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China, America, and a New Cold War in Africa?
Juba, South Sudan — Is this country the first hot battlefield in a new cold war? Is the conflict tearing this new nation apart actually a proxy fight between the world’s two top economic and military powers?
That’s the way South Sudan’s Information Minister Michael Makuei Lueth tells it. After “midwifing” South Sudan into existence with billions of dollars in assistance, aid, infrastructure projects, and military support, the United States has watched China emerge as the major beneficiary of South Sudan’s oil reserves. As a result, Makuei claims, the United States and other Western powers have backed former vice president Riek Machar and his rebel forces in an effort to overthrow the country’s president, Salva Kiir. China, for its part, has played a conspicuous double game. Beijing has lined up behind Kiir, even as it publicly pushes both sides to find a diplomatic solution to a simmering civil war. It is sending peacekeepers as part of the U.N. mission even as it also arms Kiir’s forces with tens of millions of dollars worth of new weapons.
7 Aug 2014 / 1 note / Africa Algeria Angola burundi China Ethiopia Kenya Libya Mali Niger Nigeria Somalia South Sudan Sudan Uganda United States Al Shabaab AMISOM Boko Haram China Africa Relations Chinese investment in Africa Darfur Hu Jintao Joseph Kony Lod's Resistance Army Michael Makuei Lueth Omar Al-Bashir Riek Mac Salva Kiir South Sudan Conflict
Obama: Into Africa
President Obama is definitely “into” Africa. As much as possible in a world riven by multiple crises, the president has made the continent a focus of his policymaking. Turning his own Kenyan heritage into a personal bridge to the region, he has visited Africa three times as president – in 2009, 2011, and 2013. He has touted his administration’s multi-billion initiatives such as Power Africa to bring electricity to millions of homes, a fellowship program for young African leaders, and the continuation of efforts to fight HIV-AIDS and other infectious diseases.
At a time when criticism is mounting about the way the president is handling the rest of the world, Africa is shaping up to be Obama’s major play for a legacy.
Parsing the East Asian Powder Keg
The past six months have seen an incredible ratcheting up of tensions in the East and South China Seas, where the world’s three largest economies—China, the United States, and Japan—are caught up in an increasingly tangled web of territorial disputes, competing alliances, and historical grievances.
In February, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry assured Japan that the Americans would defend Japan in case of a military confrontation between Tokyo and Beijing. That same month, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert said the Philippines could count on American support if there were a clash with China in the South China Sea.
Is Japan’s Peace Constitution Dead?
Japan has functioned under its “peace constitution” for nearly 70 years. The distinctive Article 9, which prevents the country from conducting war as a means of resolving international conflict, is showing its age.
Over the last several decades, after repeated “reinterpretations,” the peace constitution has become increasingly enfeebled. With its latest decision, the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has quite nearly euthanized the document.
Toxic Tech
Ming Kunpeng went to work for ASM Pacific Technology — a chip supplier for Apple — when he was 19 years old. Required to handle the known carcinogen benzene on a daily basis without adequate training or protective gear, the young worker fell ill at the age of 22. Doctors eventually diagnosed him with occupational leukemia.
After a year-long dispute, ASM Pacific Technology agreed to compensate Ming for his illness, but the settlement was insufficient to cover the care he needed. On December 28, 2013, this young man became one of the much-publicized Chinese electronics-worker suicide cases.
He took his own life, jumping from the top of the hospital where he was receiving treatment.
Ming’s story is just one of many told in filmmakers Heather White and Lynn Zhang’s new short-form documentary, Who Pays the Price? The Human Cost of Electronics.
In their film, White and Zhang explore the use of dangerous toxic chemicals in Chinese factories. They focus on the effects of these chemicals on the millions of workers exposed while making the iPhones, iPads, and other electronics that global consumers have come to depend on.
Obama’s Half-Pivot to Asia
President Barack Obama’s recent tour of Asia was an opportunity to reenergize his foreign policy after a series of setbacks in the global arena.
The four countries on the weeklong tour—Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and the Philippines—have all been eager to upgrade their relationships with the United States in light of their concerns over Chinese maritime ambitions and an uncertain global economy.
But if the president thought that his short pass through Pacific would provide a lift to the much-vaunted U.S. “pivot” to Asia, he soon discovered that the world is not cooperating with his best-laid plans.
Ever since the Obama administration announced its “strategic rebalance” of U.S. foreign policy several years ago, the effort has encountered both domestic and foreign challenges.
Obama in Asia: Washington Extracts Rent-free Basing from the Philippines
As U.S. President Barack Obama descends on the Philippines, Manila and Washington are rushing to complete negotiations on an Agreement on Enhanced Defense Cooperation (AEDC) between the two countries.
The Philippines’ territorial disputes with China are one major reason for this new agreement. With Washington’s help, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III wants to make the Chinese respect the Philippines’ claims in the Scarborough Shoal, the Spratly Islands, the continental shelf, and its 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
The truth of the matter, however, is that the deal will do no such thing.
What the agreement boils down to is that the Philippines will give the United States the right to operate bases in the country—for no rent—without the guarantee of U.S. protection of the country’s island territories.
World Cuts Back Military Spending, But Not Asia
For the second year in a row, the world is spending a little less on the military. Asia, however, has failed to get the memo. The region is spending more at a time when many others are spending less.
Last year, Asia saw a 3.6-percent increase in military spending, according to figures just released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The region — which includes East Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, and Oceania — posted topping off a 62 percent increase over the last decade.
In 2012, for the first time, Asia outpaced Europe in its military spending. That year, the world’s top five importers of armaments all came from Asia: India, China, Pakistan, South Korea, and (incredibly) the city-state of Singapore.
China is responsible for the lion’s share of the increases in East Asia, having increased its spending by 170 percent over the last decade. It has also announced a 12.2-percent increase for 2014.
But China is not the only driver of regional military spending.
The Kunming Attack and China’s Uighur Politics
On March 1, a group of knife-wielding assailants stormed a railway station in the southern Chinese city of Kunming. It was a grisly scene: Attacking passengers at random, the assailants killed 29 people and wounded 130. According to Chinese authorities a gang of six men and two women carried out the attack. Four attackers were shot and the other four have been detained.
Dubbing the incident “China’s 9/11,” Chinese authorities led by President Xi Jinping called for an all-out effort to “punish the terrorists in accordance with the law.”
While no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, authorities have blamed it on separatists from the Uighur community — a Muslim, Turkic-speaking minority from Xinjiang, a semiautonomous province in northwestern China. Security forces reported finding a black flag at the scene calling for the independence of the region, which Uighurs call East Turkestan. More recently, Abdullah Mansour, the leader of the rebel Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), appeared on video appearing to praise the attack. While not claiming responsibility for the murders, he described them, according to Reuters, as “an ‘expensive offer’ for China to reconsider its ‘cruel’ policies” toward Uighurs and predicted that more attacks would follow. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said that “the video exposes the true nature of their terrorist organization” and called for the international community to support China’s policies against terrorism.
If a Uighur group was indeed responsible, the attack would represent a considerably expanded theater of operations for the separatist movement.
Asia: The Elephant vs. the Shark
To pivot, according to the venerable Oxford English Dictionary, means “to turn as on a pivot.” Which takes us to the noun, which seems more appropriate for describing the Obama administration’s Pacific policy: “That on which anything turns; a cardinal or central point.”
The problem, however, is that finding a cardinal or a central point in the administration’s Pacific policy is extremely difficult. What is clear is only a verb tense. The United States is turning from more than a decade of war—ineffective and costly—in western Asia to a more important and strategic region, eastern Asia, plus the waters that approach it. Perhaps the central point of the pivot is Asia, and the United States is switching from one end to the other. The “Pacific,” however, suggests a broader turn, although new allies and commitments in the Indian Ocean seem to balance if not outweigh those in the Pacific Ocean. India is the most potent example, a country located more or less at a central point.
If geographical and policy clarity is lacking, so is clarity around security, and in particular military security. Muddling matters more, U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on February 25 outlined a resource approach that implied that China is the number one challenge for the United States, therefore land forces will subsidize sea and air forces. Yet the budget shares for each service so far do not deviate greatly from historical norms. What Hagel really seemed to be saying to Congress was: “Sequestration is bad; I am telling you how bad; now back off, or I might do it.” As to what all this would mean to “the Pivot”—noun or verb—remains a mystery other than the focus on China. That same focus on China appears to be the point of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Pact, a free trade pact designed to exclude Beijing. But it is stuck in congressional limbo, like everything else these days.