China’s economic growth was fueled primarily by industrial investment. The government is currently trying to switch the engine of growth away from such investments into an economy driven by consumer demand. But the early emphasis on investment led to the building of many factories that are now overproducing goods as the Chinese economy begins to slow down. This production overcapacity is straining the Chinese economy, but it is also leading the government to try to export the overproduced goods abroad. This emphasis has led to a backlash, as producers in the importing countries believe that the Chinese are dumping goods at artificially low prices. Many of those producers are pushing their governments to erect trade barriers with the Chinese.
One of US President Obama’s earliest campaign promises was to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The facility has been used to hold suspected terrorists without trial, without the right to counsel, without the writ of habeas corpus, and to be subjected to torture and abusive treatment. Guantanamo is a major stain on the US’s commitment to human rights, but the US Congress has been unable and unwilling to create a process whereby the US could hold true to its values. Apparently, President Obama is making one last push to fulfill his promise, but it is doubtful that he will succeed.
Admiral Harry Harris, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, has warned that China is taking “actions that are changing in my opinion the operational landscape in the South China Sea.” Admiral Harris went on to assert: “I believe China seeks hegemony in East Asia.” The US has only an indirect interest in the South China Sea: it has important allies that rely upon freedom of navigation in the Sea, but the US has no direct presence in the region. The central question for the US is how to persuade the Chinese to guarantee the freedom of navigation in the region in a manner that would be acceptable to its allies.
Satellite Image of Chinese Construction on Cuarteron Reef
Russia and the US have announced another cease-fire in Syria. This cease-fire also excludes Daesh (the Islamic State) and the al-Nusra Front, but it appears as if Russia and the US have narrowed down the excluded terrorist groups to something a little more meaningful and substantive. There are hints that Syrian President Assad will be allowed to stay in office, but only for a part of Syria. The implication is that the territorial lines drawn by the British and French in 1920 may finally be redrawn. Regardless of the political outcome, we should all hope that the cease-fire takes hold so that humanitarian aid can be delivered to the innocent people of Syria.
It is estimated that human traffickers made almost $7 billion last year smuggling refugees. But Europol, the European Union agency responsible for coordinating security matters, estimates that there were very few radical extremists in the migration. The actual evidence belies the fears articulated by many in Europe and the US that terrorists will infiltrate using the confusion of the refugee influx as a cover. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that concrete evidence to the contrary will persuade the fear-mongers from spreading doubt.
Climate change caused by human activity is a proposition accepted by the vast majority of scientists who study climate. Nonetheless, there are some who doubt the proposition. The Heartland Institute is a think tank that regularly publishes materials that doubt the existence of human-induced climate change. John Abraham of The Guardian analyzes the most recent publication of the Institute and raises many questions about the credibility of the position denying climate change.
India experiences fresh violence from a different sector as protests erupted in India’s Haryana state. Members of India’s Jat’s caste have been protesting for different quotas in the Indian government and university system. The caste quota system has long been a source of controversy. Several people were killed in the protests and the protesters have temporarily shut down one of the canals that supply water to Delhi.
Turkey has suffered severe setbacks in its efforts to advance its national interests in the Middle East. It now faces an armed civil war along its southern and southeastern flanks, it has lost the support of one of its strongest allies, the US, and its actions have led it to the potential of an armed confrontation with Russia. Only a few years ago it seemed very likely to emerge as the dominant power in the Middle East in the wake of the Arab Spring and the emergence of the Central Asian states. Future international relations analysts will probably use Turkey, 2015-16, as a test case in how to mismanage foreign policy.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has released its annual report on the international arms trade. The US remains the worlds largest seller of arms, followed by Russia. The data indicate that many European arms producers are shifting their focus abroad as European governments are spending less on weapons due to the slow economic conditions in Europe. China has also dramatically increased its exports. India and Saudi Arabia remain the world’s largest importers of weapons.
As noted in earlier posts, the traditional alliances in the Middle East are under great strain. The longest running alliance, the US-Saudi alliance, has been around since US President Franklin Roosevelt met with King Ibn Saud during World War II. But that alliance is now beginning to be questioned seriously. The US feels less bound to Saudi Arabia as the balance of power in the world petroleum industry has shuffled around in recent years. But it is the mistrust that appears to be growing over the intentions of the new King of Saudi Arabia, King Salman, which seems to be underlying the US questioning.
Roosevelt and King Ibn Saud
The European Union and British Prime Minister David Cameron reached an agreement that apparently met Cameron’s demands for change. But Cameron returned to Britain only to find that members of his own party did not believe that the concessions were sufficient. A national referendum is scheduled to be held on 23 June and his colleagues will campaign against continued British membership in the Union. Cameron now finds himself backed into an untenable position and the referendum could easily go against him.
Another traditional ally of the US, Thailand, is exploring the possibility of widening its relationship with other powers, notably Russia. The cooling of US-Thai relations began after the military coup that took place in May of 2014. After the coup, the US restricted the sale of weapons to Thailand in an effort to urge the Thai military to return civilian power. The Thai move complicates the US effort to rally southeast Asian countries to hold a harder line against Chinese influence.
There are intense negotiations going on between Britain and the European Union. British Prime Minister has threatened to hold a referendum that would allow the British to vote on whether Britain should remain within the European Union. In order to forestall such a vote, Cameron has demanded many concessions from the EU. There are principally three major demands.
First, Britain wants to be able to cap welfare payments to non-British Europeans who have moved to Britain to take advantage of Britain’s generous welfare system. This demand would violate the EU’s position that all Europeans should be treated equally by all members of the Union.
Second, Britain wants British banks to be held to different financial requirements for banks within the EU. Britain believes that its banks would suffer from the EU rules; the EU believes that the exemption would give British banks an unfair competitive advantage.
Third, the British want the EU to drop its aspiration of an “ever closer union.” The British believe that the phrase threatens British sovereignty; the other EU members believe that it should remain as the ultimate goal of the Union.
The EU is at this moment relatively weak, buffeted by the difficulties caused the the sovereign debt crisis of some of its southern members and the domestic political pressures on its most important member, Germany, caused the the refugee crisis. Thus, the EU is likely to move toward these concessions, but it remains to be seen whether it can offer enough to Britain.
Since the overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddaffi five years ago, Libya has descended into total chaos. There are two rival factions, one based in Tripoli and the other in Benghazi, that claim to be the legitimate Libyan government, but no one is in control. There is considerable evidence that Daesh (the Islamic State) has been planning to move into this political vacuum in case its hold on its territory in Iraq and Syria. US warplanes attacked Daesh sites in Libya for the second time in three months indicating that the war against Daesh knows no territorial boundaries.
January 2016 was the warmest January ever recorded, and not by just a little bit but by an astonishing 0.3°F degrees. The warmth of the month was due to two factors: the strong el Niño and a shift in the Arctic Oscillation that lead to about freezing temperatures in the Arctic. According to Joe Romm: “In January the Arctic averaged a staggering 13.5°F (7.5°C) above average.” The effect on the ice in the region was quite dramatic as the extent of winter ice was the lowest we have ever seen. If temperatures do not turn around dramatically, the ice melt in the summer may be the largest ever seen. The planet may be warming faster than even the most pessimistic models have predicted.
Venezuela’s economy has pretty much stalled out. The inflation rate in the country is 180% and the economy contracted by nearly 6% from last year. In response, the country has devalued the bolivar, the national currency and raised the price of gasoline by about 6000% (don’t gasp–it is still very low since the fuel remains heavily subsidized). The causes of the distress are clear: Venezuela relies on selling oil for about 95% of its government revenues and the government of President Maduro has woefully mismanaged the economy.
The main opposition leader in Uganda, Kizza Besigye, has been arrested on election day and is being held in an unknown location. The government has shut down several polling stations and has cut off internet connections to several social media sites like Facebook. These events indicate that President Yoweri Museveni will remain in power and that Uganda remains far from becoming a democratic state.
All of the centrally-funded universities in India (there are 46 of them) have been ordered to fly 90-foot long Indian national flags on masts that are 207 feet high (about the same height as the Statue of Liberty). The flags are to be “prominently” and “proudly” flown on the campuses. The order from the BJP party government follows large student protests over the arrest of a student protester for “anti-India” activities. The order is curious because many of the student protesters carried the flag during their protests.
Max Fisher has written a somewhat long, but nonetheless provocative, essay on the reasons why the US invaded Iraq in March of 2003. The occasion for the essay is the current controversy within the Republican Party over charges made by Donald Trump that the Iraq war was a terrible mistake. Fisher argues that Trump and those who defend the war place too much emphasis on the issue of whether there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Fisher argues, with a great deal of evidence, that the war was fought for ideological reasons and was in many respects predetermined.
China has apparently deployed anti-aircraft missiles on Woody Island, part of the Paracels Islands group in the South China Sea. The move signals an escalation of Chinese moves to claim the island group as part of its national territory. According to NBC News: “China has said it would not seek militarization of its South China Sea islands and reefs, but that did not mean it would not set up defenses.” Once again, we see the Security Dilemma in action: China considers its actions as purely defensive; other states could plausibly argue that the action was offensive. The US has not yet responded to the move.
Woody Island as seen in Google Maps
A car bomb exploded in the Turkish capital of Ankara, killing 28 people and wounding many more. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but the two most likely sources of the bomb are either the Kurdish PKK or Daesh (the Islamic State): both groups have reason to attack the Turkish state. We will have to wait for further evidence to determine the culprits. But the attack will undoubtedly trigger a harsh Turkish response, and the Turks will likely decide who it is that is most convenient for them to blame.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is meeting in Rancho Mirage, California, and US President Obama is serving as host to the meeting. President Obama is hoping that ASEAN will coalesce around a stronger position vis-a-vis China on a variety of trade and maritime issues. Typically, ASEAN operates by consensus which has been hard to obtain since Cambodia and Laos are closely tied to China. But the growing fear of Chinese dominance in the region is forcing many members of the group to seek closer relations with the US to serve as a counterweight to Chinese power.
Russian air power in Syria has certainly turned the tide of battle in favor of Syrian President Assad. But some analysts believe that Russia is also deliberately creating refugees in Syria in order to place pressure on Turkey and Europe to adopt a more conciliatory stance toward Russian positions. There is little question that civilians have not received the attention from attacks that they deserve, and the air attacks certainly seem to be indiscriminate. Yesterday, four hospitals and a school were hit by air attacks.
Kizza Besigye, the chief opponent to current President Yoweri Museveni in the upcoming Ugandan elections, has charged that the elections will not be free or fair. A Besigye supporter was killed yesterday in a political rally and there is concern that the police and security forces are being used to intimidate the opposition. Museveni came to power in 1986 and has ruled exclusively in Uganda since that time. The economic situation in Uganda is perilous and the government has not been effective in stimulating the economy.
The tensions between the Kurds and the Turkish government are escalating into what can probably be described as a civil war, reminiscent of the civil war fought between the two sides between 1984 and 1999 which killed about 40,000 people. Turkish President Erdogan has recently stated that he intends to “annihilate” the fighting forces of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), and that there is no Kurdish question, only a “terrorist question.” The civil war is clearly hampering the efforts to address the problem of Daesh and will likely complicate Middle East politics for an extended period of time.
The largest student protests in over a quarter of a century have erupted in India. The protests center around a student leader, Kanhaiya Kumar, who has been accused of sedition for raising questions about the hanging of a Kashmiri separatist, Mohammad Afzal Guru, who was hanged in 2013 for his alleged role in an attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001. The student protests are directed toward the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who the students believe is stifling the freedom of dissent. In turn, Modi’s supporters accuse the students of “anti-Indian” sentiments. The struggle is clearly ideological.
The Silk Road is coming back. China has spearheaded a drive to built a land-based transportation infrastructure through central Asia which will ultimately connect Chinese seaports to Europe. The land route is quicker than the normal route by sea which should result in considerable savings for China. But the plan is also a significant boost to Iran and the central Asian republics.
Researchers at the University of Twente in the Netherlands have released a report that indicates that “4 billion people around the globe — including close to 2 billion in India and China — live in conditions of extreme water scarcity at least one month during the year. Half a billion, meanwhile, experience it throughout the entire year.” Agricultural practices are by far the most important cause of this water scarcity; those practices are the things we should think most carefully about changing.
There is little question that income inequality is increasing throughout the world. We suspect that that economic inequality has an effect on perceptions of political inequality, but the link between the two phenomenon is difficult to measure. Researchers have attempted to determine that link in terms of the European Parliament and its relationship to European citizens. There seems to be a negative link in that as economic inequality increases, trust in political institutions seems to decline. The link makes intuitive sense, but we need to conduct more research on how strong that link is.
The world’s third largest economy showed deeper signs of weakness than analysts had expected. Japan’s economy declined by 1.4% on an annualized rate in the fourth quarter of 2015. The economy showed weakness across the board as consumer demand fell as well as export demand. The Bank of Japan has already introduced negative interest rates and it is not at all clear what the next step for the government may be. But the Japanese economy has been stagnant for nearly 20 years and there are few reasons to believe that the economy will revive any time soon.
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