the generous support of the Starr Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the China-United States Exchange Foundation.

Disparate forces are inevitably colliding this week as world leaders meet in Rio de Janeiro to take part in the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio+20. The goal of the conference is to bring together participants from around the globe to discuss how to improve worldwide coordination of policies that foster sustainable development and alleviate poverty.

One of the ideological battles taking place in Brazil, and around the world, is how to reconcile the immediate demand for energy with the longer term needs for sustainability. Two of the most visible opponents in this conflict are Greenpeace and Shell Oil.

At the Earth Summit in Rio, Greenpeace unveiled a campaign for a UN resolution that would curb Arctic oil exploration. What has recently raised the ire of Greenpeace is Shell’s plan to commence petroleum exploration in the Arctic region as the thawing ice cap opens up previously inaccessible areas.

Shell, for its part, says that the Arctic may hold the equivalent of 400 billion barrels of oil and that exploration of the area is vital to securing petroleum resources needed to meet rising global energy demands.

The Rio Earth Summit has been convened in hopes of finding sustainable solutions to problems like this. The relationship between economic and environmental interests is also a major focus area of the EastWest Institute. EWI’s economic security initiative is dedicated to securing a better global future through private-public partnerships that develop consensus and cooperation on issues ranging from protecting the digital economy to devising new strategies to deal with water, food and energy scarcity. Recent and upcoming efforts include the Affordable World Security Conference in March, 2012, and the 9th Annual Worldwide Security Conference to be held November, 2012 in Brussels.

The Rio+20 conference follows in the footsteps of 1992 Earth Summit, which also met in Brazil. Like the current conference, the air was  to rethink the current path of economic growth in light of future dilemmas facing the environment and social development. Among the issues that were discussed: Increased desertification, threats to the oceans, deterioration of infrastructure and limited access to fuel, food and water.

In tandem with Rio+20, a group of mayors from 58 of the world’s megacities also met in Rio de Janeiro to tackle climate change. This gathering, dubbed Rio+C40, presented innovative methods to deal with fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions, sources of alternative energy, landfill and infrastructure maintenance and more efficient transportation programs.

Coinciding with these two meetings was another gathering to the north: the G20 Leaders Summit. The leaders the world’s most developed economies met in Los Cabos, Mexico to discuss the international financial system. They focused on the global economy, specifically Europe’s current crisis. While the G20 and the global financial system captured far more immediate public attention, the Rio Earth Summit raised issues that are critical to long-term sustainability.

For its part, EWI is intent on continuing to spur new efforts to reconcile current needs, growth and sustainability. We do not feel that these goals are contradictory. As Shell points out, there is growing demand for energy. But, as Greenpeace noted, there is also an urgent need for new climate initiatives. Beyond the Rio+20 summit, all of the key players will need to work towards overcoming their current differences to promote economic development that is both sustainable and productive.

Writing for Pakistan's The News International, EWI board member Ikram Sehgal, a security analyst, examines the implications of the French election on prospects for economic recovery and stability in Southwest Asia.

Click here to read this column in Pakistan's The News International.

Writing for India Today, EWI board member Kanwal Sibal, former foreign secretary of India, assesses the likely impact of Hollande's administration on the Franco-Indian relationship.

Click here to read this column in India Today.

Rauscher's panel, "Securing the Supply Chain," addressed, among other issues, "the vast interconnectedness of today's supply chain and the challenges of securing both computer systems and supply chains."