Article: US' new security strategy document encourages India’s growing role on world stage (Sunday Guardian)

By CLEO PASKAL | Miami | 30 December, 2017

• 
  
• 
  

‘We will expand our defense and security cooperation with India, and support India’s growing relationships throughout the region,’ reads a section of the NSS.

 

What a year it’s been. Since his inauguration less than a year ago, US President Donald J. Trump has made a series of decisions that will have repercussions for years to come.

 

Perhaps of most import domestically, Trump appointed conservative Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, signed a major tax reform, and his Federal Communications Commission appointee weakened net neutrality.

Internationally, Trump withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris Climate Accord, increased focus on North Korea, and announced the US embassy in Israel would be moved to Jerusalem.

But to truly understand the major shift in US international views under Trump, and what it might mean for India, it helps to look at the new National Security Strategy (NSS), released on 18 December. The NSS is an important policy document, giving a peek into the mind of the President and his chief strategists. As directed by President Trump and prepared under National Security Adviser Lt. General H.R. McMaster, the NSS gives insight into how the administration sees the world. And what it plans to do about it.

It names names. In his launch speech, Trump called China and Russia “rival powers” of the US and said “we have made clear to Pakistan that while we desire continued partnership, we must see decisive action against terrorist groups operating on their territory. And we make massive payments every year to Pakistan. They have to help.”

The NSS is particularly clear on China. Calling it a “revisionist” power. The change in approach is explicit: “For decades, U.S. policy was rooted in the belief that support for China’s rise and for its integration into the post-war international order would liberalize China. Contrary to our hopes, China expanded its power at the expense of the sovereignty of others. China gathers and exploits data on an unrivaled scale and spreads features of its authoritarian system, including corruption and the use of surveillance.… China is using economic inducements and penalties, influence operations, and implied military threats to persuade other states to heed its political and security agenda.”

At the same time, the NSS takes a strong line on terror, and countries harbouring terrorists. In the launch speech, Trump said: “Our strategy calls for us to confront, discredit, and defeat radical Islamic terrorism and ideology and to prevent it from spreading into the United States.” The NSS reads: “We will insist that Pakistan take decisive action against militant and terrorist groups operating from its soil.”

In that context, what does the NSS have to say about India? Not much (India wasn’t even mentioned in Trump launch speech), which is probably a good thing given those singled out tended to be named for all problems they were causing. 

However, when India is named, what is written is positive. This is not surprising given the many converging international concerns shared India and the US.
First off, there is a whole section of the NSS devoted to the Indo-Pacific, framed by the statement: “A geopolitical competition between free and repressive visions of world order is taking place in the Indo-Pacific region.” From a DC perspective, that puts India clearly onside with the US.

The NSS also overtly encourages India’s growing role on the world stage: “We welcome India’s emergence as a leading global power and stronger strategic and defense partner… We will expand our defense and security cooperation with India, a Major Defense Partner of the United States, and support India’s growing relationships throughout the region. We will deepen our strategic partnership with India and support its leadership role in Indian Ocean security and throughout the broader region… [W]e will encourage India to increase its economic assistance in [Central and South Asia].”

Overall, the framers of the NSS are focused on achieving security, prosperity and freedom in the context of “America First”. The main threats to those goals are presented as China, Russia and Jihadists—with others such as North Korea, Iran and illegal immigration also featured. India, especially after Doklam, is seen by the US as part of the solution to some of those challenges.

Given how much Trump got done in year one, it’s harder than usual to predict what might happen in year two. But, for now, the US door seems to be open for India. It’ll be up to Delhi to decide how much and how fast to go through. Whatever happens, 2018 is not going to be boring.

Cleo Paskal is The Sunday Guardian North America Special Correspondent.
http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/12222-us-new-security-strategy-document-encourages-india-s-growing-role-world-stage

Interview: Cleo Paskal on John Batchelor Show with Gordon Chang on The Rohingya "genocide" & What is to be done?

Interview: Cleo Paskal on John Batchelor Show on Trump's mighty Indo-Pacific Quad: India, Australia, Japan and the US

Profile: Un monde d’idées à découvrir; Fondation Pierre Elliott Trudeau (La Presse)

A major profile of the Trudeau Foundation features the work of several Foundation Fellows, including Cleo Paskal, was written by Réjean Bourdeau for  La Presse. The full article can be found here. 

Cleo Paskal 

Professeure auxiliaire et chercheuse associée, département de géopolitique, Chatham House, Londres 

Lauréate 2015 de la Fondation 

Projet : changements stratégiques dans l’Indo-Pacifique et répercussions pour le Canada

À l’avant-poste de la progression chinoise

De ses bureaux de Londres et de Montréal, Cleo Paskal jette un regard fascinant sur les stratégies des pays d’Asie. Elle le fait en mariant des informations académiques et politiques… à celles de la défense et des services de renseignements. 
« La Chine prend de plus en plus de place en Océanie, remarque-t-elle. Et ce n’est pas bien documenté. »
L’Océanie fait partie de la troisième, et dernière, « barrière virtuelle » mise en place par les Alliés pour contenir la progression communiste en Asie. 
Elle comprend l’Australie, la Nouvelle-Zélande, la Polynésie française, la Nouvelle-Calédonie, Fidji, Samoa, Tonga, etc. 
« C’est la dernière ligne avant les côtes canadiennes sur le Pacifique, souligne Mme Paskal. Et c’est une zone économique très importante. » 
Après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, les États-Unis, la Grande-Bretagne, l’Australie, la Nouvelle-Zélande et le Canada ont créé l’Alliance des cinq yeux (Five Eyes) pour épier l’Asie. 
Mais il y a un hic, constate la chercheuse. L’Australie et la Nouvelle-Zélande, chargées de faire la veille sur les avancées de la Chine en Océanie, se rapprochent elles-mêmes du géant chinois. 
Signe d’inquiétudes à Washington, Mike Pence, James Mattis et Rex Tillerson ont visité l’Australie ces derniers mois. 
« Tous les pays d’Océanie profitent des investissements de la Chine, constate Mme Paskal. Ça favorise les relations. » 
Risquons-nous de perdre des alliés ? Cleo Paskal poursuit ses travaux avec la Fondation. Et avec le CERIUM de l’Université de Montréal.

Article: Catalan crisis tests EU’s limits (Sunday Guardian)

By CLEO PASKAL | 29 October, 2017

An independent Catalonia will have to negotiate from scratch membership in the World Bank, WTO, United Nations, etc.

 

The problem for the European Union is that it doesn’t have a Sardar Patel. Deep in the heart of many die-hard European Union bureaucrats is the desire, conscious or not, for the EU to be more like India. They wish it could be a federation, with Brussels at the centre, and the various countries relegated to states within the federation. 

In that way if, for example, Catalonia separated from Spain, it would be like creating a Telangana: tricky, but not fundamentally disruptive.

But, as much as those bureaucrats dream, most of the politicians from the countries that make up the European Union have little desire to give their powers to Brussels. This tension played into Brexit, and is now contributing to the EU’s vague and weak response to the current crisis in Spain. 

It’s worth taking a closer look at the mechanics of the crisis. Catalonia is an area of Spain that is relatively wealthy. It borders Andorra, France and is on the Mediterranean coast. It held an illegal referendum, in which the majority of voters chose independence from Spain. On Friday, the Catalan government declared independence, and the Spanish government moved quickly to use its constitutional powers to take over the running of the state. 

Response from the EU has been subdued. President of the EU Council, Donald Tusk tweeted: “For EU nothing changes. Spain remains our only interlocutor. I hope the Spanish government favours force of argument, not argument of force.” 

However, the EU has quietly pointed out that if Catalonia goes independent, it will no longer be a member of the EU. But it hasn’t explicitly said what this means. It hasn’t said Catalonia will have to put in hard borders on its frontiers with Spain, Andorra and France. That the port of Barcelona will need an entirely new set of security procedures and will be outside the customs union. That Catalonia will have to assume some of the Spanish debt and due to the EU. That Catalans will need visas to visit their neighbours. That they will have to get their own currency. That they won’t even have WTO tariffs to fall back on for trade, because they aren’t members of the WTO.

The UK is leaving the EU via Brexit, but it is already an independent country, with its own currency, intelligence service, military, diplomatic corps, etc. A Catalonian exit is exponentially more complex.

An independent Catalonia will have to negotiate from scratch membership in the World Bank, WTO, United Nations, Interpol, etc. All while dealing with a resentful Spain on the other side of the negotiating table. Meanwhile, many other states will also have to play hardball in dealing with Catalonia because of concerns a Catalan success will spur separatist movements in other parts of the EU (Flanders, Lombardy, Basques, etc.) and further afield (Quebec, New Caledonia, Bougainville, even Kashmir).

And, if Catalonia tries to look elsewhere for allies (I am pretty sure China would be more than willing to help the Catalans manage the port of Barcelona), it may find itself even more isolated by its neighbours. 

But the EU isn’t saying any of this. And neither are the Catalan separatists. The debate is largely emotive. And at least one EU member state, Finland, has even said it will debate a motion to support an independent Catalonia in its Parliament.

The Scottish example makes a useful comparison. Before Scotland held its legal independence referendum in 2014 (in which the “stay” side won), the Scottish government spent years systematically examining questions around economics, defence, governance, etc., in an independent Scotland. They even issued a White Paper for further discussion. When people went to vote, they had a fairly good idea of what it all meant. 

This is not the case in Catalonia. And the EU isn’t helping. It is chiding Spain, while at the same time not sending clear messages to the Catalan people about the implications of “independence”. All the threats made to the UK in the lead up to the Brexit vote (and continued now during the Brexit negotiations) should, by the EU’s own logic, also hold true for a Catal(onian) exit. But mostly we are seeing muted press releases and vague tweets saying this is an internal Spanish matter. 

The European Union is facing a very large set of challenges. Underpinning many of them is uncertainty over what it actually is, and where it is heading. The Catalan crisis is testing the limits of how it responds to core issues of sovereignty. It doesn’t have a Sardar Patel, but it isn’t a federation (yet). However, it is still trying to limit the moral power Spain has to keep itself intact. It will be interesting to see if this path leads to more, or less, stability in Europe.

Cleo Paskal is The Sunday Guardian Special Correspondent.

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/11433-catalan-crisis-tests-eu-s-limits

Presentation: Preventing Tomorrow’s Conflicts (United Nations)

The 'Preventing Tomorrow’s Conflicts' speaker series is jointly hosted by the Permanent Mission of Australia to the United Nations and the United Nations University (UNU) Office at the United Nations. The speaker series aims to bring leading researchers from around the world to the UN to discuss with policy makers how tomorrow’s conflicts may differ from today’s, what their drivers may be, and how the UN can help to prevent them. The series runs from October 2017 to March 2018. Cleo Paskal spoke at the launch event. For more click here. 

You can see the video of the presentation here.

Presentation: Populism and Foreign Policy in India (CÉRIUM)

You can see a video of the presentation here.

Article: What is Australia up to? (The World Today)

Cleo Paskal outlines the West’s fears as a key ally develops closer links with China

https://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/twt/what-australia

Something is going on Down Under. In the past few months, a constant stream of serious Washington players have passed through Australia, including Vice-President Mike Pence, Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Senator John McCain, former CIA Director David Petraeus and former US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

This many high-level visits in such a short period of time is highly unusual. The reason was summed up by the oft-repeated message: watch out for China and don’t forget who your real friends are.

McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said: ‘The challenge is that as China has grown wealthier and stronger, it seems to be acting more and more like a bully ... the real question is whether Australia and America are better off  dealing with China’s strategic and economic challenges together, or by ourselves.’

Petraeus said the US understood the Australian position was complex because its main trading partner, China, was also its main security concern. However, Australia should still participate in ‘hugely important’ freedom of navigation exercises in the region.

Clapper, who took up a post with the Australian National University’s National Security College, raised questions about Chinese money in Australian politics.

This overlapped with growing Australian concerns about Chinese influence. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Fairfax Media published an in-depth investigation into Chinese state-linked interference in Australia. Using data from the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, or ASIO, they highlighted cases of ‘naked in uence-buying’.

ASIO’s director-general told the Aus- tralian parliament that the scale of foreign interference in Australia was ‘unprecedented’ and had ‘the potential to cause serious harm to the nation’s sovereignty, the integrity of our political system, our national security capabilities, our economy and other interests’. Australia’s Attorney General travelled to Washington where he received intelligence briefings on the degree of Chinese state-linked interference in Australia’s political, business and academic sectors before returning to Australia and announcing he would propose major changes to the laws on foreign influence buying.

Members of the defence and intelligence communities do not like making public statements. They must have felt the situ- ation was so dire they needed to go public. It seems as if there is a civil war at the heart of the Australian policy community and it all boils down to one core question: strategically, what is Australia?

For at least a decade there has been growing concern in the strategic community inside Australia, and among its allies, that Australia’s economic ties to China could affect it national security and strategic positioning. However, with some exceptions, the Australian political, business and academic communities continue to deepen engagement, seemingly fuelled by the assumption that the West is in decline and China’s economy will grow indefinitely.

‘Others in Australia don’t have a problem with the country trying to play a balancing role between Beijing and Washington’

An event that captured this tension involved the commercially and strategically important northern Australian city of Darwin. There had been substantial political resistance in Australia to a request to allow US Marines to train and be stationed in Darwin. Eventually, in 2011, Canberra agreed to let 2,500 American Marines rotate through. However, four years later, the Northern Territory government suddenly announced that the lease to the critically important port of Darwin itself was going to a Chinese military-linked company, Landbridge, for 99 years. US officials were reportedly ‘stunned’.

It didn’t help matters that the former Australian trade minister, Andrew Robb, a key player in the Australia-China free trade agreement, soon joined Landbridge as a consultant, on a reported salary of £43,000 a month, plus expenses.

While many in the Australian intelligence and defence communities are deeply concerned by such things, others in Australia don’t have a problem with the country trying to play a ‘balancing’ role between Beijing and Washington. One of the best-known books on the topic is The China Choice: Why we should share power, by Hugh White, a former Australian defence official.

In it, he calls for a ‘concert of Asia’ in which China and the US work together in the region. How countries such as Vietnam, Japan, Taiwan and others would feel about this ‘sharing’ isn’t greatly explained. This wasn’t a marginal book. It was launched by the former Australian prime minister Paul Keating who said: ‘I have long held the view that the future of Asian stability cannot be cast by a non- Asian power – especially by the application of US military force.’ By using the term Asia instead of Pacific, Keating implies the US is external to the region.

Which points to another increasingly discussed aspect of the ‘what is Australia’ question. Is Australia a western outpost in Asia, or an Asian country that has a lot of people with genetic roots from Europe?

Strategically and structurally, the answer is clear. Australia is part of the core western Five Eyes intelligence sharing partnership, along with the US, the UK, New Zealand and Canada. The five countries collaborate closely on intelligence issues, which is why an Australian ‘drift’ is of such concern to Washington and London.

Under Five Eyes, different countries effectively lead in different geographic areas. Australia, and to a degree New Zealand, are considered the strategic leaders within Five Eyes for much of the vast area of Oceania.

Oceania, consisting of more than a dozen Pacific island countries, covers close to a sixth of the planet’s surface, and is the front line between Asia and the Americas. Many Pacific island countries don’t have a US embassy, but they have an Australian and a New Zealand one, and Canberra and Wellington are heavily consulted during US diplomatic and military visits to the region.

In this context, it is worth noting that many of the concerns about Chinese influence in Australian politics are replicated in New Zealand, as was made clear in Anne-Marie Brady’s study Magic Weapons: China’s Political Influence Activities Under Xi Jinping. One recent example revealed that Jian Yang, a sitting New Zealand MP and former member of the select committee for foreign affairs, defence and trade, used to teach in China at an elite Chinese intelligence-training institution. When asked about it, he replied: ‘If you define those cadets or students as spies, yes, then I was teaching spies. I don’t think so. I just think they are collecting information through communication in China.’ New Zealand is also overtly collaborating with China on development projects in Oceania.

The delegation of strategic ‘management’ of Oceania to Canberra and Wellington by Washington may make sense to the defence and intelligence communities if one assumes that Australian and New Zealand interests in the region dove-tail with American ones. But that is open to question, even by Australians themselves. As Mathew Davies, the head of the international relations department at the Australian National University put it: ‘What is Australia’s role in the Asia Pacific? Should we continue to see ourselves as a close ally of the US or should we look at what Australia wants?’

As a result, the concerns about Chinese in uence over domestic a airs in Australia and New Zealand are seeping into the way Washington and others are looking at the advice they are getting from Canberra and Wellington on Oceania. There have been several cases in which it seems Australia and New Zealand were doing what they want, even if it might not help regional stability or greater western interests.

For example, it has been reported that Australia pressured Nauru to transfer recognition from Taiwan to China. Also, the advice out of Canberra and Wellington on how to deal with Fiji after its coup was sup- posed to force Fiji into democratic concessions. Instead, Fiji turned to China, with which it has since developed close ties.

Which is not to say the outcomes favourable to China are desired. Often Australia and New Zealand’s action in Oceania seems to be driven by domestic economic factors. But, even then, given how entrenched China is becoming, what looks like trade actually has larger strategic implications.

The current example is the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations Plus, or PACER Plus, a trade deal involving Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific island countries. 

Canberra and Wellington have been pushing for PACER Plus for more than a decade. It is designed to have the island countries drop tariffs on most goods coming from Australia and New Zealand, have them rewrite their regulations, get rid of policies that protect domestic innovation, make it easier to pressure the islands into privatizing state-owned enterprises, and undermine the islands’ ability to sign bilateral trade deals with countries outside the zone. A particular concern of Australia and New Zealand was a potential UK or European Union trade deal with the islands.

‘Concern is spreading as more realize how weakness in one part of the West’s

interlinked system can cascade exponentially’

As most of the Pacific island countries enjoy duty-free and quota-free access for exports to Australia and New Zealand, and many national budgets rely on import tariffs that will disappear with PACER Plus, it is hard to see the advantage for the islands.

However, Australia and New Zealand had large dedicated teams, including members from their own business sectors, negotiating PACER Plus, while most of the island countries have few trade negotiators. As a result Canberra and Welling- ton funded an organization to negotiate on behalf of the island countries, with a team led by an Australian-educated Ghanaian with little knowledge of the complexities of the island economies. This combined with intense lobbying from Australia and New Zealand that was described as ‘bullying and cheque-book diplomacy’ and resulted in recalcitrant civil servants in at least one island country being red.

In June, Australia, the Cook Islands, Nauru, Kiribati, New Zealand, Niue, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Tuvalu signed PACER Plus. The deal, which Australia and New Zealand were touting as promoting regional economic integration, is already creating fractures in the region.

One of the largest island economies, Papua New Guinea, failed to sign saying the deal was completely in Australia and New Zealand’s favour. Neither did Fiji, because of the ‘very restrictive’ third party most-favoured-nation clause. The King of Tonga dissolved his parliament and called a new election in part because of the lack of consultation on PACER Plus. 

It seems as if Washington wasn’t thrilled with the deal either. The three island countries in Free Association with the US, the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands, somehow managed to miss the signing because of ‘transportation issues’. The possibility of them joining later, as Vanuatu has, has not been mentioned.

On the face of it, PACER Plus is also problematic for regional security on strictly economic grounds. It is likely to increase food insecurity as pressure is put on island countries to privatize customary land currently being used as family allotments. It is likely to bring cheaper, lower quality food into the islands, increasing obesity and diabetes, already a serious issue in the region, and making domestic food production less pro table. It will also deprive already struggling governments of critical tariff  income − forcing them to look for more Chinese loans. All this can combine to create internal dislocation and increasing urbanization and poverty and all for very minimal benefit to a very narrow range of Australian and New Zealand businesses.

The projections get even more serious when one overlays the ‘China factor’. For example, one of the priorities for Australia and New Zealand is the privatization of state-owned enterprises in the islands. This means ports, airports, telecoms and other pieces of critical infrastructure.

Chinese-linked companies have been trying to gain access to these for years given the critical strategic positioning of the island countries. It is not a great leap to think it possible that Australian or New Zealand companies, backed by Chinese government-linked money, will wait for Canberra and Wellington to force the privatization of, say, ports in the island countries, and then come in with the best bids, as they did in Darwin.

Many in the Australian defence and intelligence communities are worried about the way things are going. And that concern is spreading, as more realize how weakness in one part of the West’s interlinked systems can cascade exponentially. It’s not just Washington that wants to know the answer to the question ‘what is Australia?’.

Cleo Paskal is an associate fellow of the Energy, Environment and Resources Department at Chatham House, and a Trudeau Visiting Fellow and Director of The Oceania Project at the Centre d’études et de recherches internationales de l’Université de Montréal

| the world today | october & november 2017 

Interview: Is Australia going over to the Dark Side with the PRC? With Gordon Chang (John Batchelor Show)

Interview: Cleo Paskal on John Batchelor Show with Gordon Chang on Chinese political influence in Australia

Interview: Cleo Paskal on John Batchelor Show with Gordon Chang on growing India - Japan relations

Article: World is watching the Doklam stand-off (Sunday Guardian)

By CLEO PASKAL | LONDON | 13 August, 2017

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/10469-world-watching-doklam-stand

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj holds bilateral meeting with Bhutan’s Foreign Minister Damcho Dorji amid the Doklam stand-off, in Kathmandu, on Thursday. IANS 

Doklam has global implications. Not because China is doing anything new, but because India is.

While much of the Western media is blaring North Korea, many key commentators and analysts are closely tracking the situation in Doklam. They have realised that, embedded in the stand-off, are many of the today’s key strategic questions. 

Will China’s expansion continue unchecked? Will India become a net security provider not only for itself, but for its allies? Will China put an aggressive PLA agenda above domestic economic growth? And more. 

The answers resonate far beyond Doklam, and are being examined in capitals around the world. 

In terms of China’s expansion, Western media largely sees the Doklam road in the context of Beijing’s other status quo disturbing infrastructure projects, such as the militarising of islands and reefs in the South China Sea. CNN’s recent article on the situation highlights that China’s moves “come amid increasing Chinese military activity throughout Asia”. 

The road also casts a new light on the “benignness” of the One Belt One Road initiative. While some commentators reference China’s attempts to make historical claims in Doklam, most also imply that there is no economic or social reason for the road. It only makes sense in the context of weakening Bhutan and threatening India. 

There is a strong sense that China will just keep pushing, as it is doing in the South China Sea, East China Sea and elsewhere. In that context, there is a lot of sympathy for the Indian position, with, for example, Gordon Chang writing in Forbes: “China has made a friend an adversary and is now making that adversary an enemy.” 

There is also a very careful observation of what China will do, now that it is actually being challenged on the ground. Does it have the ability to de-escalate? If not, what does that mean for all the other expansionist flashpoints created by Beijing?

Another question being asked is, will India hold its ground? There is a contentious and important debate in many Western capitals around India’s role in global affairs. Especially since the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Delhi has tried to position itself as a regional (and potentially Indo-Pacific) net security provider. Those in doubt point to, for example, the 2012 “coup” in the Maldives, during which India was notably impotent. Those backing India say that was the last administration. Things have changed. 

This is one reason why what is happening in Doklam is so important. So far, “new India” is doing what it said it would—defending an ally, and itself, against potentially destabilising expansion. Not only will Washington, London and others be watching to see if India continues to hold its ground, so will some of India’s newer allies, such as Vietnam, Japan and others.

So far, “new India” is doing what it said it would—defending an ally, and itself, against potentially destabilising expansion. Not only will Washington, London and others be watching to see if India continues to hold its ground, so will some of India’s newer allies, such as Vietnam, Japan and others.

Another key question raised by Doklam, and being increasingly discussed in the West, is what is the relationship between China and Pakistan (and/or Pakistan-based terrorist organisations)? The Daily Mail ran a feature about Lashkar-e-Taiba’s Amir Hamza releasing a video in which he says, “If India will send its army in Bhutan to counter China, then along with Pakistan, Chinese troops will enter Srinagar.” The Daily Mail noted, “This video is the first such proof of Lashkar-e-Taiba’s direct involvement in the Northeast and their strategy to work along with China.”

This combined with the widely reported quote from Long Xingchun, director of the Center for Indian Studies at China West Normal University that “under India’s logic, if the Pakistani government requests, a third country’s army can enter the area disputed by India and Pakistan, including India-controlled Kashmir”. Especially taken together, the two approaches make it clear that, at the very least, elements within Pakistan and China consider themselves aligned against India.

Given the China-Pakistan links are in large part driven by their militaries and that, in any conflict with India, China’s exports to this very large (and growing) market are sure to suffer, it begs the question will Beijing put an aggressive PLA agenda above domestic economic growth? If so, China’s much repeated line “our expansion is just about economics” doesn’t seem very convincing, necessitating a whole different set of responses. Overall, the risks to India and Bhutan of letting the Doklam road continue are clear. India decided to defend against that change in the status quo, largely garnering support, and showing that, as it stands, it may really be a net security provider. 

Meanwhile, the benefits to China of pushing on are much less clear. The road doesn’t make it more secure. On the contrary, it is making an enemy of a major trading partner, pushing it even closer towards the United States. It looks like it is trying to bully a smaller nation (Bhutan). It casts a new and disconcerting light on its flagship Belt and Road Initiative. It is potentially opening up a second front at a time when it is already having problems along its maritime periphery. It is calling attention to its alignment of interests with terrorist elements within Pakistan. 

Doklam has global implications. Not because China is doing anything new, but because India is. And in so doing, it is calling China’s bluff. The world is watching what happens next very carefully indeed.

Cleo Paskal is The Sunday Guardian’s North America Special Correspondent.

Interview: Cleo Paskal on John Batchelor Show with Gordon Chang on India pushes China back & What is to be done?

Interview: Cleo Paskal on Ian Masters' Background Briefing talking US-Canada relations and global perceptions of President Trump

You can hear it here. 

Article: Grenfell fire tragedy leads to battle for narrative (Sunday Guardian)

By CLEO PASKAL | NEW DELHI | 24 June, 2017

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/world/9884-grenfell-fire-tragedy-leads-battle-narrative

A police officer squares off with a demonstrator during a protest, billed by organisers as a “Day of Rage”, to protest against the Grenfell Tower fire and Conservative Party’s austerity policies, in Parliament Square in central London,on Wednesday.REUTERS

Different groups have been vying to use the Grenfell Tower tragedy as proof of their own positions. 

This isn’t about London’s Grenfell Tower tragedy, the horrific inferno that killed approximately 79 people, and likely more. It’s about how that tragedy is being used by a range of groups who are claiming it as part of their own pre-existing narratives. And what that shows about the state of public debate and the media in the United Kingdom.

First the facts, as we currently know them. Just after midnight on 14 June, a fire started on the fourth floor of the 24-storey building. Grenfell Tower was built around 50 years ago as “council flats” (government-owned, low rent apartments for those with low or no income). It is in one of the wealthiest areas of London.

During the time of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, council tenants were offered the right to buy their flats under certain conditions. Some did. At the time of the fire, Grenfell Tower had some private owners, some renters, and some sub-letters, but there was still a high proportion of apartments that were “council flats”. There is a very long waiting list for these sorts of apartments.

The building landlord is the local government, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. In that Borough alone, around 2,700 families are on the waiting list for council flats.

Last year, as part of a £10m refurbishment to the building paid for by the Borough, new external cladding was installed. Following the renovations, the residents’ organisation repeatedly voiced safety concerns in the time leading up to the fire. It now seems as though that cladding may have contributed to undermining the fire safety of the building and the fire’s rapid spread. 

And people died. Many, many people died. 

Volunteers immediately came in large numbers from all over to provide clothes, food, money, emotional support and more to the survivors. That’s some of what we know about the fire itself. What happened next gets more complicated. It was the battle for the narrative—different groups vying to use the tragedy as proof of their own positions.

Soon after the fire, businessman and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn-supporting political activist Mustafa Mansour, called for a demonstration in front of Kensington Town Hall. Mansour doesn’t live in the area, though he said he had a family-friend who died in the fire. Once the list of the missing and dead started to be compiled, it became clear that a large proportion of the victims were Muslims. The first announced death was a Syrian refugee. Mansour’s family friend was an Egyptian national. An entire family from Bangladesh is missing. Mansour used to be spokesman for the Finsbury Park Mosque. While the Mosque now condemns its former extremism, it is the former home of Imam Abu Hamza, currently serving life in prison in the United States for terrorism. A decade ago, Mansour himself had been arrested, and released, on suspicion of terrorism offences. His choice to be the one to call a demonstration served to tie the fire to other, much larger debates. And he would have known that.

Two days after the fire, hundreds of demonstrators answered Mansour’s call and showed up at Town Hall. He presented a list of demands, including fire victims being rehoused in the same area. The demonstrators became violent. Town Hall was stormed. One man, who had volunteered to help the survivors, was mistaken for a council worker and beaten.

Then the Movement For Justice By Any Means Necessary (MFJ) organised a “Day of Rage” march of around 500 people carrying signs reading like “this is class war” and “defy Tory rule”. However, an organisation working closely with some of the victims stated: “We cannot emphasise enough how against this many of the affected residents we’ve spoken to are and they do not want their grief hijacked for any violent or destructive means.”

In the meantime, Jeremy Corbyn was also advancing the narrative that the fire was the fault of the Conservatives and the “rich”. He called for the vacant homes of overseas investors to be “requisitioned” to rehouse those left homeless by the fire.

On the left, among the loudest voices, there was a clear conflation of poverty, race, religion and politics. 

Which began to spark a pushback. When an article appeared in the Independent reporting that the true number of victims may never be known, because those in the Grenfell Tower who were illegal immigrants or refugees may not come forward for fear of deportation, the comment section of the normally middle of the road newspaper lit up with those railing at why recently arrived and illegal immigrants seemed to be getting housing when many others were not. Those were the polite comments.

And on 19 June, a mentally disturbed Caucasian British homeless man drove from Wales to London to ram his rented van into people standing near the Finsbury Park Mosque.  After the attack, former English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson tweeted that “The mosque where the attack happened tonight has a long history of creating terrorists & radical jihadists & promoting hate & segregation.” And “I’m not justifying it, I’ve said many times if government or police don’t sort these centres of hate they will create monsters as seen tonight.” He was widely attacked in the mainstream press. At the same time, his 2015 autobiography suddenly became a bestseller.

Frankly, the situation is a mess. The Grenfell fire disaster and how it was used brings to the fore many complex issues that need addressing, or at least discussing. But it is unclear how that will happen. So, the situation is likely to continue, feeding division and hardening positions, until the next disaster notches it up one more level.

As for the fire victims, millions of pounds have been raised for them, Theresa May has ordered a full public inquiry into the disaster, and there are possible manslaughter charges being investigated against some of those involved in the renovations. Communities Secretary Sajid Javid has announced that the government will permanently rehouse many former Grenfell Tower residents in 68 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments in the luxury £2 billion Kensington Row development, at a cost of tens of millions of pounds.

Cleo Paskal is The Sunday Guardian Special Correspondent for North America.

Interview: Cleo Paskal on John Batchelor Show with Gordon Chang on China scrambles to militarize Oceania’s Third Island Chain

Cleo Paskal teaches Geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific at the Université de Montréal with lots of special guests

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAiYRlJXsAEJ5pl.jpg

Article: Constant media attacks cause Trump’s support to Harden (Sunday Guardian)

By CLEO PASKAL | Montreal | 20 May, 2017

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/9454-constant-media-attacks-cause-trump-s-support-harden

United States President Donald Trump gestures as Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (R) stands next to him during a reception ceremony in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Saturday. Photo: Reuters

As Ann Coulter wrote, ‘Every time I try to be mad at Trump, the media reel me back in by launching some ridiculous, unprovoked attack.’ 

OK, so we know what the Western mainstream media think of US President Donald Trump. Look at CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post or, for that matter, the BBC, the Canadian media, the French media, the Australian media, and so on. The negative adjectives, invectives and allegations fly fast and furious—and if distilled would probably sound something like “lock him up”. But they never liked him. And they certainly weren’t the ones who voted for him.

So the question is, what does Trump’s base think? From a legislative point of view, that’s the key question at the moment. The Republicans hold both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Any vote for impeachment, etc., would have to pass the Houses. While there are certainly many Republican Congress members who would happily vote against Trump, if they think he still has enough support in their home ridings to affect their re-elections, they’ll think twice. The midterm elections are in 2018.

So what does his base think? The majority of Trump’s base has a completely different set of parameters from the mainstream media by which they judge his performance.

The first one, on which he wins every time, is that he is not Hilary Clinton. As long as the memory of her campaign lingers, it reinvigorates his support. Which is why, if the Democrats are serious about winning over some of his voters, they need to be a lot more “Sanders” (Remember him? The mainstream media and the Democratic Party don’t seem to.) and a lot less Clinton.

Other priorities depend on the sub-group of supporters.

So far, to those who supported him based on getting a conservative a seat on the Supreme Court, he can say he delivered the perfect Justice. For those with concerns about terrorism, he can say that he’s trying, but is being stymied by the courts. For those who backed him on his anti-Obamacare platform, he can say he is trying, but is being slowed down by Congress. For those who want the wall—physical metaphor for secure borders—he can say the design competition has begun.

But after that, it gets complicated. And his current trip to the Middle East may muddy the waters even more.

Meanwhile, many supported him based on the perceived economic warfare of China. Conveniently for China, North Korea flared up, and Trump seems to be holding back on all he promised about China (declaring it a trade manipulator, imposing tariffs, etc.) in the hope that China will rein in the monster it helped create. If there continues to be no action by the time of the midterms, he may lose a lot of the people who voted for him the first time, because their factories had closed and moved to China, killing their towns and breaking their families. Some of them were potential Sanders voters.

The mainstream media in the US have already locked down the anti-Trump vote. If they really want to beat him, they need to win over some of his supporters. But the constant attacks just rally his troops even more. 

Other supporters prioritised getting the US out of the Middle East in general (while supporting Israel) and Syria in particular. Which was why Trump’s strike on Syria over the alleged chemical attack shook so many of his supporters. It was exactly the sort of thing he said he wouldn’t do, and which set him apart from other candidates. It didn’t help Trump with his base that the mainstream media lauded his strike, with even CNN calling the action “Presidential”.

Luckily for Trump’s poll numbers, the mainstream media was soon attacking him again. Which is something those against him have yet to understand. And which is really the key to understanding his near term prospects. The mainstream media in the US have already locked down the anti-Trump vote. If they really want to beat him, they need to win over some of his supporters. But the constant attacks just rally his troops even more.

One of Trump’s most vocal supporters during the campaign was Ann Coulter, author of In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome! She was among those who began to be concerned he was straying from his campaign promises. However, as she wrote in Breitbart: “Every time I try to be mad at Trump, the media reel me back in by launching some ridiculous, unprovoked attack.”

Similarly, AP reported that New York State Assemblyman Ron Castorina, who represents a district in “Trump Country”, blames Trump’s problems on mainstream media coverage that’s “damaging the country as a whole. Not only have I not heard of anyone turning their backs, I’ve seen people become more in solidarity with the president because they feel he’s getting a raw deal.”

The media attacks also seem to be hardening general Republican Party member support for Trump’s policy moves. In one recent Politico poll, 62% of Republicans said Trump was right to remove FBI director James Comey, compared with 16% of Democrats.

As it looks now, it seems the louder the Western mainstream media voices are against Trump, the better it is for his numbers. Another side-product of the onslaught is that many in the middle are simply starting to tune out.

On a very small scale I personally saw that phenomenon in action. Yesterday, I got into a taxi. The news was on the radio. The first item was a broadside, more editorial than news, about Trump and Russia. The driver changed to a music station. I asked him:

“Are you sick of Trump?”

He said, “No, it’s just always one-sided. These are complicated things. They aren’t really telling me anything…”

And for the rest of the drive he kept the radio on the music station.

Currently, it seems the constant media attacks are causing Trump’s support to harden, even though there are reasons for his base to be concerned by its own parameters. At the same time, the vitriol seems to be causing many on the fence to put the news on mute. So, if you hear endless anti-Trump pieces coming out of the US, that doesn’t necessarily mean he is losing support. At the moment, it could mean just the opposite.

Cleo Paskal is The Sunday Guardian’s North America Special Correspondent.

Article: Aus, NZ trying to corner India in Oceania (Sunday Guardian)

By CLEO PASKAL | London | 7 May, 2017

http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/9342-aus-nz-trying-corner-india-oceania

One of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s most insightful, if low key, foreign policy initiatives was to work to deepen relations with more than a dozen island nations of Oceania. 

One of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s most insightful, if low key, foreign policy initiatives was to work to deepen relations with more than a dozen island nations of Oceania. He met with regional leaders in Fiji soon after he was elected, and invited regional leaders to India the following year.

There are many reasons for the engagement. Oceania has age-old ties to India, covers about 1/6th of the planet’s surface, is increasingly strategic, has a lot of votes in international platform, substantial resources, a largely educated population, and is culturally and economically compatible with India. However, ever since the colonial period, Australia and New Zealand have considered much of the region to be “theirs”. Even India has bowed to their lead. During the most recent coup in Fiji, they told India to stay out of it, and India did. It was like India taking Spain’s advice on how to deal with South America.

China, of course, followed its own path. As a result, it has become highly influential in the region, including in Australia and New Zealand themselves. As others, including India, started to realise that perhaps Australia and New Zealand were advancing their own agenda, they started to try to develop direct relations with the region. Modi was a leader in this area.

In turn, as Australia and New Zealand saw their primary position threatened, they began to tighten their grip. The most prominent form that has emerged is the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations Plus (PACER Plus) trade agreement. Australia and New Zealand have been pushing for PACER Plus for over a decade. There was little appetite for it in the Pacific Island Countries (PICs). Most already have duty free and quota free access to Australia and New Zealand for their goods, and the only labour mobility they are likely to get (and have already anyway) is to work seasonally for low wages, in difficult conditions, on Australian and New Zealand farms.

The PICs on the other hand will have to open up their fragile economies to Australia and New Zealand, dropping tariffs, rewriting their regulations, getting rid of policies that protect domestic innovation, and potentially undermining their possibilities of creating new bilateral relationships with, for example, India. PACER Plus, for example, might make it very difficult for the PICs to buy much needed, low cost Indian pharmaceuticals. What the PICs get in exchange for opening themselves up to what amounts to economic regime change is very unclear.

So why did the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Kiribati, Niue, Palau, Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu, agree to sign PACER Plus in June? One reason is that, while Australia and New Zealand have large dedicated teams (including from their own business sectors) to negotiate PACER Plus, most PICs have very few trade negotiators. To “resolve” that problem, Australia, New Zealand, and a few others funded an organisation to negotiate on behalf of Pacific Island Countries. The organisation’s Chief Trade Advisor, the man supposed to be advising Pacific Island countries, is not from the Pacific. He is from Ghana. Pacific Island Countries are socially and economically complex. It is difficult to know how someone who hasn’t lived the intricate social capital constructs of the region can, even with the best of intension, design a trade system that will protect food security, social stability and healthy family life in Oceania.  The Australians were clear about their goals from the start. In 2002 an Australian official said: “A practical or economic interest of ours was to ensure that, whatever trade liberalisation occurred between the island countries, if it were extended to other states such as the United States, Japan or the EU, it did not disadvantage our trading position.”

Since then, Australia and New Zealand have used what Pacific Network on Globalisation has called “bullying and cheque-book diplomacy” to push through what is essentially an old style neo-liberal agreement they probably think will enhance their own position in the region, but is more likely to open the door to Chinese companies registered in Australia and New Zealand.  The process of the negotiations has been problematic. Qualified, honest senior civil servants in at least one PIC were moved out of their jobs at the insistence of the larger countries due to their objections to the deal. While Australia and New Zealand regularly extol the virtues of accountability and transparency in the region, they have negotiated the agreement in secret and even now, a month before the signing, are not releasing the official text.

The two countries in the region self-confident enough to stand up to Canberra and Wellington are not signing. Papua New Guinea pulled out early on, saying the deal was completely in Australia and New Zealand’s favour. And Fiji claims it was excluded from the final meeting in part because of its objections over the “very restrictive” third party most favoured nation clause (MFN), a clause that seriously risks affecting Indian engagement in the region.

New Zealand Member of Parliament Barry Coates says of PACER Plus: “Typically trade rules have been preferential for developing countries but in this case Australia and New Zealand, as developed countries are requiring treatment at least as favourable. The MFN clause also sits uncomfortably with the “look North” approach adopted by PNG and Fiji. This will restrict the scope for future trade agreements with India and others.”

Now is the time for Indian trade negotiators to take a close look at PACER Plus not only to see what it might mean for India but also, in conjunction with their colleagues in the PICs, to help make sure this agreement will actually help the region to become stronger, not weaker, in the difficult times ahead.

Cleo Paskal is The Sunday Guardian’s Special Correspondent.