News | RG21 - Part 9

Afghan Wakhan Corridor And China’s Security

by David Parmer / Tokyo

In November 2017, RG21’s own Bill Lee posed the question: “Where will China’s next overseas military base be?” The answer seems to be Afghanistan, and the explanation is a bit complicated.

The next “base” will probably be in Afghanistan’s Wakhan corridor, a 350km-long and 13-65km wide valley that separates Afghanistan’s Badakhshan Province from Tajikistan in the north and Pakistan in the south.

What makes the Wakhan corridor of vital interest to the PRC is its 92km border with China at the eastern end. In recent years, the far West of China has had significant unrest with its Uighur minority. Xinjiang is a real worry to Beijing, mainly because of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a separatist Uighur group that is on the US Terrorists Exclusion List. In addition to ETIM there is the TIP or Turkestan Islamic Party, a similar jihadist group.

Uighur fighters and their families have been involved in the Syrian conflict and Uighur Foreign Fighters (UFF) are reported to be active in Southeast Asia in countries including Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. China’s worry is that, one day, radicalized and military-savvy Uighurs will return to Xianjing and greater China. ETIM has also allied itself with the Taliban.

(In February 2018 US forces under NATO conducted an airstrike on Taliban and ETIM facilities in Badakhshan causing significant damage.)

Which brings us back to the Wakhan corridor. Now Beijing and Kabul are reportedly in talks to build an Afghan army base in the Wakhan. China will supply equipment, training, and weapons for an Afghan mountain brigade that would deal not only with the Taliban, but also with ETIM in the region. Despite denials, there are also persistent reports of Chinese troops, patrols, and vehicles in Afghan territory. Before too long we may see a significant number of Chinese “trainers” in action in Badakhshan. Kabul’s footprint has been light in Badakhshan province, an area where the Taliban extorted funds from the gems and drug trade.

A “base” in the Wakhan corridor serves China’s interests in its war on terrorism and can add security to its Belt and Road initative. The bolstering of Afghan control of one of its most remote regions can also be considered a very good thing, something that the NATO mission as well can only appreciate.

Photo: PLA on patrol in Xianjiang. China MOD

Map: Wikipedia

US forces attack Taliban and ETIM

Buying American

By Bill Lee

It looks as if Japan is giving up the domestic development of its next-generation fighter jet to replace its aging F-15 fighters. Reuters first reported in November last year that the Ministry of Defense was having doubts about domestic development of an F-3 air superiority fighter. It reported that the MOD would delay a decison until 2018 or beyond, which would be the death knell for domestic production since such a project could not be included in the next five-year defense plan starting from 2019.

The dropping of the plan for domestic developmen will be a blow to Japan’s domestic defense industry, particularly to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. There were apparently three options for MOD: develop a 5th-generation fighter domestically, jointly develop a fighter jet with an internatinoal partner, or upgrade the current F-2 fighters. The first option would involve staggering costs (a $40 billion dollar initial price tag) and the technical challenge of developing systems for a next-generation fighter aircraft. Reuters quoted an official as saying, “All we have now is a flying box,” without the necessory weapons and avionics systems. The second option will basically mean reworking an existing foreign, i.e., US or European, fighter plane. The third option is not attractive, given the obvious caps on performance capability.

Japan strongly wanted the F-22 Raptor, which has unparalled stealth and performance capabilities, but the US wouldn’t sell them to Japan. Now that the Chinese have unveilied their J-20 stealth fighter jets, Japan is under pressure to procure high-performance next-generations fighter jets that can ensure air superiority as well as have top-notch anti-ship capabilities. It looks as if Japan will acquire more F-35As, which have good all-around capabilities, with some STOLV F-35Bs also in the mix.

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Photo by AiirSource via Flickr

The Art of the Deal by Kim Jong Un

By Bill Lee

In his new book, The Art of the Deal, Kim Jong Un will undoubtedly posit this as the first rule for a successful negotiation: In order to ensure victory, negotiate with someone desperate to negotiate.

According to news reports, when the South Korean security officials were briefing President Trump at the White House and relayed Kim Jong Un’s supposed invitation for a meeting, Trump immediately accepted without asking for details, stunning the South Koreans.

Every political leader knows that when things become sticky for them, the best way out is to distract. In Trump’s case, the bad headlines were strangling his presidency, including the failure of son-in-law Jared Kushner to get a top security clearance, the firing of a valuable aide for spousal abuse, and, of course, the simmering scandal of the porn actress, Stormy Daniels.

If Trump, by meeting Kim Jong Un, can, like some idiot savant, bring about an amazing denuclearization of North Korea and peace on the Korean Peninsula, he deserves a second term as president and maybe the Nobel Peace Prize.

But what will he have to give up? The North Korean leaders have always said that they want to negotiate directly with Washington and want a guarantee from the United States that America won’t attack them. That means signing a peace treaty. Concluding a peace treaty would naturally mean establishing diplomatic ties with North Korea, which means recognizing the legitimacy of the Kim dynasty and thus avoiding any interfence in their domestic affairs, such as their human rights abuses.

Trump is likely blissfully unaware of the complexities involved in these negotiations with North Korea, including coordinating the conditions being negotiated with the harsher conditions Trump is demanding for the Iran nuclear deal, which he has called “the worst deal ever.”

With the naming of Mike Pompeo as the new secretary of state, who is very hawkish towards North Korea and Iran, it is even more unlikely that real progress will be made with North Korea, or that a Kim-Trump summit will happen any time soon.

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Photo by PhotoAtelier via Flickr

Person of Interest: Mohammad Javad Zarif

by David Parmer / Tokyo

Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mohammad Javad Zarif seems to be not just the face of Iranian diplomacy, but of the country itself. When the world’s attention shifts from the South China Sea or the Korean Peninsula it usually shifts to the Middle East, and when this happens Iran and its Minister of Foreign Affairs are never far from the center of the story.

A quick glance at the map will tell you that geography alone guarantees Iran a place in the news, as it borders on some of the most volatile regions on Earth including Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan to name just few. And of course it faces the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. While its relations are stable and its diplomacy active, the Islamic Republic has long-standing disputes with Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Representing Iran on the world stage falls to Mohammad Zarif. Mr. Zarif, 58, is a career diplomat and academic. Born in Iran, he is American educated. He did his undergraduate work at San Francisco State University and his graduate work at the University of Denver where he received an M.A. and a Ph. D in International Law and Policy. After graduation Mr. Zarif was called to work for Iran’s United Nations team. He was appointed Permanent Representative to the UN, and held the post from 200-2007.

After becoming Foreign Minister under President Hassan Rouhani in 2013 Mr. Zarif became well know to the world as Iran’s chief negotiator with the P5+1 group of nations (US, UK, China, France, Russia + Germany and EU) in the Joint Plan of Comprehensive Action, (JPCA) or what is commonly called “the Iran nuclear deal.” In April 2015 the lifting of sanctions was begun as a result of Iran agreeing to the inspection and limiting of its nuclear program.

As of early 2018, the US Trump administration is threatening a unilateral withdrawal from the JPCA agreement, a move that is strongly opposed by many in the US government and the parties to the agreement. The Trump administration has suggested re-opening the deal, but none of the parties agrees to this.

Recently Syria shot down an Israeli F16 returning from a bombing mission. As a result, Israel has threatened action against not just against Iran’s proxies but also against Iran itself. In addition, Iran is jostling with Saudi Arabia over hostilities in Yemen.

In “normal” times geography alone would dictate that Iran’s foreign minister would have a busy schedule, but these are not “normal” times. So when we pick up our newspaper or turn on our TV it is most likely that the face of Mohammad Javad Zarif will appear explaining Iran’s position on some issue and representing his country in another trying situation.

Photo:wikipedia

All In on Xi

By Bill Lee

China has apparently decided to go all in on President Xi Jinping with the CPC’s decision to abolish term limits for the president. It is not much of a surprise, though the early timing caught some off guard; however, it is natural the decision would come before Xi enters a lame-duck second term.

Xi has been masterful in consolidating his power by reforming the military to put control of it in his hands, eliminating rivals through the anti-corruption campaign, stifling dissent and reverting to a conservative-leaning moral education in schools, stimulating nationalist pride by turning coral reefs into military bases in the South China Sea, launching the ambitious One-Belt, One-Road initiative, and getting himself written into the Chinese Constitution. The icing on the cake may have been the ludicrous chaos of the Trump administration, which has made many Chinese see Western liberal democracy, as supposedly exemplified by the United States, as not necessarily the ideal model for governance.

China is making a big bet, though, on just one man. The allure of an autocratic leader is that, if he is good, such a leader has the power to accomplish a lot. The problem of course is that as the years go by and the leader becomes ossified and inert, there is no easy way, short of a nationwide rebellion, to get rid of him. But if most people, even in the United States, had their druthers about whom they would accept as a leader for life, Donald Trump or Xi Jinping, most I think would pick the latter.

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Photo by Maria Barina via Flickr

Shanghai Communique – Still Important 46 Years Later

by David Parmer / Tokyo

February 28, 1972 marked the end of President Richard M. Nixon’s historic visit to the People’s Republic of China and the date of the issuance of the Shanghai Communiqué. Nixon and his team had been staying at Shanghai’s historic Jin Jiang Hotel. There, together with the Chinese team headed by Premier Zhou Enlai, they had endeavored to come to an agreement that would be acceptable to both parties and also address the key issues facing the United States and the People’s Republic of China.

Two key issues that came out of the agreement that still have relevance are the agreement not to seek hegemony in the region and the acknowledgement by the US of the “One-China” policy. While both powers refrained from seeking hegemony in the region, it is clear that today both countries are active in promoting their interests in the Asia-Pacific region. The One-China policy continues intact today, and one annoyance for Beijing is that Taiwan will not clearly state its position on this issue.

The Shanghai Communiqué was a start in relations between the two Pacific powers, but it was not until January 1, 1979 that full diplomatic relations were established in the Second Communiqué and where the US ended political relations with Taiwan. The final communiqué in this series was the Third Communiqué that was published on August 17, 1982 when both sides agreed to strengthen economic, cultural and scientific ties, and in which the US pledged to decrease arms sales to Taiwan.

The normalization of relations started by the Shanghai Communiqué continues today and in many ways remains the basis for relations between the US and the PRC. Now it may seem strange for two countries to not talk for 30 years, but it was the Shanghai Communiqué that was really the beginning of the end for that silence.

Photo: Nixon Library via Wikipedia

Shanghai Communique full text: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v17/d203

Happy New Year! 新年快乐!

by David Parmer / Tokyo

We at RG21 would like to wish you a Happy Year of the Dog 2018! May you have a happy, prosperous and healthy year.

In 1859, the British writer Charles Dickens started one of his most famous works, A Tale of Two Cities, with these lines:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,”

And those conditions mentioned above really seem to apply to all of us in 2018. So many wonderful things are happening in the fields of science, space and IT, and people around the world are becoming even more connected as information flows everywhere. On the other hand, we are faced with the threat of terrorism, the prospects of world war and the very real effects of global warming. The rise of ignorance, injustice and bigotry also confront us.

Let us all work together to bring about the peace, harmony and prosperity that we all want and that are the right of every human being. Let us each do our part to make 2018 “the best of times.”

Photo: Yokohama Chinatown, D.Parmer

Grumpy Old Men

By Bill Lee

With the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics slated to kick off in a few days, North Korea will likely “hijack” (US Vice President Mike Pence) the Olympics with their “charm offensive” (Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono).

After Kim Jong Un offered to hold talks with South Korea about sending North Korean athletes to the winter Olympics in his New Year’s address this year, the Kim regime has succeeded from going to sending a few athletes to dispatching a delegation of over 500 North Koreans, including its Moranbang girl band, a 229-member female cheer squad, and an art troupe, not to mention 22 athletes. The icing on the cake will be one of the most powerful figures in the regime, not 90-year-old Kim Jong Nam, president of the Supreme People’s Assembly Presidium, but 30-year-old Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un’s younger sister and deputy director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department, who, being Kim Jong Un’s closest blood relative, is supposed to wield great power in the regime. While Mike Pence dourly announced that the United States will unleash its “toughest sanctions ever,” this “Ivanka Trump of the Kim regime” is likely to steal Mike Pence’s “thunder” (Daily Beast) in Pyeongchang. Another PR victory for Pyongyang.

The question is what will happen after the Pyeongchang Paralympics conclude on March 18. Despite the ramped-up UN, US, and Japanese sanctions on North Korea, the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based think tank, issued a new report detailing that 49 countries violated international sanctions against North Korea up to 2017. There have been numerous media reports describing how North Korea evades the sanctions by using front companies, going through third countries, reflagging cargo ships, targeting corrupt governments, and so on. With so many leaks, it is likely the ship of sanctions will list badly if not sink.

In his statement in Tokyo, Pence trotted out the tired old demand for North Korea’s “complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization,” a sure non-starter for dialogue. If the United States agrees to the starting of talks with Pyongyang on the condition that North Korea agrees to suspend its nuclear and missile tests but makes the above-mentioned demand the ultimate end, the talks will collapse. That will lead to the resumption of at least North Korea’s missile tests. North Korea has only tested its Hwasong-14 ICBM twice and its Hwasong-15 ICBM once. Experts say a minimum of five test-launches is necessary for a missile to be ready to be deployed. Back to square one.

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Photo by Esther Addy via Flickr

Fire and Fury

By Bill Lee

First off, there are no themes in Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump Whitehouse that are new. The Trump Whitehouse is chaotic: check. President Trump is, to put it kindly, incompetent: check. His inner circle of aides are amateurs or near lunatics: check.

The book gains momentum, particularly near the end, but it has two major weaknesses: the storytelling and the cast of characters. First, Wolff’s method of narration is to extrapolate from what he heard in interviews or hallway gossip to expositions on what he believes the subjects were thinking at the time. This is a technique that Bob Woodward used in his books, often to irritating effect. The problem of course is that Wolff cannot possibly know what a person is thinking based on answers to interview questions or hearsay. Moreover, the reader cannot trust that Wolff’s account is accurate. The book also contains a lot of accounts that are unattributed and strain credulity. For example, in a description of the two Trump sons Don Jr. and Eric, Wolff claims that Trump confessed that when brains were being handed out, the two sons were in the back of the room. But it is unbelievable that Trump would actually say something like that about his family, which he is known to be very protective about.

The other matter is the cast of characters. As Wolff says in his prologue, reading David Halberstam’s magnum opus The Best and the Brightest, although the basic theme of the book was that all the smart and elite people around JFK still managed to screw things up, the reader would likely daydream that he was part of that scene because of its near Camelotian aura. But now with the Trump Whitehouse, I kept thinking while I was reading (actually listening to) the book: Why on earth am I bothering to read about these people? None of them, and here we can trust Wolff, has any redeeming qualities. Except Bannon. Although he’s a whack job, his riffs, in Wolff’s retelling, can, I admit, be amusing. But the Trump Whitehouse is the last place I would like to daydream about being in.

Go ahead and get the book. It can be entertaining. But be forewarned: you’ll wonder why you’re bothering with this lot.

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Photo by Zarkachat Zarkachat via Flickr

Who Wins This Round?

By Bill Lee

Who is winning in the war of words between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un? As far as insults, Kim Jong Un is up on points. While Trump manages only “Rocket Man,” Kim, through the official North Korean media, has come up with Trump as a “mentally deranged dotard.”

North Korea agreed to meet for talks with South Korea on 9 January. Was it because Trump’s bellicose rhetoric had pushed tensions to such a height that Pyongyang feared military action by the United States? Trump took credit, tweeting, “Does anybody really believe that talks and dialogue would be going on between North and South Korea right now if I wasn’t firm, strong and willing to control our total ‘might’ against the North.”

Yet Pyongyang certainly came out ahead in the talks at Panmunjom. They get to send their athletes and cheerleaders to the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, and, more importantly, got the United States and South Korea to suspend their military exercise until after the Olympics. Moreover, they were able to make clear they will not denuclearize.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile arsenals are already a fait accompli despite Trump’s boast that he will “take care of it.” If, with all of Trump’s bluster, Kim Jong Un feels Trump is crazy enough to start bombing North Korea, that is all the more reason for the North Koreans never to give up their nuclear arms. Kim Jong Un wins this round.

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Photo by Paul Ark via Flickr