Le site de ressources documentaires irénées.net, dont la vocation est de « favoriser l’échange de connaissances et de savoir-faire au service de la construction d’un art de la paix », a récemment mis à l’honneur le dernier numéro de Politique étrangère (n°3/2016) dont le dossier est consacré à l’Amérique latine.
« Dans son dernier numéro, la revue de l’IFRI fait l’analyse d’une Amérique latine aux espoirs déçus et d’une Europe sans boussole.
L’Amérique latine incarnait hier une démocratisation politique irrépressible, une tension des sociétés vers la réduction de violentes inégalités, l’insertion croissante dans une économie mondialisée. Le rêve se défait.
Crise de l’Europe comme continent, crise du processus de construction européenne, crise des institutions de l’Union européenne : l’espérance européenne lutte pour sa survie. »
Pour lire la recension dans son intégralité, cliquez ici.
Les partisans de la concurrence avaient affirmé que les opérateurs privés du transport de marchandises prendraient des parts de marché à la route, pas au rail. Ils ont en réalité contribué à dépecer la Société nationale des chemins de fer français (SNCF), sans réussir à accroître l'activité globale du fret ferroviaire, qui, entre 2008 et 2014, a perdu 20 % de trafic et représente désormais moins de 10 % du transport de marchandises en France (1).
Les voies de la concurrence sont parfois impénétrables : Euro Cargo Rail, un opérateur privé qui taille des croupières à la SNCF, appartient à une filiale de la Deutsche Bahn, entreprise publique avec laquelle la SNCF… coopère pour les liaisons à grande vitesse avec l'Allemagne. Un troisième opérateur, Voies ferrées locales industrielles (VFLI), est une filiale de... la SNCF. « C'est notre paradoxe, reconnaît Mme Vanessa Walter, porte-parole de VFLI. Nous sommes à la fois complémentaires et concurrents de notre maison mère. » Paradoxe qu'éclaircit plus sévèrement M. Hervé Gomet, élu de la Confédération générale du travail (CGT) au Conseil économique, social et environnemental du Nord - Pas-de-Calais : « On a parfois le sentiment d'une collusion entre la SNCF et sa filiale VFLI dans la répartition des trafics. » Laquelle serait liée au fait que les salariés de VFLI ne jouissent pas du statut des cheminots de la SNCF, ni du même cadre, notamment pour les horaires de travail. Présentée comme une compétition commerciale, la concurrence entraîne aussi un dumping social.
(1) « Indicateurs du transport de marchandises », www.arafer.fr
« Ceux qui possèdent le pays doivent aussi le gouverner. » La formule de John Jay (1745-1829), premier président de la Cour suprême des Etats-Unis, a soudain rajeuni de deux siècles, le 21 janvier 2010 : par un arrêt opposant la Commission électorale fédérale à Citizens United, une association conservatrice qui revendiquait le droit de diffuser une publicité contre Mme Hillary Clinton, la plus haute juridiction américaine venait de déréguler les dépenses de propagande électorale engagées par des personnes morales. Désormais, toute association ou entreprise privée pourrait investir sans limites dans la production et la diffusion de messages à caractère politique dans le cadre des élections, ce qu'interdisait la loi auparavant (1).
Une entreprise multinationale désireuse de faire valoir ses intérêts donnera des millions de dollars non pas directement au candidat de son choix mais à un « super comité d'action politique » (Super PAC) qui multipliera les dépenses en faveur de son poulain. En janvier 2015, le réseau de donateurs dirigé par les frères Charles et David Koch, deux industriels du pétrole et de la chimie, ultraconservateurs et farouchement antiécologistes, contrôlant chacun une fortune de 43 milliards de dollars, rendait publique son intention d'investir 900 millions de dollars dans la campagne pour l'élection présidentielle de 2016. Un tel engagement, supérieur à celui des partis républicain et démocrate, « transformerait de facto l'organisation des frères Koch en troisième force politique du pays », a observé le New York Times (26 janvier 2015).
Ce coup de marteau dans la balance démocratique n'a pas suscité de la part des grands médias les réactions indignées que provoquent de telles pratiques lorsqu'elles se déroulent dans d'autres pays. Et pour cause : télévisions commerciales, radios, journaux et sites d'information seront les premiers bénéficiaires de cette transformation. C'est peu de dire qu'en période de baisse des ventes et de fuite de la publicité vers Internet, la décision semble tomber du ciel. En deux décennies, la part des dépenses politiques dans les revenus publicitaires des chaînes commerciales n'a cesser de s'alourdir, passant de 3 % en 1990 à 20 % en 2010.
En février 2016, avant même le début des primaires, l'arrêt de la Cour suprême avait permis la collecte de plus de 400 millions de dollars de fonds. Dont 119 millions en soutien au candidat républicain Jeb Bush, promptement dépensés sous la forme de 35 681 spots audiovisuels (2). Sans succès. Mi-février, M. Bush renonçait à la course à l'investiture au grand dam de ses donateurs, lesquels orientent leurs flux de dollars vers M. Marco Rubio (M. Donald Trump affirme financer sa campagne avec sa fortune personnelle). Les dirigeants des grandes chaînes, eux, se frottent les mains en attendant la suite.
(1) Lire Robert W. McChesney et John Nichols, « Aux Etats-Unis, médias, pouvoir et argent achèvent leur fusion », Le Monde diplomatique, août 2011.
(2) The Center for Public Integrity, www.publicintegrity.org, 21 février 2016.
Hopelessness is a dangerous dead-end. As with people, nations need a sense of hope to exist and deal with the inevitable challenges confronted throughout their development and existence. But that sense of hope must be grounded on reality; otherwise, it turns into delusion.
With the so-called election being around the corner in Somalia, it is fair to say that this systematically eroding nation is in the thick of that season of delusional self-assurance. Positive change is inevitable without making any change in method and mindset.
Many candidates are lined up to replace the de facto President, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, whose term has ended on September 10th, who is enjoying an extension without mandate, who himself is a candidate. The Parliament is sidelined as in 2011 right before the transitional period came to an end. Worse, there is no Constitutional Court to judicially arbitrate.
These candidates, by and large, have only one thing in common: the conviction that “The president must go.” This sentiment which resonates with the majority of Somalis has ironically rendered any substantive inter-candidate debate on critical issues unnecessary, at best.
Most seem confident that a replacement would automatically bring about the direly needed change to repair brokenness and rectify ills. However, history reminds us of successive disappointments that resulted from such false assumption in the past decades.
Governance by TourismFour years ago, I have privately counseled and publicly cautioned that the newly elected President was bound to fail if his government does not provide direly needed public services, make genuine reconciliation and transparency to end corruption his top priorities. And fail, he did.
Against this backdrop, President Mohamud has been expanding his authority by issuing unconstitutional decrees that are intended to become part of the policies shaping the electoral process. His effective tactics worked like this: He would issue a decree that clearly overreaches the legislative authority of the Parliament, and then swiftly, before any public outcry or any candidate could react, IGAD and UNSOM would issue their respective congratulatory statements. Implementation ensues.
Meanwhile, in order to present a façade of legitimacy, the coopted Speaker of the Parliament is granted a symbolic seat at the so-called National Leadership Forum. The NLF is an IGAD concocted and international community supported political sham that grants a handful of regional actors and government officials with clear conflict of interest the exclusive political authority to decide Somalia’s existential fate. Make no mistake; this can only lead into a never-ending process of transitioning out of transition, bloodshed and perpetual dependency.
Smoke-screened by this political theatrics, the reinvention of President Mohamud is smoothly underway. He is in effective hands of professional image-makers who are capable of making miserable failures look like exemplary successes. In this recent article with all dramatic visual and sound effects, President Mohamud, the man under whose watch Ethiopia got a blank check to run the Somali political affairs and al-Shabaab became more lethal than ever before, claims to have a new plan to restore security and defeat that terror group.
On their part, the Council of Ministers has completed the National Development Plan or the cosmetically enhanced version of the cash-sucking New Deal Somali Compact 52 days before their term expired. The subsequent political fanfare by the advocates of status quo was hardly surprising.
Never mind that the current leadership are yet to designate national currency and are yet to address how having US dollar, the Ethiopia’s Bir, and Kenya’s Shilling–the national de facto currencies—contribute to inflation and make life economically unbearable for the average Somali. People are led to believe that these same leaders whose ‘national budget’ is made of salaries and operation costs, who are yet to set up a single government-funded clinic or feeding and housing centers for the nearly one million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Mogadishu alone, are set to improve the Somali per capita income and reduce poverty.
Meanwhile, suits are pressed, shoes are shined and suitcases are packed. The Somali leadership team is anxiously waiting for the next great conference being convened somewhere across the seas.
Coercive Institutionalization of clan federalismEver since certain members of the political elite accepted that clan-based federalism is a viable governance system; that false narrative has neither faced serious scrutiny nor serious setback. Well, at least not until the government, IGAD, and UNSOM have at various times attempted to lure, pressure, and coerce the traditional leaders of Hiiraan to merge into an arbitrary union with Middle Shabelle and immediately form a federal-state before the upcoming election. Apparently this trio has forgotten Hiiraan’s historical reputation as the womb of Somali patriotism.
So, Hiiraan became ‘Laf dhuun ku taagan’ or the ‘bone that stuck in the throat’ of the trio and a major setback against the political formula engineered to make the reconstitution of the Somali state impossible, and inter-clan perpetual enmity and bloodshed the political order.
Which of the Presidential Candidates might be the right one?In identifying the right person, it is critical to establish criteria through which each candidate could be evaluated. None should be granted advantage based on name recognition, clan affiliation, or cash cushion. Election or selection should be criteria-based:
– Does he or she have a clear vision, grand strategy and a viable implementation plan to help him or her shake up the current externally manipulated political order?
– Is he or she willing to cut the umbilical cord of dependency and spearhead a nation willing to mainly rely on itself?
– Is he or she willing to put genuine reconciliation, public service and transparency on top of his or her priority list?
– Is he or she willing to pushback against IGAD & UNSOM diktats and accept the fact that the authority to govern comes from the people, and that he who grants you that authority can also take it away from you?
– Does he or she recognize the existential importance of having one or two strategic partners instead of an array of states and interest groups of conflicting interests?
If these criteria seem too difficult to meet, rest assured, they are. No one should be misled to believe otherwise.
Sowing Before HarvestingThe succeeding president and government will not make substantive change so long as they do not put genuine reconciliation, followed by constitutional convention that addresses all critical issues ignored by the current counterfeit document, at the top of their priority list.
The new constitution must overhaul the political order of the day. It may acknowledge the social relevance of clan structure but must declare in no uncertain terms the separation of clans and state and ensure that clans have no political authority and that clan-based distribution of political power is done with. In their very nature, clans promote exclusive rights and perpetual zero-sum strife against other clans.
Somalia may not get a candidate who meets every aspect of the criteria but it cannot afford not to raise the bar. It is time for the public to demand accountable leaders with transformational vision. It is time to resist getting intoxicated with political rhetoric. It is time to end the mirage-chasing game.
The post Chasing Mirages Across Somalia appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.
This is the concluding part of a three-part series. Read the first two parts here and here.
The Stealth DisruptorWith most South Asian nations sharing a history that is marred by ethnic, religious and geographic disputes, forming a seamless Union of cooperating members was not going to be easy even in the best of circumstances. Increasingly dwarfing, however, all intra-SAARC issues is the escalating India-China rivalry in the region.
For the purpose of brevity, let’s restrict ourselves to the rivalry between the two giants with regards the three South Asian nations mentioned in the previous section.
Landing a blow to the recently growing bilateral relations between the two countries, Chinese President Xi Jinping on September 6 cancelled his scheduled visit to Nepal in October.
What was not lost upon the region’s analysts was the timing of the decision—coming as it did around the three-day India visit of the new Nepalese Prime Minister Mr Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as Prachanda.
While the ostensible reasons for the move appear to be the Chinese disappointment with Nepal’s apparent lack of preparedness and commitment to joining ‘One Belt, One Road’—a project connecting China with the rest of Eurasia – and the Nepalese administration ‘not implementing the agreements and understandings’ agreed upon between the two countries during former Nepal prime minister Mr. K P Oli’s visit to Beijing in March, it is understood that the Beijing is upset about the recent turn of events in Nepal that lead to the ouster of Oli, considered to be pro-China.
This, Beijing feels, after China quickly transported about 1,000 metric tonnes of petroleum to Nepal to allow it to tide over the severe shortage of fuel and other essential commodities during the Madhesi blockade of entry points with India. The Chinese government had also gone out of its way to pledge support to Nepal’s ‘geographical integrity and sovereignty’ during the crisis.
The Beijing-friendly Oli, shortly after resigning just before a trust vote that he was expected to lose, said that the opposition parties “hatched a conspiracy for narrow interests, and I am stunned by that”. The ‘conspiracy’, China believed, was the handiwork of India.
His ouster and Prachanda deciding to choose India for his official visit, even though a norm in the Indo-Nepalese context, is seen as a victory of sort by the Indian establishment, which expects Nepal to move closer to India again.
Meanwhile, the impoverished nation of 28 million awaits reconstruction and rehabilitation after the deadly 2015 earthquake.
A similar contest between the dragon and the elephant is active in Bangladesh too.
China has a deep interest in and is heavily invested in Bangladesh. It is, in fact, Bangladesh’s largest trading partner. It has bagged a $705 million contract for a two-lane tunnel under the Karnaphuli River and the $4.47 billion Padma Bridge rail link project. The Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) recently granted a $66 million loan for two power distribution projects and the improvement of transmission lines in Bangladesh.
China is also Bangladesh’s main supplier of military hardware, supplying five maritime patrol vessels, surface-to-air and anti-ship missiles, 16 fighter jets, 45 tanks and two corvettes in the last five years. The new Ming-class Chinese submarines are likely to be added to the Bangladesh naval fleet later this year.
However, China has recently suffered two stunning setbacks in the country.
India’s state-owned Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) bagged a $1.6 billion power station construction contract in Bangladesh after undercutting its Chinese rival, the Harbin Electric International Company. The 1,320MW thermal power station will be the largest foreign project by an Indian power company. The Indian government’s external lending arm, the Exim Bank, would provide more than two-thirds of the funding at the low soft interest for the project.
The deal is seen as the ‘second big win’ by India over China in Bangladesh, after the cancellation of the long-deliberated China-Bangladesh deal to build the huge Sonadia deep-sea port near Chittagong, the country’s major port.
The Sonadia port was seen in India as a part of China’s ‘string of pearls’, a network of Chinese military and commercial facilities in the Indian Ocean region. New Delhi views these ‘pearls’ as a Chinese strategy to encircle India. The port would have been dangerously close to India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a strategically important archipelago of 572 islands that houses a military base and surveillance and monitoring stations.
The Indian government has now expressed interest in building a $15.5 billion deep-sea Payra Port project, to the west of Bangladesh’s choked Chittagong port, and very close to the Indian coastline.
The Indian response to the Chinese presence in Bangladesh extends to other areas of cooperation too. Indian Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi, during his visit to Dhaka in June 2015, signed 22 agreements with the Sheikh Hasina government – including deals on ending a four-decade border dispute between the two countries, maritime security and the establishment of special economic zones in Bangladesh.
India and Bangladesh have also agreed to India building a transit route to its northeast region via Bangladesh by rail, road, and waterways.
At the Bangladesh Investment and Policy Summit in Dhaka on 24 and 25 January 2016, an Indian team of businessmen and investors promised over $11 billion for infrastructure projects in Bangladesh, including an LNG power plant and a gas pipeline from India to Bangladesh.
The last is yet to be written in the India-China geopolitical rivalry in Bangladesh.
But the biggest and the most volatile geopolitical theatre for the bitter contest between the two giants is the proposed $46 billion (41 billion Euros) China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The corridor is devised to link Pakistan’s southern Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea to China’s western Xinjiang region.
But it passes through what India claims is its territory illegally occupied by Pakistan (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, or PoK).
The area also serves as the home to two of the many Pakistan-based groups that the US and the European Union have designated as terrorist outfits – Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM). Beijing’s refusal to designate JeM chief Masood Azhar at the UN Security Council in April 2016 had greatly irked India.
In a one-to-one meeting on September 5 with Chinese President Mr Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hangzhou city, Indian Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi is said to have conveyed that New Delhi and Beijing “would have to be sensitive to each other’s strategic interests“.
Prior to the G20 Summit in China, Indian prime minister’s public mention of Balochistan during his Independence Day speech to the nation on August 15 had triggered a wave of alarm both in Pakistan and China.
A rather innocuous statement thanking the people of Balochistan (and not Pakistan, its parent nation) for good wishes to him was noted because CPEC, on the Pakistani side, ends in that restive province.
During a seminar in the Paroon area of Panjgur district on September 2, activists of one such group, the Balochistan Republican Party (BRP), said Islamabad wants to build the CPEC in the region “on the dead bodies of Baloch people with Beijing’s help“.
Pakistan has long accused India of creating trouble in the region via funding and arming insurgent groups that are fighting for independence for the region.
Talking to India’s leading news daily The Times of India recently, South Asia expert Hu Shisheng said:
“My personal view is that if India is adamant and if Indian factor is found by China or Pakistan in disrupting the process of CPEC, if that becomes a reality, it will really become a disturbance to China-India relations, India-Pakistan relations“.
In other words, one of the most serious global military escalations could just be a corridor away.
There is a heated game of one-upmanship going on between India and China in Sri Lanka and Maldives too. But about that at a later time.
Clearly, after being grounded by India-Pakistan tensions for the most part of its two-decade history, the Association has now been completely turned into a sideshow of the India-China geopolitical one-upmanship.
The contest, I’m afraid, is between two very ancient civilisations and current global powers. Everything suggests that it would outlast the India-Pakistan rivalry by a civilizational distance. And that can have far-reaching consequences for the utopian idea called the South Asian Union.
Note: This piece was written prior to a deadly terror attack on an Indian military facility on September 18, which killed 17 Indian army personnel. All the four killed terrorists belonged to the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad terror group. This led to India and five other nations pulling out of the 19th SAARC Summit, leading to the cancellation of the same.
The post The Tattered Mirage of a South Asian Union is Dying Fast – Pt. 3 appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.
Depuis le premier Sommet de la Terre à Stockholm, en 1972, les Etats multiplient les rencontres internationales sur les questions écologiques. Traités sur les pollutions, conventions sur les changements climatiques, protocoles sur les émissions nocives : les négociations, qui débouchent souvent sur des accords non contraignants, ne sont pas toujours couronnées de succès, comme l'ont été, par leur ratification finalement universelle, la convention de Vienne et le protocole de Montréal sur la protection de la couche d'ozone.
Source: BBC
On 18th June, former Chinese Ambassador to France Wu Jianmin, a senior diplomat, lost his life in a car accident. This shocked the Chinese diplomat community. Wu is a famous representative of the dovish faction in the contemporary diplomatic community of China. Many foreign observant analysts believe that he is the most rational diplomat in contemporary China. Different parties have mourned his death after the accident, including his hawkish counterparts who used to debate with him. Putting aside all sorts of conspiracy theories surrounding Wu’s death, it is worth examing the ‘Wu Jianmin phenomenon’ itself.
Wu Jianmin used to be the French translator for Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai and became a member of the first batch of diplomats representing the People’s Republic of China at the United Nations in 1971. After that, he served as the Chinese ambassador to Belgium, the Netherlands, France and other European countries. Thus Wu is widely perceived as “the expert of Europe” in China. He did not theorize his ideas like Henry Kissinger or other diplomat-turned scholars. His speeches were mainly based on his personal experiences. However, we can still summarize four fulcrums in ‘Wu’s Diplomatic Thought’:
First, Wu believed that ‘peace and development’ remains the core theme of contemporary international political agenda. Given any circumstance, war is not a wise option to choose. This is true even when the country gets involved in a sovereignty-related dispute. Directed by this thought, Wu upheld the belief of ‘win-win cooperation’ when discussing the topic of ‘power-transition moment in China-U.S. relationship’ and the South China Sea dispute. He implemented Deng Xiaoping’s principle of ‘joint development’ and believed that war could not solve problems. That is why he is often characterized as a dove.
Second, regarding the strategy of China’s development, Wu has always emphasized the importance of having an open-door policy. He believed that the closed-door policy in the earlier period of modern China has resulted in a lack of understanding of the outside world, which caused the country to lag behind the others without realizing it. Wu believed this was at the root of various man-made disasters during the Mao era and was glad to see improvements under Deng.
Deng’s ‘Reform and Opening’ policy allowed China to be integrated with the world. The rise of China in recent years is indeed benefiting from an open policy rather than the reverse. Thus, when there were political problems in China or another country, Wu advocated maintaining close contacts with the international community at all levels. Because of this. he was criticized by the Leftist as endorsing the U.S.-led globalization.
Third, Wu insisted that the strategy of ‘keeping a low profile’ proposed by Deng Xiaoping after the Tiananmen incident is still significant today, although Chinese leaders are no longer talking about the concept anymore. Generally speaking, Wu disagreed with the aggressive doctrine in Chinese diplomatic policies. He stressed that ‘China has no intention to compete for hegemony with the U.S.’ and quoted former Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s saying, ‘Keeping a low profile must be China’s policy for at least another hundred years’.
Such attitude was considered by hawks as ‘weak’, and some radicals even condemned Wu as a traitor. Wu simply did not think China had the power to seek hegemony in the foreseeable future. He did not deny that there would be a day when China could compete for it, thus he is not a liberal. Yet, to the nationalists in China, Wu’s stand was already empowering the ambition of others while downplaying China’s glory.
Fourth, Wu was on his guard towards nationalism. He was aware that there is a rise of national sentiment and populism in China and the world, and frequently spoke up and pointed out that “populism will lead to politicians that are puppeteered by nationalism” and eventually leading to the disappearance of rationality. Wu believed that “the nature of populism is to oppose reform; the nature of nationalism is to oppose opening up.” In fact, this observation was the topic of his last public speech. However, we cannot ignore the fact that the Chinese Communist Party needs nationalism as a totem to maintain its legitimacy, particularly in today’s China where the lack of faith in society is accompanied by slower economic growth. The sentiment of nationalism will only intensify, while Wu’s view and position within the system were increasingly marginalized.
The notable difference between Wu and other Chinese diplomats is that, not only that he insisted the four ideas above when he was in office, but became more active in preaching them after his retirement. He continuously preaches these ideas through ‘Track II Diplomacy’. In 2003, he served as the Dean of the Diplomatic Academy after leaving office, taught courses like ‘communication studies class’ in the hope that the ideas listed above could be theorized into a discipline. He was the Vice President of the Tenth Foreign Affairs Committee of the CPPCC National Committee and former President of the International Exhibitions Bureau, which is a multinational organization headquartered in France that coordinates World Expo. Wu became this institution’s first president from China, which has a unique symbolic meaning.
To the significant section of internet users in China, Wu was famous for his involvement in the public debate after his retirement and is perceived as a leading public intellectual in Chinese diplomatic community. Wu was not only diligent in writing and giving speeches on different occasions, he is also active in debating with the hawkish scholars and commentators in public media. This has become one of the most discussed issues by Chinese internet users. In 2014, Wu and the PLA Major General Luo Yuan, who is a famous representative of the hawk faction, had a fierce debate on the topic of ‘Chinese Diplomatic and Strategic Situation’ on Phoenix Television, pushing the ‘hawk-dove debate’ to a climax.
In April, Wu criticized the Global Times, a leading semi-official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, for inciting nationalist sentiment, misjudgment of world situations, which Wu believed were not conducive to China’s diplomacy. Later on, the chief editor of Global Times Hu Xijin, who is a self-claimed member of the Hawk faction, refuted Wu’s views on the Internet. Wu’s hectic schedule of constant traveling to deliver speeches after speeches and long working hours may even be a contributing factor in his fatal accident.
In fact, Wu Jianmin and Luo Yuan are both far away from Chinese diplomatic decision-making level and do not possess a direct policy impact. Whereas, their official contacts allow the Chinese government to take advantage of them to test the air from two sides, to convey messages so as to make policy evaluation. Hence, the hawk and dove faction in the Chinese diplomatic community are actually complementary to each other. They are responsible for balancing different situations in needs.
Whether Luo Yuan, Hu Xijin or other hawkish representatives who used to refute Wu’s view in public all express regret on the loss of a ‘critical friend’, saying that ‘a gentleman gets along with others but not necessarily agree with them’. They also dismissed the sensational news material hyped up by the opportunistic media outlets. From these observations, we could try to imagine Wu’s elegance and grace when he was alive. This also tells us that these two factions are not defending their own interests but competing for readers.
Professor Wang Jiangyu from the National University of Singapore once pointed out that Wu’s significance in contemporary Chinese diplomacy is as a ‘check and balance to nationalism and populism’. It is not easy to find another influential diplomat who is willing to take this path. Some members in Chinese diplomat community suggest that Fu Ying, who used to be the Deputy Foreign Minister and gained a reputation of elegance and visionary, could be the candidate to succeed Wu’s role after her retirement. Fu has shown a preference in attending different forums with a ‘dovish’ image, which makes her quite different from typical retired ambassadors. However, what makes Wu special is that he knew the rule of the internet age. He knew how to arouse attention. This is difficult for those who has long been in official roles.
Without Wu’s balance, it is expected that in the short term, the voice of the hawk faction will become more dominant. If Wu was alive, the responsibility of advising citizens not to overreact to the South China Sea dispute would have fallen on his shoulders. Unfortunately, we cannot hear a credible sound that is capable of assuming this role now. If one day, due to the fear of nationalism and populism, all Chinese commentators from dovish faction are sidelined, China’s future will become a real source of concern.
The post Wu Jianmin’s Rational Diplomacy appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.
President Rodrigo Duterte shakes hands with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang at the State Palace in Hanoi on September 29. (KING RODRIGUEZ/ Presidential Photo)
Known for his off-the-cuff inflammatory remarks, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte latest rants have caused international concern, resulting in capital flight and drops in the stockmarket and currency. Dubbed “Duterte Harry” for his crackdown on drug pushers, he has managed in a mere three months on the job to insult a number of world leaders, including the Pope, who he blamed for traffic jams: “I wanted to call him: ‘Pope, son of a whore, go home. Do not visit us again’.” Immediately prior to a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Laos he reacted to a suggestion that Barack Obama might question him over human rights issues, calling the U.S. president a “son of a whore,” which he later explained was not meant to be a personal attack. And when the European Union government warned Duterte to end mass killings of suspected drug dealers and users, he reacted sharply. “I have read the condemnation of the European Union. I’m telling them, ‘F**k you,'” which Duterte was filmed saying during a speech to local businessmen in his hometown of Davao City on September 20.
In recent weeks, Duterte’s bombastic remarks have spooked both domestic and foreign investors, with the Philippine peso sinking to a seven-year low and global funds selling Philippine stocks for 23 straight days.
Duterte has also threatened to pull out of the United Nations, and told U.S. special forces, which are helping Philippine counterinsurgency troops fight an Islamic insurgency, to leave the country, saying “These US special forces, they have to go in Mindanao.” He has also vowed to end cooperation with the U.S. military in patrolling the disputed South China Sea, confirmed by a statement from Philippine Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr., arguing “To engage the Philippines with another state, say the United States, in so far as a joint patrol in the area where we have made our claims, or the exclusive economic zone, can be considered as a provocative action by other claimants, particular China, which will impede the peaceful settlement of our disputes.”
While pivoting away from the U.S., Duterte is looking to boost economic ties with Russia and China, and told his defense secretary on September 13th to buy weapons from Russia and China rather than America. Duterte also plans to hold bilateral talks with Beijing to discuss conflicting claims on the South China Sea.
And so it was in this context that Duterte paid his first official visit to Vietnam (his fourth country to visit) last week to meet his counterpart, Tran Dai Quang. The two-day visit to Hanoi, marked the 40th anniversary of bilateral relations between the two countries. Fortunately, he did not produce any more publicized zingers—these took place after he returned to Davao and likened himself to Hitler with promises to kill 3 million Filipino drug addicts.
What the visit did accomplish, though, was to build on their strategic partnership agreement signed last year. Both countries are claimants to vast areas of the South China Sea, with Manila leading the way on dispute resolution through its filing of a case in 2014 before an international tribunal in The Hague. In July, the tribunal finally issued a ruling in favor of the Philippines and against China’s nine-dash-line claim, which was determined to have no legal basis.
After arriving back in the Philippines, Duterte told reporters, “We reaffirm commitment to maintaining and promoting peace, security, stability, safety and freedom of navigation and over flight as well as unimpeded commerce in the region, particularly in the South China Sea”. The two countries also agreed to enhance maritime cooperation while protecting the livelihoods of both Filipino and Vietnamese fishermen.
Philippine Foreign Secretary Yasay echoed Duterte’s doctrine of peaceful cooperation—while also acknowledging Vietnam’s claims, “we are very happy that Vietnam has made the same commitment in ASEAN to the rule-based system and peaceful settlement of their claims in the East Vietnam Sea. While we are not taking sides in so far as our respective claims, we respect Vietnam’s claims as much as Vietnam respects our claims.”
So while the previous administration in Hanoi had previously angered Beijing by seeking legal advice from Manila in order to potentially file their own claim at The Hague, the new leadership under Quang appears to be backing off confrontation with Beijing, along with Manila. Any jointly-coordinated legal or military effort between Hanoi and Manila appears now to be out of the question for fear of provoking the dragon next door, while we await the outcome of hopefully peaceful bilateral negotiations. From what has been reported, the unpredictable Duterte’s visit to Hanoi went smoothly, and talk of peaceful settlement of the dispute with Hanoi has seemingly calmed the waters (for now) of the South China Sea.
The post Duterte’s Friendly Visit to Vietnam appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.
Cette recension a été publiée dans le numéro d’automne de Politique étrangère (n°3/2016). Aline Leboeuf, chercheur au Centre des études de sécurité de l’Ifri, propose une analyse de l’ouvrage d’Antoine Glaser, Arrogant comme un Français en Afrique (Paris, Fayard, 2016, 192 pages).
Antoine Glaser étudie la relation entre la France et l’Afrique depuis des années, et a publié de nombreux ouvrages sur le sujet (dont Africafrance, passionnant). Que peut-il nous apprendre de plus sur ces relations complexes qui lient la France à ses anciennes colonies et à certains de leurs voisins, qu’il n’ait déjà écrit ? On se laisse surprendre par la lecture de son livre. Antoine Glaser y impose une thèse simple : les Français sont arrogants et c’est pour cela que l’Afrique leur échappe ! Il le démontre chapitre après chapitre, étudiant des catégories professionnelles particulières : des politiques, militaires et diplomates aux missionnaires ou aux avocats… La problématique est pratique, mais elle lasse.
Car ce qui fait la valeur d’un « Glaser », c’est l’anecdote, les perles empiriques qui donnent accès à un monde souvent mal compris. Par exemple, la présidente centrafricaine Samba-Panza se rend avec ses gardes du corps rwandais à la réception du 14 juillet 2014 organisée par l’ambassade de France. Ses gardes sont priés de partir. Mais la présidente n’a plus de protection pour rentrer : c’est un VAB français qui la raccompagne chez elle. Derrière l’anecdote, la tension entre la France et le Rwanda transparaît, mais aussi les difficultés d’affirmer une souveraineté centrafricaine, contrainte d’hésiter entre plusieurs protecteurs étrangers. L’histoire que raconte à Glaser Paul Antoine Bohoun Bouabré, ministre ivoirien de l’Économie et des Finances de 2000 à 2005, est aussi très représentative, à la fois de la vision par le gouvernement Gbagbo de la dépendance néocoloniale, mais aussi d’une certaine réalité ivoirienne. La pratique des conseillers « blancs » est tellement ancrée dans les représentations que lorsque Bohoun Bouabré représente son pays au Club de Paris, il doit patienter 15 minutes jusqu’à ce qu’on lui explique qu’on attend « ses conseillers français » pour lui donner la parole…
Au détour des pages, l’auteur campe des personnages qui incarnent cette relation spéciale entre la France et l’Afrique, comme l’avocat Jean-Paul Benoît, associé de Jean-Pierre Mignard lui-même ami proche de François Hollande. Si ces parcours individuels ne sont pas toujours représentatifs des corps professionnels auxquels ils appartiennent, ils ancrent l’analyse. Antoine Glaser met en perspective les relations franco-africaines dans une certaine longue durée. Il rappelle utilement que l’esprit du discours « l’Afrique aux Africains » ne date pas de Jospin mais de Mitterrand, qui en 1994 espérait créer une Force d’action rapide interafricaine de 1 500 hommes. On aurait cependant apprécié un tour d’horizon plus global : en restreignant la question des missionnaires catholiques aux Pères blancs, Antoine Glaser fait l’impasse sur d’autres confréries, comme la communauté de Saint-Jean, qui s’est largement enrichie par l’inclusion de frères et de pères venus d’Afrique, ou les jésuites dont l’un s’est initié aux pratiques des Ngangas camerounais.
Glaser souligne habilement que la Françafrique est avant tout constituée d’hommes ; pas toujours ceux qui sont dans la lumière, même s’ils ne sont pas tous dans l’ombre : professeurs, avocats, prêtres, hommes d’affaires, expatriés, conseillers… L’image de la France en Afrique passe aussi par l’image que donnent les Français, dans leur grande diversité, en Afrique. Ne pas savoir écouter ses partenaires africains, ne pas apprendre de leurs expériences et ne pas les traiter en égaux a un coût qui se paie très cher. C’est la place de la France au soleil africain qui est en jeu, pour aujourd’hui et pour demain.
Aline Lebœuf
S’abonner à Politique étrangère.
« Au sein des unités, les hommes sont soudés par des liens forts, nourris par les difficultés de leur expérience de guerre » : à l'image de ce manuel édité par Belin (première, 2011), les livres de classe français relaient largement la thèse de l'« union sacrée » dans les tranchées. Pourtant, si les combats ont parfois rapproché des personnes aux convictions politiques opposées, ils n'ont pas remis en cause la distance entre les classes sociales.
Mobilisation en 1914 : départ d'un train de recrues à Berlin, le 28 août. Colorisation numérique.Dans la plupart des manuels d'histoire, l'union sacrée qui aurait entouré la Grande Guerre est donnée comme une évidence, et ce à deux niveaux. Au sommet de l'Etat, elle est identifiée à l'appel que lance le président de la République, Raymond Poincaré, le 4 août 1914, dans le but de réaliser l'unité nationale. On en trouverait l'incarnation concrète dans la présence, ce même jour, de Maurice Barrès, chef de la Ligue des patriotes, aux obsèques de Jean Jaurès, ou dans la composition du Comité du Secours national, où siègent côte à côte le secrétaire général de la Conféderation générale de travail Léon Jouhaux et des représentants de la Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière (SFIO), de l'Action française ou de l'archevêché de Paris.
Tirailleurs sénégalais à Saint-Ulrich (Haut-Rhin). Autochrome.Cette union se serait par ailleurs prolongée dans le temps et jusque dans les tranchées, prenant cette fois la forme particulière d'un brassage, sinon d'une osmose, entre les classes sociales. Physiquement rassemblés dans la défense de la patrie, des hommes que leurs origines sociales et leurs conditions de vie civiles rendaient étrangers les uns aux autres se seraient à la fois découverts, reconnus et appréciés sous le feu. En témoignerait la devise toujours rappelée de l'Union nationale des combattants (UNC), la plus importante des associations d'anciens combattants d'après-guerre : « Unis comme au front ».
Certes, le brassage des hommes a bien eu lieu. En raison des pertes énormes de 1914 et du printemps 1915, l'armée a dû suspendre le caractère localement homogène du recrutement régimentaire. Dès lors, des hommes issus de régions éloignées, parlant des patois inconnus les uns des autres, se sont effectivement côtoyés et découverts. En revanche, les rencontres entre personnes de groupes sociaux différents furent beaucoup plus rares – l'accès au statut d'officier est très lié à l'appartenance aux classes supérieures – et surtout bien plus superficielles que ne le laisse entendre la devise de l'UNC.
Au front, des préoccupations communes réconcilient d'anciens adversaires politiquesD'autres rencontres eurent bien lieu, que signalent des témoignages de lettrés partis se battre : elles ont mis en contact des hommes du même milieu social qui s'étaient durement opposés, politiquement ou religieusement, dans les années d'avant-guerre. Le mieux est encore, pour faire saisir ce qu'a été cette union des élites en guerre, d'en donner des exemples.
Le chef d'escadron Moog au milieu des hommes du 4e régiment de spahis. Autochrome.Le premier met en scène l'historien Jules Isaac, coauteur du célèbre manuel Malet et Isaac, lorsqu'il avoue, dans une lettre à sa femme Laure, s'être surpris à bavarder avec un nouveau sergent « disciple de Maurras et ami de l'Action française, médaillé du Sacré Cœur, bien loin, bien loin de moi ! », mais avec lequel il reconnaît partager « tout de même certaines préoccupations communes ».
Le radical Emile Combes, farouche partisan de la séparation de l'Eglise et de l'Etat, au côté de sœur Julie. Photographie anonyme de 1916.Le second évoque la mémoire du sociologue Robert Hertz, « tué à l'ennemi » le 13 avril 1915. Lors d'une visite de condoléances faite à sa femme Alice, Emile Durkheim, son directeur de thèse, découvre avec surprise que, dans ses lettres du front, son élève fait preuve d'« un idéalisme un peu fumeux » et que, pis encore, il lui arrive d'évoquer Barrès « avec sympathie ». Le professeur en Sorbonne ne comprend pas l'attitude du jeune socialiste. Comment peut-il parler en aussi bons termes d'hommes que l'affaire Dreyfus, la séparation de l'Eglise et de l'Etat ou la montée en puissance des idées jaurésiennes avaient constitués en irréductibles adversaires politiques ?
Dans les tranchées, nombreux sont ces membres de la bourgeoisie lettrée qui découvrent qu'ils ont plus de choses à partager avec leurs semblables sociaux, quand bien même ils auraient été ennemis politiques dans le civil, qu'avec les hommes avec lesquels ils se retrouvent condamnés à vivre, quand ils ne les commandent pas. Sans doute l'union sacrée est-elle, bien plus qu'une fraternité entre classes sociales, la reconnaissance d'une appartenance à la même « espèce » sociale, selon le terme qu'ils utilisent pour qualifier les individus dont ils recherchent, d'autant plus fortement que la guerre se prolonge, la compagnie.