Review of World Politics
By Shashi P.B.B. Malla
Quo Vadis Shri DeubaJi ?
The attempted government formation under the leadership of Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba has stalled.
It was never a good idea putting together such a diverse ideological bunch motivated and united only by their own personal and party interests. The immediate, pressing and supreme interests of the nation was hindmost.
Just consider the political/ideological backgrounds of the three parties/groupings concerned.
The Nepali Congress [NC] is a house divided. Sometimes, somewhere it has lost its way. It purports to be democratic-socialist/social-democratic but this progressive background has long eroded away. How strange that it wants to make common cause with political parties that take extreme positions.
The Communist Party of Nepal – Maoist Centre [CPN-MC] development nor its interaction with the wider world. Its chairman, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, aka Prachande has the terrible reputation of being the butcher of more than 17,000 thousand innocent Nepalese in the pointless ten-year ‘People’s War’, abetted actively by the Indian establishment and its external secret service. Prachande has already betrayed Deuba twice, and he will have no compunction about doing it a third time! And Deuba wants to cast caution to the winds in search of a chimaera?
Another big question mark is the third pillar in the would-be ‘impossible’ coalition – the Madhes-Terai based Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP), actually a nonentity which has only been propelled into prominence because of its current capacity to merely supply the numbers, either to prop up Oli’s faltering and fragile government or to form a new ‘unnatural’ coalition.
It is currently playing the role of a very hard to get suitor. It has no principles other than to push through its unreasonable and infuriating demands – getting freedom for convicted criminals!
What strange bedfellows indeed!
Fresh elections would also not be a solution to the country’s problems given the extremely poor choices available to the electorate and would just be a pretext to create a façade of democracy.
In the meantime, the wheeling and dealing continue in this stupendous ‘Himalayan Federal Democratic Republic’ (HFDR).
Escalation of Violence in Myanmar
Last Saturday, more than 80 people were killed by Myanmar security forces in a crackdown on protests in the city of Bago, near the main city of Yangon. The soldiers used heavy weapons and shot at anything that moved.
Now, more than 700 people have been killed since the February 1 military putsch. The military is resorting to increasing levels of violence to maintain its grip on power. The actual number of deaths was likely to be much higher (BBC, 11.04.21).
The Myanmar Now news outlet quoted protest organizer Ye Htut as saying: “It is like genocide. They are shooting at every shadow.”
Growing Solidarity Among Ethnic Groups
A refreshing development is a growing solidarity emerging among the various ethnic groups which have been systematically persecuted by the Myanmar military or Tatmadaw for decades since independence. These constitute almost a third of the population. At the same time, there is increasing understanding between the Bamar majority and the various ethnic volk who are demonstrating together in the streets (Al Jazeera, 11.04.21).
There is now a realization among members of the underground civilian government and parliament that the ethnic minorities are valuable allies that the country must cultivate. Thus, the country’s various ethnic armed organizations have been removed from the state terrorist list. This is a substantial step towards building unity among the diverse, multitudinous ethnic nationalities of the country.
The people of Myanmar have now taken important steps in the right direction. It is the international community, and above all the Western Powers that are lagging behind. Is it too much to hope that US President Joe Biden will soon send an aircraft carrier group to the shores of Burma – to put a timely end to the gross inhumanity of the brutal Tatmadaw? This is of utmost necessity to maintain and restore international peace and security [Art. 42/UN Charter].
Myanmar’s ousted MPs and its UN ambassador has called on the UN Security Council members to take action against the military, including extending sanctions and imposing an arms embargo and no-fly zone.
However, no help can be expected from this quarter – the action must shift to the UN General Assembly.
Some analysts fear that some of the great powers may be deterred from attempting decisive action in the Bay of Bengal of the Indian Ocean because of diversionary tactics by two other great powers – Russia near Ukraine and China in the East China Sea and the South China Sea.
If the Western powers do not act decisively vis-à-vis Myanmar very soon, they are liable to lose face in Asia and the wider world. In any case, the rapidly unfolding humanitarian crisis is a severe test of Biden’s Indo-Pacific Strategy.
Xi Jinping’s Assertive Diplomacy: Multi-Constellation Viewpoints
The View from Beijing
Shi Yinhong, a veteran scholar at Beijing’s prestigious Renmin University, who also advises the Chinese government, has expressed very subtle concerns about China’s “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy.
The professor noted the “rapid progress” of President Biden’s China policy and the formation of the strategic alliance known as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – or Quad – involving the United States, Japan, Australia and India. Analysts say the group’s launch was ostensibly to counter an increasingly assertive China.
“China is currently showing a foreign policy face the West has never seen before – it is very hard-line,” said Prof. Shi. “It remains to be seen whether this continues.”
He added: “If future Chinese policy is seen as milder in the eyes of the West, the confrontation between the U.S.-European alliance and China might not be as serious as it is today” (Newsweek, 08.04.21).
Shi insisted: “Chinese diplomacy has always been on an equal footing, whether it was under Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping or others. China has never been submissive,” adding: “What’s new is that China now acts tough on many issues including Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan…”
Sino-American Confrontation in the South China Sea?
Military activity in the South-China Sea escalated dramatically over the last weekend as the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning entered the crucial geostrategic region and a U.S. Navy expeditionary strike group wrapped up naval exercises there (CNN, 12.04.21).
At the same time, the U.S. and the Philippines were preparing for joint drills even as the U.S. secretary of defense had proposed ways to deepen military cooperation between the two countries after China had massed vessels in disputed waters of the South China Sea.
China’s state-run Global Times reported on Sunday that the country’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning steamed into the South China Sea Saturday after completing a week of naval exercises around Taiwan, which is claimed by the mainland as being an inevitable part of its sovereign territory.
In the meantime, a US Navy expeditionary strike group, fronted by the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and amphibious assault ship USS Makin Island, conducted exercises in the South China Sea a day earlier. The two flat-top warships were joined by a cruiser, destroyers and smaller amphibious ships.
The ships also carried hundreds of Marine ground forces from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit as well as their helicopters and F-35 fighter jets.
A US Navy spokesman said in the admonition: “This expeditionary strike forcefully demonstrates that we maintain a combat-credible force, capable of responding to any contingency, deter aggression, and provide regional security and stability in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific”.
Global Times, quoted a Chinese military expert, Wei Dongxu as saying the US Navy exercises were a provocation.
The Special Case of Taiwan
Simmering tensions extend to the northeastern edges of the South China Sea, where the island of Taiwan sits. Beijing claims the democratic, self-governed republic of almost 24 million people as its sovereign territory – its status not more than a breakaway province. It has been governed separately for more than seven decades, after the Kuomintang, the loser in the Chinese civil war, disengaged and retreated to the island which had been occupied by imperial Japan. Since then, Taiwan has followed a shadow existence, unrecognized by the major powers and the majority of the nations of the world.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has vowed that Beijing will never allow Taiwan to become formally independent and has even refused to rule out the use of force, if necessary, to unify the island with the mainland.
Thus, before moving into the South China Sea at the weekend, the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning had been putting on a show of military strength around Taiwan for a week, according to Chinese state media. At one point, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) flanked Taiwan, with the Liaoning and its escorts operating in the Pacific Ocean in the east, and the PLA warplanes making forays into Taiwan’s self-declared ‘air defense identification zone to the west.
Analysts noted that the military exercises were a severe injunction to Taipei and Washington that Beijing would not tolerate any moves for Taiwanese independence and was prepared to act militarily to prevent that from happening.
U.S. Security Guarantees Remain in Place
On the other hand, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated on Sunday that Washington would uphold its commitment to defend Taiwan.
Stark red lines have, therefore, been drawn by both sides in the developing confrontation.
Blinken was very explicit: “What is a real concern to us is increasingly aggressive actions by the government in Beijing directed at Taiwan,” adding: “We have a serious commitment to Taiwan being able to defend itself. We have a serious commitment to peace and security in the Western Pacific. And in that context, it would be a serious mistake for anyone to try to change that status quo by force.”
One day later, this Monday, China sent 25 warplanes into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone, the largest breach of that space since the island began reporting such incursions in September (CNN/BBC, 13.04.21). China was sending a clear message that it was not deterred!
The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com
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