The Peninsula Foundation

Blog

COVID-19: Anti Coronavirus Measures and their Environmental and Social Impact

In the bleak reality of the corona virus outbreak, all human activity slowing down or being halted, has brought about one positive change – for the environment. Fuel consumption going down, factories shut, and fewer vehicles on the road has resulted in carbon emissions reducing, leading to less pollution both in the air, on land and in water.

Air pollution

To measure the Air Quality Index (AQI), System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, has 6 categories for air quality. Ranging from 51- 100 is known as “satisfactory” or “very good”, from 101-200 is “moderate”, from 201-300 is “poor” 300-400 is seen as “very poor” and lastly, between 401-500 fall under the “hazardous.” In New Delhi, known as the world’s most polluted capital city, governmental lockdown orders have resulted in the Air Quality Index dropping to a level considered “satisfactory.” Images of clear blue skies in the capital have been released showing the absence of smog. Other major pollution emitting cities such as Mumbai is at the moderate level, and Pune is at a satisfactory level. It is no doubt that the reduction in the number of vehicles on the road has resulted in better AQI during the virus outbreak.

Furthermore, European Space Agency (ESA) satellite images show that nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels over China due to industries, power plants and vehicles have plunged drastically between January and February 2020. It is hoped that observations such as these will encourage a quicker shift to clean energy sources for the betterment of society.

Water pollution

Venice, Italy, connected solely by canals and also a popular tourist destination, saw its canals virtually empty once lockdowns were announced. The deprivation of tourists cut back much of the pollution and as a result, the polluted canal waters were seen to be clearer. Other activities requiring travel over water, including trade and leisure activities on ships being reduced also works in favour of the environment. The planet is definitely benefitting from the measures against the pandemic.

Fuel consumption and price

Fuel consumption has dropped notably worldwide, as industries and factories have either cut back or suspended their activity; many people are no longer commuting, but working from home. These factors are also leading to a significant drop in fuel prices. Indian demand dropped 10-11% in the first two weeks of March alone. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), there has been a 90,000 barrel per day drop from 2019, in the global oil demand. In restricting the movement of people, both within cities and across national and international borders, the drop in demand has hit the tourism industry hard.

The tourism industry

Though business is affected, it is definitely a time for nature to rejuvenate and replenish in this time of lockdown. One of the major players of the tourism industry, the airline industry could take a hit up to $113 billion according to the International Air Travel Association. With travel cuts, cancellation of flights and lower demand in many countries, this has been an eye-opener in the amount of pollution caused by these activities. Deserted streets, at popular tourist locations such as Venice, New York City, Paris leave an eerie impression, but on the positive side shows the implementation of lockdowns and cooperation of people in going back home.

Outcomes

The all India three week lockdown will definitely see a reduction in pollution and improvement in quality of air, though cooperation of the people remains a worry. The outbreak of the virus has shone light on the much needed assessment required on the grave damage human activities have done to ecosystems, and consider the need to protect the future of those ecosystems. As the majority of the international system moves activity to the digital platform, nature is rejuvenated in the absence of humans. But more importantly, it is hoped that businesses will strategize on systemic changes, such as providing work from home options as this means less people commuting, less traffic, and less pollution.

If COVID-19 is teaching us one thing, it is how interconnected and interdependent all systems are. Human ignorance and irresponsibility is only fueling the spread of the virus. Though the unpredictability of the pandemic has caught us off guard, it serves as a good wakeup call to make much needed change in various levels of individual choice, organizational and business strategy and governmental action. Pandemic response has taken priority in governmental agenda globally over tackling climate change issues, strategies being used in pandemic response have unintended favourable outcomes for the environment, simultaneously.

Social Impact

Little is mentioned about the social behaviour implications of the virus spread. One major positive outcome could be the health and hygiene habits that have been announced in keeping healthy in times of pandemic crisis. Awareness has brought to the forefront the importance of a simple action such as washing hands. The World Health Organization has a set of guidelines that would help in the fight against the outbreak. Social activity changes, such as remaining indoors, not being able to go out for a meal, movie or meet with friends has left many discussions on the ramifications on mental health. While this is a very real issue, it is vital to the health and wellbeing of everyone that containing the spread of the virus is the primary need of the hour.

Views expressed are author’s own.

March 28, 2020
Lessons from countering the corona-virus for war and violence: Containment, Common Security and Cooperation

The world is engulfed in the ‘Corona Virus’ pandemic. As national health systems are being stretched to their limits, countries are closing their borders, banning travel, and isolating themselves…all in an international co-operative strategy to contain its spread and eliminate this pandemic. Andreas Herberg-Rothe sees valuable lessons in this international co-operation to be used to contain war and violence. Taking a leaf out of the broad ‘containment theory’ articulated by the late George Kennan in an anonymous article published in 1947 in the FP magazine, Andreas proposes a containment strategy for the world from the scourge of terrorism, religious fanaticism, and wars for world dominance (both proxy as well as interventions). This strategy for ‘common security’ can succeed only if it respects pluralism of cultures, religions, and social orders…M Matheswaran.

The initial measures against the spread of the new corona-virus could be summarized by one word – containment of the virus and hindering its spreading. This current prominence of the concept of containment could be used for other world problems. By having a closer look at the concept of containment it becomes obvious that it also included the concept of common security and cooperation – the same is true with the corona-virus. We are witnessing a worldwide expansion of war and violence, which should be countered by a new containment, just as George Kennan emphasized as early as 1987: “And for these reasons we are going to have to develop a wider concept of what containment means (…) – a concept, in other words, more responsive to the problems of our own time – than the one I so light-heartedly brought to expression, hacking away at my typewriter there in the northwest corner of the War College building in December of 1946.” Nearly seventy-five years have already passed, since George Kennan formulated his original vision of containment. Although his original concept would be altered, in application by various administrations of the US-Government, in practice it has been incorporated within the concept and politics of common security, which has been the essential complement to pure militarily containment. These ideas are still valid – and as Kennan himself pointed out, they are in more need of explication and implementation than ever.

The disinhibition of war and a new containment

The triumphant advance of democracy and free markets in the wake of the Soviet collapse seemed to be unstoppable, to the point where it appeared for a time as if the twenty-first century would be an age defined by economics and thus, to a great extent, peace. However, these expectations were quickly disappointed, not only because of the ongoing massacres and genocide in Africa, but also by the return of war to Europe (primarily in the former Yugoslavia), together with the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the USA, the Iraq war, the war in Syria with its on-going, violent consequences. A struggle against a new totalitarianism of an Islamic type appears to have started, in which war and violence are commonly perceived as having an unavoidable role. One can also speak of a new dimension to violence with respect to its extent and brutality – as exemplified by the extreme violence of the ongoing civil wars in Africa and the Middle East. Additionally we are facing completely new types of threats, for example the possession of weapons of mass destruction by terrorist organizations or the development of atomic bombs by “problematic” states like North Korea. The potential emergence of a new Superpower, China, and perhaps of new “great” powers like India may lead to a new arms race, which presumably have a nuclear dimension as well. In the consciousness of many, violence appears to be slipping the leash of rational control, an image the media has not hesitated for foster, especially with respect to Africa. Will there be “another bloody century,” as Colin Gray has proposed?

Although the current situation and the foreseeable future is not as immediately ominous as in the Cold War, it may be even worse in the long run. On one side, the prospect of planetary self-destruction via nuclear overkill, which loomed over the Cold War– and what could be worse than that, has been successfully averted. On the other hand, after having been granted a brief respite in the 1990s, mankind now feels itself to be confronting a “coming anarchy” of unknown dimensions and a new conflict between the US and China seems to be inevitable. If the horrific destructive potential threat of the Cold War has been reduced in scale, less cataclysmic possibilities have also become more imminent.

As compared to the Cold War, there is no longer an exclusive actor to be contained, as the Soviet Union was. Even if one were to anticipate China’s emergence as a new superpower in the next twenty years, it would not be reasonable, in advance of this actually happening, to develop a strategy of military containment against China similar to that against the Soviet Union in the 50s and 60s of last century, since doing so might well provoke the kind of crises and conflicts that such a strategy would be intended to avoid. The attempt to build up India as counter-weight to China and facilitating its nuclear ambitions, for instance, might risk undermining the international campaign to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the world. Therefore we need quite another concept of containment, which could not be perceived as a threat to China.

The second difference is, that current developments in the strategic environment display fundamentally conflicting tendencies: between globalization and struggles over identities, locational advantages, and interests; between high-tech wars and combat with “knives and machetes” or suicide bombers; between symmetrical and asymmetrical warfare; between the privatization of war and violence and their re-politicization and re-ideologization as well as wars over “world order”; between the formation of new regional power centres and the imperial-hegemonic dominance of the only Superpower; between international organized crime and the institutionalization of regional and global institutions and communities; between increasing violations of international law and human rights on one side and their expansion on the other. A strategy designed to counter only one of these conflicting tendencies may be problematic with respect to the others. I therefore stress the necessity of striking a balance between competing possibilities.

The third difference is that the traditional containment was perceived mainly as military deterrence of the Soviet Union, although in its original formulation by George Kennan it was quite different from such a reductionism. Our main and decisive assumption is that a new containment must combine traditional, military containment on one side, and a range of opportunities for cooperation on the other. That’s not only necessary with respect to China, but even to the political Islam, in order to reduce the appeal of militant Islamic movements to millions of Muslim youth.

Such an overarching perspective has to be self-evident, little more than common sense, because it has to be accepted by quite different political leaders and peoples. The self-evidence of this concept could go so far that one could ask why we are discussing it. On the other hand, such a concept must be able to be distinguished by competing concepts. Last but not least, it should be regarded as an appropriate concept to counter contemporary developments. Finally, taking into account, that Kennan’s concept would not have succeeded, if it had been directed against the actions of the international community or the United States, it should be to some extend only brings to expression, what the international community is already doing anyway.

A concept that realized these demands of a political concept for contemporary needs was that of “common security”, developed in the 1970s. In the special situation of the cold war and of mutual deterrence this concept didn’t imply a common security shared among states with similar values and policies. On the contrary, this concept, perhaps developed for the first time by Klaus von Schubert, emphasized a quite different meaning. Traditionally, opponents have understood security as security from each other. The new approach laid down by Klaus von Schubert derived from the assumption, that in a world of multiple capacities of annihilating the planet, security could only be defined as common security. This small difference between security from each other and common security — shared security against a universal threat — was nothing less than a paradigm change in the Cold war.

The question of course remains, how to deter the true-believers, members of terrorist networks or people like the previous President of Iran, for whom even self-destruction may be a means of hastening millenarian goals. Of course, the “true-believers” or the “hard-core terrorist” could hardly be deterred. But this is just the reason, why containment should not be reduced to a strategy of deterrence. The real task even in these cases therefore is to act politically and militarily in a manner, that would enable to separate the “true believers” from the “believers” and those from the followers. This strategy can include military actions and credible threats, but at the same time it should be based on a double strategy of offering a choice between alternatives, whereas the reduction to military means would only intensify violent resistance. Additionally, even the true believers could be confronted with the choice, either further to be an accepted part of their social and religious environment (or to be excluded from them) or to reduce their millenarian aspirations. Of course, by following this strategy, there is no guarantee, that each terrorist attack could be averted. But this is not the real question. Assuming, that the goal of the terrorists and millenarian Islamists is to provoke an over-reaction of the West in order to ignite an all-out war between the West and the Islamic world, there is no choice than trying to separate them from their political, social and religious environment.

The concept of containment and contemporary warfare

The goal of the war on terror should not try to gain victory, because no one could explain, what victory would mean with regard to this special war. Moreover, trying to gain a decisive victory about the terrorists would even produce much more of them. The additional problem is not only, how we ourselves conceive the concept of victory, but even more important, in which ways for example the low-tech enemies define victory and defeat. That is an exercise, that requires cultural and historical knowledge much more than it does gee-whiz technology.

Instead one could argue, that the goal is “to contain terror”, which is of course something quite different from appeasement. An essential limitation of the dangers, posed by terrorist organizations could be based on three aspects: first, a struggle of political ideas for the hearts and minds of the millions of young people; second the attempt to curb the exchanges of knowledge, financial support, communication between the various networks with the aim of isolating them on a local level; and finally, but only as one of these three tasks, to destroy what one could label the terrorist infrastructure. In my understanding, trying to achieve victory in a traditional military manner would not only fail, but additionally would perhaps lead to much more terrorism in the foreseeable future.

The concept of the “centre of gravity” in warfare can provide another illustration of the way in which my conception makes a difference. Clausewitz defines war as an act of violence to compel our enemy to do our will. This definition suits our understanding of war between equal opponents, between opponents in which one side doesn’t want to annihilate the other or his political, ethnic or tribal body. But in conflicts between opponents with a different culture or ethnic background, the imposition of ones will on the other is often perceived as an attempt to annihilate the other’s community and identity. Hence, for democratic societies, the alternative is only to perceive war as an act of violence where, rather than compelling our own will to the opponent, your opponent is rendered unable any more to pursue his own will violently, unable to use his full power to impose his will on us or others. Consequently the abilities of his power must be limited, that he is no more able to threaten or fight us in order to compel us to do his will.

The purpose of containing war and violence, therefore, is, to remove from the belligerent adversary his physical and moral freedom of action, but without attacking the sources of his power and the order of his society. The key to “mastering violence” is to control certain operational domains, territory, mass movement, and armaments, but also information and humanitarian operations. But this task of “mastering violence” should no longer be perceived as being directed against the centre of gravity, but to the “lines” of the field of gravitation. Instead of an expansion of imposing one’s own will on the adversary up to the point of controlling his mind, as the protagonists of Strategic Information Warfare put it, the only way of ending conflict in the globalized 21^st century is to set limits for action, but at the same time to give room for action (in the sense, Hannah Arendt used this term) and even resistance, which of course has the effect of legitimising action within those limits.

The overall political perspective on which the concept of the containing of war and violence in world society rests therefore consists of the following elements, the “pentagon of containing war and violence”:

▪ the ability to deter and discourage any opponent to fight a large scale war and to conduct pin-point military action as last resort,

▪ the possibility of using military force in order to limit and contain particularly excessive, large-scale violence which has the potential to destroy societies;

▪ the willingness to counter phenomena which help to cause violence such as poverty and oppression, especially in the economic sphere, and also the recognition of a pluralism of cultures and styles of life in world society;

▪ the motivation to develop a culture of civil conflict management (concepts which can be summed up with the “civilizational hexagon”, global governance, and democratic peace), based on the observation, that the reduction of our action to military means have proved counterproductive and would finally overstretch the military capabilities

and

▪ restricting the possession and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, their delivery systems, as well as of small arms, because the unhindered proliferation of both of them is inherently destructive to social order.

The position I have put forward is oriented towards a basically peaceful global policy, and treats the progressive limitation of war and violence as both an indefinite, on-going process and as an end in itself. The lasting and progressive containment of war and violence in world society is therefore necessary for the self-preservation of states, even their survival and of the civility of individual societies and world society.

Image Credit:Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

March 22, 2020
Going for Broke

Category : Democracy & Governance/Public Health

Title : Going for Broke

Author : Deepak Sinha 21-03-2020

Spanish flu of 1918-20 was the worst and biggest pandemic in the modern age. By various estimates it killed 50-100 million people worldwide. In India the death toll was 17.5 million. This was at a time when vaccines and antibiotics were not yet widely used and the pandemic exploded in the wake of a globalisation of different sort, returning soldiers of World War I who carried the flu from the battlefields to all parts of the world. The world survived it. Covid-19 threatens a similar fate which calls for concerted effort from the global community as Deepak Sinha observes in his article.

Read More

March 21, 2020
Taiwan Elections 2020: Emphasising Taiwan’s Democracy, Nationalism and Sovereignty

Taiwan’s first female President, Tsai Ing-Wen of the pro-democratic DPP Party won a landslide victory for second term in the national elections held in January. China condemns Tsai’s victory by reiterating its “one country, two systems model.
Election Results: Voice for Democracy and Sovereignty

Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen won re-election on January 11rth by a historic landslide, a decisive result widely seen as a rebuke to Beijing’s efforts to integrate Taiwan into the ‘one-China’ concept. The DPP (Democratic Progressive Party), rode on Tsai’s popularity and maintained control of the Legislative Yuan, the country’s parliament. DPP has consistently taken a very ‘Taiwan nationalistic’ approach and has been a strong opponent of Beijing’s ‘one-China policy’ and the so-called ‘1992-consensus’. This landslide victory and a second term gives Tsai the power to uphold Taiwan’s commitment to democracy. Taiwanese voted to reject China’s “one country, two systems model” while still maintaining support for Tsai’s stand on the “1992 consensus”, which would dictate the Cross-Strait ties based on “peace, parity, democracy and dialogue”.

On winning the elections, President Tsai remarked – China must ‘face reality’ of Taiwan’s independence and called on China to ‘review’ it’s current policy toward the de facto nation that Beijing claims is part of its territory.

China refuses to acknowledge the victory of pro-democratic forces and maintains that this development would not alter its “one-China” principle. China’s Foreign Ministry stated that “regardless of what happens in Taiwan, the basic facts won’t change: there is only one China in the world and Taiwan is part of China.”

In the voting week, Xi Jinping ushered in a range of measures “to further promote economic and cultural exchanges and cooperation between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait”. Despite these positive announcements, he sent a Chinese aircraft carrier to sail through the Straits to intimidate, should Tsai’s victory initiate a declaration of independence.

The Chinese army also conducted a naval and air force drill on 9-10 February in a threatening attempt to which Washington responded with the US Air Force sending two surveillance planes as an expression of solidarity with Taiwan.

Election results and impact on KMT

In the aftermath of the astounding defeat in January, the opposition KMT has been forced to re-examine its policies and priorities. The party elected Mr Johnny Chiang, a 48-year old lawyer, as its president in March first week. Chiang represents the younger generation who are more focused on separate Taiwan identity, reflecting DPP’s resonance across the young voters. KMT has some serious issues to resolve if it wants to remain relevant in Taiwan. It is constrained by its linkage to the inconvenient history of Taiwan and a support base that is seen as focused on benefitting from cross-Strait engagement, and in some cases, unique access to the CCP through party-to-party ties. The main internal issue is the party’s cross-Strait policy with China, whether 1992 consensus will endure as the foundation for official mechanisms. Chiang is seen as one who will most likely ‘discard’ the 1992 consensus arguing that the consensus has lost its utility and undergone ‘distortion’ when linked with the ‘one country, two systems’ model used in Hong Kong.

Background: 1992 Consensus – discarded by rising Taiwanese identity?

Taiwan was ruled for more than three decades by the nationalist army, the Kuomintang (KMT),which fled to the island in 1949 after being defeated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and created a rival government, the Republic of China, better known as today’s Taiwan. It has since transformed into a multiparty democracy, under a government and political system, completely separate from China’s. KMT’s position stems from the legacy of the Chinese civil war with the CCP, which is a complicated history of KMT and CCP vying to represent ‘one China’ as the ‘Republic of China’ by KMT and the ‘People’s Republic of China’ by CCP. KMT, in view of this history, is seen as the most pro-mainland of Taiwan’s two major political parties. In contrast, the DPP has always maintained much tougher stance with Beijing. It has played a prominent role in democratisation of Taiwan and places greater emphasis on uniqueness of Taiwanese identity and a history of more than 100 years that is separate from that of China’s. From the late 1980s when democratisation of Taiwan began, more and more Taiwanese are embracing a Taiwanese consciousness and favouring independence even though maintaining status quo still remains the majority priority for the moment. Majority of the youth, and 60-70% of Taiwanese are fiercely conscious of their Taiwanese identity, and view Taiwan as an independent and sovereign nation-state. This also means that the idea and legacy of nationalist party’s ROC is seen as impractical, in consonance with geopolitical realities.

The 1992 Consensus, seen as having enabled the growth of Taipei-Beijing cooperation, revolves around the issue of ‘one-China’ interpretation – ‘that there is only one China and that Taipei and Beijing agree to disagree on which government is its legitimate representative’ has been the foundation of cross-Strait relations. It was curated by the KMT and the PRC wherein in principle they agree that there is “One China”. However, the contentious terminology “One China” can be interpreted by either side having accorded its own meaning. The CCP believes “one China” is the “People’s Republic of China,” while Taiwan believes “one China” should mean the ROC established in 1912 and hitherto exists.

The KMT government in 2008-16, led by Ma Ying-jeou used the so-called 1992 Consensus to strengthen economic, trade and cultural relations between Taiwan and PRC. It led to rapid development of economic links and integration with PRC while political issues were kept away. Trade, indirect investment, and travel via Hong Kong grew steadily. By 2014, over 40% of Taiwan’s trade was with the mainland, and some 80% of its foreign direct investment (FDI) went to China; Taiwan businesses operated more than one hundred thousand businesses on the mainland. Taiwan-China two ay trade in 2019 was USD 244.35 billion. The trade balance has, consistently been in Taiwan’s favour.

KMT’s strategy, under Ma’s leadership, focused on reviving Chinese nationalism and was aimed at anchoring Taiwan in the Chinese nation, bridging the gap with PRC, opposing Taiwan independence, favouring reconciliation and eventually unification between the two sides of the Straits. By 2012-13 this approach gave rise to suspicions amongst the Taiwanese about Ma’s rapprochement policy. Paradoxically it strengthened the predominance of Taiwanese identity, which is stronger amongst the youth. This resulted in KMT’s internal fractures in 2012-13, its loss in local elections of 2014, the turbulence of the Sunflower revolution of 2014, and its huge loss to DPP in the presidential elections of 2016.

The ideological battle between the Democratic Progressive Party(DPP) and the Kuomintang (KMT) has persisted since 2016 (when Tsai became President) and the DPP refused to recognise the “1992 consensus”. In 2000, Tsai as the minister of Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said, “The so-called ‘one China, differing interpretations’ is only a usage by our side to describe the process of the meeting. It is a way of description that the new government can accept, but it does not mean that we have accepted Beijing’s ‘one-China, two models principle.’

Though DPP lost the local elections in 2018 to the pro-China Kuomintang party (KMT), and had no hopes of winning the presidential 2020 elections, Tsai has been trying to replace the Chinese identity with the Taiwanese identity by promising people that the Taiwanese sovereignty will be protected. By articulating “maintenance of status quo”, she indicates that she may not actually pursue outright independence in order to maintain a peaceful environment that helps growth and development; in effect allowing PRC to see it as a support for “One China” in principle and being open to cross-Strait dialogue. But she makes it clear to rest of the world – “we don’t have a need to declare ourselves an independent state. We are an independent country already and we call ourselves the Republic of China, Taiwan.”

Diversifying Economic and Trade Strategies

During her presidency in 2016, she had initiated “new south-bound policy (NSP)” to strengthen relations with selected countries in South and South-East Asia and gain entry into regional blocs. As the US unveiled its Indo-Pacific strategy of Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP), Taiwan saw great benefits in dove-tailing it’s NSP strategy into the Indo-Pacific. The NSP has made notable gains in the first term, and Tsai’s re-election offers great opportunity to diversify the gains in the second term. The Chinese have been aggressively countering this strategy by compelling nations to switch allegiance to China. This had resulted in Taiwan having only close to 16 diplomatic allies which include small nations like Belize and Naru. Despite this, major nations have come around the issue to strengthen ties with Taiwan through economic and cultural centres. Nevertheless, the ‘New South-bound Partnership’ strategy is a conscious effort by Taiwan to reduce its economic dependency on the mainland. Taiwan has aggressively pursued economic partnerships with countries like India, and has encouraged investments by Taiwanese companies. Its investments in South-East Asia has more than doubled in this period.

China has also been accused of meddling with local Taiwanese elections in 2018, according to Wang William Liqiang, a self-identified Chinese spy presently seeking political asylum in Australia. As a counter-strategy and to prevent foreign influence in the country’s elections, Taiwan’s legislature passed the anti-infiltration act on 31 December 2019, which criminalises external meddling. According to MAC Chief Chen Ming-tong, “[the act] aims to counter infiltration”. He added that it acts “as a corrective measure to ensure normal cross-Strait exchanges and reduce politically-motivated infiltration and intervention by Beijing. The Act prevents hostile external powers from engaging, through local collaborators, in illegal lobbying and election campaigning, disrupting rallies and assemblies, and making political donations.”

Rising anti-Chinese sentiment has gained momentum due to the recent protests in Hongkong. Young voters have been deeply influenced by this and are supporting Tsai. This is supplanted by the economic slowdown which affected Taiwan and has divided the Taiwanese voters—those who support the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China and those who don’t.

Taiwan had also altered its economic policy since the election of DPP in 2016, wherein industrial restructuring has resulted in a large businesses (heavy industries) moving to China in order to reduce the labour cost. This has led to an increase in trade and investment in China. However, the catch is that since both governments don’t recognise each other, the Taiwanese companies are exposed to high risk and no dispute settlement is prevalent currently nor is it guided by international norms. China continues to be Taiwan’s largest trading partner, accounting for nearly 30% of the island’s total trade. However, Taiwan’s investment into the mainland has been declining over the last five years, and so also mainland’s investment in Taiwan.

The Future

The ‘one-China policy’ is a zero-sum game between the PRC and the ROC. China has always reiterated that only by accepting China’s authoritarian rule can the Taiwanese people attain prosperity and peace. From the beginning of 2005, the “carrots and sticks” policy has been predominant in the Cross-Strait relations. Since China’s policy has backfired, she is capable of adopting coercive measures—economic crippling, isolation by cutting off diplomatic allies, direct invasion or meddling with internal politics. If Beijing decides to use force, it could spiral into a regional conflict inviting Taiwan’s allies and heavy economic repercussions.

China’s isolation strategy with respect to Taiwan is a constant challenge, which influences majority of the Taiwanese to maintain status quo in current environment. Status quo can mean different things to different people. Chinese president Xi’s aggressive articulation in 2019 of ‘one-China policy’ with respect to Taiwan and the events in Hong Kong has triggered a massive nationalistic fervour in support of democracy and Taiwan identity amongst the younger population.

China has repeatedly said that it will bring Taiwan under its authority by any means necessary, including force. Analysts believe Xi Jinping aims to achieve that by 2049, the deadline for the country to achieve its ‘great rejuvenation’. Beijing’s refusal of renouncing the possible use of force for unification is reflected in the continued military build-up on the Fujian coast. By 2014, PLA had over 1500 ballistic and cruise missiles targeting Taiwan, ten times more than in 2000, and more accurate and destructive than in 2000.

Chinese state media have downplayed President Tsai’s election, but there is no doubt that China considers it as a major setback to its reunification efforts. The election has resulted in a cooling off period for cross-Strait relations, and the global ‘Corona Virus pandemic’ has only added to put this off any priority for some time.

Only time will tell if Taiwan and China manage to engage in dialogue and come to a consensus regarding their irreconcilable differences. As democracy and pro-democratic forces continue to strengthen and sustain Taiwanese identity and nationalism, Taiwan’s functioning as a sovereign independent state is stronger than ever, while Beijing’s strategy of geo-economic boxing-in Taiwan into accepting its ‘one-China’ policy looks less probable. On the other hand, giving legitimacy to Tsai’s government will be a tricky call for many countries as they have to walk a tight rope in order not to rupture relations with China. How different nations recognise and engage with the new Taiwanese government will definitely be a contributing factor in determining Taiwan’s future.

March 18, 2020
Modi’s move to engage SAARC on COVID-19 shows his capacity to surprise

Category : Global Health/SAARC

Title : Modi’s move to engage SAARC on COVID-19 shows his capacity to surprise

Author : Kanwal Sibal 16-03-2020

Former foreign secretary, Kanwal Sibal, observes that Prime Minister Modi’s initiative to organise a video-conference of Saarc leaders to develop together a roadmap to fight the challenge of COVID-19 is a well thought out strategy and shows his capacity to surprise. Modi’s move could inject new life into Saarc, just when India was seen as downgrading the Saarc platform for stronger regional cooperation and promoting Bimstec.

Read More

March 16, 2020
India Meets Myanmar at a Bustling Bazaar in Chennai

Category : Heritage, Culture & Civilisation

Title : India Meets Myanmar at a Bustling Bazaar in Chennai

Author : Yamuna Matheswaran 12-03-2020

Refugee/Migrant issues have plagued countries both in their domestic governance and international relations. While nations gain immensely from migrants’ contribution, governments and politicians do not hesitate to throw them out when their utility is more relevant or they become the scapegoat of their politics. Indians have migrated to various lands in search of employment, trade, and better prospects as entrepreneurs. Tamils have travelled to Burma and many other countries through trade over millenniums. In recent times Tamils and other Indian migration happened during the British Raj. Indians in Burma – primarily Tamils hailing from Tamil Nadu, but also Bengalis, Telugus, and other groups – worked as farmers, civil servants, traders, moneylenders, day labourers, and security personnel. Their world came crashing down in 1962 when military dictator Ne Win seized power and stripped ethnic minorities of their businesses, land, and claims to citizenship leading to an exodus of refugees to India, mostly Tamils. Yamuna Matheswaran revisits the Burmese refugees in Chennai and its issues 50 years down the line.

Read More

March 12, 2020
High expectations during Vietnam’s Chairmanship of the ASEAN

Vietnam assumed ‘2020 Chairmanship of the ASEAN’ in November 2019 from Thailand in accordance with Article 31 of the ASEAN Charter under which the Chairmanship rotates annually. Hanoi announced the theme for its Chairmanship as ‘Cohesive and Responsive’, in which ‘Cohesive reflects the need to enhance ASEAN unity and solidarity, economic integration, ASEAN awareness and identity, and work toward a “people-centered” community’ and ‘Responsive underlines the importance of promoting ASEAN pro-activeness, creativity and capacity in response to opportunities and challenges brought about by rapid changes in regional and global landscape’.

Soon after taking over the 2020 Chairmanship, Vietnam was confronted with a ‘black swan’ event i.e. COVID-19. It delivered admirably by taking bold measures to control the spread of the virus in the country and announced that the ASEAN Coordinating Council (ACC) will compile a report on the COVID-19 to be submitted to ASEAN leaders at the 36^th ASEAN Summit scheduled in Vietnam in April.

Vietnam’s Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Quoc Dung, who is the Secretary-General of the 2020 ASEAN National Committee, has identified five key priorities for his country’s Chairmanship Year and it is not surprising to see reference to Hanoi’s commitment to ‘regional peace and stability amid strategic complexities’. Boundary and associated disputes including illegal occupation, reclamation and weaponization of islands and features in South China Sea are central to ASEAN, and as a corollary a major issue for Vietnam’s 2020 Chairmanship. There is now evidence of a push back against Beijing’s intimidation. This is evident from the forceful statements and credible operational initiatives in South China Sea by the claimant states against China which has deployed law enforcement and paramilitary vessels.

In this context there are expectations from Vietnam to vigorously pursue and make substantive contributions towards keeping the South China Sea less turbulent and more peaceful, and address issues that threaten regional peace and security. It would also be Hanoi’s endeavor to prevent any confrontation and further escalation in disputes in the South China Sea. However, this may not be the case as a number of incidents in the South China Sea over resources i.e. fishing and offshore energy exploration have begun rather very early in Vietnam’s ‘2020 Chairmanship of the ASEAN’.

First is about Indonesia and China. The former does not claim any island or features in the Spratly Islands and therefore does not have any dispute in South China Sea; but presence of Chinese coast guard vessel escorting Chinese fishermen to fish in Natuna, part of Indonesian waters, which China claims to be the traditional fishing ground, prompted political and military response from Jakarta. There was also a standoff between China and Vietnam in the Vanguard Bank involving 50 Vietnamese and 40 Chinese vessels over the operations of the drilling rig Hakuryu 5 operated by Russia’s Rosneft in Vietnam’s oil and gas Block 06-01.

Another three-way standoff over oil and gas operations is playing out between China and Malaysia in which the state-owned Petronas is exploring on the extended continental shelf of a ‘Malaysian oil and gas block in the area for which Hanoi and Kuala Lumpur had submitted a joint claim’. China has resorted to intimidation similar to the Vanguard Bank between China and Vietnam.

At another level, United States military response in support of Taiwan after Chinese military airplanes flew across the Taiwan Straits and the Bashi Channel is noteworthy. Likewise, US’ support has been forthcoming for Vietnam against China and could trigger enhanced defence and security cooperation between the two sides as also create new opportunities for Hanoi to inform Beijing about its confidence to deal with China on the South China Sea issue at its own terms.

However, the Philippines would be a different challenge for Vietnam after President Rodrigo Duterte announced annulment of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) notwithstanding the fact that the US has been the most important ally of the Philippines in countering China’s expansive claims in the disputed Philippines Sea. It is useful to mention that Philippines is critical for US’ Indo-Pacific strategy of a free and open oceans.

Second is the about the Code of Conduct (CoC), an upgraded document of the earlier Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the SCS (DOC), which is under negotiation between China and ASEAN member states and is expected to be adopted in 2021.Vietnam must concentrate on the CoC. The onus will be on Vietnam to not only build consensus among the ASEAN , Hanoi will have to work hard to put in place a workable COC which can then be taken forward by Brunei Darussalam who would assume the ‘2021 Chairmanship of the ASEAN’.

Third is about the contestation between the US and China over freedom of navigation operation (FONOP). During the last three years, the US forces have routinely conducted FONOP which Washington claims to be in accordance with international law and that its military will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law permits. Chinese reaction and response to the FONOP has been at the political, diplomatic and strategic levels. It has exercised coercion at sea through dangerous maneuvers and more recently a PLA Navy destroyer fired a military grade laser at a US P-8 surveillance aircraft.

ASEAN Chairmanship is a challenging position and attracts high expectations from the member countries. The position entails building upon the work done by the previous Chair as also pursue new regional issues that are always as challenging as the earlier ones. Besides, there are anticipations by regional and other global players to not only follow up the ongoing challenges but address new questions that confront the ASEAN. More often than not, the ASEAN countries have delivered and received appreciation from the international community.

By all counts Vietnam’s chairmanship of the ASEAN can be expected to be both challenging and rewarding. Hanoi is expected to live up to the expectations on the responsibilities enshrined in the ASEAN charter and deliver to the peoples of the ASEAN as also build upon the themes and priorities set by previous Chairmanship. Vietnam will also be under pressure to adopt a tougher line against China on the South China Sea issue in view of the recent spats between China and other claimant states. But Vietnamese leaders are known for their maturity and diplomatic skills and would play a pragmatic role to manage tensions in the region.

Image Credit: Vietnam Economic Times

March 6, 2020
An unmitigated disaster

Category : Democracy & Governance/Governance, Law & Order

Title : An Unmitigated Disaster

Author : Deepak Sinha 04.03.2020

The ill-conceived CAA act and the fears induced by it and the issues of National Population Register have led to nation-wide protests. The resultant police actions at various places culminated in the Delhi violence and police inaction that has given rise to world-wide condemnation. That it coincided with US President Trump’s visit should be even more worrisome for the government. Deepak Sinha analyses the issue in his Op-Ed.

Read More

March 4, 2020
Reflections on “Peace” in Afghanistan: Leaving a Misguided War and Choosing Not to Look Back

Kahlil Gibran, the Lebanese-American poet, artist, writer and philosopher, famously said ‘History does not repeat itself except in the minds of those who do not know history’. In today’s generation very few know and understand history, and so it is most likely that very few will see that the recent US-Taliban peace deal has an eerie resemblance to the end stage of the Vietnam war. US Special envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban political chief, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar signed a ‘historic’ peace deal on February 29, 2020 in Doha, capital of Qatar paving the way for ending two decades of American military fighting in Afghanistan and their return. In the context of the US-Taliban peace deal that raises more questions than answers, TPF revisits an article written by Andrew J Bacevich few months ago. Comparing the two similar situations (US-Vietcong deal and US-Taliban deal) in a very incisive analysis, Andrew Bacevich raises very relevant observations. Effectively this means that the US is exiting after conceding defeat to the Taliban and abandoning the Afghan government that it supported all this while. It would be only a matter of time before the Taliban, with active support from Pakistan, dismantles whatever semblance of stable governance and democracy that has been built over the last 15 years in war-torn Afghanistan. TPF

This article was first published in “TomDispatch.com” The Peninsula Foundation is happy to republish this article with permission from ‘TomDispatch.com’. TPF

Andrew J Bacevich

When the conflict that the Vietnamese refer to as the American War ended in April 1975, I was a U.S. Army captain attending a course at Fort Knox, Kentucky. In those days, the student body at any of our Army’s myriad schools typically included officers from the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN).

Since ARVN’s founding two decades earlier, the United States had assigned itself the task of professionalizing that fledgling military establishment. Based on a conviction that the standards, methods, and ethos of our armed forces were universally applicable and readily exportable, the attendance of ARVN personnel at such Army schools was believed to contribute to the professionalizing of the South Vietnamese military.

Evidence that the U.S. military’s own professional standards had recently taken a hit — memories of the My Lai massacre were then still fresh — elicited no second thoughts on our part. Association with American officers like me was sure to rub off on our South Vietnamese counterparts in ways that would make them better soldiers. So we professed to believe, even while subjecting that claim to no more scrutiny than we did the question of why most of us had spent a year or more of our lives participating in an obviously misbegotten and misguided war in Indochina.

For serving officers at that time one question in particular remained off-limits (though it had been posed incessantly for years by antiwar protestors in the streets of America): Why Vietnam? Prizing compliance as a precondition for upward mobility, military service rarely encourages critical thinking.

On the day that Saigon, the capital of the Republic of Vietnam, fell and that country ceased to exist, I approached one of my ARVN classmates, also a captain, wanting at least to acknowledge the magnitude of the disaster that had occurred. “I’m sorry about what happened to your country,” I told him.

I did not know that officer well and no longer recall his name. Let’s call him Captain Nguyen. In my dim recollection, he didn’t even bother to reply. He simply looked at me with an expression both distressed and mournful. Our encounter lasted no more than a handful of seconds. I then went on with my life and Captain Nguyen presumably with his. Although I have no inkling of his fate, I like to think that he is now retired in Southern California after a successful career in real estate. But who knows?

All I do know is that today I recall our exchange with a profound sense of embarrassment and even shame. My pathetic effort to console Captain Nguyen had been both presumptuous and inadequate. Far worse was my failure — inability? refusal? — to acknowledge the context within which that catastrophe was occurring: the United States and its armed forces had, over years, inflicted horrendous harm on the people of South Vietnam.

In reality, their defeat was our defeat. Yet while we had decided that we were done paying, they were going to pay and pay for a long time to come.

Rather than offering a fatuous expression of regret for the collapse of his country, I ought to have apologized for having played even a minuscule role in what was, by any measure, a catastrophe of epic proportions. It’s a wonder Captain Nguyen didn’t spit in my eye.

I genuinely empathized with Captain Nguyen. Yet the truth is that, along with most other Americans, soldiers and civilians alike, I was only too happy to be done with South Vietnam and all its troubles. Dating back to the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the United States and its armed forces had made a gargantuan effort to impart legitimacy to the Republic of Vietnam and to coerce the Democratic Republic of Vietnam to its north into giving up its determination to exercise sovereignty over the entirety of the country. In that, we had failed spectacularly and at a staggering cost.

“Our” war in Indochina — the conflict we chose to call the Vietnam War — officially ended in January 1973 with the signing in Paris of an “Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam.” Under the terms of that fraudulent pact, American prisoners of war were freed from captivity in North Vietnam and the last U.S. combat troops in the south left for home, completing a withdrawal begun several years earlier. Primary responsibility for securing the Republic of Vietnam thereby fell to ARVN, long deemed by U.S. commanders incapable of accomplishing that mission.

Meanwhile, despite a nominal cessation of hostilities, approximately 150,000 North Vietnamese regulars still occupied a large swathe of South Vietnamese territory — more or less the equivalent to agreeing to end World War II when there were still several German panzer tank divisions lurking in Belgium’s Ardennes Forest. In effect, our message to our enemy and our ally was this: We’re outta here; you guys sort this out. In a bit more than two years, that sorting-out process would extinguish the Republic of Vietnam.

Been There, Done That

The course Captain Nguyen and I were attending in the spring of 1975 paid little attention to fighting wars like the one that, for years, had occupied the attention of my army and his. Our Army, in fact, was already moving on. Having had their fill of triple-canopy jungles in Indochina, America’s officer corps now turned to defending the Fulda Gap, the region in West Germany deemed most hospitable to a future Soviet invasion. As if by fiat, gearing up to fight those Soviet forces and their Warsaw Pact allies, should they (however improbably) decide to take on NATO and lunge toward the English Channel, suddenly emerged as priority number one. At Fort Knox and throughout the Army’s ranks, we were suddenly focused on “high-intensity combined arms operations” — essentially, a replay of World War II-style combat with fancier weaponry. In short, the armed forces of the United States had reverted to “real soldiering.”

And so it is again today. At the end of the 17th year of what Americans commonly call the Afghanistan War — one wonders what name Afghans will eventually assign it — U.S. military forces are moving on. Pentagon planners are shifting their attention back to Russia and China. Great power competition has become the name of the game. However we might define Washington’s evolving purposes in its Afghanistan War — “nation building,” “democratization,” “pacification” — the likelihood of mission accomplishment is nil. As in the early 1970s, so in 2019, rather than admitting failure, the Pentagon has chosen to change the subject and is once again turning its attention to “real soldiering.”

Remember the infatuation with counterinsurgency (commonly known by its acronym COIN) that gripped the national security establishment around 2007 when the Iraq “surge” overseen by General David Petraeus briefly ranked alongside Gettysburg as a historic victory? Well, these days promoting COIN as the new American way of war has become, to put it mildly, a tough sell. Given that few in Washington will openly acknowledge the magnitude of the military failure in Afghanistan, the incentive for identifying new enemies in settings deemed more congenial becomes all but irresistible.

Only one thing is required to validate this reshuffling of military priorities. Washington needs to create the appearance, as in 1973, that it’s exiting Afghanistan on its own terms. What’s needed, in short, is an updated equivalent of that “Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam.”

Until last weekend, the signing of such an agreement seemed imminent. Donald Trump and his envoy, former ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, appeared poised to repeat the trick that President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger pulled off in 1973 in Paris: pause the war and call it peace. Should fighting subsequently resume after a “decent interval,” it would no longer be America’s problem. Now, however, to judge by the president’s Twitter account — currently the authoritative record of U.S. diplomacy — the proposed deal has been postponed, or perhaps shelved, or even abandoned altogether. If National Security Advisor John Bolton has his way, U.S. forces might just withdraw in any case, without an agreement of any sort being signed.

Based on what we can divine from press reports, the terms of that prospective Afghan deal would mirror those of the 1973 Paris Accords in one important respect. It would, in effect, serve as a ticket home for the remaining U.S. and NATO troops still in that country (though for the present only the first 5,000of them would immediately depart). Beyond that, the Taliban was to promise not to provide sanctuary to anti-American terrorist groups, even though the Afghan branch of ISIS is already firmly lodged there. Still, this proviso would allow the Trump administration to claim that it had averted any possible recurrence of the 9/11 terror attacks that were, of course, planned by Osama bin Laden while residing in Afghanistan in 2001 as a guest of the Taliban-controlled government. Mission accomplished, as it were.

Back in 1973, North Vietnamese forces occupying parts of South Vietnam neither disarmed nor withdrew. Should this new agreement be finalized, Taliban forces currently controlling or influencing significant swaths of Afghan territory will neither disarm nor withdraw. Indeed, their declared intention is to continue fighting.

In 1973, policymakers in Washington were counting on ARVN to hold off Communist forces. In 2019, almost no one expects Afghan security forces to hold off a threat consisting of both the Taliban and ISIS. In a final insult, just as the Saigon government was excluded from U.S. negotiations with the North Vietnamese, so, too, has the Western-installed government in Kabul been excluded from U.S. negotiations with its sworn enemy, the Taliban.

A host of uncertainties remain. As with the olive branches that President Trump has ostentatiously offered to Russia, China, and North Koea, this particular peace initiative may come to naught — or, given the approach of the 2020 elections, he may decide that Afghanistan offers his last best hope of claiming at least one foreign policy success. One way or another, in all likelihood, the deathwatch for the U.S.-backed Afghan government has now begun. One thing only is for sure. Having had their fill of Afghanistan, when the Americans finally leave, they won’t look back. In that sense, it will be Vietnam all over again.

What Price Peace?

However great my distaste for President Trump, I support his administration’s efforts to extricate the United States from Afghanistan. I do so for the same reason I supported the Paris Peace Accords of 1973. Prolonging this folly any longer does not serve U.S. interests. Rule number one of statecraft ought to be: when you’re doing something really stupid, stop. To my mind, this rule seems especially applicable when the lives of American soldiers are at stake.

In Vietnam, Washington wasted 58,000 of those lives for nothing. In Afghanistan, we have lost more than 2,300 troops, with another 20,000 wounded, again for next to nothing. Last month, two American Special Forces soldiers were killed in a firefight in Faryab Province. For what?

That said, I’m painfully aware of the fact that, on the long-ago day when I offered Captain Nguyen my feeble condolences, I lacked the imagination to conceive of the trials about to befall his countrymen. In the aftermath of the American War, something on the order of 800,000 Vietnamese took to open and unseaworthy boats to flee their country. According to estimates by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, between 200,000 and 400,000 boat people died at sea. Most of those who survived were destined to spend years in squalid refugee camps scattered throughout Southeast Asia. Back in Vietnam itself, some 300,000 former ARVN officers and South Vietnamese officials were imprisoned in so-called reeducation camps for up to 18 years. Reconciliation did not rank high on the postwar agenda of the unified country’s new leaders.

Meanwhile, for the Vietnamese, north and south, the American War has in certain ways only continued. Mines and unexploded ordnance left from that war have inflicted more than 100,000 casualties since the last American troops departed. Even today, the toll caused by Agent Orange and other herbicides that the U.S. Air Force sprayed with abandon over vast stretches of territory continues to mount. The Red Cross calculates that more than one million Vietnamese have suffered health problems, including serious birth defects and cancers as a direct consequence of the promiscuous use of those poisons as weapons of war.

For anyone caring to calculate the moral responsibility of the United States for its actions in Vietnam, all of those would have to find a place on the final balance sheet. The 1.3 million Vietnamese admitted to the United States as immigrants since the American War formally concluded can hardly be said to make up for the immense damage suffered by the people of Vietnam as a direct or indirect result of U.S. policy.

As to what will follow if Washington does succeed in cutting a deal with the Taliban, well, don’t count on President Trump (or his successor for that matter) welcoming anything like 1.3 million Afghan refugees to the United States once a “decent interval” has passed. Yet again, our position will be: we’re outta here; you guys sort this out.

Near the end of his famed novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald described two of his privileged characters, Tom and Daisy, as “careless people” who “smashed up things and creatures” and then “retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness” to “let other people clean up the mess they had made.” That description applies to the United States as a whole, especially when Americans tire of a misguided war. We are a careless people. In Vietnam, we smashed up things and human beings with abandon, only to retreat into our money, leaving others to clean up the mess in a distinctly bloody fashion.

Count on us, probably sooner rather than later, doing precisely the same thing in Afghanistan.

Image Credit: www.upi.com

March 3, 2020
The end of the liberal world order is not the end of the world – we just need to fight for freedom AND equality

The turmoil concerning Brexit, the Rise of the „Rest” (the fast developing countries), dramatic social inequality, the exclusion of ever larger parts of the populace (the decline of the „Rest“, which is excluded from globalization), the rise of radical Salafism, all these developments have contributed to worldwide emotions, that the promises of globalization have been disappointed and been revealed as illusions. When Juergen Habermas, the noted German philosopher judged in 1991 concerning the democratic revolutions in the former states of the Warsaw treaty, that Western modernity would now transcend into the Orient not only with its technical achievements, but also with its emancipatory and democratic principles he was hardly more than the prisoner of the idealism concerning Western modernity. Although being fully aware of the negative impact of two world wars, colonization and its exorbitant violence, Auschwitz and the Cold War, and fighting for his whole life against a repetition of these developments he still believed to be able to rely on a cleaned, purified Western modernity, an approach which his companions, Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck, labeled second modernity. Again, in the years starting with the Arab Rebellion or the Arab Spring it seemed as if the conceptions of democracy, human rights and freedom were transcending from the Western world to the Orient, and its final victory seemed to be plausible – a purified Western modernity would triumph in the end – and Francis Fukuyama wrote his second masterpiece by arguing that at the end of history still stands democracy. But now we are already discussing post-democracy and Paraq Khanna is labeling the current phase as devolution – struggles for a local or at least regional identity.

The liberal world order after 1991 was based on capitalism (centered on property as natural and human right), the assumption that worldwide free trade will finally lead to peace (economic globalization) and is accompanied by the orientation towards consumerism as a cultural norm. But consume does neither generate values nor identity. International organizations served the purpose of regulating conflicts between sovereign states and the military, political and economic hegemony of the United States secured this kind of liberal world order, or rather the United States payed the costs (this is the point Trump hangs up), both, out of their own interest or as being the trustee of the whole. This liberal world order now is tattered in fragments, not least because the US under Trump abandoned it willfully, whereas the Europeans are desperately trying to preserve it but don’t stand a chance, because they are relying on an idealized past which never existed in the developing and poor countries.

Contrary to the assumptions of the pundits of glo-calization (Robertson and Bauman), the local showed to be not only an amendment of neoliberal globalization, but a counter-movement to the process of globalization (IS, Trump, „Buy American“, Brexit, Marine Le Pen, Duterte, Bolsonaro, Salafism, the European radical right, populistic movements). In his notes on Nationalism, George Orwell already wrote, that emotion does not always attach itself to a nation. It can attach itself to a church or a class, or it may work in a merely negative sense, against something or other – we can add against anybody, who does not belong to “us”. In short: We against the Rest. But the “Rest” is not far away anymore, as in neoliberal globalization the regions in Sub-Saharan and Saharan Africa, in southern India, in the MENA-states, but they are within the West (either as excluded sub-proletarians, the precariat, or as refugees). Although being a counter-reaction, the current waves of struggles for local identities and advantages are as a negation bound to neo-liberal globalization, the globalization of liberalism without equality, which we label tribal globalization.

The advent of tribal globalization does not signify the end of globalization, but the end into the illusions into globalization, which nevertheless has its undisputed successes. But there is no way back to an idealized globalization before Trump, Salafism, or an idealized neo-liberal world-order, because these developments were exactly the result of which they are purporting to fight. The exclusion of the „superfluous“, the „Rest“, produced by neo-liberal globalization, the advent of precarious kinds of life and the liquidity of identity throughout the world must be understood as a double one: The “Rest” is excluded from the positive aspects of globalization and people who are belonging to the Rest are the arbitrarily used enemy-image to construct a fixed „We“-identity („We against the Rest”). And this “Rest” comprises roughly two third of the world’s populace. As the neo-liberal globalization has led to such a social acceleration of the transformation of the whole world, people, communities and polities of all kinds are trying to cope with this process by re-inventing age-old static identities, which are so old, that it is supposed that these will outdo even this transformation. Such seemingly fixed identities are: Race, ethnicity, religion, patriarchy, and – perhaps the oldest one, sex and gender (this can explain the terrible rise of violence against women); and of course, identity through the exercise of violence itself, which is reverting the feeling of being totally powerless into being almighty. Especially biological differences are re-actualized, because they seem to be not subject to change.

These seemingly fixed identities are those of the pluperfect, the far distant past, which can be viewed as being free from the failures of the simple past, and mainly free from the failure of the immediate fathers – as already was typically for the German Nazis. Tribal identity is a perfect construction, because it is transporting the ideal of being absolutely united against everybody who is not belonging – and the question: Do I belong is the most important question in tribal globalization. Whereas tribes throughout the world are vanishing, tribal thinking in terms of „We against the Rest“ is flourishing. Such a modern tribe could be based on ethnicity, religion, sex, nation or whatsoever, it is not the content, which characterizes a modern tribe, but having a tribal identity (typically is Trump’s crony capitalism and with relation to the IS, not their ideology is so much counting, but belonging to a previously powerful tribe). With the emergence of tribal globalization, the very understanding of local order and world order is at stake; order wars are arising, when our order or that of others is dissolving (either only in our perception or in reality); our own order is challenged by another concept or and another order is transgressing into our own (the refugee crisis in Europe). The fast developing countries are not immune concerning the accelerated transformation of societies and identities and the task to cope with this development. As the main problem of neo-liberal globalization is the dissolution of identities and the exclusion of ever growing parts of the populace, that of the emerging tribal globalization the re-invention of age-old fixed identities, which is leading to order wars, what might be a solution?

Based on the concept of the floating (Clausewitz) and developing (Hegel) balance and harmony (Confucius), we strongly advocate the position, that the West as well as the East is only able to hold on their order and values, if these are discursively balanced and harmonized by the contribution of all great civilizations of the earth. Although the liberal world had its undisputed advantages like the rise of the newly industrialized nations, the current developments are already indicating its end. To put it to the core: freedom as the basis of the liberal world order is turning into oppression or civil wars without equality– just in the name of freedom. Whereas in the 20^th century the colonized civilizations had to learn to live with the victorious West, in the twenty-first century the civilizations of the earth finally have to learn to live with one another. This task requires a floating balance (Clausewitz) between freedom and equality, a kind of harmony (Confucius: difference with unity and unity with difference) within societies and between states.

Image Credit: WikiImages from Pixabay

February 29, 2020