- South Asia at UN General Assembly
- Ukraine Gains Upper Hand in Putin’s War
- Sino-Russian Friendship
By Shashi P.B.B. Malla
UN General Assembly Session
The annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session began last week in New York, with the major events probably taking place this week.
This year, the focus is on “Transformative Solutions to Interlocking Crises”. This theme should resonate with South Asian countries given their acute vulnerability to climate change. However, it could also prove awkward given the region’s very subdued reaction to Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine (Foreign Policy/South Asian Brief, Sep.15).
Pakistan
The U.N. General Assembly has always been important for Pakistan because it offers a prominent platform to highlight key causes. Thus, it is usual for Pakistan to make Kashmir an important issue.
Pakistan’s recent flooding and the global response to it will definitely be an important topic. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is expected to make a strong appeal for relief in his address on September 23.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who has recently visited Pakistan, has already made strong appeals for support.
India
UNGA meetings are also very important to India, which has long sought a permanent seat on the Security Council [after U.N. reforms that is, which are nowhere in sight].
New Delhi typically uses the event to make the case that it belongs to the high table. Jaishankar, the Indian external affairs minister speaking on September 24, will probably mention India’s latest economic success in the last quarter of 2021, when it surpassed its colonial/imperial power the United Kingdom to become the world’s fifth-largest economy.
He is also expected to highlight India’s achievements in technology, its contributions to tackling global challenges such as its role as a top Covid-19 vaccine exporter and its recent emissions reduction pledges.
Other South Asian Countries
Heads of state or government from other South Asian countries are also expected in New York. Leaders from Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka will also speak. They along with Sharif will underline their own countries’ vulnerability to climate change.
Regarding the probable discussions on Russia’s war in Ukraine, South Asia is not part of the solution. No South Asian nation has joined the West to build a common front against Russian aggression. In conjunction with their policy of non-alignment, Russia has no enemies in the region. However, it does have a stalwart friend in India.
Afghanistan
Afghanistan’s acute humanitarian crisis will also be part of the deliberations. However, like last year no Afghan delegate will speak as the U.N. has not recognized the Taliban government. Its draconian measures, including suppression of girls’ education has not helped matters.
Help may be on the way. The U.S. announced that it would release some of Afghanistan’s frozen funds.
Under the Taliban regime, it’s unclear if Afghanistan can recapture the ‘the unstable balance’ that has characterized its politics and security in the past – or whether it will fall back into civil war.
Several factors point to this path – ethnically aligned militias, poor governance and foreign intervention by one or more outside powers (Carter Malkasian in Foreign Affairs).
Putin’s War: After Ukraine’s Advance, What’s Next?
Is it the beginning of the end for Putin?
Security analysts are grappling with Ukraine’s sudden advance on the war’s north-eastern front. This may augur more success for Kyiv.
Elucidating Ukraine’s tactics, The Economist writes: “The most important consequence of the offensive is what it be dislodged; and that Ukraine can therefore win. The speed of the advance hinged on a superbly executed plan and new Western weaponry that has denied Russia air supremacy.” It strongly urges the West to sustain and expand its weapons supplies to Ukraine.
However, the magazine and other experts at Foreign Policy warn: “Such a blitzkrieg will not be easy to repeat elsewhere.” In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin may “escalate where he can”, issue more nuclear threats. As a consequence, some in the West may push Kyiv to negotiate and to avoid “humiliating” Putin.
Besides higher hopes for its struggle against Russia, Ukraine has won high praise for its strategy and tactics behind the counter-offensive that produced such sudden ground gains in the country’s east near Kharkiv.
This summer, Ukraine announced a counter-offensive in its south, near Kherson. It followed through, pursuing a battle of attrition in that area. Russia then re-deployed some of its forces to the south, but left its front lines in the north-eastern Kharkiv region under-protected, and Ukraine seized the advantage.
The Atlantic wrote that careful preparation – including lighter, more mobile fighting units – allowed Ukraine to achieve “one of the greatest military-strategy successes since 1945” [at the end of WW II], and that “military scholars will study for decades to come.”
The World’s Stake in Ukraine
Without doubt, a Ukraine victory would mean a lot to the rest of the world.
Foreign Policy writes that it would be felt particularly in Eastern Europe – and especially “in countries struggling to free themselves from Moscow’s influence such as Georgia [South Caucasus] and Moldova [bordering Ukraine in south-west, near the Black Sea], weakening the influence Moscow is able to wield through oligarchic structures.”
The historian Timothy Snyder writing in Foreign Affairs suggests grander consequences, posing Ukraine’s fight against Russia as a struggle for truth and against violent “nihilism” Moscow seeks to spread about self-governance.
A New Sino-Russian Axis?
The long anticipated meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinpin at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan last week did not go so well. This in spite of the fact that just before Putin ordered Russian troops to invade Ukraine, both leaders had proclaimed ‘a friendship without limits’.
Behind the scenes, Xi must have been fulsome in his critique of the progress [or rather lack of it] of Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Putin admitted as such, when he said at the outset that he understands Xi’s “questions and concerns” about Russia’s full-scale invasion. He did not elaborate.
He did not have to – Ukrainian forces had just reclaimed more than three thousand square kilometers of occupied territory in a little over a week in the ongoing “special military operations”.
Collin Koh, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, was quite caustic when he commented that Xi had “Questions and concerns about having somehow awkwardly and belatedly realizing that [China had] been on the wrong side of history, and now also looked upon as a strategic accomplice of a dastardly war that meaninglessly snuffs out lives?”
Considering that Beijing still maintains diplomatic relations with Kyiv and has been vocal about maintaining states’ territorial integrity and sovereignty, Xi must be more than anxious about the way the Ukraine war is playing out.
He pointedly called on Putin to “assume the role of great powers and play a guiding role to inject stability and positive energy into a world rocked by social turmoil.”
However, even if Xi is unhappy with Russia’s handling of the nearly-seven month war, China [as well as India] has taken advantage of the situation by buying cheaper energy from Russia as European imports have been drastically reduced. This trend is expected to continue as Russia uses energy cuts over the winter to negatively influence Western support for Ukraine (Foreign Policy: Situation Report, Sep. 15).
At the same time, Putin has taken pains to indicate that he fully supports Xi in East Asia and opposes US “provocations” in the Taiwan Strait.
At the summit, Putin also signified that Russia and China were intent on creating an alternative to the US-led rules-based international order that has existed since the end of the Second World War.
Putin had the effrontery to proclaim: “We jointly stand for the formation of a just, democratic, and multipolar world order based on international law and the central role of the United Nations and not on some rules someone has come up with and is trying to impose on others.”
Putin’s recalling of history is very selective. He conveniently forgets that the Soviet Union and Ukraine were both founding members of the United Nations.
With his invasion of Ukraine, Putin has not only trampled on that country’s fundamental rights, but he has grievously violated the principles of International Law and the Charter of the United Nations. His championing of a so-called ‘new international order’ is an utter sham!
Russia failed miserably in trying to block Ukrainian President Zelenskiy from speaking virtually at this year’s UNGA. Of the 193 UN members only six other countries – Cuba, Eritrea, Belarus, North Korea, Nicaragua and Syria – supported Russia!
The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com
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