Diplomacy & Crisis News

A new book charts the troubled path of the U.K. Conservative Party in the wake of Brexit.

Economic aid won’t keep Islamabad’s head above water for long without long-term structural reform.

Test yourself on the week of June 24: Putin battles a coup attempt, Guatemalans head to the polls, and riots erupt in France.

Desperate to diversify away from Beijing, Washington is ramping up efforts to jump-start its struggling domestic industry.

GOP lawmakers are issuing sweeping blocks on State Department and Pentagon nominees.

The Wagner Group’s short-lived mutiny seems to have weakened Putin—but that isn’t necessarily a win for Washington.

Il fut un temps où les pays du Sud revendiquaient un « nouvel ordre économique international » et comptaient sur une industrialisation planifiée pour lutter contre la pauvreté. Aujourd'hui, les dons directs en espèces des plus riches en faveur des plus démunis font figure de panacée. Cette approche ne (...) / Économie, Afrique, Aide au développement, Infrastructures, États-Unis, Relations Nord-Sud, Néolibéralisme, Libéralisme, État - 2023/07

Last weekend’s mutiny was partly the product of a mismanaged authoritarian state.

Obnubilées par la question de l'emploi, les autorités françaises privilégient les industriels au détriment de l'environnement et de la santé publique. Contrôles insuffisants, sanctions dérisoires, non-application des textes réglementaires, culpabilisation des populations affectées par la pollution : la (...) / Industrie, Santé, Pollution, État, Environnement - 2023/07

Moscow has a tight command-and-control system—but there’s always a risk.

For Beijing, last weekend’s mutiny against Vladimir Putin was a cautionary tale.

Seoul’s crackdown on false accusations is having unintended consequences.

Undetected by pollsters, a TikTok-savvy anti-corruption candidate made the country’s presidential runoff.

It’s time to take New Delhi’s projection of power in the region seriously.

The dollar is the worst reserve currency—except for all the rest.

What China’s growing regional ambitions mean for Moscow.

Authorities are ramping up efforts to quell the unrest, despite deep-rooted concerns about police brutality.

The Western hemisphere is home to some of the world’s largest economies—the United States, Canada, Brazil, Mexico—and boasts countries with long-standing democratic traditions. Yet a lack of U.S. leadership and vision has left the hemisphere vulnerable to authoritarian encroachment, weak economies, and populations at risk. A new regional economic security framework is badly needed.

America’s backyard, instead of being filled with democratic friends and booming economies, is home to Russian bombers and mercenaries, twenty-nine Chinese-owned ports and port projects, a widespread Iran and Russia-fueled anti-U.S. propaganda machinery, Chinese-enabled fentanyl and money-laundering operations, wobbling and fallen democracies, and widespread economic and political instability. Soon, it may also be home to yet another Chinese surveillance outpost.

Over the last two decades, Latin America has seen wild swings from left-wing populists to right-wing populists and back, all of which have enabled corruption, disappointed their populations, and left the United States without stable partnerships across the region. In response, Washington has settled into a hands-off approach to the region—allowing Venezuela and Nicaragua to slide into dictatorships and largely ignoring chaos in Bolivia, Peru, Argentina, and El Salvador.

In addition to rising internal hardline forces within Latin America, external autocratic forces are imposing their will upon the region with little in the form of a coordinated American response. Russia and Iran are also increasingly active throughout the Americas, providing military assistance to Venezuela, evading sanctions in Cuba, or pushing misinformation and destabilizing democracy. The rising influence of authoritarianism throughout Latin America is pushing the region away from the stable and interdependent democracies that would benefit both local citizens and the hemisphere at large.

The true autocratic behemoth in the region, however, is China, which has ramped up its economic investment throughout the region, driving deep debt dependency while pushing an anti-democratic vision of surveillance states and crumbling, corruption-driven infrastructure. Ecuador has already discovered thousands of cracks in its brand new $3 billion Chinese-built and Chinese-financed hydroelectric dam.

With tacit state support, Chinese organized crime is infiltrating Central American drug trafficking and money laundering operations—supercharging both. China has become deeply interwoven in Latin America’s energy grids, ports, and other critical infrastructure, putting essential services and global commerce routes at risk to the whims of Beijing. And China is increasing its military engagement throughout the hemisphere, from booming weapons sales and anti-riot police gear to joint exercises and training.

The United States needs a concrete strategy to address Chinese encroachment throughout the region, whether through its illegal overfishing off of South America’s Pacific coast or its growing fentanyl operations throughout Latin America.

America’s cool relations with Central and South America have, meanwhile, failed to capitalize on the tremendous promise of the region and its critical role in American economic and national security. A prosperous Latin America lowers the pressure on immigration to the United States, offers critical supply chain advantages, and is rich with resources and human talent that should catalyze twenty-first-century technologies. Mexico has frequently benefitted from U.S. efforts to locate supply chains closer to home, but so much more could be done. A purposeful shift of critical supply chains of U.S. manufacturing from Asia to Latin America could promote regional prosperity, lower costs for American businesses, and reduce pressures contributing to political instability and mass migration.

A U.S.-led and unified Western hemisphere has the potential to control the future of energy and become a free and open answer to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) over the next century. The Americas possess some of the largest deposits of lithium and other critical minerals and the technological expertise to lead the world’s green future. Unfortunately, we are currently ceding much of the control of those resources and refining to China, which produces most of the world’s solar panels and electric vehicle batteries—often at factories utilizing forced labor. The United States cannot stand by passively as our energy security is threatened by reliance on a new generation of autocrats.

Washington must bring powerful answers to pressing issues in the region: populism, political unrest, and disinformation; water and food insecurity; extreme weather; mass migration; the evolving drug trade; money laundering and corruption; and weakened democratic institutions. These elements are interconnected, as violence in Guatemala and weak institutions in Nicaragua lead directly to immigration at the U.S. southern border. Political upheaval in Peru and Bolivia provides openings to Chinese state-sanctioned incursions.

For a rising Americas to succeed, there needs to be a focus on developing hemisphere-wide stability and keeping our physical, digital, and trade borders both secure and efficient. Reinforcing respect for democratic norms and increasing U.S.-led capital investment would help counter cheap Chinese cash and the petty dictators that thrive on corruption and misinformation.

The United States can take steps now to improve economic security and resilience throughout the Americas:

To begin with, the U.S. Development Finance Corporation and U.S. Export-Import Bank can help lead the way in Latin America, attracting more Western capital to the hemisphere, de-risking markets, increasing regional foreign direct investment, supporting manufacturing partnerships, and helping stabilize the tenuous economic conditions that fuel emigration and the drug trade.

U.S. law enforcement should coordinate with trusted allies throughout the hemisphere to develop a regional network of champions and tools to battle violence, corruption, money laundering, tax evasion, and drug trafficking.

Properly trained and resourced election monitors should ensure fair elections throughout the region, while non-partisan watchdogs should be empowered to monitor and act against misinformation from both foreign authoritarian regimes and domestic provocateurs.

Finally, unified and consistent policies throughout the Western Hemisphere on beneficial ownership registries, foreign agents, corporate taxation, and human rights protections should form the backbone of a more transparent framework for doing business.

China is already active throughout Latin America, destabilizing the region and putting our adversaries in our backyard. We don’t share a physical border with China, Russia, or Iran, but their trade, economic, and political influence throughout the Americas suggests the “border” isn’t so far away. It is time for Washington to reclaim leadership throughout the hemisphere. Offering improved economic security for countries and citizens is a critical first step.

Elaine Dezenski is Senior Director and Head of the Center on Economic and Financial Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Image: Shutterstock.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the private military company, the Wagner Group, is a dead man walking. A thoroughly unsavory character, Prigozhin has reinvented himself several times since his nine-year stint in prison for fraud and robbery while in his twenties, at one point becoming the caterer to the entire Russian Army and the Kremlin. But a man like Prigozhin would never be satisfied in the food service business.

Prigozhin used his vast wealth garnered in food service and gambling to create two ventures close to the Russian state: a troll farm called the Internet Research Agency, which the U.S. Department of Justice indicted for interference with the 2016 U.S. election, and the Wagner Group, a PMC (private military company). The Wagner Group coalesced under Prigozhin in 2014 to provide plausible deniability to Russian president Vladimir Putin for paramilitary operations, first in Crimea, then in Syria and Africa, and now in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.  The Wagner Group operated, in effect, as Putin’s private army.

Not only did this enrich Prigozhin further—a raid of the group’s headquarters in St. Petersburg in the last several days netted 4 billion rubles (about $48 million) in cold hard cash—it also gave him a small but combat-experienced army.  Money and men-in-arms equal a measure of real political power, even in autocratic Russia.

But given that Russia is autocratic, such power could not be allowed to persist so close to home. There were signs that the Putin regime would pin the blame for war crimes committed in Ukraine on Prigozhin (crimes the Wagner Group no doubt did commit, but so did official Russian forces), killing two birds with one stone. More proximately, the Putin regime made sure to deploy the Wagner Group troops on the very frontlines, with a high attrition rate, gradually weakening the group as a serious fighting force. At the same time, Wagner’s combat-experienced veterans fought the Ukrainians more effectively than the official Russian conscript army.

Prigozhin understood what was happening. A few months ago, the once highly secretive commander began to post public videos in which he used, shall we say, colorful epithets to lambast the regime.  He did not attack Putin himself, but rather Putin’s inner circle, most notably Chief of the General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov and Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu. He accused them of pocketing money meant for ammunition purchases and deceiving Putin about the real status of the Russian position in Ukraine. In essence, Prigozhin accused Gerasimov and Shoigu of treason during a time of war, styling himself as a true, straight-talking patriot.

Prigozhin’s new high-level profile among the Russian public was a very canny ploy to make it harder for Putin to destroy the Wagner Group and assassinate Prigozhin himself.  Assassination was, without a doubt, a genuine concern for Prigozhin, given how many oligarchs and bureaucrats in Russia have recently met their demise under suspicious circumstances.

Most commentators in the know feel the tipping point for Prigozhin to go on the offensive over the last few days, taking over Rostov-on-Don and marching within 200 kilometers from Moscow, was, in fact, an attempt by the Putin regime to strike at the Wagner Group’s leadership, dressed up to look like a tragic case of friendly fire.  NBC News reported on 23 June that:

In the audio messages on Telegram, Prigozhin accused Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu of ordering a rocket strike on Wagner’s field camps in Ukraine, where its soldiers are fighting on behalf of Russia against Ukrainian forces. The claims have not been verified. An unverified video posted on the ‘Razgruzka Wagner’ (Wagner’s Combat Vest) Telegram channel showed a scene in a forest where small fires were burning and trees appeared to have been broken by force. It carried the caption: ‘A missile attack was launched on the camps of PMC Wagner. Many victims. According to eyewitnesses, the strike was delivered from the rear, that is, it was delivered by the military of the Russian Ministry of Defense.’

Prigozhin then accused Shoigu of killing at least thirty of his men in that rocket strike.  Given how much disinformation surrounds all events concerning Russia, it’s unclear what actually happened. What is clear is that Prigozhin must have decided that forces within the Russian regime were conspiring to assassinate him and his leadership team.

What does one do when the Russian government wants you dead, and the West won’t grant you asylum due to war crimes allegations?

Prigozhin is no fool; he’s one of the cagiest characters around. He apparently decided the only play left for him was to up the ante for Putin personally. It would be impossible, of course, for an army of at most 25,000 to take Moscow. But Prigozhin could start the “march for justice,” portraying himself as a true Russian patriot amid a den of thieving bureaucrats and politicians. Even if he didn’t get far, Prigozhin would reveal to the world how much of a paper tiger Vladimir Putin really is, emboldening others within Russia’s circle of power. Best case scenario: Putin would negotiate with him to avoid a bloody fight in the very heart of Russia.

Prigozhin got his best-case scenario. Putin roped in Belarussian autocrat Aleksandr Lukashenko to negotiate a deal whereby Prigozhin would reportedly go into exile in Belarus.  The future of the Wagner Group is unclear: African autocrats have reportedly been reassured their Wagner Group units will remain to shore up their fragile regimes. Group members in Ukraine will face integration within the official Defense Ministry command umbrella. Overall, the Wagner has been seriously weakened, despite Prigozhin’s hope to command the group from exile.

Prigozhin himself will live for another day, and he has grievously wounded Putin’s carefully cultivated reputation for strength not only on the world stage but also in Russia itself, where weakness brings out the wolves in force. It was a masterstroke by a player holding a very weak hand.

Because of this, Prigozhin is a dead man walking. There’s likely a doorknob with Novichok on it in his future, to be sure. What’s more interesting to consider is whether, by his bold choice, Prigozhin has, in effect, given Putin the same fate. Only time will tell.

Valerie M. Hudson is a University Distinguished Professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, where she holds the George H.W. Bush Chair.  Her views are her own.

Image: Shutterstock.

In the twenty-first century, Chinese foreign policy is widely reflected in developing global partnerships and expanding interests with other countries as geopolitical instruments for power and influence. China has resorted to building a global network of strategic partnerships (flexible political cooperation based on informal political bonds) instead of broad formal alliances (which often target external enemies based on defense treaties). While traditional alliances can potentially expose Chinese diplomacy to high risk, partnerships are perceived as more flexible and interest-driven. Such partnerships denote a shared commitment to managing unavoidable conflicts so that the two countries can continue working together on vital areas of common interest. 

Building strategic partnerships worldwide is one of the most important dimensions and instruments of Chinese diplomacy to achieve geopolitical goals. In the competitive Middle East dominated by Washington, Beijing has had to build a regional presence that does not alienate the United States or any Middle East states while pursuing its geopolitical interests, even as the U.S. security umbrella offers a low-cost entry into the region. China’s partnerships with the Middle East states broadly tend to correspond to the three major categories of partnerships: comprehensive strategic partnerships (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates), strategic partnerships (Turkey, Jordan, Qatar, Iraq, Oman, and Kuwait), and innovative comprehensive partnership (Israel). Through strategic partnerships usually founded on economic interests, China has pursued its Middle Eastern geopolitical interests bilaterally without adopting region-wide or multilateral goals. It can say that Beijing's circle of friends in the Middle East is getting broader and more diverse (See Table 1).

Sources: Mordechai Chaziza, China Middle East Diplomacy: The Belt and Road Strategic Partnership. Great Britain: Sussex Academic Press, 2020.

China was among the first countries to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the State of Palestine as a sovereign state in 1988 and has since provided diplomatic, economic, and humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians. China has also been a vocal supporter of the Palestinians in international forums and has called for a just and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on the two-state solution. The strategic partnership agreement signed by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Chinese president Xi Jinping in June 2023 shows China's commitment to supporting the Palestinian people and the close relationship between the two countries (marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of establishing formal relations). It also signifies China's willingness to be more active in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Xi called the strategic partnership an “important milestone in the history of bilateral relations.”

The China-Palestinian Authority (PA) strategic partnership is significant for both countries. For China, it is an opportunity to deepen its engagement in the Middle East and to gain a foothold in a region that is increasingly important to its economic and strategic interests. For the PA, the agreement is a sign of China's growing support for the Palestinian cause and a potential source of much-needed economic and political support. The strategic partnership includes an economic and technological cooperation pact, a deal on mutual visa exemption for diplomatic passports, and a friendship between the Chinese city of Wuhan and Ramallah. Overall, China-Palestine relations have maintained a positive growth momentum in recent years. The two sides launched the first round of negotiations on a free trade zone and signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Belt and Road Initiative cooperation. The trade between the two countries in recent years has grown steadily and, in 2022, reached $158 million, reflecting a 23.2 percent increase compared to the previous year (see Figure 1). The China-Palestine strategic partnership is a significant development that has the potential to benefit both countries. However, it is important to note that the partnership is still in its early stages, and it remains to be seen how it will be implemented and its long-term impact.

Sources: China Customs Statistics, 2023.

The Prospects and Obstacles

China's establishment of a strategic partnership with the PA is another sign of its growing interest in the Middle East and its desire to increase its regional influence. China has been steadily increasing its economic and political engagement in the Middle East in recent years, and this partnership is another step in that direction. The strategic partnership with Palestine is the twelfth partnership China established in the Middle East (see Table 1). This shows that China is increasingly interested in the region and is looking to expand its influence there. Nevertheless, China's influence in the Middle East is still relatively limited. The United States is still the most powerful great power in the region, and it will need to do more to build its influence if it wants to become a significant player in the Middle East. Therefore, the importance of the strategic partnership between China and Palestine is mainly in the economic and bilateral spheres. The two countries have already signed several economic cooperation agreements, and the strategic partnership will likely lead to even more cooperation in the future. China is also expected to provide Palestine with financial and technical assistance, which will help to boost the Palestinian economy.

China has been a long-time supporter of Palestine and has provided economic and humanitarian assistance to the PA. China's aid has been essential in recent years as the PA has struggled to meet its financial obligations. China aided Palestine in the construction of more than forty projects, including schools and roads, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry building; sent expert teams, medical supplies, and vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic; and recently pledged a further $1 million donation to the Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. Upgrading China-Palestine relations to a strategic partnership will provide a framework for increased cooperation on various issues, benefiting both countries. It has the potential to help Palestine's economic development and humanitarian situation.

China relies on strategic partnerships to bolster its diplomatic posture in the Middle East and give large Chinese companies a leg up when negotiating infrastructure and digital deals with the local governments. China has historically shown sympathy toward the Palestinians in public. Still, it has focused more on its relations with Israel (a close ally of the United States) in practice due to technology and commercial interests, and the two sides established an innovative comprehensive partnership. China-Palestine trade is small two-way trade that only totaled $158 million in 2022, compared with $17.62 billion with Israel. China has become Israel’s third-largest trading partner. Still, it remained far behind the EU ($49.19 billion) and the United States ($22.04 billion), even though Israel trades with China more than any other European country. 

Overall, the China-Israel relationship is complex and has challenges and opportunities. China is looking to Israel for technology and commercial opportunities, while Israel is looking to China for investment and support. The increased tensions between the United States and China, however, could affect the China-Israel relationship. Therefore, Israel is forced to conduct its trade relations with China out of economic and commercial interests while considering U.S. demands and taking advantage of opportunities.

Moreover, China supported the two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict to enhance its worldwide image and bolster its great power status. Over the years, China has promoted several multipoint peace plans to facilitate the Israeli-Palestinian peace process on multiple occasions, but with little success. However, China's recent success in brokering a deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia could give it renewed hope of playing a more active role in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

The China-Palestine strategic partnership comes when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at a standstill. The renewed hostilities, Palestinian internal divisions, increased Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, and a far-right government in Israel have all dampened sentiment toward negotiations in the near term. These longstanding obstacles in the Palestinian-Israel relationship led China to mainly be limited its diplomacy to construction, manufacturing, and other economic projects in the region. Only time will tell how the China-PA strategic partnership will ultimately impact the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

China's growing presence, through strategic partnerships, in the Middle East poses significant challenges to the United States' wide range of vital geopolitical, geostrategic, and geo-economic interests. The United States, however, still has several advantages, a long history of engagement in the region, strong ties with many Middle Eastern countries, and a strong military presence. Washington cannot afford to take China's growing presence in the Middle East for granted. It needs to continue to engage with the region, strengthen its ties and alliances with Middle Eastern countries, and be prepared to compete with China's strategic partnerships for regional influence.

Dr. Mordechai Chaziza is a senior lecturer at the Department of Politics and Governance and the Multidisciplinary Studies in Social Science division at Ashkelon Academic College (Israel) and a Research Fellow at the Asian Studies Department, University of Haifa, specializing in Chinese foreign and strategic relations.

Image: Shutterstock.