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Thursday, 9 July 2015

India joining China-led bloc a boost for a 'New Asia'

By Mubasshir Mushtaq

MUMBAI, India

India attends the meeting of a China-led security bloc in Russia on Friday as an observer state but it does so with the hope of joining up as a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

India first applied to join in 2014, apparently as part of the country's attempts to diversify its foreign policy under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has spent his first year in power in a whirl of foreign visits aimed at opening new partnerships.

And Analysts have welcomed the move, saying it could allow India to help carve out a "new Asia".

Pratinav Anil, a scholar on Europe and Asia at Paris’s Sciences Po, told Anadolu Agency that India's membership "makes sense" because the SCO was set up to settle border disputes between China and it's neighbors, a category India fits into.

He also emphasized that though the grouping -- which includes Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan -- describes itself as political and economic, it is focused mostly on defense and counter-terrorism in a similar framework to NATO.

“I think that there is no contradiction in a democratic India being part of the SCO, which has a large number of totalitarian or single-party countries,” Anil said. “India has military interests in Dushanbe [in Tajikistan] and economic interests in a number of Central Asian Republics - being part of the ‘New Asia’ that SCO is carving would only help India integrate with the region and would create a platform for the countries to align their interests in the most mutually-friendly manner.”

Mumbai-based foreign policy analyst Harish Nambiar agreed that despite India being considered the world's largest democracy and having never had a military government, unlike the other members states and fellow prospective member Pakistan, there should be no issues in aligning their interests.

“I think we should get over this obsessive predicating on democracy whenever we discuss international geopolitics. It is a Cold War shibboleth,” Nambiar told Anadolu Agency.

He pointed to Brazil and South Africa, members of the BRICS economic grouping, and flaws in their democracies as well as in India itself.

“The South African democracy too is not sufficiently satisfactory, Indian democracy too is mystifyingly different from the time when ‘spreading democracy’ was a major slogan,” Nambiar said, adding that the creation of new international and regional alliances has been the result of shifting global power.

“What all the countries that constituted the third world in the aftermath of World War II and now populate the ‘emerging’ and ‘frontier’ economies have learnt is that foreign policy is an enmeshing of national interests,” Nambiar said. “India will and has been a natural part of this new world order that is emerging organically.”

Anil said that one of the many agendas of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and SCO is to challenge American dominance but that India, despite its membership, will likely continue a position of non-alignment in order to keep open partnerships with all sides.

“BRICS would like to challenge America by providing an alternate system of funding independent of the World Bank, IMF system, they may want to contest positions that American companies have in Central Asia and Africa,” Anil said.

“Since this is no Cold War platform, India can safely continue its non-alignment while being a part of both platforms, while being an ally of America in terms of intelligence, military, nuclear and economic cooperation," he said, adding that India could use its membership to strengthen its relationship with the U.S. “Rather than alienating the Americans, it might just be the very reinforcement tool that India is seeking.”

Though China has traditionally been a rival of India, and supported India's other rival Pakistan, foreign policy analyst C Raja Mohan noted that it may support India's application to the SCO to prevent the country from moving closer to the U.S.

"Beijing may not want to push India into a US-led coalition against China. Its support to the full membership of India and Pakistan in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is part of this new calculus," he wrote in the daily Indian Express on Monday.

“The Russian and Chinese presidents, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, would certainly want to draft Modi as part of the Eurasian continental alliance they are building,” Mohan wrote in another article on Tuesday. “Delhi will need to make some difficult judgments on where its interests might lie when push comes to shove among the great powers.”

With Pakistan also pushing for membership of the SCO, Anil said that it would be a "fatal mistake" to include one of the two countries at the expense of the other, while Nambiar thought there was actually a benefit to having both involved.

“It is perfectly fine that India and Pakistan are both likely to be on the high table,” Nambiar said, adding that membership of the SCO itself would not give greater leverage over one or the other in the India-Pakistan rivalry. “It spreads the risks, economically. And, that is good geopolitics too for India as well as Pakistan."

A prize in Central Asia

Anil said that groupings with central Asia and China's "Silk Road" projects were ways for emerging non-Western powers to counter the West's increasing influence in the region, adding that its vast natural resources would be a “prize” for China, Russia and India.

Turkmenistan has the world’s fourth largest gas reserves, while Kazakhstan is the world’s largest uranium producer.

“India stands to benefit significantly if they can tap into this region,” Anil said, adding that Indian company Oil and Natural Gas Corporation is already active there and India has a military base in Tajikistan. “It is evident that India’s commitment to the region is quite strong.”

He added that India, by eyeing economic and energy cooperation with the SCO, could ensure it gains from any potential future economic union in the region.

Monday, 29 June 2015

Indo-US Strategic Ties

U.S. President Barack Obama, left and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi shake their hands after they jointly addressed the media after their talks, in New Delhi, India. (AP Photo /Manish Swarup)

The US tilt in South Asia is not a sudden development, in fact, after the demise of the Soviet Union there has been a gradual convergence of interests between New Delhi and Washington. Before Cold War any alliance between US and India remained out of the question due to Nehru’s policy of nonalignment. However, US always recognized India’s regional importance. The first step towards India came when General Claude Kicklighter visited India in 1991. Subsequent agreements that took place to develop the joint training exercises marked the first military-to-military cooperation between United States and India. Immediately thereafter, high-level discussion on strategic interests took place in January 1992 in New Delhi. At that meeting, India was considered only country that can act as a regional stabilizing force against the spread of “Islamic fundamentalism”.

In 1995, cooperation was further strengthened by Secretary of Defense William Perry’s visit to India, where he and his Indian counterpart agreed to move beyond bilateral military issues to encompass a wide range of military, security and strategic interests. These advances were however imperiled by India’s 1998 nuclear tests when sanctions were imposed by United States.

However, the trend of coming closer to India again started during the second term of President Clinton, who during the Kargil War of 1999 not only pressured Pakistan to withdraw its troops, but also chided Pakistan for its role in promoting terrorism. In the year 2000 President Clinton’s visit to India was the turning point in the Indo-US relationship. During his visit, President Clinton admitted that the US had ignored India over the preceding 20 years and indicated that it would end the passive impact caused by nuclear issues in future.

Previously the US interests in South Asia have been important, but never been more vital. However, its War against Terrorism in Afghanistan has brought the region into focus. Considering the US interests in the region, the US approach to relations with India needs to be seen in the context of several identifiable areas in South Asia during the post-Cold War period: first, eliminating terrorism and curbing Islamic extremism in Pakistan and Afghanistan; second, development of a strong economic and strategic relationship with India for possible containment of China; and lastly, preventing a potentially dangerous nuclear arms race on the subcontinent.

In early March 2006, President Bush made a three-day trip to India. In a speech preceding his trip, the President called India a “natural partner for the United States” and identified the broad areas of bilateral cooperation as: counterterrorism, trade promotion, environmental protections, energy initiatives.

On December 2006, Congress under Bush administration passed the historic Henry J. Hyde, “United States-India Peaceful Atomic Cooperation Act”, which allows direct civilian nuclear commerce with India for the first time in 30 years. The very next year, on Jul 27, 2007, US and India had reached an agreement on civil nuclear deal known as a 123 agreement. Americans have termed it as the “symbolic centerpiece of a growing global partnership between the two countries. This agreement governs civil nuclear trade between the two countries and opens the door for American and Indian firms to participate in each other’s civil nuclear energy sector.

After taking the charge of the presidential office, President Obama made two visits to India. On January 26, 2015, he visited India as the chief guest at India’s 66th Republic Day celebrations. During his visit he opened up more doors of bilateral cooperation between the two, including nuclear sphere.

To sum up, US unprecedented tilt towards India in the post Cold War era, even after the Indian nuclear test in 1998, has seriously undermined the cause of peace and stability in this region. Presently, US is hewing the NSG membership for India which will have serious implications for the stability of the region. The military relationship between US and India has added a new dimension to Pakistan’s security equation – thereby aggravating its security perceptions. By cultivating India for any balancing role in Asia US would endanger Pakistan’s security environment and destabilize the region. Unless this impact is contained, it could aggravate the strategic milieu of Pakistan. US should understand the gravity of the damage they are committing to the cause of peace and stability by giving India country-specific special treatment by improving India’s position in the South Asian region that would ultimately disturb the regional equilibrium.

Monday, 15 June 2015

India, an Arab-Israeli go-between?

Delhi can help where US and Europe can't given friendship of government and Muslim community with Israel

At a recent conference in New Delhi, a Palestinian diplomat, while lauding India’s burgeoning relations with Israel, pleaded for its help in reach a just and sustainable peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The sentiments were a far cry from the days when Palestinians would feel alarmed or uneasy at India’s growing ties with Israel.

They had, after all, watched as Arab countries like Egypt and Jordan established peace and full diplomatic relations with Israel and as Qatar and Tunisia set up business ties with Tel Aviv. In addition, a host of other Gulf monarchies, including Saudi Arabia, engage covertly with the Jewish state.

And now, India has announced that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit to Israel later this year. The emerging bilateral relationship is based on a perceived quid pro quo: Israel (as well as China and Japan) stood by Modi when, as Gujarat Chief Minister, he was shunned by the West. He is expected to return the favor by cementing ties.

In the past, Israel has shared sensitive technology with India, besides acting as an honestBROKER

with the United States to sell India military hardware – the airborne Phalcon AWACS. The Jewish lobby in Washington played an active and effective role in furthering India-US relations. The nuclear breakthrough with the US was in part an outcome of this engagement. The good news, more recently, is that New Delhi’s warm ties with Tehran – Israel’s bitter enemy – have not deterred Tel Aviv.

India established and subsequently upgraded diplomatic relations with Israel under successive Congress governments and it is only logical for Modi's National Democratic Alliance, which favors the Jewish state for many different reasons, to advance the ties.

The close people-to-people ties have become warmer thanks to India’s status as a soft power which has many backers in Israel. Since an increasing number of Indian Muslims are a part of these ties, the argument that relations with Israel will alienate the minority community would be a disservice to the latter.

There is no denying that Muslims, like many non-Muslims, are concerned about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and during times of heightened tensions occasionally take to noisy demonstrations.

And yet the gathering momentum of unofficial dialogue between Israelis and representatives of the Indian Muslim community testifies to the deepening understanding and mutual trust. The numerous Israeli tourists and other visitors to India move freely across the country, including Muslim-majority Kashmir.

Courtesy Ynet"Former Israeli President Shimon Peres with Indian Muslim clerics (file)"

Many Muslim academics, media personalities, representatives of arts and culture and students visit Israel. The first Muslim to be elected head of a students’ body at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem earlier this year is incidentally an Indian. Numerous Muslims go on pilgrimage to the Al-Aqsa mosque – Islam’s third holiest site – and other sites holy to them in Israel. If this pilgrimage, denied to many from other Islamic countries, is available to them, it’s because India has good relations with Israel.

Likewise, the argument that engaging with Israel may impact negatively on Indian expat communities working in Arab countries is also specious. It does a great disservice to the countries which have graciously hosted these communities for decades and have benefited from them in turn. Much of the development in the Gulf States is due to Indian labor.

Moreover, this argument is oblivious of the dynamics in the region. India upgraded ties with Israel to full diplomatic recognition only after Egypt and Jordan established diplomatic relations.

With a receding US role in the region, a weakening Europe with its baggage of centuries of anti-Semitism and more recent Islamophobia and inner fissures increasingly marking intra-Arab relations, India could play a stabilizing role in the region in future. The recent disclosure that Israeli and Saudi officials have been meeting regularly in different countries, including in India, therefore does not come as a surprise. Bridge-building is more effective than boycotting, and Palestinians are also beginning to acknowledge that.

Aditi Bhaduri is an award-winning journalist & researcher based in New Delhi. This article was first published in The Quint.

The Pak-Afghan thaw

Afghanistan and Pakistan enjoy a unique relationship, which is at times throwing up diverse and daunting challenges, and at times oozing out comforting brotherly sentiments and environment. The Afghanistan-Pakistan, bilateral relationship appears to have come of age, however the gains are fragile and are reversible—hence needing careful handling and nurturing.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif during his visit to Kabul on May 12, outlined three principles in the context of Pakistan-Afghanistan relations: we will strictly adhere to the policy of non-interference; we will not allow our respective territories to be used against the other; and Afghanistan’s enemies will be treated as Pakistan’s enemies and Pakistan’s enemies will be treated as Afghanistan’s enemies. These principles were reiterated once again during the Prime Minister’s address to the concluding session of the Envoys Conference on 11 June 2015.

The 11th Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) of the process was held in Islamabad on May 25, 2015. The participants reiterated their support to the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan and the Afghan National Unity Governments’ reform agenda and programmes. The role of the region in supporting the Afghan led and Afghan owned peace progress was highlighted and the participants committed to support this process. Economic connectivity in the Heart of Asia region was discussed as a top priority for regional prosperity and long-term stability and security. It was emphasised that all parallel projects and initiatives must be pursued with a vision of complementing each other to enhance regional economic connectivity and development. Pakistan is hosting the next ministerial meeting later this year. Pakistan views with great interest China’s emergence as a peace-maker in Afghanistan. Both China and Pakistan subscribe to the cardinal doctrine that the Afghan peace process should be Afghan-owned and Afghan-led, while taking Taliban entities onboard. Pakistan also subscribes to the notion that international community should continue to support the Afghan government economically, alongside assisting it in building the capacity of Afghan National Security Forces in counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations.

Currently, both countries face common challenge of overcoming militancy of various brands to ensure peace and stability in Afghanistan that would soon have ripple effect into Pakistan. Departure of foreign forces has thrown up new dilemmas for the two countries. However, if prudence holds course, most of challenges could turn into opportunities. President Ashraf Ghani has emerged as a mature statesman. Despite heading difficult coalitions, so far he has been able to carry along his wobbly political partners. Credit for this also goes to the CEO Dr Abdullah Abdullah who has given up his political style of yester-years. Both leaders seem to have realised that they have to carry along each other for the betterment of their country.

Afghan diplomacy is no longer conducted through the media, and the Karzai era “blame Pakistan” rhetoric is now a distant memory. The new Afghan government has taken positive steps for addressing some of Pakistan’s concerns by reversing its ‘India only’ approach for getting military equipment and training of AFNS personnel. However, these steps are not without opposition from within Afghanistan and India.

Pakistan is supporting the Afghan peace process by facilitating contacts between Ghani government and various political resistant groups. Back channel contacts between the Taliban and Afghan government appear to have gathered enabling critical mass to shed the denial mode and turn into formal intra-Afghan political dialogue. Latest rounds of contacts were held in Oslo and Dubai during first week of June; another broader round is slated for Doha in July. With the beginning of new fighting season in Afghanistan, Pakistan has distanced itself from the ongoing Spring Offensive and has equated it to acts of terrorism.

Pakistan and Afghanistan will have to work in unison to make behind the scene effort between the insurgents and the Afghan government an enduring success; in all likelihood, it will be a give and take enterprise. A starting point could be the appointment of non-controversial Taliban leaders as provincial governors and also giving them compatible ministerial appointments. Appointment of a towering, yet non-controversial person as Vice President may help in breaking the ice. In parallel, Afghan and Pakistan governments need to find a middle ground for creating an area of convergence in the context of addressing Taliban’s concerns about the Afghan constitution through a consensus based process. At the same time, Taliban should be encouraged to incorporate flexibility in their approach and think about making their constitution and foreign troops’ related preconditions as end objectives of intra-Afghan political settlement. This does not mean shifting of goal posts, rather it should be seen as a matter of adjusting the timings.

Pakistan has facilitated the Doha process and other initiatives for narrowing the gaps between the two sides. Moreover, for addressing the concerns of Afghan government about presence of militants in North Waziristan, Pakistan had started a gigantic military operation, Zarb-e-Azb, in North Waziristan Agency to eliminate and or/flush-out the Taliban and other extremist outfits holed-up in their last stronghold in Pakistan. Success of this year-long operation, alongside its offshoot Operation Khyber II, has been acknowledged by everyone.

Recent intelligence sharing agreements between the intelligence agencies of the two countries—Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), and National Directorate of Security is a landmark decision that provides a structural framework for tactical operations against militants. This arrangement is likely to go a long way in jointly countering terrorism. Certain elements across the border are opposed to this improved relationship. Hamid Karzai and his close aides are creating obstacles in Ashraf Ghani’s effort towards normalising ties with Pakistan. Karzai has strongly condemned the recently signed Memorandum of Understanding between the two countries about intelligence sharing on the pretext that it was against Afghan’s national interest. He had earlier opposed Ghani’s decision to send army cadets for training to Pakistan. While in Kabul the Indian National Security Advisor also gave a statement against the MoU.

Keeping in view the complexities of the relationship, especially the deep seeded mistrust, all is not expected to be well between the two countries, nor are all ills expected to get well soon. However, there certainly is a new found political will on both sides to improve the relations, and this will is the ray of hope for the people of two countries.

Visit of President Ghani to Pakistan last November has opened a new phase in Pak-Afghan bilateral relations. Likewise, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to Kabul on May 12 enabled the leadership of the two countries to recommit themselves to their common resolve to remove their mutual doubts and misgivings and to embark on the road to a tangible and meaningful cooperation between the two countries.

Time is now ripe for mobilising robust guarantors for underwriting the upcoming intra-Afghan political understanding. Beijing is already emerging as an appropriate venue for such talks. Pakistan supports Beijing’s active participation in the evolving peace process, as it has the credibility of being an honest peaceBROKER

as well as potent guarantor. UNSG also needs to step in and facilitate P-5’s role as guarantor to the final political settlement in Afghanistan.

Karzai nudges regional powers on Afghan peace process

BY M.K. BHADRAKUMAR

The Russian state-funded television network RT has carried a sensational interview with the former Afghan President Hamid Karzai on the secret agenda of the United States in Afghanistan.

In his trademark style Karzai danced around the subject, while making it clear that in his assessment the Islamic State (IS), which is reportedly making its appearance in Afghanistan, is an American proxy that serves as Washington’s geopolitical tool to destabilize Central Asia as part of the containment strategy against Russia and China.

Karzai was very critical of the U.S.’ war in Afghanistan and he accused Washington of pursuing a diabolical “policy of duality” – neither siding with the Kabul government nor with the Taliban.

Karzai supported the idea of peace talks with the Taliban as such but lamented that the Pakistani military and intelligence of had held back the insurgents from reconciliation.

Significantly, RT interviewed Karzai in the context of his forthcoming visit to Moscow where he is expected to have “a series of meetings, including with President Vladimir Putin.”

Afghan President Hamid Karzai

Given the Russian media culture and the backdrop of the tensions in the Russian-American relations as well as the approaching summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) on July 9-10, the RT’s interview of Karzai carries the imprimatur of the Russian foreign-policy establishment. It needs to be noted in particular that Putin plans to receive Karzai.

The Russian commentators have been warning about the IS’ ascendancy in Afghanistan and strongly hinting at a U.S. agenda here to foment instability in Central Asia. Karzai confirms the Russian suspicions.

Indeed, instability in Central Asia will mortally hit China’s so-called “Belt and Road” initiatives, pose challenges for Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union integration process, complicate the situation in China’s Xinjiang and Russia’s North Caucasus region, and foil the plans of laying Silk Routes connecting China with the Persian Gulf and the worldMARKET

via Iran.

Equally, Moscow and Beijing would suspect that regional instability becomes the perfect alibi for the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to establish a permanent military presence in Afghanistan and bring into the region the U.S.’ ABM system that would curb their missile capabilities.

Karzai paid a visit to New Delhi last month and was received by Prime Minister Narendra Modi (May 23). Karzai was en route to China to participate in the First Annual Conference CICA Non-Governmental Forum held in Beijing on May 25.

In a candid interview with the Chinese state television, Karzai had made remarks on the same lines as he did with RT, which were very critical of the U.S.’ war in Afghanistan and outlining that the U.S. used the al-Qaeda threat to justify its military presence.

Significantly, Karzai floated the idea of Russia, China and India acting as “balancers” vis-à-vis the Western presence so as to strengthen Afghan sovereignty. He strongly pleaded for a regional peace initiative by Russia, China and India, stressing that Afghan security is best guaranteed by the regional powers, not the West. He demanded that the western powers should cooperate with a regional initiative.

Karzai’s mission to New Delhi, Beijing and Moscow appear to be focused on the objective of promoting a regional initiative for peace in Afghanistan that would balance the U.S.’ domineering role and prevent Washington from using the terrorist threat as a pretext for pursuing geopolitical objectives.

However, a regional initiative between Russia, China and India may seem a far-fetched idea. Consider the following:

Russia and China have tensions in their relations with the U.S., but that is not the case with India.
Russia and China are fast developing an entente over regional security issues in the Eurasian and Asia-Pacific, but India’s “Act East” policy and the U.S.’ “pivot” strategy in the Asia-Pacific are harmonizing.
China has close ties with Pakistan, which is a central player in Afghanistan, whereas, the Sino-Pak partnership worries India.
China collaborates with Pakistan over the Afghan problem, while India remains steadfast in the view that Pakistan’s power projection into Afghanistan is the single biggest impediment to peace in Afghanistan.
India-Pakistan relations remain frosty amidst a flurry of mutual recriminations lately.
The U.S. voices support for India and China’s active role in Afghanistan, while doing its utmost to keep Russia and Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization out of the Afghan turf.
Russia endorses China’s Silk Road projects in Central Asia and Afghanistan, but India harbors misgivings and is reserving opinions, lost in thoughts.

Prime facie, these contradictions seem formidable. Having said that, the fact remains that there is a convergence of interests today between India, Russia and China as regards the security and stability of Afghanistan.

The point is, Karzai chose New Delhi as his first stop and it is possible he felt encouraged after talking with Modi. New Delhi subsequently hosted a tripartite meet between the security officials of India, Russia and China regarding the Afghan problem. The three countries agreed to promote closer coordination and give “full play” to the SCO.

Of course, Karzai would have an easy job of persuading the Kremlin to veer round to the view that any continued, open-ended American and NATO military presence in Afghanistan would pose a fundamental threat to the security of Russia and its Central Asian allies.

As the host country of the SCO summit in July, Russia is in a good position to evolve a common regional platform on Afghanistan. India and Pakistan are going to be inducted into the SCO as full members at the forthcoming summit. For the first time, India and Pakistan will be sharing views and discussing a consensus stance with regard to Afghanistan. For sure, a defining moment could be coming up in Ufa and Karzai to Moscow just before the SCO summit would presage it.

China, Pakistan CPEC Agreement Complicates Geopolitics

As the diplomatic relationship between China and the United States continues to evolve, the East Asian nation also has reason to cosy up to Pakistan. In recent months, the government of Pakistan have made certain decisions which have inevitably led to the country being drawn further into China's geopolitical attention.

China-Pakistan CPEC Agreement

Traditionally, China and Pakistan have had a relatively profitable relationship. For over half a century, diplomatic relations between the two countries were pretty warm and friendly. However, the recent unveiling of the 2,900 km China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) during a visit to Pakistan by Chinese President Xi Jinping has had a significantly positive influence over the relationship.

The project in question is worth $46 billion, and involved as part of its remit is the construction of roads, railroads and power plants. This is an extremely broad-based infrastructure project, which will take 15 years to complete. Although this was a particularly significant landmark in Pakistan-China relations, it can also be seen in the wider context of numerous other agreements in the fields of military, energy and infrastructure in particular.

CPEC is one of numerous bilateral agreements being initiated in the world at the moment which is of geostrategic importance. CPEC is also buttressed by some earlier agreements between the two nations, ensuring that its qualitative importance is increased. In April of this year, China was granted operation rights to the port of Gwadar on the Indian Ocean, in a strategically important location of the heart of the Persian Gulf. In exchange for this privilege, Beijing is later expected by analysts toINVEST

over $1.5 billion in the region.

CPEC to offer China economic benefits

Gwadar will be the point at which the CPEC project begins, and winds its way down to Kashgar in Western China. This will be extremely beneficial for theOIL

requirements of China, as once the CPEC project is operational and the port comes into the auspices of the East Asian country, it will be able to transport a significant amount of oil through the port. Naturally this will help meet the energy requirements of the world's most populous nation, but it will also serve the vital purpose of saving billions of dollars, not to mention precious time and manpower. It has also been noted by observers of the region that China will now be able to circumnavigate the potentially vulnerable Malacca Strait.

In short, Gwadar will rapidly play an extremely important role in China's land and maritime operation, with the East Asian nation also expected to utilize it for silk exportation and importation. This new network will link China to central Asia and beyond, and will become of critical economic importance to the rapidly industrializing nation.

Another vital aspect of the CPEC project to note is that although Gwadar is being constructed as a commercial port, in the future it could be possible to develop it into a naval facility. This would unquestionably lead to maritime competition in the Indian Ocean.

CPEC complicates China-India relations

Although China has been an obvious beneficiary of this agreement, it is pretty obvious that Pakistan would not enter into it without gaining something in return. Thus, another rather less publicized aspect of this CPEC arrangement has been the Asian subcontinental nation’s purchase of eight diesel-powered attack submarines. Although this conjures up images of nuclear weapons, it is important to emphasize that these are conventionally harmed, but it nonetheless represents Pakistan upping the ante of its military provisions.

Once Pakistan has purchased these submarines, then serious complications would result in any attempt of India to blockade Karachi or Gwadar. The sale would further cement China as Pakistan’s principal arms provider, and complicate its relationship with the Asian subcontinent.

The immediate economic benefits for China are obvious; Pakistan is already the destination of 60 percent of Chinese arms sales. But the obvious tension between India and Pakistan, and the fact that China had previously forged a favorable relationship with China, will complicate the diplomatic position of this nation of over one-billion people.

China has been happy to welcome India into the BRICS grouping of nations, but it may be increasingly indifferent about the prospects of India considering its recent economic malaise. China quite obviously benefits from a close and bilateral relationship with Russia, but with India desperately struggling against its huge economic, demographic and infrastructure issues, it could be that China now views this relationship as less beneficial than it once was.

The geopolitical implications of CPEC

Meanwhile, China's interest in deepening involvement with Pakistan is neither new nor particularly difficult to understand. With the United States having ended official military operations in Afghanistan in 2015, its interest in the region has declined somewhat, and China has effectively stepped into the vacuum created by America's diminishing interest in Pakistan and the Asian subcontinent.

Thus, the East Asian nation has increased its long-term economic and strategic interest in Pakistan with the aim of strengthening its position in the world. In accordance with this overall strategy, China's political leaders have been prepared toINVEST

in Pakistani infrastructure, a decision which has obviously met with approval in the country that has struggled with economic and terrorism-related issues in recent years. The question which would obviously arise for policymakers in Washington is how this project will affect American interests in the region.

The completion of this CPEC project would also enable China to link up with its significant economic andOIL

interests in neighboring Afghanistan. It is thus of interest that the former Afghanistan president, Hamid Karzai, has recently explicitly warned China and Russia of dangers emanating from ISIS involvement in Afghanistan. It could be that China is moving to cement its interest in the region at the moment with the CPEC project, while one can also see Afghanistan being a significant theater of conflict in the future between the Anglo-American old word order and the new BRIC-based superpowers.

Thus, the CPEC project may not be particularly common knowledge in the Western world at the moment, but it will almost inevitably play a role in a wide variety of geopolitical issues that will play out on the world stage in the coming years.

Tuesday, 2 June 2015

A Critique of US “Grand Strategy toward China” Seven Mistaken Assumptions, Presumptions and Prescriptions

“We will have a very strong (military) presence, very strong continued posture throughout the region to back our commitments to our allies, to protect and work with our partners and to continue ensuring peace and stability in the region, as well as back our diplomacy vis-à-vis China on the South China Sea”.
David Shear, US Department of Defense’s Assistant Secretary for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs.
Indian President Modi “seals $22 billion of deals on China visit... China had already promised $20 billion of infrastructure investment during (Chinese President) Xi’s visit to India last year”. Financial Times (5/18/165, p. 4)
Introduction
The highly influential Council on Foreign Relations recently published a Special Report entitled, “Revising US Grand Strategy toward China”, (Council on Foreign Relations Press: NY 2015), co-authored by two of its Senior Fellows, Robert Blackwill and Ashley Tellis (‘B and T’), which proposes a re-orientation of US policy toward China. The Report a policy for buttressing ‘US primacy in Asia’ and countering what they describe as “the dangers that China’s geo-economic and military power pose to US national interests in Asia and globally”. The Report concludes by listing seven recommendations that Washington should follow to re-assert regional primacy.
This essay begins by discussing the basic fallacies underpinning the Report, including outdated and dangerous presumptions about US power and presence in Asia today, and the authors’ incoherent, contradictory and unrealistic prescriptions.
Mistaken Assumptions about Past and Present US Policies to China
Blackwill and Tellis (‘B and T’) start out with the preposterous claim that contemporary US policy toward China has been driven by its positive “effort to ‘integrate’ China into the liberal international order”. This is a gross misrepresentation of Washington’s past and current efforts to subvert the Chinese Communist government and to undermine its state- directed transition to capitalism.
Ever since the end of the Second World War, and especially since the Chinese Civil War (1945-49), which brought the Chinese Communist Party to power, the US has poured billions of dollars in military aid to the retreating Nationalist regime and to finance the bloody Korean War (1950-53) – with the open goal of overthrowing the Chinese communist government. When US forces briefly reached the Chinese-Korean border, provoking a Chinese response, Washington threatened to unleash nuclear weapons on the Chinese. For the next two decades, the US maintained a naval and air embargo against the world’s most populous state, an insane policy which was only reversed by President Nixon’s re-establishment of diplomatic and commercial relations in 1973.
When the veteran Chinese leader, Deng Xiaoping embarked on a state-managed transition to capitalism, Washington adopted a two-track policy of encouraging China’s rulers to ‘open their markets’ to US multi-national corporations, while financing and backing pro-US liberal activists seeking to overthrow the Communist government (the so-called Tiananmen Square Uprising) as well as the secessionist Tibetan and Uyghur insurgencies in western China.
Far from trying “to integrate China into the liberal international order”, Washington attempted to replicate the decade-long chaotic and destructive “transition to capitalism” which took place with the dissolution of the USSR under Mikhail Gorbachev. During the disastrous US-backed regime of Russian President Boris Yeltsin – the ‘lost decade’ (1990-1999) - living standards for the average citizen plunged 70% and Russia was transformed from an advanced superpower to a ravaged vassal state. Beijing’s rulers took careful stock of the grotesque pillage of the former USSR and rejected US plans to replicate their ‘Russian success’ and integrate China as a vassal state within the international capitalist system.
Washington’s sanctions and boycott policy, following the defeat of its Tiananmen Square proxies, was of no avail: Washington failed to stop the massive influx of US multinational corporations into China. Its punitive measures had no impact on China’s political stability and unprecedented economic growth.
Washington’s policy supporting China’s entry into the World Trade Organization encouraged China to open up to US investors, but US policy makers did not understand how the Chinese state’s carefully calibrated mix of dependence on foreign capitalist investment and technology with their adoption, assimilation, and autonomous expansion of endogenous Chinese expertise would create a such a massive independent economic superpower.
Washington’s ‘penetration and conquest strategy’, dubbed by B and S as its ‘integration into the international order’, ultimately failed, despite frequent attempts to undermine the Chinese state regulations and controls on foreign capital. The US’ efforts to subordinate (“integrate”) China into its burgeoning Asian empire was unsuccessful.
During this period, China expanded into world markets, harnessing Western capital to its national goals. It borrowed and improved on US technology to develop a high growth model, exceeding the US growth rate by 600%!
For over two decades, China grew exponentially, accumulating hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign reserves, while the US economy ran-up monstrous trade deficits with Beijing. The US had embarked on a series of prolonged wars while converting its economy from productive to finance capitalism and needed to borrow vast sums from China in the form of sales of Treasury notes or face a major domestic financial crisis.
In essence (and not noted by ‘B and T’), China ‘integrated’ into the international economic order as a productive, creditor state, at the same time the US was reduced to financial–debtor status and lost its global economic primacy while pursuing its unpopular wars in the Middle East.
It was not the ‘failure’ of liberal US market policies that propelled China forward to primacy in Asia, as ‘B and T’ argue in their essay, but Washington’s multi-trillion-dollar wars in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa and its wholesale conversion to Wall Street speculation, which caused the US to lose its primacy in Asia. ‘B and T’s’ claim that US ‘market liberalism’ helped China to emerge as the economic superpower in Asia is a flimsy pretext for ignoring real causes and now promoting an even greater level of US militarism in the region. Unfortunately, their muddle-headed diagnoses and militarist proposals strongly influence the Obama Administrations policy decisions!
Blackwill and Tellis’s unwillingness to recognize China’s peaceful rise to economic supremacy in Asia leads them to rely on a purely ideological construct to bolster their militaristic argument for intensifying “the US naval and air presence in the South and East China Seas and accelerating the US ballistic-missile defense (sic) posture” in the Pacific. ‘B and T’s a priori ideological presumptions lead them to declare that “China is a danger to US Asian interests”, ignoring elementary Chinese vital national interests in having open and secure access to vital waterways leading to their Asian markets and sources of raw materials. At no point does ‘B and T’ identify a single move implemented by China, which has threatened the open seaways. Nor do they identify a single overt or covert threat by China toward the US. While ‘B and T’ fantasize about China’s military threats, they suffer a severe case of amnesia with regard to overt US attacks, invasions, and occupations of China’s Asian neighbors. Over a dozen such military assaults have been launched by Washington in the region, which ‘B and T’ conveniently . . . omit.
‘B and T’s evocation of a “China threat” is a crude ploy to justify further US military encirclement of China, in line with their policy recommendations. The US has recently dispatched B-1 bombers and surveillance planes to Australia and threatens to attack China’s base and port construction on its off-shore shoals and island territories. Equally ominous, US officials arrested a visiting Chinese academic attending a conference claiming he was part of a plot stealing ‘dual purpose’ high tech secrets.
Contradictions and Incoherence of B and T Policy Recommendations
B and T policy recommendations for securing US primacy in Asia are contradictory and incoherent. For example, they recommend that the US “revitalize the economy” and promote “robust growth” as a first priority, but then demand a “substantial increase” in the enormous US military budget. They advocate limits on the sale of civilian technology (so-called “dual” use) and the exclusion of China from US-sponsored Asian trade networks like the ‘Trans-Pacific Partnership’ (TPP).
Most experts openly acknowledge that the huge US ten-trillion dollar military spending over the past two decades has destroyed any possibility for ‘robust growth’ of the US economy. ‘B and T’s recommendations for even more military spending can only make matters worse by diverting public and private capital away from economic growth. This is what undermines the United States strategic future in Asia!
‘B and T’ advise Washington “to expand Asian trade networks” . . . by excluding China . . . the largest investment site and market for the leading ‘500’ US multi-national corporations! In fact, when Obama, in line with ‘B and T’ recommendations, loudly refused to participate in the Chinese-sponsored ‘Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, all of the US major Asian “partners”, except Japan, ignored Washington and joined the AIIB! China is unquestionably the leading economic partner for all Asian countries and none of the bellicose rhetoric that ‘B and T’ spout is going to erode those essential realities.
In fact ‘B and T’s proposal to eliminate ongoing trade with China of so-called ‘dual purpose’ technological exports will further isolate the US from its much-ballyhooed ‘Asian partners’ who are especially eager to ‘add value’ to their exports. In sum, ‘B and T’s recommendations to US policy makers will guarantee an anemic, not a ‘robust’, growth.
B and T proposals are guided by a strictly military logic, contrary to advancing US trade networks.
B and T (and the Obama regime) propose “to reinforce” what they call the Indo-Pacific partnership via a “build-up (of) the power-political capabilities of its friends and allies on China’s periphery”. Whatever ‘B and T’ meant by “power-political capabilities” they certainly did not take into consideration India’s drive for economic development and long-term, large-scale investment and trade agreements. In terms of trade and development deals, the meager results on the heels of Obama’s recent visit to India demonstrate just how shallow the administration’s policy towards the subcontinent really is.
The Indo-Chinese economic and development partnership far surpassed in size and scope any of the vacuous proposals put forth by ‘B and T’ to the Obama Administration. In mid-May 2015, Indian President Modi signed a $22 billion-dollar business deal with China on top of the massive $20-billion dollar Chinese infrastructure investment agreement in 2014. $42 billion-dollars of Chinese investment and trade deals with India have pulled the rug out from under any Obama regime plans to enlist India into its anti-China campaign and military provocations. The reality of Indian-Chinese economic deals shows just how absurd ‘B and T’ policy recommendations are.
President Modi put the ‘nail’ in the coffin of ‘B and T’s, “US Grand Strategy toward China” in his last speech in China after his most successful visit: “I strongly believe that this century belongs to Asia”. Lest it be thought by any other Kissinger protégé, (Blackwill is a Henry Kissinger Senior Fellow), that the deepening Indo-China relation is a mere passing phenomenon, their agreements involve the most advanced sectors of their economies, including telecommunication and energy, as well as the development of a solar photovoltaic industrial park.
As for B and T’s proposal to block ‘dual use’ technology transfers to China, the Indian government has openly rejected that line of unreason by calling on countries to accelerate technology transfers.
‘B and T’ and the entire crowd of ‘armchair war-mongers’ at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) have misread the most basic economic developments of our time. US economic growth is becoming increasingly dependent on large-scale, long-term foreign capital inflows from ‘emerging economies’ – especially China! Developing Asian nations accounted for $440 billion in outward investment, greater than North America or Europe , as the largest source for foreign direct investment. China’s $266 billion dollars accounted for most outgoing FDI from Asia.
China’s importance as a source of investment can only expand, especially through its newly-founded ‘Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’ (AIIB) and its plans to promote the multi-billion Silk Road linking Beijing through Central Asia to European markets. China’s financial role is going to be crucial in the new BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) bank – developed to counter the IMF.
Nothing that the Obama regime and its advisers from the Council on Foreign Relations have proposed can possibly ‘balance’ the rise of China, because their policies include the boycott of large-scale, long-term Chinese economic initiatives which Washington’s ‘allies’ are eager to join. Virtually all have rushed to sign up with the AIIB leaving a sour-faced Obama Administration totally isolated. The Council on Foreign Relations’ proposal for Obama to form anti-Chinese ‘networks with its allies’ is pointless when such hostile ‘networks’ are clearly not going to undermine their most lucrative economic deals with China.
After running through a laundry list of hostile policies toward China, based on a strategy of escalating military encirclement, ‘B and T’ conclude their essay with a bizarre call for Washington to “energize high level diplomacy with Beijing” and do “everything it can to avoid a confrontation with China”.
This piece of ‘expert’ idiocy could only have been written by a former lecturer from the Harvard Kennedy School.
Policies designed to surround China with US military installations and naval vessels, threaten China’s vital maritime routes. Measures to restrict the sale of ‘dual use’ (civilian) technology and efforts to build hostile regional networks and military partnerships are hardly conducive to ‘energizing high level diplomacy with Beijing. ‘B and T’s proposals and Obama’s policies are designed to confront, provoke and undermine China. That is one very obvious reason why China pursues such favorable economic agreements with its neighbors.
‘B and T’ policy proposals are doomed to fail because the US has not and cannot match China’s robust economic growth. Washington cannot compete with Beijing’s open and flexible large-scale economic agreements with all Asian countries (except the US vassal Japan).
Most Asian powers have rejected the ideological message peddled by the Obama Administration that China is a danger. They see China as a partner, a source of capital and easy financing for vital projects without the onerous ‘conditions’ that the US controlled IMF imposes. They are not interested in big, wasteful spending on costly weapons systems pushed by US war industries and which have no productive value.

An Alternative “Grand Strategy toward China”
If one were to propose a realistic and reasonable ‘US Grand Strategy toward China’ one would have to start by shedding all the false assumptions and bellicose proposals that have been put forth by the CFR and the authors of the Report under review.
First and foremost, the US would have to give up its self-appointed role as global policeman, reallocate its bloated Pentagon budget to finance vital domestic economic development, while rebalancing the US economy away from Wall Street speculation in the FIRE (finance, insurance real estate) sector, to producing goods, providing quality services and financing long-overdue infrastructure development projects.
Secondly, Washington would have to expand and promote long-term, large-scale exports of its advanced technology to compensate for the loss of low value exports.
Thirdly, it would join with China in its new infrastructure bank, securing contracts via aid packages. Washington would have to look at China’s export of capital as an opportunity to improve the US’s deteriorating infrastructure. Washington would have to increase and expand its cyber-technical ties with China via joint ventures. Washington would need to replace its military bases surrounding China with industrial parks, commercial ports and regional ‘Silicon Valleys’ and promote co-operative ventures that allow the US to ride the wave of Chinese dynamism. Since the US cannot (and should not) curtail or compete with China’s growth it should join them and share it.
The US should not attempt to block China’s growth and expansion; it should assist and share in its ascendancy, especially in the face of great global climate and energy challenges. Washington is much more likely to strengthen its Asian – Pacific partnership and succeed in its diplomacy if it replaced its military posturing with robust economic growth.

Note:
James Petras latest books include:
James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer (2014), Extractive Imperialism in the Americas: Capitalism’s New Frontier, published by Brill (Leiden/Boston) (Studies in Critical Social Sciences Series).
James Petras (2014), The Politics of Empire: The US, Israel and the Middle East, published by Clarity Press, Atlanta.

-###-

James Petras is the author of four volume study of US – Israeli relations. The most recent is: The Politics of Empire: The US, Israel and the Middle East claritypress@usa.net. James Petras is a Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York. He is the author of 64 books published in 29 languages, and over 560 articles in professional journals, including the American Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology, Social Research, Journal of Contemporary Asia, and Journal of Peasant Studies. He has published over 2000 articles in nonprofessional journals such as the New York Times, the Guardian, the Nation, Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, New Left Review, Partisan Review, Temps Moderne, Le Monde Diplomatique, and his commentary is widely carried on the internet. His most recent books are: The Arab Revolt and the Imperialist Counterattack (Clarity Press 2012) 2nd edition, The Power of Israel in the United States and Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire: Bankers, Zionists and Militants, (acquired for Japanese, German, Italian, Indonesian, Czech and Arabic editions), Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power, Global Depression and Regional Wars: The United States, Latin America and the Middle East, and War Crimes in Gaza and the Zionist Fifth Column in America. He has a long history of commitment to social justice, working in particular with the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement for 11 years. In 1973-76 he was a member of the Bertrand Russell Tribunal on Repression in Latin America. He writes a monthly column for the Mexican newspaper, Le Jornada, and previously, for the Spanish daily, El Mundo. He received his B.A. from Boston University and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.

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©“We will have a very strong (military) presence, very strong continued posture throughout the region to back our commitments to our allies, to protect and work with our partners and to continue ensuring peace and stability in the region, as well as back our diplomacy vis-à-vis China on the South China Sea”.

David Shear, US Department of Defense’s Assistant Secretary for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs.

Indian President Modi “seals $22 billion of deals on China visit... China had already promised $20 billion of infrastructure investment during (Chinese President) Xi’s visit to India last year”. Financial Times (5/18/165, p. 4)

Introduction

The highly influential Council on Foreign Relations recently published a Special Report entitled, “Revising US Grand Strategy toward China”, (Council on Foreign Relations Press: NY 2015), co-authored by two of its Senior Fellows, Robert Blackwill and Ashley Tellis (‘B and T’), which proposes a re-orientation of US policy toward China. The Report a policy for buttressing ‘US primacy in Asia’ and countering what they describe as “the dangers that China’s geo-economic and military power pose to US national interests in Asia and globally”. The Report concludes by listing seven recommendations that Washington should follow to re-assert regional primacy.

This essay begins by discussing the basic fallacies underpinning the Report, including outdated and dangerous presumptions about US power and presence in Asia today, and the authors’ incoherent, contradictory and unrealistic prescriptions.
Mistaken Assumptions about Past and Present US Policies to China
Blackwill and Tellis (‘B and T’) start out with the preposterous claim that contemporary US policy toward China has been driven by its positive “effort to ‘integrate’ China into the liberal international order”. This is a gross misrepresentation of Washington’s past and current efforts to subvert the Chinese Communist government and to undermine its state- directed transition to capitalism.
Ever since the end of the Second World War, and especially since the Chinese Civil War (1945-49), which brought the Chinese Communist Party to power, the US has poured billions of dollars in military aid to the retreating Nationalist regime and to finance the bloody Korean War (1950-53) – with the open goal of overthrowing the Chinese communist government. When US forces briefly reached the Chinese-Korean border, provoking a Chinese response, Washington threatened to unleash nuclear weapons on the Chinese. For the next two decades, the US maintained a naval and air embargo against the world’s most populous state, an insane policy which was only reversed by President Nixon’s re-establishment of diplomatic and commercial relations in 1973.
When the veteran Chinese leader, Deng Xiaoping embarked on a state-managed transition to capitalism, Washington adopted a two-track policy of encouraging China’s rulers to ‘open their markets’ to US multi-national corporations, while financing and backing pro-US liberal activists seeking to overthrow the Communist government (the so-called Tiananmen Square Uprising) as well as the secessionist Tibetan and Uyghur insurgencies in western China.
Far from trying “to integrate China into the liberal international order”, Washington attempted to replicate the decade-long chaotic and destructive “transition to capitalism” which took place with the dissolution of the USSR under Mikhail Gorbachev. During the disastrous US-backed regime of Russian President Boris Yeltsin – the ‘lost decade’ (1990-1999) - living standards for the average citizen plunged 70% and Russia was transformed from an advanced superpower to a ravaged vassal state. Beijing’s rulers took careful stock of the grotesque pillage of the former USSR and rejected US plans to replicate their ‘Russian success’ and integrate China as a vassal state within the international capitalist system.
Washington’s sanctions and boycott policy, following the defeat of its Tiananmen Square proxies, was of no avail: Washington failed to stop the massive influx of US multinational corporations into China. Its punitive measures had no impact on China’s political stability and unprecedented economic growth.
Washington’s policy supporting China’s entry into the World Trade Organization encouraged China to open up to US investors, but US policy makers did not understand how the Chinese state’s carefully calibrated mix of dependence on foreign capitalist investment and technology with their adoption, assimilation, and autonomous expansion of endogenous Chinese expertise would create a such a massive independent economic superpower.
Washington’s ‘penetration and conquest strategy’, dubbed by B and S as its ‘integration into the international order’, ultimately failed, despite frequent attempts to undermine the Chinese state regulations and controls on foreign capital. The US’ efforts to subordinate (“integrate”) China into its burgeoning Asian empire was unsuccessful.
During this period, China expanded into world markets, harnessing Western capital to its national goals. It borrowed and improved on US technology to develop a high growth model, exceeding the US growth rate by 600%!
For over two decades, China grew exponentially, accumulating hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign reserves, while the US economy ran-up monstrous trade deficits with Beijing. The US had embarked on a series of prolonged wars while converting its economy from productive to finance capitalism and needed to borrow vast sums from China in the form of sales of Treasury notes or face a major domestic financial crisis.
In essence (and not noted by ‘B and T’), China ‘integrated’ into the international economic order as a productive, creditor state, at the same time the US was reduced to financial–debtor status and lost its global economic primacy while pursuing its unpopular wars in the Middle East.
It was not the ‘failure’ of liberal US market policies that propelled China forward to primacy in Asia, as ‘B and T’ argue in their essay, but Washington’s multi-trillion-dollar wars in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa and its wholesale conversion to Wall Street speculation, which caused the US to lose its primacy in Asia. ‘B and T’s’ claim that US ‘market liberalism’ helped China to emerge as the economic superpower in Asia is a flimsy pretext for ignoring real causes and now promoting an even greater level of US militarism in the region. Unfortunately, their muddle-headed diagnoses and militarist proposals strongly influence the Obama Administrations policy decisions!
Blackwill and Tellis’s unwillingness to recognize China’s peaceful rise to economic supremacy in Asia leads them to rely on a purely ideological construct to bolster their militaristic argument for intensifying “the US naval and air presence in the South and East China Seas and accelerating the US ballistic-missile defense (sic) posture” in the Pacific. ‘B and T’s a priori ideological presumptions lead them to declare that “China is a danger to US Asian interests”, ignoring elementary Chinese vital national interests in having open and secure access to vital waterways leading to their Asian markets and sources of raw materials. At no point does ‘B and T’ identify a single move implemented by China, which has threatened the open seaways. Nor do they identify a single overt or covert threat by China toward the US. While ‘B and T’ fantasize about China’s military threats, they suffer a severe case of amnesia with regard to overt US attacks, invasions, and occupations of China’s Asian neighbors. Over a dozen such military assaults have been launched by Washington in the region, which ‘B and T’ conveniently . . . omit.
‘B and T’s evocation of a “China threat” is a crude ploy to justify further US military encirclement of China, in line with their policy recommendations. The US has recently dispatched B-1 bombers and surveillance planes to Australia and threatens to attack China’s base and port construction on its off-shore shoals and island territories. Equally ominous, US officials arrested a visiting Chinese academic attending a conference claiming he was part of a plot stealing ‘dual purpose’ high tech secrets.
Contradictions and Incoherence of B and T Policy Recommendations
B and T policy recommendations for securing US primacy in Asia are contradictory and incoherent. For example, they recommend that the US “revitalize the economy” and promote “robust growth” as a first priority, but then demand a “substantial increase” in the enormous US military budget. They advocate limits on the sale of civilian technology (so-called “dual” use) and the exclusion of China from US-sponsored Asian trade networks like the ‘Trans-Pacific Partnership’ (TPP).
Most experts openly acknowledge that the huge US ten-trillion dollar military spending over the past two decades has destroyed any possibility for ‘robust growth’ of the US economy. ‘B and T’s recommendations for even more military spending can only make matters worse by diverting public and private capital away from economic growth. This is what undermines the United States strategic future in Asia!
‘B and T’ advise Washington “to expand Asian trade networks” . . . by excluding China . . . the largest investment site and market for the leading ‘500’ US multi-national corporations! In fact, when Obama, in line with ‘B and T’ recommendations, loudly refused to participate in the Chinese-sponsored ‘Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, all of the US major Asian “partners”, except Japan, ignored Washington and joined the AIIB! China is unquestionably the leading economic partner for all Asian countries and none of the bellicose rhetoric that ‘B and T’ spout is going to erode those essential realities.
In fact ‘B and T’s proposal to eliminate ongoing trade with China of so-called ‘dual purpose’ technological exports will further isolate the US from its much-ballyhooed ‘Asian partners’ who are especially eager to ‘add value’ to their exports. In sum, ‘B and T’s recommendations to US policy makers will guarantee an anemic, not a ‘robust’, growth.
B and T proposals are guided by a strictly military logic, contrary to advancing US trade networks.
B and T (and the Obama regime) propose “to reinforce” what they call the Indo-Pacific partnership via a “build-up (of) the power-political capabilities of its friends and allies on China’s periphery”. Whatever ‘B and T’ meant by “power-political capabilities” they certainly did not take into consideration India’s drive for economic development and long-term, large-scale investment and trade agreements. In terms of trade and development deals, the meager results on the heels of Obama’s recent visit to India demonstrate just how shallow the administration’s policy towards the subcontinent really is.
The Indo-Chinese economic and development partnership far surpassed in size and scope any of the vacuous proposals put forth by ‘B and T’ to the Obama Administration. In mid-May 2015, Indian President Modi signed a $22 billion-dollar business deal with China on top of the massive $20-billion dollar Chinese infrastructure investment agreement in 2014. $42 billion-dollars of Chinese investment and trade deals with India have pulled the rug out from under any Obama regime plans to enlist India into its anti-China campaign and military provocations. The reality of Indian-Chinese economic deals shows just how absurd ‘B and T’ policy recommendations are.
President Modi put the ‘nail’ in the coffin of ‘B and T’s, “US Grand Strategy toward China” in his last speech in China after his most successful visit: “I strongly believe that this century belongs to Asia”. Lest it be thought by any other Kissinger protégé, (Blackwill is a Henry Kissinger Senior Fellow), that the deepening Indo-China relation is a mere passing phenomenon, their agreements involve the most advanced sectors of their economies, including telecommunication and energy, as well as the development of a solar photovoltaic industrial park.
As for B and T’s proposal to block ‘dual use’ technology transfers to China, the Indian government has openly rejected that line of unreason by calling on countries to accelerate technology transfers.
‘B and T’ and the entire crowd of ‘armchair war-mongers’ at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) have misread the most basic economic developments of our time. US economic growth is becoming increasingly dependent on large-scale, long-term foreign capital inflows from ‘emerging economies’ – especially China! Developing Asian nations accounted for $440 billion in outward investment, greater than North America or Europe , as the largest source for foreign direct investment. China’s $266 billion dollars accounted for most outgoing FDI from Asia.
China’s importance as a source of investment can only expand, especially through its newly-founded ‘Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’ (AIIB) and its plans to promote the multi-billion Silk Road linking Beijing through Central Asia to European markets. China’s financial role is going to be crucial in the new BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) bank – developed to counter the IMF.
Nothing that the Obama regime and its advisers from the Council on Foreign Relations have proposed can possibly ‘balance’ the rise of China, because their policies include the boycott of large-scale, long-term Chinese economic initiatives which Washington’s ‘allies’ are eager to join. Virtually all have rushed to sign up with the AIIB leaving a sour-faced Obama Administration totally isolated. The Council on Foreign Relations’ proposal for Obama to form anti-Chinese ‘networks with its allies’ is pointless when such hostile ‘networks’ are clearly not going to undermine their most lucrative economic deals with China.
After running through a laundry list of hostile policies toward China, based on a strategy of escalating military encirclement, ‘B and T’ conclude their essay with a bizarre call for Washington to “energize high level diplomacy with Beijing” and do “everything it can to avoid a confrontation with China”.
This piece of ‘expert’ idiocy could only have been written by a former lecturer from the Harvard Kennedy School.
Policies designed to surround China with US military installations and naval vessels, threaten China’s vital maritime routes. Measures to restrict the sale of ‘dual use’ (civilian) technology and efforts to build hostile regional networks and military partnerships are hardly conducive to ‘energizing high level diplomacy with Beijing. ‘B and T’s proposals and Obama’s policies are designed to confront, provoke and undermine China. That is one very obvious reason why China pursues such favorable economic agreements with its neighbors.
‘B and T’ policy proposals are doomed to fail because the US has not and cannot match China’s robust economic growth. Washington cannot compete with Beijing’s open and flexible large-scale economic agreements with all Asian countries (except the US vassal Japan).
Most Asian powers have rejected the ideological message peddled by the Obama Administration that China is a danger. They see China as a partner, a source of capital and easy financing for vital projects without the onerous ‘conditions’ that the US controlled IMF imposes. They are not interested in big, wasteful spending on costly weapons systems pushed by US war industries and which have no productive value.

An Alternative “Grand Strategy toward China”
If one were to propose a realistic and reasonable ‘US Grand Strategy toward China’ one would have to start by shedding all the false assumptions and bellicose proposals that have been put forth by the CFR and the authors of the Report under review.
First and foremost, the US would have to give up its self-appointed role as global policeman, reallocate its bloated Pentagon budget to finance vital domestic economic development, while rebalancing the US economy away from Wall Street speculation in the FIRE (finance, insurance real estate) sector, to producing goods, providing quality services and financing long-overdue infrastructure development projects.
Secondly, Washington would have to expand and promote long-term, large-scale exports of its advanced technology to compensate for the loss of low value exports.
Thirdly, it would join with China in its new infrastructure bank, securing contracts via aid packages. Washington would have to look at China’s export of capital as an opportunity to improve the US’s deteriorating infrastructure. Washington would have to increase and expand its cyber-technical ties with China via joint ventures. Washington would need to replace its military bases surrounding China with industrial parks, commercial ports and regional ‘Silicon Valleys’ and promote co-operative ventures that allow the US to ride the wave of Chinese dynamism. Since the US cannot (and should not) curtail or compete with China’s growth it should join them and share it.
The US should not attempt to block China’s growth and expansion; it should assist and share in its ascendancy, especially in the face of great global climate and energy challenges. Washington is much more likely to strengthen its Asian – Pacific partnership and succeed in its diplomacy if it replaced its military posturing with robust economic growth.

Note:
James Petras latest books include:
James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer (2014), Extractive Imperialism in the Americas: Capitalism’s New Frontier, published by Brill (Leiden/Boston) (Studies in Critical Social Sciences Series).
James Petras (2014), The Politics of Empire: The US, Israel and the Middle East, published by Clarity Press, Atlanta.