Diplomacy & Crisis News

As the world enters 2021, after a “year of trials, tragedies and tears”, the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, has delivered a message of hope for the new year. 

In the final World Health Organization (WHO) COVID-19 press conference of the year, on Monday, senior officials warned that the virus is "not necessarily the big one", and that there is a real chance of another, more serious pandemic spreading across the world.

Austérité ou relance ? Soumettre les politiques économiques aux critères d'évaluation de la recherche médicale permettrait de trancher la question. / Grèce, Démocratie, Dette, Économie, Inégalités, Pauvreté, Politique, Protection sociale, Santé, Violence, Islande, Crise économique, Crise financière - (...) / Grèce, Démocratie, Dette, Économie, Inégalités, Pauvreté, Politique, Protection sociale, Santé, Violence, Islande, Crise économique, Crise financière - 2014/10

Some 25,000 Eritrean refugees, sheltering in two camps in the unsettled Tigray region of Ethiopia, have received desperately needed food aid for the first time since mid-October.

After decades of uneasy ties, China can no longer deny that India is a real threat.

En bombardant Gaza durant cinquante jours, les Israéliens ont provoqué des dégâts sans équivalent depuis 1967, avec plus de deux mille morts, dont cinq cents enfants. Dans le même temps, en Cisjordanie, l'Autorité palestinienne maintient sa coopération sécuritaire avec l'armée d'occupation, malgré (...) / Israël, Palestine, Proche-Orient, Conflit israélo-arabe, État, Inégalités, Sécurité, Parti politique, Pauvreté, Police, Politique, Réfugiés, Violence, Palestine (Cisjordanie), Chômage, Répression, Colonisation, Conflit israélo-palestinien, Relations bilatérales - 2014/10

A group of transgender women in Mexico City has been telling the UN how despite living with discrimination and the threat of physical violence, they have managed to help others in a poor neighbourhood of the Mexican capital during the COVID-19 crisis.

With much of the world in lockdown again, here are some of this year’s highlights to help you pass the time.

The United States was already fighting with China for influence at global organizations, but the pandemic made everything worse.

From Afghanistan to Mexico, and from Belarus to Cambodia, here’s the best photojournalism from a year that felt like a decade.

United Nations agencies and humanitarian partners have called on authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina to act urgently to help hundreds of migrants, stranded and without shelter, amid freezing winter temperatures. 

Children all over the world have had their education severely disrupted this year, as schools struggle to cope with repeated closures and re-openings, and the transition, if it’s even an option, to online schooling. Disadvantaged children, however, have been worst-hit by the emergency measures. In part three of our look back at the effect that COVID-19 has had on the world, we focus on the education crisis provoked by the pandemic.

The coziness between Washington and Big Tech is over.

Cette recension a été publiée dans le numéro d’hiver 2020-2021 de Politique étrangère (n° 4/2020). Antoine Maire propose une analyse de l’ouvrage d’Alicia Campi, Mongolia’s Foreign Policy (Lynne Rienner, 2019, 352 pages).

Cet ouvrage a l’intérêt d’offrir une vision exhaustive des actions de politique étrangère mises en œuvre par la Mongolie après la révolution démocratique de l’hiver 1989-1990. Cette révolution fait office de charnière. Elle a vu le pays passer du socialisme à la démocratie et à l’économie de marché. Elle a in fine permis aux autorités locales de rompre avec l’alignement sur les positions soviétiques qui a caractérisé la diplomatie mongole pendant l’essentiel du xxe siècle. Cette révolution a ouvert la voie à la mise en œuvre d’une politique étrangère autonome, affirmant l’indépendance et la souveraineté de la Mongolie dans un contexte marqué par son enclavement géographique entre la Chine et la Russie.

L’auteur présente la stratégie mongole d’intégration régionale ainsi que les relations nouées par le pays avec ses partenaires. À cet égard, la réflexion développée sur la politique mongole de soft power constitue une contribution originale, qui mérite d’être saluée. L’ouvrage éclaire également le glissement sémantique connu par le concept de « troisième voisin », pierre angulaire de la stratégie internationale de diversification des partenaires de la Mongolie, et qui a conduit les autorités à élargir son champ d’application. Il met ainsi en lumière une diplomatie mongole proactive, qui entend répondre à un monde en évolution rapide. Alicia Campi propose un concept pour résumer cette stratégie flexible et opportuniste : la « stratégie du loup ». Cette pratique résulterait selon elle d’une mentalité nationale profondément marquée par le pastoralisme nomade, mode de vie qui est encore celui de près d’un tiers de la population en Mongolie.

Si l’ouvrage offre une vision exhaustive des initiatives mises en œuvre par les autorités mongoles en matière de politique étrangère, celle-ci aurait mérité d’être complétée par une étude des conditions d’élaboration de cette dernière. Cette absence laisse à penser que la politique étrangère mongole résulte d’un acteur unitaire et rationnel, l’État, escamotant les débats et tensions que suscite la formulation de cette politique dans le champ politique local. Une analyse des controverses générées par le projet de statut de neutralité permanente, ou la position mongole dans l’Organisation de coopération de Shanghai aurait permis d’illustrer utilement ce point.

L’auteur choisit explicitement de ne pas aborder les évolutions politiques internes, mais ce parti pris limite la portée de l’analyse. L’étude de certains moments cathartiques, par exemple la négociation de grands contrats miniers, en offre un exemple puisqu’elle est uniquement menée à l’aune du concept de « stratégie du loup ». Ce choix occulte mécaniquement les dissensions qui apparaissent lors de ces moments entre les acteurs mongols et la diversité des alliances qu’ils sont amenés à nouer avec des partenaires étrangers.

La lecture de l’ouvrage d’Alicia Campi n’en demeure pas moins stimulante. Outre une synthèse inédite de la diplomatie de la Mongolie depuis 1990, il offre de nombreux exemples de la manière dont un « petit pays » est en mesure d’exister sur la scène internationale. Il permet ainsi de dépasser, s’il en était encore besoin, le postulat selon lequel la politique étrangère de ces États se résumerait à un simple alignement sur la puissance dominante. L’ouvrage illustre au contraire la spécificité et l’ingéniosité des stratégies qu’ils déploient sur la scène internationale.

Antoine Maire

>> S’abonner à Politique étrangère <<

A Peruvian biologist and inventor who is turning wind into water has been named as a winner of an annual UN environmental award.

Weihuan Zhou, Lisa Toohey

Trade, Pacific

Australia won't take China's barley tarriffs on the chin. 

Australia is reportedly ready to initiate its first litigation against China at the World Trade Organisation.

China has this year taken punitive action against imports of Australian coal, wine, beef, lobster and barley.

It is the five-year 80.5% barley tariff China imposed in May that Australia will take to the World Trade Organisation. More than half of all Australian barley exports in 2019 were sold to China, worth about A$600 million a year to Australian farmers.

Chinese authorities began an anti-dumping investigation into Australian barley in November 2018. Anti-dumping trade rules are meant to protect local producers from unfair competition from “dumped” imported goods.

Dumping occurs where a firm sells goods in an overseas market at a price lower than the normal value of the goods. China calculated the normal value of barley using “best information available” on the grounds that Australian producers and exporters failed to provide all information Chinese investigators requested.

The barley tariff will last for five years unless Chinese investigators initiate a review and decide to extend it beyond 2025.

What can Australia hope to achieve from a WTO dispute?

Not a quick and easy win. A formal resolution will likely take years. But it plants a seed, starting a structured process for dialogue. This is an important step in the right direction.

A lengthy process

WTO litigation is no quick fix. There is a set process that moves through three phases – consultation, adjudication and compliance.

The standard timetable would ideally have disputes move through consultation and adjudication within a year. In reality it often take several years, particularly if appeals or compliance actions are involved.

The timetable schedules 60 days for the first stage of negotiations, though these can take many more months. That’s worthwhile if it leads to a resolution. But given the tensions between China and Australia, a quick resolution looks remote.

The adjudication process typically involves a decision by a WTO panel followed by an appeal to the organisation’s Appellate Body.

A WTO panel is meant to issue its decision within nine months of its establishment, but it usually takes much more time. If the panel’s decision is appealed, the Appellate Body is meant to make its decisions within 90 days, but nor is this time frame met in many cases.

Once a WTO decision is final, it is up to the losing party to comply with the ruling. That may include a request for time to make the necessary changes. In practice, this can take six to 15 months.

Appeals blockage

One complication is the current non-functioning WTO appeals process. Appointing judges to the WTO’s Appellate Body requires agreement from all WTO member nations. US obstruction of new appointments has reduced the number of judges to zero, and the Appellate Body requires three judges to hear appeals.

This paralysis has created a major loophole, enabling an “appeal into the void” to block unfavourable rulings.

In light of this, the 27 European Union nations and 22 other WTO members – including both China and Australia – have signed on to a temporary appeals process known as the “multi-party interim appeal arbitration arrangement” (MPIA).

Given China’s commitment to the WTO and its dispute settlement system, there is no reason to anticipate it snubbing interim arrangements if an appeal arises. But the appeal process is also likely to take just as long as the Appellate Body procedure.

No guaranteed win

Federal Trade Minister Simon Birmingham has expressed confidence in Australia’s “strong case” but victory against China is not assured.

China’s tariff on Australian barley comprises an “anti-dumping duty” of 73.6% and a “countervailing duty” of 6.9%. Anti-dumping and countervailing calculations are highly technical. Whether China’s barley tariff has violated WTO rules will require detailed examination of its methodology.

A key challenge to the Chinese methodology is that it largely disregarded information on domestic sales by Australian barley producers and used data from Australian sales to Egypt.

The WTO has found China’s use of similar methods in several past disputes breached WTO rules. But every case depends on very specific facts. The past rulings against China do not necessarily predict the result here.

 

No compensation

Even if Australia is successful, a “win” isn’t total.

The WTO system is designed to make states change their ways. It is not designed to compensate those harmed by illegal trade measures. In other words, an Australian win may require China only to remove the tariff, not compensate those who paid more or lost revenue as a result.

There is also a risk that China could simply initiate a re-investigation of the barley tariff, which might lead to a decision to impose duties very similar to the original ones. In some past disputes, it took China five years or longer to remove duties.

So even if the World Trade Organisation rules in favour of Australia, this might not lead to the tariff’s end before its current expiry date in 2025.

Still the best option

Despite all this, the World Trade Organisation is Australia’s best step.

The WTO is not perfect, but it is now a tested and respected mechanism to resolve trade disputes.

WTO litigation also compels the disputing parties to enter into consultations – and talking is something Australia’s officials have had difficulty having with their Chinese counterparts.

China might drag its heels in other ways, but it can be expected to respect the WTO’s procedural rules and enter into these negotiations. Those talks could help repair communication channels better than missives through social media and press conferences.

Litigation the new normal

In commencing a formal dispute, Australia also sends a firm but dignified message – that it is willing to use international rules and procedures to solve grievances.

WTO litigation is a normal feature of trade relations between countries. Even close allies bring disputes against one another – such as New Zealand’s case against Australia’s restrictions on New Zealand apples, or Australia’s case against Canadian restrictions on imported wines in liquor stores.

China and Australia badly need a relationship reset. Meeting in a rules-based forum with structured processes for dialogue can do no harm.

Weihuan Zhou, Senior Lecturer and member of Herbert Smith Freehills CIBEL Centre, Faculty of Law, UNSW Sydney, UNSW and Lisa Toohey, Professor of Law, University of Newcastle

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters

David Axe

Security, Americas

For every sailor who’s not in a submarine, submarines are real scary.

Here's What You Need To Remember: Everyone fears aircraft carriers - but aircraft carriers fear submarines.

A photo taken in 2016 depicting an American nuclear-powered submarine poking its periscope above the waves—within shooting distance of a British aircraft carrier during a war game—is a useful reminder of one of the most important truths of naval warfare.

For every sailor who’s not in a submarine, submarines are real scary.

Stealthy and heavily-armed, subs are by far the most powerful naval vessels in the world for full-scale warfare—and arguably the best way to sink those more obvious icons of naval power, aircraft carriers.

The public may not fully appreciate submarines’ lopsided combat advantage, but the world’s leading navies sure do. Today Chinese, Russian and American submarines, among others, are busy sneaking up on, tracking and practicing sinking rival fleets’ flattops.

The provocative photo, see here, depicts the masts of the U.S. Navy attack submarine USS Dallas near the carrier HMS Illustrious during a naval exercise in the Gulf of Oman on Oct. 3, 2013. Six warships including Dallas and Illustrious conducted an anti-submarine-warfare exercise that saw Dallas stalking Illustrious while British and American surface warships and helicopters attempted to locate and “sink” the undersea vessel.

Neither navy has published the results of the exercise, so it’s not clear whether Dallas got close enough in the course of the war game to simulate firing Mark-48 torpedoes at the flattop, which at 22,000 tons displacement is one of the largest ships in Royal Navy service.

But there are good reasons to assume the 7,000-ton Dallas did succeed in pretend-sinking Illustrious. In 2007 HMCS Corner Brook, a diesel-electric submarine of the Canadian navy, sneaked up on Illustrious during an exercise in the Atlantic.

To prove they could have sunk the carrier, Corner Brook’s crew snapped a photo through the periscope—and the Canadian navy helpfully published it.“The picture represents hard evidence that the submarine was well within attack parameters and would have been successful in an attack,” boasted Cmdr. Luc Cassivi, commander of the Canadian submarine division.

Corner Brook, a former British submarine displacing only 2,400 tons, is no more capable than Dallas—and probably much less so once crew training is taken into account. American submariners spend far more time at sea than their Canadian counterparts.

Dallas and Corner Brook scored their simulated carrier kills against allied warships in the context of a scripted exercise. But many other close encounters between subs and flattops have occurred between rival nations deep at sea, in a usually bloodless duel that is nevertheless deadly serious.

To prepare its submarines to hunt and sink American aircraft carriers in some future World War III, during the Cold War the Soviet navy ordered its hundreds of sub captains to get as close as possible to U.S. flattops … and stay there. The U.S. Navy routinely surrounds its multi-billion-dollar carriers with escorts including surface ships and submarines, but the defensive screen is not impenetrable.

In 1974 a Soviet Il-38 patrol plane spotted what was later described as the carrier USS Nimitz and its escorts off the U.S. East Coast. The ship’s identity is in doubt, as in 1974 the brand-new Nimitz was in the water at a Virginia shipyard and still being worked on.

Whichever carrier it was, Soviet commanders instructed an attack submarine to track the flattop and its escorts. “Three days we [followed] Nimitz [sic],” navigator Pavel Borodulkin told Tom Briggs, an American who visited Russia decades later.

Borodulkin implied that the sub spent much of the time at a depth of 120 feet. As for being detected … “We did not worry,” Borodulkin said, explaining that American sonar was not optimized for detecting a target moving on the same course and speed as the vessel doing the searching.

“Our stealth was high,” Borodulkin said. To prove his claims, the navigator gave Briggs the above blurry photo of a flattop, snapped through the Soviet sub’s periscope.

That wasn’t the only NATO carrier the Soviets tailed. In 1984 a Victor-class Soviet submarine played cat and mouse with the flattop USS Kitty Hawk off the Korean Peninsula. The Americans lost track of the Victor and, in the dead of night, the 80,000-ton carrier actually collided with the 5,000-ton sub.

“I felt the ship shudder violently and, going to the starboard side, I could see two periscopes and the upper part of a submarine moving away,” Kitty Hawk Capt. Dave Rogers told The Sydney Morning Herald. A Japanese patrol plane later spotted the apparently damaged Victor limping away at three knots.

In November the same year Illustrious, then a young vessel, passed within 500 yards of a Soviet Tango-class submarine during a Royal Navy exercise off the Scottish coast, according to The Robesonian newspaper.

When the Soviets introduced their own small aircraft carriers in the mid-1970s, British and American subs no doubt watched them as closely as Soviet undersea boats followed NATO flattops. But there were no public accounts of Western subs getting caught doing so until 2007, when a Russian newspaper reported that warships escorting the carrier Admiral Kuznetsov in the Atlantic pursued an unspecified submarine for half an hour.

The snooping sub reportedly got away by deploying self-propelled decoys.

After the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, the Russian submarine force shrank considerably and, for a few years at least, was much less aggressive. The Russian carrier fleet declined to a single vessel, the Admiral Kuznetsov.

American attention gradually shifted east to the Pacific, where in the early 2000s China had launched a massive naval rearmament program that included refurbishing a former Soviet carrier, a sister ship of the Admiral Kuznetsov that was renamed Liaoning in Chinese service.

In addition to their new flattop, the Chinese built several new submarines per year on average, soon boasting a fleet of some 60 undersea boats—about as numerous as American subs.

Not nearly as large, advanced or active as U.S. subs, the Chinese boats were at a huge disadvantage. Beijing’s subs struggled to gather intelligence and develop wartime tactics. They enjoyed at least one dramatic success in October 2006, when a Chinese Song-class diesel-electric attack submarine quietly surfaced within nine miles of Kitty Hawk in the waters between Japan and Taiwan.

The Song-class vessel, displacing 2,200 tons, was close enough to hit the Kitty Hawk with a torpedo. None of the carrier’s roughly dozen escorting warships detected the Song until it breached the surface. American officers were flabbergasted.

“This could well have escalated into something that was very unforeseen,” said Adm. Bill Fallon, then commander of U.S. Pacific forces.

But it’s apparent that China is more scared of American submarines than the Americans are scared of Chinese boats. In 2012 Liaoning was finally ready to set sail from the Dalian shipyard. As Beijing’s only carrier facing a fleet of 10 American flattops, Liaoning was widely expected to stage from China’s most modern naval base on Hainan Island in the south, near Taiwan and Vietnam.

Instead Beijing announced the 70,000-ton carrier would be heading north to Qingdao. The apparent reason was that the area around Qingdao was already home to a squadron of Song-class submarines plus Type 091 nuclear subs. Those vessels are the best defense China possesses against the American and Japanese subs that will undoubtedly hound Liaoning every time she leaves port, practicing to sink the carrier in the event of war.

Doing, in other words, what submarines do best.

This article first appeared several years ago.

Image: Reuters.

Robert W. Merry

Politics, Americas

Can Biden craft a trade policy that keeps overseas markets open to U.S. goods while protecting the interests of working-class Americans devastated by past unfair practices by American trading partners, particularly China?

THE MOST pressing imperative facing the incoming president, Joe Biden, is to pacify the ongoing and increasingly tense civil conflict between America’s coastal elites, who are liberal and globalist in outlook, and the nationalist/traditionalist folks of the heartland, who feel beleaguered by those elites. In order to do this, he will have to build a governing coalition that starts with a large segment of his Democratic base but also seeks to draw in more moderate elements of the opposition. If he tries to govern strictly from the Left, as his party will want, the civil conflict will continue and deepen, Biden’s government will seize up, and he will fail.

Donald Trump’s strong popular-vote showing, along with the outcomes in congressional balloting and state-legislative races, makes clear that American politics continues to reside on a knife’s edge of political parity and mutual hostility. There will be no wave of popular support of the kind that Franklin Roosevelt could summon after his strong 1932 election, or that Ronald Reagan commanded after 1980. If Biden is to succeed he must generate his own wave through the delicate art of governing.

Will he do it? Not clear. Can he succeed even if he tries to do it? Less clear. The president-elect’s party, still traumatized by the very emergence of Trump, will want Biden to govern as if the incumbent’s defeat on November 3 places the country back where it was before the vulgar billionaire crashed the political scene four years ago. That would mean policies and pronouncements denoting the party’s continuing view of Trump supporters as “deplorables.”

But Trump, for all of his limitations as a national leader, transformed the American political landscape by bringing new issues and new sensibilities to the Republican Party and the nation, and things aren’t going back to where they were when the party was led by the likes of Jeb Bush. That’s a reality Biden needs to absorb.

Consider, for example, the issue of immigration, the most incendiary of the cultural conflicts facing the country. Many Trump supporters believe the Democratic establishment favors relatively open borders as a means of transforming the essence of America in ways they oppose. And Democratic liberals consider resistance to their broad migrant hospitality to be a form of racism. This divide contributes significantly to the civil strains roiling America, and it’s difficult to see how Biden can bridge this gap and fashion a moderate consensus that can capture the center and neutralize the high-voltage passions emanating from the extreme wings of both parties.

Most likely he won’t try but will instead employ his executive authority to foster and encourage greater immigration flows, thus perpetuating the tensions and anxieties generated by the issue. 

Similar questions surround other major domestic matters. Can he craft a trade policy that keeps overseas markets open to U.S. goods while protecting the interests of working-class Americans devastated by past unfair practices by American trading partners, particularly China? Can he piece together a health-care system that expands coverage without introducing widespread inconvenience (such as rationing) for those seeking medical attention? And can he reconcile economic-growth imperatives with the importance of fiscal responsibility?

On foreign policy, Biden faces one issue that dwarfs all others, and that is China. The People’s Republic, a major global competitor in the realm of economic power, now seeks geopolitical dominance in East Asia (through naval power) and what the famous early-twentieth-century British geographer Halford Mackinder called the Eurasian Heartland (through infrastructure dominance and possibly, in the future, land power). America must decide if it will accept these surges of power—particularly in East Asia, as the realization of China’s ambitions there would mean that America eventually would be kicked out of the region. But Chinese dominance of the Eurasian Heartland carries other global hazards, since China then would be positioned to threaten Western Europe and Russia.

Some suggest that, given these developments, war between America and China is inevitable. Perhaps, but not necessarily. Through deft and imaginative diplomacy, and the building of alliance coalitions to bolster U.S. influence in the region, the country could signal its seriousness and perhaps foster a peaceful, though uneasy, accommodation with China.

This also suggests that the United States must clear the decks of its own geopolitical thinking so as to not get distracted from the primary challenge through counterproductive diplomatic and military actions elsewhere around the world. The country thus should extricate itself from “forever wars” in the Middle East and from unnecessary tensions with Russia and India, two nations that have been traditional Chinese adversaries.

But the challenge here is fearsome and the requirements of diplomacy daunting. Is Biden up to it? Judging from some of his past statements on China, this would seem to be an open question. “They’re not bad folks, folks,” he said early in the campaign. “But guess what? They’re ... not competition for us.”

That’s a remarkable statement from the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. American foreign policy today should begin with an understanding that they are competition for us and see themselves as such. Then we can get to the question of how we should deal with that fundamental reality.

Robert W. Merry, former President of Congressional Quarterly and Editor of The National Interest, is the author most recently of President McKinley: Architect of the American Century (Simon & Schuster).

Image: Reuters.

Patrick Mendis, Antonina Luszczykiewicz

China, Asia

For the United States to counterbalance an increasingly assertive China, President Biden has to push the India policy envelope conceived by the Trump administration while championing America’s founding values of freedom and democracy.

President Donald Trump’s “America First” ethos has permanently aligned India within the United States’ overarching Indo-Pacific strategy. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s unique personal chemistry with Trump has resulted in a pivotal geostrategic calculus to challenge the rise of restless China.

It is no coincidence that President-elect Joe Biden selected Senator Kamala Harris—a descendant of Indian heritage—as his running mate. But, even with Vice President-elect Harris, the Biden White House will still face great challenges to overcome Modi’s Hindu nationalist politics and Trump’s white evangelical-Christian nativism when confronting China.

The Trump White House discounted human rights and the rights of ethnic minorities at home and abroad, especially of Tibetans and Uyghurs in China as well as Muslims in Indian Kashmir. Yet, his evangelical-led administration has still used India as a counterweight to China by pursuing its Indo-Pacific strategy with Australia and Japan. Like with the Taiwan policy, the incoming Biden White House’s National Security Council will have no choice but to continue with Trump’s India policy in its battle with China, especially on the restructuring of global supply chains in the Sino-American “trade war” and the tech cold war.

Setting the Stage

To set a lasting foundation for U.S.-India relations, President Trump dispatched his top national security officials to New Delhi in late October 2020. The White House decision for the concurrent visit of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper had significant salience. The visit took place just a few days ahead of the U.S. presidential election and during a pandemic that both the most powerful and largest democracies are failing to control, leaving no doubts about the Trump administration’s perception of the importance of American engagement with India.

It was Pompeo’s fourth visit to India as secretary of state and the third in the U.S.-India 2+2 ministerial dialogue as part of the broader Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (the Quad). His latest trip was most significant given that Pompeo was accompanied by Defense Secretary Esper in a scheduled meeting with their counterparts: India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Defense Minister Rajnath Singh.  

As members of the Quad with Australia and Japan, the United States and India have now signed the last of four foundational accords—the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) for Geospatial and Intelligence Cooperation—to solidify their bilateral military ties and to access exceptionally accurate geospatial data, high-end defense technology, and classified satellite data on military-related issues. With the BECA agreement, the other three accords form the basis of the U.S.-India defense cooperation framework:

- General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) in 2002 

-The Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) in 2016  

-The Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) in 2018 

The BECA agreement will be crucial for India given its June 2020 deadly border clashes with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army forces in the disputed Himalayan Galwan river valley in Ladakh and the previous Doklam valley standoff in the India-China-Bhutan trijunction border area. Under the agreement, the U.S. military will provide advanced navigational and avionic hardware in addition to sharing geospatial intelligence with India to deter Chinese transgressions into the Indian-claimed territories.

The Indian alliance with the Quad has now been solidified under a broad military pact. In protest, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi characterized the Quad’s goal to build an “Indo-Pacific NATO” in a strategy that harkens back to the Cold War. In 2018, however, Wang dismissed the Quad and the Indo-Pacific (instead of Asia-Pacific) alliance as an “attention-grabbing idea” that would “dissipate like ocean foam.” Despite his rhetoric, the evidence suggests an emergence of a new NATO-like Indo-Pacific alliance triggered largely by the recent Sino-Indian border confrontations in the Himalayan Ladakh region.

Beijing’s Strategic Miscalculations

The deaths of twenty Indian soldiers—together with an unconfirmed number on the Chinese side—in the Himalayan border skirmish were the first recorded casualties since 1975. The Modi government retaliated by banning over one hundred Chinese apps—such as WeChat and TikTok—for which India was supposed to become the biggest foreign market. In doing so, the Indian government renounced the 1988 breakthrough in which economic and cultural relations between India and China were to be developed irrespective of the ongoing border dispute. The Trump White House could not have been more pleased to secure India as a willing partner of the American trade and tech wars against China.

It is no secret that in recent years India and the United States have worked closely on tightening military, economic, and diplomatic cooperation. The cooperation began to accelerate with the U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Cooperation Treaty signed in 2008. After more than a decade of negotiations, the 2020 BECA agreement will now allow India and the United States to share satellite and mapping data for better accuracy of their missiles and drones—and for better surveillance against China and its “all-weather friend” Pakistan. With unanimous support from U.S. Congress, the longest-negotiated BECA accord is the final part of four military agreements between India and the United States that would fortify their military partnership to galvanize the Quad operations in the Indian Ocean and beyond.

Without directly stating that the U.S.-India alliance is aimed primarily at counterbalancing the influences of China, Pompeo remarked at the 2+2 ministerial dialogue in New Delhi that “we have a lot to discuss today: our cooperation on the pandemic that originated in Wuhan, to confronting the Chinese Communist Party’s threats to security and freedom, to promoting peace and stability throughout the region.” From his evangelical-Christian perspective, atheist-China is not the elephant in the room anymore, but the enemy of Christian America—openly pointing a finger at Beijing. While the Trump administration’s core values of nationalistic white supremacy have criticized China for its human rights abuses, it remains consciously blind to the treatment of Muslims in Kashmir by the Hindu nationalist government and the human rights abuses of Hispanic and Muslim immigrants in America, to name a few.

The Hedge Against the Biden Factor

Regardless of the significance of these values and agreements, some questions related to timing remain. Why did President Trump send his top national security officials only a few days ahead of the presidential election when the loss of his presidency was a possibility? Why didn’t India follow the “wait-and-watch” strategy until the U.S. election results were clarified?

The geopolitical context of Pompeo’s visit suggests it is a long-lasting strategy to limit the United States in its approaches to both China and India—and to ensure it will be continued regardless of who occupies the White House. Like the appointment of conservative judges to the U.S. Supreme Court for a lasting legacy, it is clear that Trump’s trade and tech wars with China will be inevitable and irreversible, regardless of President Biden’s intentions. Initiatives such as the Quad and the Indo-Pacific strategy confirm that the Biden administration has no choice but to counterbalance—or even isolate or possibly decouple with China—not just in economic but also in political domains.

In the prevailing domestic political perspectives, Pompeo’s visit to India was yet another occasion to use the “China threat” rhetoric and anti-Chinese sentiments in the presidential campaign to galvanize their voter base for years to come. From accusations of spreading the “Chinese virus” to presenting China as an economic bandit, Trump has been trying to mobilize his supporters while deflecting blame for the pandemic. His continued legacy—with a voter base of some 74 million, compared with 81 million who voted for President-elect Joe Biden—suggests that his style of American politics will not stop at the edges of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Having raised “huge sums of money from his loyal supporters,” his post-presidency will provide Trump with “tremendous flexibility” to advance his ambitions and to exploit his foreign policy initiates by advocating his success with conservative-evangelical voters and windfalls from the military-industrial complex (with his policies on armed sales to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Taiwan, India, and others).

Nonetheless, President-elect Biden will most certainly need to welcome Indian Prime Minister Modi’s iconic bear-hug, a symbol of his “personal diplomacy,” as well as the mutually beneficial nature of an evolved bilateral relationship.

Goodbye to Non-aligned Nonsense

With its new U.S. military alliance, India has finally removed the mask of “non-aligned” foreign policy which it has nominally employed since independence in 1947. During the Cold War, the so-called non-alignment was supposed to give India the flexibility to maneuver in its relations between the United States and the former Soviet Union. However, recent border tensions and China’s increasingly bold attempts at interfering in India’s internal affairs make it impossible for New Delhi to keep the facade of neutrality. As British Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to visit India in January 2021 in his bid to transform the G7 group into a Democracy 10 (D-10) with Australia, South Korea, and India, the new democratic alliance would pave a way for the Biden administration to lead in combating authoritarian regimes and challenging China.

Yet in comparison to Secretary Pompeo and other Trump officials who openly call China an enemy, Indian leaders still seem much more restrained in their rhetoric. Although neither Jaishankar nor Singh called a spade a spade, the Indian government’s anti-Chinese motivations cannot be doubted anymore, despite some joint China-India soft power projects in recent years.

India seems ready to secure its Himalayan borders through an international alliance—the first military alliance aimed at protecting its boundary that New Delhi has joined openly in post-independence history. There is no doubt that a NATO-like Asian democratic “coalition of willing” countries or a global “D-10” grouping will have far-reaching implications for the Indian subcontinent and U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy. 

For the United States to counterbalance an increasingly assertive China, President Biden has to push the India policy envelope conceived by the Trump administration while championing America’s founding values of freedom and democracy. By upholding these values on the world stage, Biden would at least be remembered as an authentic U.S. president who re-established the American narrative as the “shining city upon a hill” for the rest to emulate. 

Dr. Patrick Mendis, a former American diplomat and a military professor in the NATO and Pacific Commands, is a distinguished visiting professor of global affairs at the National Chengchi University and a distinguished visiting scholar at the Taiwan Center for Security Studies in Taipei. 

Dr. Antonina Luszczykiewicz, a specialist in political and cultural history of China and India at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland is currently a visiting research scholar at Tamkang University in Taipei. Both are Taiwan fellows of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Republic of China. The views expressed in this analysis neither represent the official positions of the current or past institutional affiliations nor the respective governments.  

Image: Reuters.

David Kennedy

Coronavirus,

Why it matters that the coronavirus is changing – and what this means for vaccine effectiveness.

A new variant of SARS-CoV-2 is spreading rapidly in the United Kingdom, with over 1,400 cases since September. SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, generally accumulates mutations slowly over time, but this new variant had accumulated many mutations quickly.

If this new version of the virus is here to stay, as it appears to be, what does that mean? Will this new version of the virus replace the old one? Will it be easier to catch? And, most important, will the current vaccines still be effective?

This interests me because I am an evolutionary microbiologist who studies the link between the transmission and evolution of infectious diseases. In particular, I spend a lot of time considering the effects of vaccines on pathogen evolution and the effects of pathogen evolution on the impact of vaccines.

What is the new SARS-CoV-2 mutant that has emerged?

The new version of SARS-CoV-2 – named the B.1.1.7 lineage – is spreading in the U.K. and possibly beyond. The differences between the old and new virus include 23 mutations in the virus’s genetic code that have altered four viral proteins.

Eight of these 23 mutations affect the spike protein. This matters because the spike protein enables the virus to enter human cells, and it is a key target of our immune response, both in fighting off the virus during infection and in protecting us from disease following vaccination with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

If the changes to the spike protein help the virus enter human cells more easily, then the virus could be transmitted from person to person more readily.

These mutations may also alter how well the host’s immune system combats the virus, potentially reducing the efficacy of the current vaccines.

What is different about this new version of SARS-CoV-2?

Samples of the new virus isolated from patients suggest that this variant has been increasing in relative frequency over the past three months.

The increase in frequency is concerning, as it suggests – but does not prove – that the B.1.1.7 isolates of SARS-CoV-2 are more transmissible than the original virus. Some have estimated that the new virus may be up to 70% more transmissible than the old virus. While these estimates are consistent with the data, it is entirely too early to make a definitive conclusion.

If this increase in transmissibility is confirmed, it might be due to of the mutations in the spike protein allows it to bind more tightly to the ACE2 receptor, which provides a gateway for the virus to enter human cells.

But it might also be due to any of the other changes to the virus.

Is it more dangerous? If so, why?

If the new version, B.1.1.7, is indeed more transmissible than the old virus, it will be more dangerous in the sense that it will make more people sick.

However, I am not aware of good evidence that there is any difference in severity of disease caused by the new version of this virus compared with the older one. That said, with so few known cases, it may still be too early to say.

Will the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines still be effective against this new strain?

Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines work by training our immune systems to recognize a specific version of the viral spike protein. The version of the spike protein used by the vaccines was designed to match that of the old virus, not that of the B.1.1.7 virus. This means that the vaccines might become less effective than expected should this new virus spread widely.

Vaccine-virus mismatch is an ongoing challenge for scientists charged with developing the seasonal flu vaccine. But even with a virus-vaccine mismatch, the flu vaccine reduces the likelihood, and the severity, of disease.

The question is therefore not whether the vaccines will be effective, but rather how effective they will be. The severity of the mismatch matters, but the only way to determine its impact in this case is through scientific study, and to my knowledge, no data on that has yet been collected. In other words, it’s too early to say whether and how this new variant will influence the overall effectiveness of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

Should people still get the new mRNA vaccine?

The appearance of this new B.1.1.7 makes it even more important that people get vaccinated as soon as possible.

If this new version is more transmissible, or if the vaccine is less effective because of a virus-vaccine mismatch, more people will need to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity and get this disease under control.

Moreover, we now have proof that the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 can change drastically in a short time, and so it is critical that we get the virus under control to prevent it from evolving further and completely undermining vaccination efforts.

David Kennedy, Assistant Professor of Biology, Penn State

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters