Politics and Governance

Few observers can deny that Afghanistan is having trouble holding together. With the Islamic State (IS) and a resurgent Taliban chipping away at the country’s fragile foundations, the United States is scrambling to find new sources of help to prop up the Afghan state. China has long been seen as one of the most promising prospects for such help, and when Chinese President Xi Jinping made his first state visit to the United States in September 2015, President Barack Obama’s administration wasted no time courting him on cooperation in Afghanistan. 

As each side released its outcome statement from the visit, however, it became clear that the U.S. and China are quite literally not on the same page regarding Afghanistan. While the U.S. “fact sheet” on the visit put Afghanistan as its lead item, China buried U.S.-China cooperation on Afghanistan near the bottom of its statement—the 41st item of 49. A few weeks later, President Obama announced that U.S. combat troops would remain in Afghanistan for at least the remainder of his term in office. China, it seems, would not be the savior for Afghanistan that the United States was looking for.

One major reason for this disconnect is that China’s interests in Afghanistan remain largely tied to a single issue: Uyghur separatist groups in China’s western frontier region of Xinjiang and their suspected ties to insurgent groups in Afghanistan.Some have pointed to the Uyghur connection as a potential hook to involve China more deeply in Afghanistan’s stabilization and reconstruction. But while it is true that the Uyghur issue has spurred China to act constructively in Afghanistan in some respects, including substantial investment commitments and mediation of peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, relying on the Uyghur connection alone to anchor China’s Afghanistan interest poses a number of problems.

First, China’s policies toward its Uyghur population have long raised human rights concerns in Washington, and the United States’ refusal to label all Uyghur unrest as “terrorism” has frustrated China in bilateral discussions. The U.S. has also hesitated to expand counterterrorism cooperation with China for fear that China would use its newfound capabilities to persecute the broader Uyghur population. Second, China has been reluctant to act in Afghanistan on issues that lack direct implications for its concerns about Xinjiang. On top of a general predilection for non-interference, China views the U.S. nation-building misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan as a cautionary tale. With its hands full of problems both domestically and in its immediate neighborhood, China fears getting sucked into a quagmire in some far-flung land.

In short, China viewing Afghanistan as an extension of its Uyghur concerns limits both U.S. and Chinese willingness to cooperate in Afghanistan. The United States would balk at involving China in any way that helps China shore up its domestic position against Uyghur discontent, and China would be loath to lend a hand in any way that doesn’t. For the United States and China to get on the same page about Afghanistan, China must be convinced that its interest in Afghanistan goes beyond its domestic concerns.

It happens that the time is ripe for the United States to do just that. There is no doubt that China is looking west, and looking hard. On the vanguard of China’s “March West” are two major international economic initiatives: the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, collectively known as "One Belt, One Road" (OBOR), which envision a vast infrastructure network built using Chinese capital that will connect China to Western Europe via the Eurasian heartland, including Afghanistan. For policymakers struggling to prop up Afghanistan’s economic and governance capacity, the promise of a flood of capital from the east is a godsend. China is already a major investor in Afghanistan, having poured billions of dollars into Afghan mining and energy enterprises. But aside from being another potential fount of investment, OBOR also presents a prime opportunity for the United States to diversify China’s interests in Afghanistan. Through active and targeted offers of cooperation, the United States can shape specific projects within the OBOR framework to tie China more closely to Afghanistan’s rise or fall.

One place to start is the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a proposed transportation and energy infrastructure network that will link northwestern China to the Arabian Sea via Pakistan, and one of few specific OBOR projects articulated so far. The planned routes traverse some of Pakistan’s most volatile border regions adjacent to Afghanistan; with $46 billion USD in OBOR funds at stake, the project undoubtedly gives China a direct interest in Afghanistan’s security. The U.S. can up China’s Afghanistan ante by exploring linkages between the CPEC and the United States’ own “New Silk Road Initiative.” Launched in 2011 to revitalize Afghanistan by forging economic connections with the country’s Central and South Asian neighbors, the New Silk Road Initiative has faltered due to low political will in the U.S. to commit the necessary resources and a lack of desire among the Central Asian states to expand regional cooperation, particularly with Afghanistan.

If coordinated properly, the CPEC and the New Silk Road could each boost the other’s chances of success. In particular, the New Silk Road’s Central Asia South Asia Electricity Transmission and Trade Project (CASA-1000), a transmission grid that would allow the Central Asian states to sell electricity to Afghanistan and Pakistan, dovetails with the CPEC’s proposed upgrades to Pakistan’s electricity infrastructure. Giving China a stake in the success of CASA-1000 and the New Silk Road more generally would be a promising step toward getting China to see more in Afghanistan than its Uyghur concerns.

Expanding China’s direct interests in Afghanistan would open new avenues for U.S.-China cooperation there. It would motivate both sides to boost coordination on Afghan security, while shifting the focus of this cooperation away from the fraught issues of counterterrorism and China’s domestic concerns. A China that is willing to contribute more toward military assistance, political mediation, counternarcotics, and border security in Afghanistan would be a huge boon for both Afghanistan and the United States. As growing threats thwart a smooth U.S. withdrawal from its longest-ever war, now is the time for the U.S. to seize any opportunity to build a robust partnership with China on Afghanistan.

To read this article on The Diplomat, click here. 

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EWI Perot Fellow and Vice President David Firestein appeared on the March 6, 2015 edition of Strait Talk, a current affairs talk show broadcast on Voice of America Mandarin Service. Speaking in Mandarin, Firestein first assessed cross-Strait relations in light of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent comments on Taiwan at the opening of the annual session of the Chinese National People’s Congress. He then commented on the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, addressing the rise of Republican front-runner Donald Trump and the anti-establishment mood of the overall campaign as well as the remaining candidates' views on China and Taiwan.

On March 2, 2016, EWI Perot Fellow and Vice President David Firestein spoke to Singapore's Channel 8 News about the current state of the U.S. presidential campaign, the performance of several of the leading candidates, and the possible impact the November election might have on U.S. policy toward Asia. 

The Mandarin-language broadcast can be found at this link; Firestein's comments are in English.

At the 2016 Munich Security Conference of world leaders, the overriding mood was reflected in the title of MSC’s security report, “Boundless Crises, Reckless Spoilers, Helpless Guardians.” Concern about the continued ability of the Western alliance, and of Europe in particular, to maintain unity in the face of the Syrian crisis and the attendant refugee exodus into Europe was at the forefront.  

Yet, the mood among participants was slightly more optimistic when discussing cyberspace. A discussion session reflected that in cyberspace, power is held by corporations as well as States. Western technology companies are major powers in cyberspace, comparable in their overall influence to the governments of China, India, Russia, and the United States. At the meeting, both company and country representatives called for agreement on norms of behavior in cyberspace. 

What does responsible cyber behavior by countries and by companies look like? 

There is considerable progress—for example, over 20 countries already agree that they should not attack each other’s critical infrastructure during peacetime. Company norms are more nascent, but may come to include not withholding security patches from any customer, no matter where they are based. 

Nevertheless, cooperation between governments and companies is far from frictionless. 

Cyberspace is now at the leading edge of the fight against violent extremism, as governments pressure social media platforms to screen for terrorist content. However, companies are uneasy taking on an increased, quasi-judicial role in filtering speech, beyond the globally supported efforts against child abuse content and spam. This can be seen in the growing debate between government and industry about privacy, security, and cybersecurity, with the FBI’s case against the Apple iPhone a leading example.

In this way, the Internet has become a proxy, and a catalyst, for a larger global conversation and disagreement around political, cultural and social values. Cyberspace is at the leading edge of a set of global problems that require urgent solution. As Obama’s national security advisor Susan Rice commented last year in an address entitled America’s Future in Asia, today’s “most vexing security challenges are transnational security threats that transcend borders: climate change, piracy, infectious disease, transnational crime, cyber theft, and the modern-day slavery of human trafficking.” This year’s list would have to include migration and violent extremism. 

Today, patchworks of formal and ad hoc arrangements struggle to address the risks. It is not obvious they are up to the task. The current situation has perhaps been aptly characterized in the words of Italian revolutionary Antonio Gramsci writing 100 years ago that, “The crisis comes when the old order is dying and the new order is not yet ready to be born. In this period, many toxic forms arise.” More broadly there is an emergent, non-Western, reformist point of view, as Indonesian President Joko Widodo told several dozen heads of state last year, “We, the nations of Asia and Africa, demand UN reform, so that it could function better as a world body that puts justice for all of us before anything else.”

Yet, the ponderous motions of states and the glacial movements of international organizations are neither agile nor creative enough to respond in a timely manner. This is the real old order that is dying. That is, merely adjusting the composition of the United Nations Security Council or altering the capital allocations of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, while critically important interim steps, will not be enough. 

What is needed includes deep structural adjustments and shifts in the relative power of the individual and collective, and in the intermediating roles of institutions and organizations of all types, in surprising ways.. The Cyberspace arena in general provides some potential models, including ICANN and FIRST. Broader adjustments will take several decades to emerge, as I recently wrote more extensively for the Valdai Discussion Club. 

Munich Security Conference was an opportunity for EWI to promote its leadership role in creating platform for dialogue between public, private and civil sector on the global level.  We were pleased to realize that European leaders were receptive for the key message delivered by EWI on the urgency of working in synergy to address countless and unimaginable challenges the world is facing today and will face tomorrow.

To read this article on The Diplomat, click here. 

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New York (February 19, 2016) - The Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East has invited Kawa Hassan, the EastWest Institute's Director of Middle East and North Africa's Regional Program, to join The Task Force on the Future of Iraq. This Task Force will bring together 25 top Iraq experts from around the globe who will make specific recommendations to the incoming American administration's transition team in late November 2016.

"We're delighted that Kawa has been selected to contribute to this important project," EWI CEO and President Cameron Munter said. "Kawa Hassan's work at EWI has been informed and nuanced, and I'm sure he'll bring these qualities to the Atlantic Council study. Kawa is one of the most promising voices speaking on the Middle East today."

The Task Force will convene four times in 2016 to analyze the drivers of instability and sources of opportunity in Iraq and devise policy recommendations for Baghdad, Erbil and regional and international partners. Besides the Rafik Hariri Center, supporters of the Task Force include the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani and the Bayan Center.

Among other Task Force initiatives, Hassan will be drafting a paper on governance in the Kurdistan Region, as part of his participation.

"I am honored and thrilled to join this timely, needed initiative and to be a member of a team of internationally renowned Iraq experts," Hassan said.

"Iraq, the Middle East and the wider world are at a crossroads. In order to defeat ISIS and build new and inclusive political contracts, the root causes that led to the emergence of this Frankenstein and apocalyptic actor that calls itself the Islamic State should be addressed through fresh perspectives and new policies. This lies at the heart of EWI's strategy that aims at addressing seemingly intractable problems and anticipating tomorrow's security challenges."

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This isn't the first such statement the U.S. and ASEAN have made on the South China Sea. Do you see China responding any differently this time around?

Kok identified three matters in the U.S.-ASEAN joint statement that she believes China may take issue with. First, the statement referred to freedom of navigation and overflight, which is an ongoing point of contention between China and the United States. Second, the statement mentioned non-militarization in South China Sea activities, which could be construed as admonishment towards China’s recent building of military facilities on reclaimed islands in the region. Third, the statement reaffirmed commitments to legal and diplomatic processes, with a specific reference to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas. This reaffirmation comes in light of an impending legal decision by the International Court of Arbitration at The Hague adjudicating between the Philippines and China on the legality of China’s Nine-Dash Line. Kok believes these three elements of the U.S.-ASEAN joint statement may prompt a strong rebuke from China.

Is the statement a sign the U.S. intends to play a bigger role in securing freedom of navigation in the disputed waters?

Kok pointed out that, as U.S. President Barack Obama noted in his closing press conference, the United States will not be ceasing its freedom of navigation operations. Politically speaking, neither the United States nor China is in a position to ease their established positions on the South China Sea. The United States has asserted that freedom of navigation is a national interest, while territorial sovereignty and integrity is a core interest for China. Kok believes that the situation may be headed towards a so-called “stable stalemate” in which neither side can change the behavior of the other. The challenge under such circumstances will be to manage the situation in a way that prevents an escalation of tensions.

What about the war against extremism and Islamic State? With the recent attacks in Jakarta, what can ASEAN and the U.S. do to tackle the scourge of terrorism in the region?

Kok notes that Southeast Asia has always been a hotbed for the threat of terrorism and violent extremism. She also notes that the Islamic State is now not only a regional threat, but a global one that requires ASEAN and the United States to demonstrate the political will to work together as part of a coordinated global effort toward its eradication.

What other progress do you think was made at the U.S.-ASEAN Summit?

Kok highlighted the reaffirmation of ASEAN centrality and ASEAN-led mechanisms at the summit. The Obama administration has taken concrete steps to institutionalize the United States’ relationship with ASEAN as a key part of its “rebalance” to Asia. This will help sustain the U.S.-ASEAN partnership beyond the Obama presidency.

When U.S. President Barack Obama hosts leaders from the 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on Monday and Tuesday, he will symbolically reinforce the concept of ASEAN centrality—traditionally the idea that the group’s diverse states should economically integrate and gradually develop a collective voice in the world.

But other kinds of centrality will also be apparent as observers and officials confront regional security issues in which two of ASEAN’s strongest suitors, the United States and China, are on opposing sides.

U.S. officials have, with some legitimacy, sought to deemphasize the U.S.–China narrative in U.S. relations with ASEAN. Speaking Thursday at the Center for American Progress, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes described an agenda emphasizing economic growth and innovation and a variety of security challenges, including counterterrorism and disaster response. Rhodes also described the Obama administration’s strategy as using ASEAN as a hub—“a platform to build out a broader series of engagements, and that ultimately is what the East Asian Summit became.”

That East Asia Summit—which now includes the ASEAN 10, plus Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea, and the United States—supports another notion of “ASEAN centrality,” in which regular ASEAN meetings become occasions for even broader summits at the same time. Obama became the first U.S. president to attend the East Asia Summit in 2011, on the same trip during which he announced a greater emphasis on the Asia-Pacific.

The U.S. engagement with ASEAN as a group is, on its own, broad and evolving. But any time the U.S. media see East Asia on the agenda, the China story of the day comes to mind. In a briefing for reporters, when the first questioner raised ASEAN countries’ diverse relationships with China, both the chief White House Asia adviser and the top U.S. diplomat for the region said the summit is “not about China.”

Clearly, that’s not entirely true. Drawn out by a question on the South China Sea, Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel described the present summit, which will last a full day and does not come with the usual structured agenda, as a unique opportunity: “What the leaders can do that they often are unable to do, partly due to the constraints of time, is to delve a little more deeply into what they see as the realm of the possible in terms of lowering tensions in the South China Sea and setting up a dynamic that can build on, for example, the decision of the tribunal in the Hague.”

Here, Russel is referring to the legal case brought by the Philippines under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that challenges Chinese claims in the South China Sea. Though the arbitral tribunal found that it has jurisdiction to decide a number of the questions raised by the Philippines, the Chinese government has declared the proceedings illegitimate, called the tribunal’s decision on jurisdiction “null and void,” and refused to participate in the process.

It is entirely reasonable for regional governments to discuss what might happen after the tribunal releases its decision, but doing so is surely, at least partly, “about China.”

The reality is that ASEAN is a unique institution that plays a central role in convening regional governments, coordinating their efforts, and confronting challenges. And in East Asia, if not everywhere in the world, China is involved in opportunities, challenges, initiatives, and disputes. The scale of Chinese economic, security, and diplomatic efforts is one reason ASEAN has gained such prominence.

Holding this month’s summit in California at Sunnylands, where Obama hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping for their first major meeting in 2013, sends an unmistakable signal that the Obama administration places an emphasis on strong independent ties with ASEAN as a group.

Administration officials in briefings said part of the intention is to cement the U.S.–ASEAN relationship so that the next president can build on the Obama team’s efforts. That seems true, but this kind of diplomatic courtship also raises expectations of a continued U.S. commitment. From the current administration’s perspective, this move can help to lock in deeper engagement. For the next president, raised expectations would make a shift of priorities away from ASEAN more costly in terms of U.S. credibility.

With the presidential campaign wide open and even the candidate closest to the administration, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, now opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, this summit should be seen in the context of efforts to make Obama’s policies stick.

ASEAN is not just central to its members’ priorities or playing off the two Pacific giants of the United States and China. For two days, ASEAN is also central to struggles over the future of U.S. foreign policy.

To read this article on The Diplomat, click here. 

Graham Webster (@gwbstr) is a researcher, lecturer, and senior fellow of The China Center at Yale Law School. Sign up for his free e-mail brief, U.S.–China Week.

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Hassan was quoted on Al Jazeera America on January 15.

As published:

Critics, however, accuse Barzani of mounting a renewed independence campaign precisely in order to distract attention from these more pressing internal questions. He has already used the fight against ISIL as justification for remaining in his post past his scheduled term limit, stoking a succession debate that briefly erupted into violence in August. As Kawa Hassan, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the EastWest Institute, put it, “Iraq is a failed state, but Kurdistan is also a failed region.” 

Kurdistan watchers say there are too many wild cards to know for sure where this current sovereignty push is heading. Hassan, who is also a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said he saw a “fragmented future” for the KRG. But he has learned at least one lesson from the past year and a half. “I don’t dare to make any predictions,” he said. “Who thought a couple of months back that Russia would enter the war in Syria? That Turkey would down a Russian jet? Who thought Saudi [Arabia] would start a war in Yemen or build a new coalition against [ISIL]?”

“The Middle East is changing so rapidly and so fundamentally,” he said. “And this provides an opportunity for the Kurds to try and push for independence or at least some kind of confederation between Kurdish areas. If they are united, they can capitalize on this opportunity.”

To read the full article, click here.