Quotes of the Day:
"These days the sun never sets on America's special operations forces."
- Wall Street Journal
"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."
- Thomas Edison
“Some people awake each morning dreading the day looking for the negatives in their lives and in others, while some awaken fresh appreciating the opportunity to contribute to life,
making the world a better place and see the positives. Neither is right or wrong for we are human, we all make a conscious choice everyday as to who we shall be.”
- Mark W Boyer
1. How Far Would Biden Go to Defend Ukraine Against Russia?
2. The Drums of War in Taiwan and Ukraine | by Carl Bildt
3. Opinion | An Afghan girl grew up to be her country’s U.S. ambassador. Now, she watches progress lost.
4. US has new way to resettle Afghan refugees, and Vietnamese Americans in Washington answer call to help
5. How tennis player Peng Shuai’s disappearance is a classic case of China’s inherent insecurities
6. Central Asian Elites Choose China Over Russia – Analysis
7. Xi Is Bending Chinese Law to His Will
8. When Biden's 'Human Rights-based Diplomacy' Meets Cold Reality
9. Sri Lanka awards port project to China after dropping Japan, India
10. Dimon says he regrets comment on JPMorgan outlasting China Communist Party
11. Japan’s new right marching in a muscular direction
12. Japan doubles its supplementary defense budget to meet growing security challenges
13. ‘Nothing left’: Solomon Islanders wander torched capital as Australian troops arrive
14. More than 9 in 10 federal workers and military personnel are vaccinated, with only a small percentage seeking exemptions, White House says
15. Pentagon will track unexplained airborne objects through new intelligence group
16. Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets train with Greek special operators as bilateral military ties deepen
17. How Bali Bombings Group Infiltrated Indonesian Institutions to Resurrect Itself
18. The End of Trust
1. How Far Would Biden Go to Defend Ukraine Against Russia?
Excerpts:
“The Russians know full well, because they’ve been invading Ukraine for seven years now, that we’re not going to send in the 82nd Airborne,” said Samuel Charap, a former State Department official now with the RAND Corporation. “And I think they have likely priced in everything short of that, in the sense that they are willing to pay the price.”
“That’s what makes this hard,” he added. “There’s no easy way out of this.”
American officials said they did not believe that Mr. Putin had yet decided whether to take military action against Ukraine. While the threat is being taken seriously, officials said, the United States and its allies have time to try to prepare Kyiv and convince Moscow that such a move would be a terrible mistake.
Whatever Mr. Putin’s thinking, his troop buildup is likely to test the willingness of the United States, NATO and Europe to act.
“The buildup of Russian forces is in part to see what Brussels is going to do and what Washington is going to do,” said Martijn Rasser, a former C.I.A. officer and now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “Putin sees one goal of this military action as gauging the resolve of the West when it comes to having Ukraine’s back.”
How Far Would Biden Go to Defend Ukraine Against Russia?
Nov. 25, 2021
U.S. officials are vague about when and how they might punish new Russian aggression. President Vladimir V. Putin may doubt their resolve.
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Ukrainian soldiers this month. The Biden administration is trying to deter President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia from taking provocative steps against Ukraine, according to people familiar with the matter.Credit...Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times
Nov. 25, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON — At a news conference a few days ago, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken was asked whether the Biden administration had a “red line” in Ukraine, a point beyond which Russian aggression toward the country would incite a dramatic American response.
Mr. Blinken wouldn’t bite. “The U.S. has real concerns about Russia’s unusual military activity on the border with Ukraine,” he said, with notable understatement. No red line was drawn. The State Department spokesman batted aside a similar question on Tuesday, saying only that “any escalatory or aggressive actions would be of great concern.”
U.S. officials often avoid questions about red lines, which when crossed can damage their credibility if they do not act. But in the case of Russia — which has been moving the estimated 90,000 troops it has on its border with Ukraine in ways that officials say might presage an invasion — the Biden administration has been conspicuously vague about when, and how, it might come to Ukraine’s defense.
That has raised questions about how far President Biden would be willing to go in a confrontation with Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, over Ukraine. Mr. Biden’s Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, resisted strongly increasing America’s commitment to Ukraine because, he said, Mr. Putin would always raise the ante even more. Mr. Obama otherwise largely delegated Ukraine affairs to Mr. Biden, then his vice president, who visited the country several times, extolling its independence.
Despite his personal investment in Ukraine’s fate, however, it is unclear how much Mr. Biden may be willing to risk on the country’s behalf as he fixates on competition with China. His senior officials have said repeatedly that their goal with Russia is to develop a relationship of stability and predictability.
In a statement on Wednesday honoring the millions of Ukrainians who starved to death under Joseph Stalin, Mr. Biden said the United States “also reaffirms our commitment to the people of Ukraine today and our unwavering support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
For now, the Biden administration is focusing on diplomatic channels to deter and dissuade Mr. Putin, according to people familiar with the matter. Those could eventually include a second face-to-face meeting between Mr. Biden and Mr. Putin: Last week, the Kremlin’s spokesman said Washington and Moscow were discussing another potential summit.
Mr. Biden’s administration views continued dialogue with Mr. Putin as important to stopping him from taking action against Ukraine.
At the same time, U.S. officials are hammering out steps with partner countries to punish any Russian provocations, including new economic sanctions.
“We have administration officials in Europe trying to work towards coordinating what those economic measures would be,” said Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a Russia expert with the Center for a New American Security who advised the Biden transition team. She said such action could include sanctions on Russian banks and energy producers and the country’s sovereign debt.
Nevertheless, American and British officials have discussed imposing tougher sanctions on people close to Mr. Putin, including some measures that were considered, but put aside, after Moscow’s agents used a nerve agent in an attempt to kill a former Russian intelligence officer in Britain in 2018.
Measures under consideration include blocking Russian oligarchs from using Visa and Mastercard credit cards and restricting where they and their families can travel in Britain and Europe, as well as other kinds of sanctions that might get Mr. Putin’s attention quickly but damage parts of the American or European economy.
A Ukrainian official said the United States was considering a package of increased military aid to Ukraine. (The Biden administration is sending more than $400 million in security assistance to Ukraine this year.) But American officials are hesitant to discuss Washington’s support, for fear of escalating the situation further.
Fiona Hill, who served as the National Security Council’s director for Russia in the Trump White House, added that one of Mr. Putin’s goals was to strike a deal with the United States that excluded European input.
“This is really a challenge to Europeans to step up in solidarity with the United States,” she said. “The United States shouldn’t be the prime mover here.”
But Ms. Kendall-Taylor said Mr. Putin might doubt Western willingness to follow through. “I think there is a calculation on Putin’s part that there will be a lack of resolve in the West,” she said, adding that the Russian leader recognizes that the United States in particular is determined to focus its attention on China.
Russia has not explicitly threatened to invade Ukraine, but it has complained of alleged provocations from the Ukrainian side of their shared border. Mr. Putin has supported a pro-Russian separatist insurgency in the former Soviet republic’s east since 2014, when a popular revolution ousted Ukraine’s Putin-backed president. Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula soon afterward.
In a sign of the increasing tensions, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, spoke by phone on Tuesday with his Russian counterpart, Gen. Valery Gerasimov. The Pentagon said in a statement that the call was meant to “ensure risk reduction and operational de-confliction.”
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has said that the United States is providing information and data to Kyiv about the Russian force buildup. Western officials have confirmed that NATO allies are stepping up intelligence sharing with Ukraine, in hopes that a better understanding of the rising threat will help Kyiv better prepare and better deter Moscow.
Even in worst-case scenarios, most analysts say, Kyiv should not expect the U.S. military to come to its rescue.
“The Russians know full well, because they’ve been invading Ukraine for seven years now, that we’re not going to send in the 82nd Airborne,” said Samuel Charap, a former State Department official now with the RAND Corporation. “And I think they have likely priced in everything short of that, in the sense that they are willing to pay the price.”
“That’s what makes this hard,” he added. “There’s no easy way out of this.”
American officials said they did not believe that Mr. Putin had yet decided whether to take military action against Ukraine. While the threat is being taken seriously, officials said, the United States and its allies have time to try to prepare Kyiv and convince Moscow that such a move would be a terrible mistake.
Whatever Mr. Putin’s thinking, his troop buildup is likely to test the willingness of the United States, NATO and Europe to act.
“The buildup of Russian forces is in part to see what Brussels is going to do and what Washington is going to do,” said Martijn Rasser, a former C.I.A. officer and now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “Putin sees one goal of this military action as gauging the resolve of the West when it comes to having Ukraine’s back.”
2. The Drums of War in Taiwan and Ukraine | by Carl Bildt
Excerpts:
Such a scenario is not as farfetched as it sounds. Although China claims to stand for non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs, it is scrupulously silent on the issue of Ukrainian sovereignty. There is no reason to think it wouldn’t back a renewed Russian assault on that country if doing so served its own purposes.
To be sure, it would be a massive mistake for China to invade Taiwan, and for Russia to invade Ukraine. Both countries’ economic development would be set back decisively by the large-scale sanctions that would inevitably follow. The risk of a wider military conflict would be high, and countries like Japan and India would almost certainly embark on a vast military buildup of their own to counter China. Europeans already are moving more decisively toward a policy of strengthening their defense.
As prudent as these developments may be, they offer cold comfort. The drums of war can be heard quite clearly. The task for diplomacy is to ensure that they do not become more than background noise.
The Drums of War in Taiwan and Ukraine | by Carl Bildt - Project Syndicate
Nov 25, 2021
In their rhetoric as well as in their military investment, training, and deployment decisions, China and Russia have both clearly signaled their aggressive strategic intentions. The task now is to ensure that their misguided militarism does not upend longstanding security arrangements in East Asia and Europe.
STOCKHOLM – The vastness of Eurasia is becoming bracketed by belligerence. On the western front, Russia has deployed a growing number of military units to the regions near its border with Ukraine, inviting a flurry of speculation about its motives. And in the east, China’s behavior vis-à-vis Taiwan has grown increasingly worrisome. A widely reported war-game study by a US think tank concludes that the United States would have “few credible options” were China to launch a sustained attack against the island.
In both cases, the aggressor’s strategic intent is clear. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s government has made a point of calling for Chinese “reunification,” regarding that as a fitting conclusion to the Chinese civil war. After World War II, the Communist Party of China took over the Chinese mainland but failed to eliminate Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists. They retreated to Taiwan (and some smaller islands), which has remained outside CPC rule ever since.
Sometimes, China’s official declarations about “reunification” have stipulated that it should be achieved peacefully; but on other occasions, China’s leaders have dropped the adverb. Moreover, in expanding and equipping its military, China has focused specifically on building its capacity to subdue Taiwan if it ever tries to declare independence.
Most countries, including the US, have long maintained a “one China” policy, withholding formal recognition of Taiwan as an independent state. But in the absence of formal diplomatic ties with the island, many countries have developed relations through other channels such as trade and technology. Taiwan is a world leader in cutting-edge microchip production. It is also a shining democratic success story. If the Chinese society found in Taiwan can be democratic, perhaps the same political vision might someday be extended to the rest of China.
At the other end of Eurasia, Ukraine’s situation is radically different from that of Taiwan, not least because Russia has formally recognized its independence. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s occupation and annexation of Crimea in 2014 was declared illegal and condemned by an overwhelming majority in the United Nations General Assembly (where a mere 11 countries voted against the resolution).
Nonetheless, this past summer, Putin published a lengthy and remarkable essay arguing that Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus belong together as a matter of history. Ukrainian or Belarusian sovereignty, he now claims, can be achieved only together with Russia, under the ultimate authority of the Kremlin. So far-reaching is Putin’s revisionism that he even criticized Ukraine’s formally independent status under the Soviet constitution (not that this ever meant anything at the time).
Putin’s strategic intent is clear: he regards Ukraine’s independence as increasingly intolerable. Like China with its designs on Taiwan, Russia has been preparing and equipping its military for the specific purpose of invading and conquering Ukraine before any outside force can disrupt the occupation. In addition to seizing Crimea, the Kremlin has already sent regular military forces into Ukraine, as it did in August 2014 and again in February 2015 in the eastern Donbas region. Putin seems both ready and willing to launch another similar incursion, if not a much larger-scale operation.
No one doubts that a Chinese military takeover of Taiwan would radically change East Asia’s security order, just as a Russian military takeover of Ukraine would upend the security order of Europe. But what has not yet been fully appreciated is the possibility of both happening simultaneously in a more or less coordinated fashion. Taken together, these two acts of conquest would fundamentally shift the global balance of power, sounding the death knell for diplomatic and security arrangements that have underpinned global peace for decades.
Such a scenario is not as farfetched as it sounds. Although China claims to stand for non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs, it is scrupulously silent on the issue of Ukrainian sovereignty. There is no reason to think it wouldn’t back a renewed Russian assault on that country if doing so served its own purposes.
To be sure, it would be a massive mistake for China to invade Taiwan, and for Russia to invade Ukraine. Both countries’ economic development would be set back decisively by the large-scale sanctions that would inevitably follow. The risk of a wider military conflict would be high, and countries like Japan and India would almost certainly embark on a vast military buildup of their own to counter China. Europeans already are moving more decisively toward a policy of strengthening their defense.
As prudent as these developments may be, they offer cold comfort. The drums of war can be heard quite clearly. The task for diplomacy is to ensure that they do not become more than background noise.
3. Opinion | An Afghan girl grew up to be her country’s U.S. ambassador. Now, she watches progress lost.
Excerpts:
Raz is careful with policy advice. She doesn’t want to help a Taliban religious leadership that appears to be as deeply opposed to women’s rights today as when she was a girl hiding her biology project in the closet.
But she argues that the international community must find a way to provide food and restore the basics of economic survival. She’s right. The United States must find a way to provide more humanitarian aid to the country, without giving the Taliban a cut.
Americans probably share mixed feelings about Afghanistan this Thanksgiving — happy that are our troops are home after the nation’s longest and perhaps most frustrating war, angry that power has been reclaimed by a Taliban government that treats women so shamefully and worried how the population will survive a cruel winter. The one thing we shouldn’t do now that we’ve left is to forget that nation and its pain.
Opinion | An Afghan girl grew up to be her country’s U.S. ambassador. Now, she watches progress lost.
The Washington Post · by David IgnatiusColumnist Yesterday at 9:30 a.m. EST · November 25, 2021
In this Thanksgiving week, when we think about our blessings of peace and plenty, here’s a reminder of the suffering of people who are not so fortunate. The story begins with an Afghan woman named Adela Raz.
Raz was in the sixth grade when the Taliban first took control of Afghanistan in 1996. They banned girls’ education as un-Islamic and closed her school in the Macroyan neighborhood of Kabul. She had been constructing a model of a skeleton for a school biology project that term. She hid it in the closet.
But the young women of Kabul were hungry for learning, and after a few months, their parents began organizing secret classes in people’s homes. If the Taliban became suspicious, the girls would move to another location. Raz spent five years moving among makeshift classrooms. She would hide her schoolbooks under her burqa.
After the United States toppled the Taliban in 2001, Raz was able to return to regular classes, and she excelled. She had learned English in those furtive years of study, and when she graduated, she found a job with the United Nations.
Raz was determined to succeed in the world that had opened to her after the overthrow of the Taliban. She won a scholarship to Simmons College in Boston, where she earned a 3.98 grade average, and then a graduate degree from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. “I wanted to learn everything,” she remembers.
Raz was thriving in the United States, but she felt she should be helping her country, so she returned home in 2013. She became, in succession, deputy spokesperson for President Hamid Karzai, a senior aide to President Ashraf Ghani, deputy foreign minister, U.N. ambassador and, finally, Afghanistan’s ambassador to the United States.
The Taliban seized power in August, soon after Raz arrived in Washington. Back in Kabul, the mullahs once again banned young girls’ education in secular schools. Under the new regime, women can’t work in many government offices; they can’t appear in television dramas; they can’t walk outside without cloaking their heads and bodies.
I spoke with Raz this week, as Thanksgiving was approaching. She’s still in charge of the embassy, technically. And she speaks her mind, as her generation of Afghan women learned to do in their years of freedom. Watching the Taliban try to erase the gains her country made over the last two decades is “surreal,” she says. The Taliban may hope she’ll quit, but she still goes to the embassy every day, talking about her country’s plight to anyone who will listen.
If you wonder whether the United States achieved anything during those two costly decades in Afghanistan, it’s worth thinking about the transformation of Raz’s life, and those of millions of other Afghan women. It’s worth thinking, too, about what’s happening to people like them now, under Taliban rule.
Raz says that she gets several desperate messages every day from women who are still in Afghanistan. She quotes one she received the day I saw her: “Help me get out. I am suffocating.” She tries to help, where she can, but there’s little she can do.
Night has fallen on Afghanistan. A United Nations report this week warned that the banking system is in “disarray" and near “collapsing.” With no banks, merchants can’t finance needed food imports. The United Nations’ World Food Program report predicted that more than half the population, about 23 million people, face severe shortages this winter. Ten of the country’s 11 most densely populated urban areas will experience conditions approaching famine.
Banking and commercial activities are shattered because of sanctions against the Taliban, who have refused to form an inclusive government or guarantee basic human rights, such as education for women, as the international community has demanded. But it’s the people who are being crushed by these punitive measures, not the Talibs.
The situation is “infuriating,” Dominik Stillhart, director of operations for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said this week after visiting Kabul. “Economic sanctions meant to punish those in power in Kabul are instead freezing millions of people across Afghanistan out of the basics they need to survive.”
Raz is careful with policy advice. She doesn’t want to help a Taliban religious leadership that appears to be as deeply opposed to women’s rights today as when she was a girl hiding her biology project in the closet.
But she argues that the international community must find a way to provide food and restore the basics of economic survival. She’s right. The United States must find a way to provide more humanitarian aid to the country, without giving the Taliban a cut.
Americans probably share mixed feelings about Afghanistan this Thanksgiving — happy that are our troops are home after the nation’s longest and perhaps most frustrating war, angry that power has been reclaimed by a Taliban government that treats women so shamefully and worried how the population will survive a cruel winter. The one thing we shouldn’t do now that we’ve left is to forget that nation and its pain.
The Washington Post · by David IgnatiusColumnist Yesterday at 9:30 a.m. EST · November 25, 2021
4. US has new way to resettle Afghan refugees, and Vietnamese Americans in Washington answer call to help
Great Americans helping future great Americans.
US has new way to resettle Afghan refugees, and Vietnamese Americans in Washington answer call to help
In August, Son Duong and his 18-year-old son, Nathan, watched a TV report of desperate Afghans fleeing Kabul on a military plane. Nathan saw his dad jump a little. He was having a flashback.
“Oh my God! I was in that position,” the older Duong said he was thinking. A 52-year-old artist who creates Trader Joe’s signage and lives in Monroe, he had been on a similar plane 46 years ago.
Saigon was falling. He and his brother, playing in an alley, were swept up by their father, who had suddenly arrived home: “It’s time to go.”
“Go where?” the 5-year-old thought.
Son remembers commotion in the street as they reached the end of the alley, then his dad pushing him through the window of a crowded bus, and being pushed back out when it became clear the bus was stalled. They walked on to an American military base near the airport, where in a bowling alley he was reunited with his mom, sister, uncle and aunt.
A cavernous, seatless plane with red and orange lights — seemingly everywhere, to a child’s eye — came to take the refugees away.
Seeing the images of evacuating Afghans decades later, Nathan was the first in his family to get the idea: Maybe we should help. He got in touch with Viets for Afghans, a newly formed group of Vietnamese Americans in the Seattle area driven by their own families’ experiences to support this newest wave of refugees.
Now, the Duong family and several other members of Viets for Afghans plan to participate in a federal program launched last month that could radically change how some refugees are resettled. With tens of thousands of Afghan refugees stuck on U.S. military bases, many waiting for overwhelmed agencies to bring them into communities around the country, the State Department is inviting private citizens to form “sponsor circles.”
Just like resettlement agencies, which will continue to do this work, the circles of five or more people commit to helping refugees get housing, jobs, furniture, clothes, government benefits and whatever else they need to start a new life. The circles also must raise $2,275 for each sponsored individual to replace money typically provided by the federal government.
The program is just for Afghan refugees, who can choose to be resettled by agencies or private sponsors, and is a precursor to a larger private sponsorship effort the Biden administration plans to start next year. It is modeled on similar programs in Canada, Australia and elsewhere.
Washington is projected to be among the top five locations for Afghan resettlement, because of a significant community of Afghan Americans already here, said state Refugee Coordinator Sarah Peterson. Roughly 1,000 Afghan refugees have come since July, and at least 1,500 more are expected over the next three months, she said.
Locally, the sponsor circle program has been greeted with excitement, as well as questions and concerns.
“I love the idea of getting the private sector and individuals and community organizations to really step up and help address this critical gap that we have right now,” said Aneelah Afzali, executive director of the American Muslim Empowerment Network at the Muslim Association of Puget Sound, and a former Afghan refugee who came to the U.S. as a child. “The refugee agencies, you know, they’re fantastic, but they’re being tested in unprecedented ways.”
Afzali, whose organization is partnering with the state to welcome Afghan refugees, has been working with the Viets for Afghans circle, and said she believes the group is proceeding thoughtfully. At the same time, she worries that some sponsors might be unprepared for this level of responsibility and wants to know more about how the program will work before encouraging others to become sponsors.
Will Berkovitz, CEO of Jewish Family Service of Seattle, has put his concerns more sharply.
“You’re basically taking really well-meaning people without significant supervision and in most cases with very little knowledge, and asking them to do the work of a professional,” Berkovitz said. Canada has had decades to build a private sponsorship system, he added, advocating a go-slow approach that relies on coordination between volunteers and experienced agencies.
Matt Misterek, a spokesperson for Lutheran Community Services Northwest, said his agency already coordinates with many volunteers who supplement its work. Having an organizational backbone gives refugees support that volunteers on their own possibly couldn’t, he said. For instance, with money from its church network and fundraising and on top of federal dollars, Lutheran Community Services helps refugees for six months to a year. The sponsor circle program asks for a three-month commitment.
But everything doesn’t necessarily go smoothly with agencies, many of which scaled down as the Trump administration slashed refugee admissions and are now having to rapidly rebuild.
Navid Hamidi, executive director of the Afghan Health Initiative in Kent, said his organization has been paying for some refugees’ groceries because of snags in getting food stamps they’re entitled to, problems agency caseworkers have been unable to resolve.
Danielle Grigsby, co-founder of the Community Sponsorship Hub, a nonprofit charged by the federal government with managing sponsor applications, said there’s an extensive vetting process, including a background check, a knowledge test based on online curriculum, and review of a resettlement plan that applicants must submit.
The government will not directly monitor sponsors. But Grigsby said sponsors must file 30- and 90-day reports to the Hub and organizations it is working with, and the government will be notified of any problems. Grigsby also said some organizations, including the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, a national resettlement agency that announced last week it was launching a network of at least 100 sponsor circles, will provide ongoing support to sponsors. HIAS is asking sponsors in the network to commit to six months, not three.
“I started out as a skeptic but I have become a true believer,” said HIAS President and CEO Mark Hetfield, reasoning there is no other alternative right now to resettle Afghans at the massive scale needed. Even Berkovitz, after finding out the circles would be used in a limited way, not to resettle the huge number of Afghans waiting on bases, said he was reassured.
Sponsors not unprecedented
For those in the Viets for Afghans sponsor circle, it’s a return to the past in more ways than one. Certainly, the Afghan evacuation triggers memories, some deeply traumatic.
Uyen Nguyen, co-owner of the Seattle restaurant Nue, lost her mother and two siblings during a boat escape from Vietnam in 1985, when she was 10.
The call for private sponsors — not unprecedented, actually — brings back much more positive memories.
When 125,000 Vietnamese refugees started arriving in 1975, some private organizations existed to help them, but the formal resettlement structure we have now — with the federal government contracting with nine national agencies that in turn have hundreds of local affiliates — was not in place, according to Peterson, the state refugee coordinator.
Washington, in particular, needed resettlement help in a hurry. After California’s governor at the time, Jerry Brown, gave a reluctant welcome to thousands of refugees sent to Camp Pendleton near San Diego, Washington Gov. Dan Evans sent state officials to the military base to invite 1,500 to come here, recalled one of those officials, Ed Burke.
At the base, Burke, a 31-year-old Vietnam War veteran who directed Washington’s veteran affairs office, met Binh Duong, a multilingual interpreter who had worked with the American military and is Son’s father.
“We hit if off immediately,” said Burke, now retired in New Mexico. Binh Duong worked closely with Burke to sort through who wanted to come to Washington.
The state ran newspaper ads and public service announcements asking individuals, church groups and other community organizations to integrate the newcomers, Burke said. He and then-wife Linda, a 25-year-old school district employee, sponsored Binh Duong’s family themselves, renting an Olympia apartment for them, taking them grocery shopping and for a time, Ed Burke said, bringing Binh to work every day at a new state job in social services. The Duongs, in return, were always inviting the couple to dinner, Linda Burke recalled from California.
Linda and Ed Burke both say the relationship with the Duong family and other Vietnamese refugees was a highlight of their lives.
Son didn’t know about Ed Burke’s pivotal role in refugee resettlement. What he remembers is the warmth and openness of the couple he called his “American mom and dad.”
“They would always be there,” dropping by with toys and clothes, Son said. “I would love to do exactly the same thing that was done for us.” He worried, though, about having enough time.
“It’s daunting,” said My-Nga Le, another member of the Viets for Afghans sponsor circle, “but we are more than up to the challenge.”
Already, she has raised $15,000 from relatives, nearly what the group would need to sponsor a family of six or seven.
Le has a flexible schedule built around volunteering and took the lead filling out the sponsor application. One night this month, she went through it on Zoom during the first meeting of those who had joined the circle so far: Le, Nguyen, Son Duong, Nathan Duong, who plans to help until he goes to Boston University in January, and Jefferey Vu, a 31-year-old Boeing engineer who credits his dad’s family’s onetime sponsors as paving the way for “everything we have now.”
The five discussed their spending plan: $2,200 a month seemed about right for housing but how much would it cost to buy food for a large family? Furniture wouldn’t be a problem; Nguyen said she knows people eager to donate.
She also suggested a job wouldn’t be hard to come by, given employers’ urgent search for workers at the moment. There might be complications, however. Nguyen said her desire to hire Syrian refugees at her restaurant in the past had been thwarted because they wouldn’t work with pork, a forbidden meat in Islam. That might be the case for some Afghan refugees.
Nguyen also brought up potential conflicts of interest if she or others found jobs at their own businesses for those they sponsor. What if an employment issue arose?
One of the biggest open questions surrounded recruiting a member of the area’s existing Afghan American community, someone who knows the language and culture, to be part of their circle. Le had talked to a candidate, who had relatives at a base the circle could ask to sponsor. You can request a specific family, though there is no guarantee.
Last week, that person pulled out; he had decided that he and his siblings in the area could resettle the relatives themselves. Le quickly found another Afghan American wanting to join and have his family sponsored: Ghulam Mohmand, a Port of Seattle employee who lives in Kent, and a board member of the Afghan American Cultural Association.
Mohmand has a nephew at Fort Dix in New Jersey who wants to bring his wife and four kids to the Seattle area, given the help his Kent relative is ready to offer. But the government has said it wants to send his family to be resettled by an agency in Maine. “He would be all alone,” Mohmand said, especially difficult since his nephew uses crutches after being shot by insurgents in Afghanistan.
When Le explained the sponsor circle idea to Mohmand, he was enthusiastic. “I became so emotional,” he said, upon learning of the shared experiences of the Vietnamese American members.
With Mohmand on board, the Viets for Afghans circle submitted its application Tuesday.
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(c) 2021 The Seattle Times
5. How tennis player Peng Shuai’s disappearance is a classic case of China’s inherent insecurities
Really? Keep this statement in mind and let's revisit it in the next few years.
A single incident could be the spark of a revolution in a totalitarian country like China
Excerpts:
Internally, China works to protect its leader’s image by every possible means. The Chinese government had in 2018 banned the release of a film, Winnie the Pooh, only because the world observed similarities between the character and Xi Jinping. Winnie the Pooh toys have disappeared from Chinese stores. In China, Xi cannot be questioned or trolled on Weibo. The last Plenary upgraded Xi to levels of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. It appears that the CCP is attempting to project him as the saviour of the country.
A similar state exists in North Korea where the government attempts to create a larger-than-life image of Kim Jong-un, its current dictator. He is being projected as a ruler with supernatural powers. He is often photographed as riding a white horse onto the top of North Korea’s most revered mountain, Mount Paektu. Kim is claimed to have the ability to control weather, was driving a car at the age of 3, and sailing competitively at the age of 9! He has been projected as a demi-God and revered by the masses, many of whom cry at the very sight of him. There are reports that in the past couple of years, this propaganda is declining.
How tennis player Peng Shuai’s disappearance is a classic case of China’s inherent insecurities
A single incident could be the spark of a revolution in a totalitarian country like China. It is this spark which has compelled Beijing to spend billions on monitoring and suppressing its population
November 25, 2021 09:04:44 IST
China's Peng Shuai has been 'missing' since she posted a message on Chinese social media platform Weibo on 2 November accusing a former vice premier and a close confidant of Chinese president Xi Jinping of forcing her to have sex. AFP
Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai has been missing since she posted a message on Chinese social media platform Weibo on 2 November accusing a former vice premier and a close confidant of Chinese president Xi Jinping of forcing her to have sex. The message was subsequently removed and discussion on the subject blocked in China’s closely monitored Weibo platform. Global pressure began to mount with world bodies and nations demanding her release and investigation into her accusations. This episode is also being used to demand a boycott of Beijing’s 2022 Winter Games scheduled for February next year.
President Joe Biden and British prime minister Boris Johnson have stated that they are considering a diplomatic boycott of the games. Canada and Australia, with poor ties with China, would follow suit. The European Union currently maintains silence but may be compelled by internal pressures. Rising global calls and threat of boycott forced China to act on Peng Shuai’s case. The editor of the Chinese government mouthpiece, The Global Times, Hu Xinjin, has taken to Twitter to push pictures and videos of Peng attending family and sports events. She is also reported to have spoken to the IOC president and conveyed her wellness.
No one has bought the Chinese story and the world is demanding further evidence. It is a case of another dissenter being pushed deep into the Chinese penal system solely because she questioned the Chinese political hierarchy, which is considered supreme in China.
In June, a Chinese blogger, Qiu Ziming, with a following of over two million on Weibo was jailed for seven months and forced to apologise for questioning Chinese casualty figures in Galwan and eight months to acknowledge them. China lost far more soldiers than it declared, but true numbers are hidden solely to save the face of Xi and the CCP. The ruling Chinese elite can never be shown as leaders in a losing situation.
Grace Meng, the wife of the Chinese former head of Interpol, Meng Hongwei, who vanished into the Chinese prison system in 2018 recently held a press conference in France and accused the Chinese government of being “monsters”. Reports state that she is being protected from Chinese agents seeking to eliminate her. Meng was part of the inner circle of the CCP. Hence, Grace’s statements released little known secrets on the internal functioning of China’s elite society. She stated, “The extent of corruption in China today is extremely serious. It’s everywhere.” The fact is that while China has grown economically, most of its leaders have stashed funds abroad. Initially, Hong Kong was the destination for illegal investment, however this avenue is fast closing.
Simultaneously, demands for democracy are rising within China. Such is Chinese fear of internal dissent that China has, between 2007 and 2019, tripled its domestic security spending to more than 1.24 trillion yuan. Despite all its security controls, protests in the country are on the rise. As long as they are not organised and coordinated, Chinese authorities monitor them, but permit them to continue. Currently major causes for protests are corruption, land seizures and economic stress.
Weibo is under close scrutiny, and global social media sites, including Twitter are banned. So strong is fear of criticism that foreign journalists who adversely comment on the Chinese government or its leaders are expelled, blacklisted or banned. Further, the PLA, which swore allegiance to the country now does so to Xi Jinping and the CCP.
Externally, China monitors its students and citizens residing abroad. They are under perpetual threat and any sign of dissent is acted upon on family members back home. Chinese army personnel participating in UN peacekeeping operations are prohibited from taking family members abroad, as a form of blackmail, especially as they are in contact with their global counterparts.
Internally, China works to protect its leader’s image by every possible means. The Chinese government had in 2018 banned the release of a film, Winnie the Pooh, only because the world observed similarities between the character and Xi Jinping. Winnie the Pooh toys have disappeared from Chinese stores. In China, Xi cannot be questioned or trolled on Weibo. The last Plenary upgraded Xi to levels of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. It appears that the CCP is attempting to project him as the saviour of the country.
A similar state exists in North Korea where the government attempts to create a larger-than-life image of Kim Jong-un, its current dictator. He is being projected as a ruler with supernatural powers. He is often photographed as riding a white horse onto the top of North Korea’s most revered mountain, Mount Paektu. Kim is claimed to have the ability to control weather, was driving a car at the age of 3, and sailing competitively at the age of 9! He has been projected as a demi-God and revered by the masses, many of whom cry at the very sight of him. There are reports that in the past couple of years, this propaganda is declining.
In totalitarian states, rulers can only remain in power by spreading fear and uncertainty amongst its population and displaying themselves as their saviours. To do this, they control the media and spend huge sums on propaganda, most of which is fake. This is what Stalin, Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Robert Mugabe, Idi Amin and Muammar Gaddafi had in common and is visible presently in China and North Korea. Any rising dissent is crushed as these nations have security agencies embedded into society.
Thomas Jefferson had stated, “When governments fear the public, there is liberty. When the public fears the government, there is tyranny.” Nowhere in the globe has tyranny succeeded for perpetuity. At some stage it collapses due to internal pressures or extra high ambitions of the leader — the Soviet Union being a prime example of the first and Hitler of the second. The same would be the fate of China and North Korea in the future. A single incident could be the spark of a revolution. It is this spark which has compelled these states to spend billions on monitoring and suppressing its population. It is also this unknown spark which gives its leaders nightmares.
The author is a former Indian Army officer, strategic analyst and columnist. Views expressed are personal.
Updated Date: November 25, 2021 09:04:44 IST
6. Central Asian Elites Choose China Over Russia – Analysis
Excerpts:
The leadership shift in Central Asia may reflect their willingness to negotiate more with Beijing. Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev is a fluent Mandarin speaker with diplomatic experience and connections in China. Former deputy prime minister Dariga Nazarbayev, the eldest daughter of the first president of Kazakhstan, extolled the virtue of learning Chinese, arguing closer ties to China is Kazakhstan’s destiny. The incumbent Kyrgyzstan President, Sadyr Japarov, was purportedly supported by many China-linked businessmen. Japarov’s father was born and educated in China and his family business has been long connected with China.
China has become the second-most popular destination for overseas studies in Central Asia, behind Russia. As Julie Yu-Wen Chen and Soledad Jiménez Tovar observed, university students, future elites in Central Asia increasingly support Beijing’s rising influence and the majority believe strong ties with China benefits Central Asia.
Central Asian Elites Choose China Over Russia – Analysis
By Jon Yuan Jiang*
Since 2019, more than 40 protests were held against ‘Chinese expansion’ in Central Asia. Yet Central Asian elites have hardly had a bad word to say. On the contrary, they suppressed these protests, denied that China’s goal was expansion and even requested their publics be grateful to China. No wonder some Russian commentators are worried about Russia’s waning influence.
The rationale to explain these Central Asian elites’ choices is that they may be better off embracing China while subtly distancing themselves from Russia, as Beijing increasingly aligns with its Central Asian counterparts with greater success than Moscow. Despite Central Asian countries being independent for three decades, it is common to find Russian assertions that they still effectively own the region. Some Russian officials have even publicly claimed that the entire territory of Kazakhstan was a gift from Russia, which was denounced severely among Kazakh elites.
Arguments about expansion and loss of sovereignty are dubious in Central Asia. Nowadays, Central Asian elites enjoy full sovereignty to defend their national interests. When the legislation around long-term land leases by foreign countries stirred up massive protests against the Kazakhstan government and Chinese influence, the bill was ditched and Beijing did not react. Kazakh elites also rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin’s proposal to construct nuclear power plants there. When Turkmenistan closed Russian language courses, the local Russian embassy expressed regret, but nothing tougher.
Numerous ethnic Russians live in Central Asia and the annexation of Crimea looms as a precedent. Central Asian elites might never express their fear of Russian annexation freely, but it is certainly a concern. In contrast, very few ethnic Han Chinese reside in Central Asia. The cardinal interest of China in this part of the world is to eliminate terrorism and separatism, purchase resources and trade with Europe through Central Asia. None of these interests constitute any potential territorial threat to Central Asia.
The dubious benefits of alignment with Russia’s stagnating economy pale in comparison to China’s economic might. With the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China was a larger trading partner than Russia for most Central Asian nations by 2019. As Alexander Grishin noted, Chinese investment has now surpassed Russia in almost all Central Asian countries. Russian investment in Kazakhstan in 2016 was just over US$12 billion, whereas Chinese investment, according to official data, exceeded US$20 billion. Unofficial figures of Chinese investment ranged from US$55 billion to US$80 billion.
As Benno Zogg argued, compared to the economic power of China, ‘particularly the volume of funds for infrastructure in the framework of the BRI, Russia and its rigid, protectionist, and politicised Eurasian projects pale’. Russia is a direct competitor to Central Asia’s natural resources exports to the Chinese market, which may push Central Asian elites to the Chinese side.
According to Adil Kaukenov and Bakhtiyor Ergashev, Moscow consulted minimally with Central Asian partners concerning Eurasian integration, preferring to offer feelings of kinship and shared history rather than practical benefits. This may be effective in winning over the public and some of the more sensationalist media in the region, but it is much less persuasive to Central Asian elites who see the relationship with China as more business-like.
This explains why Central Asian elites have endeavoured to ‘de-Russianise’ themselves to enhance their own national identity by promoting local languages. Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan deliberately implemented the latinisation of their national languages, eschewing the Russian Cyrillic alphabet. In this context, increasing cooperation with China — which also entails enhancing its influence — not only accords with the economic interests and diversity of Central Asian nations, but also indirectly promotes their nation-building efforts.
The leadership shift in Central Asia may reflect their willingness to negotiate more with Beijing. Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev is a fluent Mandarin speaker with diplomatic experience and connections in China. Former deputy prime minister Dariga Nazarbayev, the eldest daughter of the first president of Kazakhstan, extolled the virtue of learning Chinese, arguing closer ties to China is Kazakhstan’s destiny. The incumbent Kyrgyzstan President, Sadyr Japarov, was purportedly supported by many China-linked businessmen. Japarov’s father was born and educated in China and his family business has been long connected with China.
China has become the second-most popular destination for overseas studies in Central Asia, behind Russia. As Julie Yu-Wen Chen and Soledad Jiménez Tovar observed, university students, future elites in Central Asia increasingly support Beijing’s rising influence and the majority believe strong ties with China benefits Central Asia.
*About the author: Jon Yuan Jiang is a PhD candidate at the Queensland University of Technology.
7. Xi Is Bending Chinese Law to His Will
Rule by law.
Excerpts:
Xi has reversed course; the most influential legal scholars in China are now antiliberal. Some have even been influenced by the Nazi philosopher Carl Schmitt, whose school of thought is “defensive of arbitrary uses of power,” according to Pils, and considers laws “justified by the existence of enemies of the political order.”
Xi’s crackdown on law enforcement and the judiciary is solidifying China’s turn away from liberal legal principles. In November, the Ministry of Public Security released a new version of the oath taken by all new police officers. Whereas recruits once had to swear to “be resolutely loyal to the Party,” they must now “resolutely support the absolute leadership of the Party” and also pledge to “defend political security.” Tellingly, the new oath omits the old requirement to “promote social fairness and justice.” The change, the ministry has explained, aims to ensure that the police force remains “ideologically, politically, and operationally . . . consisten[t] with” Xi. The paramount goal of law enforcement, in other words, is not the safety or security of the Chinese people but loyalty to the Chinese leader himself.
As Xi tightens his grip over China’s political system, he is sharpening his coercive instruments and ensuring that only he can wield them. Like previous campaigns against corruption and vice, Xi’s campaign to rectify law enforcement and the judiciary aims to bolster his authority and eliminate potential rivals. But it also aims to bend China’s entire legal system to his will and ensure that society, like Sun and Fu, must obey and submit.
Xi Is Bending Chinese Law to His Will
How a Public Good Became a Tool of Personal Power
November 24, 2021
The Chinese Communist Party does not usually air its dirty laundry in public. So it was an ominous sign last month when official Chinese media reported startling allegations against a disgraced senior police official: Sun Lijun, a former vice minister of public security who has been detained for more than a year over a vague party disciplinary violation, had formed a “political clique” that must be “purged” from China’s political system, CCP investigators claimed. The wording of the accusation suggested that more officials—perhaps at even higher levels of government—could yet be ensnared in the alleged conspiracy.
Just days before the allegations against Sun appeared in the press, a former justice minister, Fu Zhenghua, was also taken into custody. It is unclear if Fu and Sun are part of the same “clique,” but they are not alone. Since February, the CCP has acknowledged disciplining more than 170,000 officials and secretly detaining nearly 3,000 of them as part of a campaign to “rectify” China’s law enforcement and judiciary. Those who serve the country’s politicized legal system, it seems, are being abused as they have abused others.
The campaign of rectification is the latest in a series of nationwide crackdowns initiated by Chinese President Xi Jinping. In 2012, Xi began an anticorruption drive, and in 2018 he launched a campaign against vice, including drug dealing, gambling, and other gang-related crimes. Both crackdowns sought to cleanse China’s often-corrupt bureaucracy and shore up Xi’s legitimacy, eliminating his rivals and suppressing dissent. Chinese authorities have claimed that the current campaign targets corrupt elements within the law enforcement and judicial systems, including officials who took bribes to release well-connected criminals on medical parole. In practice, however, this campaign also aims to twist the law into a tool for Xi’s own power.
THE SHARP KNIFE TURNS INWARD
Central to Xi’s campaign of rectification is a secretive system of detention. For years, this system was known as shuanggui, which means to appear in a “designated place at a designated time,” and it was run by the CCP’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. According to a 2016 Human Rights Watch investigation, which involved interviews with victims and their families as well as court records and other official documents, those subjected to shuanggui were detained in secret locations for months at a time without access to lawyers or family members. They faced physical and psychological abuse, including beatings, solitary confinement, prolonged sleep deprivation, exposure to extreme temperatures, lack of food and water, and threats to their families. By law, China prohibits the use of evidence directly obtained through torture. But in practice, judges rarely throw out such unlawful evidence, especially if it was obtained through shuanggui. Human Rights Watch found no cases in which the courts had acquitted suspects due to misconduct by investigators during shuanggui.
In 2018, the Chinese government replaced shuanggui with which can be translated to “stay and placement,” and created a new antigraft “super agency,” the National Supervision Commission, to oversee it. Liuzhi follows stricter procedures than its predecessor, including time limits on detention, but unlike shuanggui, the new system targets a wide range of people, not just party officials. Anyone deemed to wield public authority can be subjected to liuzhi, including public school teachers. By regulating and institutionalizing shuanggui, in other words, the CCP has transformed an internal party detention system that existed outside the law into one that empowers and entrenches the party’s authority over the law.
Many detainees face physical and psychological abuse.
Over the last three years, reports of abuse under liuzhi have emerged. In May 2018, the driver of a CCP official died during liuzhi in Fujian Province. His “face was distorted, his chest collapsed,” according to a family member who viewed his body and gave an interview to the Chinese newspaper Caixin. In a separate case, another official, Yang Meng, testified in court that liuzhi interrogators held him in a “tiger chair”—used to immobilize suspects during interrogations—for 18 hours every day for five months, rubbed stinging oil into his eyes, and shined bright lights at him around the clock. Yang now suffers from hearing loss, poor eyesight, and other physical impairments. But the court that heard his case, in September 2020, has so far refused to order a medical examination to evaluate his injuries, allow his lawyers full access to the video of his interrogations, or throw out the evidence obtained through torture, according to his lawyers.
During the current campaign of rectification, liuzhi has been used as a weapon against elements of law enforcement and the judicial system itself. The CCP has turned its “sharp knife” inward, according to official propaganda, in order to scrape the “toxins off the bones.” The purpose is to instill a sense of fear and, through that, absolute loyalty and acquiescence to the demands of the party. The ironic result has been the persecution of officials such as Sun and Fu, who were implicated in previous crackdowns on human rights lawyers, civil society, and other perceived enemies of the CCP. One of their victims was Wang Quanzhang, a human rights lawyer who was detained and tortured for three years before being convicted in 2019 of the trumped-up crime of “subverting state power.” The previous year, a foreign journalist asked Fu, who was then the justice minister, about the reason for Wang’s long disappearance. Fu responded that “China is a country with the rule of law. A person’s freedom and their rights are all being treated in accordance with the law.” Given that China’s criminal conviction rate is over 99.9 percent, one wonders if Fu would say the same thing now.
RULE BY LAW
The CCP has compared its current campaign of rectification to one that Mao Zedong carried out more than 80 years ago. In the name of “rescuing” those who had erred, including spies and Trotskyites, Mao stamped out his rivals in a brutal drive of intimidation and suppression between 1942 and 1945. The so-called Yan’an Rectification Campaign made widespread use of torture, including beatings and mock executions; how many perished in this purge is unknown. Despite—or perhaps because of—the massive toll of human suffering, the campaign played a crucial role in establishing Mao’s cult of personality.
Xi’s campaign of rectification appears less bloodthirsty by comparison. But its insidiousness stems in part from the veneer of legality he has sought to give it: unlike Mao, who largely determined the course of the Yan’an Rectification Campaign himself, Xi has channeled his campaign through the institutions of the legal system, which has detained and punished officials according to purported rules and evidentiary standards. (Even the tiger chairs used in today’s liuzhi sessions are made on assembly lines by companies that claim to respect human rights.)
At its heart, however, Xi’s campaign is a sinister manipulation of the very concept of law. After Mao’s death, the Chinese government reconstructed its legal system partly in accordance with liberal political ideas, as the legal scholar Eva Pils has documented. Along with Deng Xiaoping’s economic and political reforms came a legal perspective in the tradition of Friedrich Hayek and John Rawls that cast law as a restraint on arbitrary power—an attractive proposition for those fresh from the traumas of the Mao era. This perspective was always in tension with the party’s authoritarianism, but it gained sway for a time in part because Chinese lawyers pressed the government to transform its promises of a liberal rule of law into reality.
The most influential legal scholars in China are now antiliberal.
Xi has reversed course; the most influential legal scholars in China are now antiliberal. Some have even been influenced by the Nazi philosopher Carl Schmitt, whose school of thought is “defensive of arbitrary uses of power,” according to Pils, and considers laws “justified by the existence of enemies of the political order.”
Xi’s crackdown on law enforcement and the judiciary is solidifying China’s turn away from liberal legal principles. In November, the Ministry of Public Security released a new version of the oath taken by all new police officers. Whereas recruits once had to swear to “be resolutely loyal to the Party,” they must now “resolutely support the absolute leadership of the Party” and also pledge to “defend political security.” Tellingly, the new oath omits the old requirement to “promote social fairness and justice.” The change, the ministry has explained, aims to ensure that the police force remains “ideologically, politically, and operationally . . . consisten[t] with” Xi. The paramount goal of law enforcement, in other words, is not the safety or security of the Chinese people but loyalty to the Chinese leader himself.
As Xi tightens his grip over China’s political system, he is sharpening his coercive instruments and ensuring that only he can wield them. Like previous campaigns against corruption and vice, Xi’s campaign to rectify law enforcement and the judiciary aims to bolster his authority and eliminate potential rivals. But it also aims to bend China’s entire legal system to his will and ensure that society, like Sun and Fu, must obey and submit.
8. When Biden's 'Human Rights-based Diplomacy' Meets Cold Reality
Excerpts:
Yet Romania, despite this evidence and the administration’s commitment to human rights, the rule of law and democracy, is still treated as a close ally. That by itself, of course, isn’t a new phenomenon. There has always been tension between two central elements of U.S. foreign policy: idealism and realism, or “promoting democracy and freedom” while catering to the military, intelligence and political needs of friendly dictatorships and corrupt governments.
The list throughout history is long: Chile, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Rwanda and Vietnam – and there are plenty more examples.
Clearly, American interests, geopolitical maneuvering and alliance management, all in the context of “containing communism” and rivalry with the Soviet Union, required uncomfortable choices and awkward allies. Even NATO at some point had member states that were under autocratic or military regimes (Greece, Portugal, Turkey). But the end of the Cold War signaled a return to human rights and democracy advocacy as a central tenet of U.S. policy, at least rhetorically.
The theme of human rights as foreign policy is recurrent in Blinken’s speeches and is frequently evoked by President Joe Biden too. The United States claims that it is reintroducing human rights as a major consideration in foreign policy, from Sudan to Myanmar to Iran. It blacklists other countries, companies, “entities” and individuals on the grounds of violating human rights. But when it comes to formal allies, the United States conveniently looks the other way. Even under Blinken and Biden.
Perhaps a different member of the 46th president’s cabinet, Susan Rice, a former national security adviser to President Barack Obama, has a more earnest explanation on this issue. In 2013, she said: “Let’s be honest, at times ... we do business with governments that do not respect the rights we hold most dear.”
This is foreign policy and this is how you manage alliances and execute strategy. The case of Romania, its judicial system and the Popoviciu trial is just one anecdote. It’s not an important U.S. interest, except perhaps for the implications that carving up the businessman’s real estate could have on an existing embassy. It’s an event that other U.S. allies will watch – and learn from.
When Biden's 'Human Rights-based Diplomacy' Meets Cold Reality
By Alon Pinkas 1.4969532 Haaretz5 min
Earlier this year, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken sent a memo to all State Department staff highlighting the Biden administration’s commitment to human rights, democracy and the rule of law. “Standing up for democracy and human rights everywhere is not in tension with America’s national interests nor with our national security,” he wrote.
“It is squarely in America’s national interests and strengthens our national security when democracy and human rights are protected and reinforced worldwide.”
In that letter, Blinken also listed some top priorities for U.S. diplomacy under his watch: bolstering movements for democratic reform in strategically important countries and close U.S. partners, giving citizens the means to combat surveillance and intrusion while promoting their access to information, cracking down on corruption, and preventing abuses by security forces in countries that the United States helps arm.
A few months later, Blinken’s colleague at the top of the administration, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, visited Romania and touted the Biden administration’s commitment to the U.S.-Romanian “strategic partnership.” He also recognized “Romania’s leadership in the region” and its “commitment on sharing responsibility.”
In between these two ostensibly unconnected events, an interesting trial concluded in London. According to the verdict, it involved systemic corruption, injustice, a judge for sale, an unfair earlier trial and a bogus conviction, while it almost implicated the U.S. State Department in bribery.
Fifteen years ago, Romanian businessman Gabriel Popoviciu bought 553 acres of real estate in Bucharest, on which he built a huge mall and sold part of it to the United States, where a $120 million U.S. Embassy went up.
By any commercial standards, Baneasa Shopping City was a Romanian success story. At the time, according to reports, it was the biggest real estate project in Europe and the largest private development in Romanian history.
The result was a world class shopping center that has attracted global brands. It highlighted a supposedly new Romania: a member of both the European Union and NATO, ostensibly committed to democracy, free markets and transparency, and an emerging regional U.S. ally.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin during a welcoming ceremony in Bucharest last month.Credit: Andreea Alexandru/AP
Romanian runaround
But then the success story became a politicized issue, followed by an ugly and murky legal dispute. Romania’s National Anticorruption Directorate launched an investigation that produced an indictment, with the blessing of powerful people in the government.
Along the way, an arrest warrant against Popoviciu was described by the European Court of Human Rights as illegal. The European court ruled that the businessman was illegally deprived of his liberty.
A trial followed, assigned to Judge Corneliu-Bogdan Ion-Tudoran from the Criminal Section of the Bucharest Court of Appeal. Tudoran’s career was a revolving door between politics and the judiciary; he’s a former secretary of state for defense. Popoviciu was convicted in 2017 of two offenses, accessory to aggravated abuse of power and bribery, and was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Popoviciu, who also holds U.S. citizenship, felt that he wouldn't get a fair trial and that a conviction was a forgone conclusion. He fled to Britain, and Romania requested an extradition.
The High Court of Justice in London conducted hearings this past March and on June 11 issued its verdict. In scathing language the court determined that Judge Ion-Tudoran displayed a lack of impartiality and a flagrant denial of justice. The court rejected the extradition request.
It said there were “reasonable grounds to suspect that the Judge Tudoran convicted [Popoviciu] when he knew him to be innocent,” and that the judge had a long-standing relationship with one of Popoviciu’s main business rivals, who happened to be a primary witness for the prosecution.
The 2020 version of the U.S. State Department’s annual human rights report describes Romania as a “constitutional republic with a democratic, multiparty parliamentary system.”
The 44-page document criticizes the Romanian judicial system and states: “Significant human rights issues included: cases of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the government; widespread official corruption; lack of investigation and accountability for violence against women and girls; and crimes of violence targeting institutionalized persons with disabilities and members of ethnic minority groups.”
Susan Rice meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem in 2014. Credit: Haim Zach / GPO
Containing communism and more
Yet Romania, despite this evidence and the administration’s commitment to human rights, the rule of law and democracy, is still treated as a close ally. That by itself, of course, isn’t a new phenomenon. There has always been tension between two central elements of U.S. foreign policy: idealism and realism, or “promoting democracy and freedom” while catering to the military, intelligence and political needs of friendly dictatorships and corrupt governments.
The list throughout history is long: Chile, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Rwanda and Vietnam – and there are plenty more examples.
Clearly, American interests, geopolitical maneuvering and alliance management, all in the context of “containing communism” and rivalry with the Soviet Union, required uncomfortable choices and awkward allies. Even NATO at some point had member states that were under autocratic or military regimes (Greece, Portugal, Turkey). But the end of the Cold War signaled a return to human rights and democracy advocacy as a central tenet of U.S. policy, at least rhetorically.
The theme of human rights as foreign policy is recurrent in Blinken’s speeches and is frequently evoked by President Joe Biden too. The United States claims that it is reintroducing human rights as a major consideration in foreign policy, from Sudan to Myanmar to Iran. It blacklists other countries, companies, “entities” and individuals on the grounds of violating human rights. But when it comes to formal allies, the United States conveniently looks the other way. Even under Blinken and Biden.
Perhaps a different member of the 46th president’s cabinet, Susan Rice, a former national security adviser to President Barack Obama, has a more earnest explanation on this issue. In 2013, she said: “Let’s be honest, at times ... we do business with governments that do not respect the rights we hold most dear.”
This is foreign policy and this is how you manage alliances and execute strategy. The case of Romania, its judicial system and the Popoviciu trial is just one anecdote. It’s not an important U.S. interest, except perhaps for the implications that carving up the businessman’s real estate could have on an existing embassy. It’s an event that other U.S. allies will watch – and learn from.
9. Sri Lanka awards port project to China after dropping Japan, India
Sri Lanka awards port project to China after dropping Japan, India
Beijing steps up Belt and Road spending with support of friendly president
Shipping containers at the main port of Colombo. Sri Lanka's location in the Indian Ocean and its deep harbors have made it strategically important under China's Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. © Reuters
RYOSUKE HANADA, Nikkei staff writerNovember 25, 2021 06:30 JSTUpdated on November 25, 2021 11:13 JST
NEW DELHI -- Sri Lanka will tap a Chinese company for a port project in Colombo, its largest city, that had been awarded to Japan and India before the partnership was scrapped early this year.
The decision highlights Colombo's balancing act and comes a month after Indian conglomerate Adani Group was awarded another deal worth over $700 million to develop the West Container Terminal at the Colombo port. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has said he wants to be "neutral" in Sri Lanka's relations with India and China as the nation struggles with a shortage of foreign currency.
His cabinet on Tuesday agreed to have state-run China Harbour Engineering develop the Eastern Container Terminal while stipulating that local authorities would handle all operations. It cited recommendations by a cabinet-appointed committee as the basis for the decision.
The apparent pro-China tilt of Rajapaksa's government is seen as a factor in the change of plans. Beijing has invested heavily in projects on the strategically positioned island under its Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.
Sri Lanka had signed a memorandum of understanding with Japan and India in May 2019, under previous President Maithripala Sirisena, to jointly develop the Colombo terminal. The operating company would be 51% owned by the Sri Lankan government, with the rest held by Japan and India.
Rajapaksa, who took office in November of that year, indicated at first that the project would stay on course.
That changed this past February, when the cabinet decided that the operating company would be wholly owned by Sri Lanka, pushing Japan and India out of the project. The Japanese government called the unilateral move "regrettable."
China has continued to provide financing for Sri Lankan infrastructure, taking control of projects such as roads and port facilities in the process. Concerns have been raised that this support is pushing the country into a debt trap, as was seen in a 2017 lease deal of the Hambantota port in the southern coast of the island. The previous government leased it out to a Chinese state-run company for 99 years, in return for $1.1 billion as a part of Colombo's efforts to repay debt to China.
10. Dimon says he regrets comment on JPMorgan outlasting China Communist Party
Dimon says he regrets comment on JPMorgan outlasting China Communist Party
JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon listens as he is introduced at the Boston College Chief Executives Club luncheon in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., November 23, 2021. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
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HONG KONG/NEW YORK, Nov 24 (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N) Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said on Wednesday he regretted his remarks that the Wall Street bank would last longer than China's Communist Party (CPC), moving quickly to avoid any longer-term fallout.
Dimon's comments had risked jeopardizing JPMorgan's growth ambitions in China where it won regulatory approval in August to become the first full foreign owner of a securities brokerage in the country.
China experts in the United States said his quick apology should ensure no serious damage was done.
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"I regret and should not have made that comment. I was trying to emphasize the strength and longevity of our company," Dimon said in a statement issued by the bank.
Dimon realized immediately after he made the comment that it was a mistake, according to a source familiar with his thinking. After seeing the reaction, he decided to express regret, the source said.
In a later statement, Dimon said: "It's never right to joke about or denigrate any group of people, whether it's a country, its leadership, or any part of a society and culture. Speaking in that way can take away from constructive and thoughtful dialogue in society, which is needed now more than ever."
Referring to the matter in a comment posted on Twitter on Thursday, the outspoken editor of nationalistic tabloid Global Times, Hu Xijin, said: "You don't have to regret actually.
"The CPC has succeeded in its sphere far more than JP Morgan's. As a member of the CPC, I don't mind your company riding the wave of CPC's popularity."
A day earlier, Hu said: "Think long-term! And I bet the CPC will outlast the USA."
Speaking at a Boston College series of CEO interviews on Tuesday, Dimon said: "I made a joke the other day that the Communist Party is celebrating its 100th year - so is JPMorgan. I'd make a bet that we last longer."
"I can't say that in China. They are probably listening anyway," he added.
Beijing's approval for JPMorgan to take full ownership of its securities business was a milestone in the opening of China's capital markets after years of gradual moves and pressure from Washington.
Beijing sees the involvement of foreign banks as important for China's domestic financial development, academics say. However, they add, Western companies doing business in China still need to tread carefully.
"Dimon's apology shows the degree of deference foreign businesses have to show to the Chinese government in order to remain in its good graces and maintain access to the country’s markets," said Eswar Prasad, a professor at Cornell University.
"I don't think this will have any longer term consequences," said Leland Miller, chief executive at data firm China Beige Book and an expert on China's financial system.
Asked by Bloomberg about Dimon's comments at a news conference on Wednesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian replied: "Why the publicity stunt with some grandstanding remarks?," according to an English language transcript of the remarks.
BACKLASH
Global executives typically choose their words carefully when discussing China, where foreign companies have occasionally been subject to backlash for perceived offenses.
Swiss bank UBS (UBSG.S) ran into trouble in 2019, after a remark by one of its senior economists about food inflation and swine fever was interpreted as a racist slur. He was suspended for three months and UBS lost a plum role on a bond deal for a state-backed client.
Earlier this year, Swedish fashion giant H&M's (HMb.ST) and U.S.-based Nike Inc (NKE.N) faced a backlash from Chinese state media and ecommerce platforms after expressing concern about allegations forced labour had been used to produce cotton in Xinjiang.
"The Chinese government has amply demonstrated its willingness to curb or in some cases shut down foreign businesses' operations in the country if they challenge the government openly or even engage in perceived or indirect slights," said Cornell's Prasad.
A week ago Dimon was granted an exemption by the Hong Kong government to visit the Chinese-controlled financial hub without needing to quarantine.
Visitors to the city from most countries must stay in hotel quarantine for two to three weeks at their own cost.
Dimon was in Hong Kong for 32 hours after arriving by private jet.
"Jamie Dimon's best and worst trait is that he speaks his mind," said Wells Fargo analyst Mike Mayo.
"It typically works well for him and makes him more authentic and appreciated by investors. But sometimes it gets him into trouble."
Register now for FREE unlimited access to reuters.com
Additional reporting by Megan Davies and David Henry in New York, Yew Lun Tian in Beijing, and Anirban Sen in Bengaluru; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Christopher Cushing
11. Japan’s new right marching in a muscular direction
Excerpts:
One initiative the JIP-DPP leaders are agreed on is likely to be watched with a hawkish eye in both the Koreas and in China – all of which retain strong memories of Japan’s past militarism. The parties agreed to promote the debate on constitutional reform in the Constitutional Review Committees of both houses of parliament.
“The Constitutional Review Board should meet every week,” Tamaki insisted. “We are paid to debate the issue, and there is no choice but to hold it.”
That would be a reawakening. For years, the board held sporadic meetings, but real debate about changing the constitution in the Diet barely got off the ground.
Previously, only the LDP had championed the belief that Japan’s post-war pacifist constitution, written by America, should be revised. It was a long-held ambition that prime minister Shinzo Abe was unable to accomplish, or even make significant headway on, during eight years in office – the longest term of a sitting, post-war Japanese premier.
Granted, the LDP may not entirely welcome input from the other two parties, as there are differing visions of what format constitutional revision should take.
But clearly, given Tamaki’s statement, the issue will be resurrected.
Japan’s new right marching in a muscular direction
New powerful right-wing bloc favors military spending, territorial assertiveness and constitutional revision
TOKYO – In the lower house elections of the Japanese parliament, held on November 31, the biggest surprise was the impressive showing of a hitherto unheralded right-wing party.
The conservative, populist Japan Innovation Party, or Ishin no Kai, nearly quadrupled their seats from 11 to 41.
That result makes the JIP the third largest political party in the Diet’s powerful lower chamber, after the ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party and the main opposition liberal Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.
The JIP is already amassing power. An early, post-election agreement with another minority party, the Democratic Party of the People, or DPP, grants them the numbers needed to propose budget legislation.
The JIP has cast itself as an alternative to the cobwebbed traditional parties – ruling and opposition – that have long dominated Japan’s predictable political scene. Still, on many policy issues, it looks aligned with fellow conservatives in the LDP.
For Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, this means the JIP is now a force to be reckoned with – and perhaps bargained with.
For Chinese President Xi Jinping, the arrival of the JIP is cause for concern.
Firstly, the Osaka-based party is less reliant than much of Japan on Chinese tourists. Secondly, it is more hawkish than the LDP on territorial issues, favors increasing military spending – and looks set to resurrect a dormant debate on the revision of Japan’s pacifist constitution.
Osaka’s populist party takes off
The JIP was founded in 2012 as a local political machine in Osaka. The party has always had a populist slant, supplied not only by its policies, but also by its personalities, who have won nationwide media exposure.
It was first led by lawyer-turned-politician and later TV commentator, Toru Hashimoto. Reportedly the son of a low-level yakuza, he parlayed early appearances on television as a legal expert and commentator into politics. He climbed that ladder to become governor of Osaka and later mayor of Osaka City.
Though he is now out of politics, this fall he was a cheerleader for the JIP. “The national media relied on Hashimoto for comments,” Kensuke Takayasu, a political scientist at Seikei University, told Kyodo News. “He strongly supports the JIP, both from an ideological and a political perspective.”
Current party leader Ichiro Matsui is the mayor of Osaka. However, it is the vice-president of the party and governor of Osaka, the young and good-looking Hirofumi Yoshimura, who really powers the JIP political machine.
Ichiro Matsui, the leader of Japan Innovation Party. The slogan next to him reads ‘There is a revolution that only the JIP can achieve.’ Photo: Matsui Home Page
Yoshimura made a name for himself in the fight against the novel coronavirus when he criticized then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe over what he saw as radically insufficient Covid-19 countermeasures.
His sky-high media profile, along with that of Hashimoto, granted the party a nationwide PR bonanza. At the hustings, Yoshimura drew massive attention. The party won all 15 prefectural seats in which he actively supported candidates.
Policy-wise, the JIP has garnered support from Osakans thanks to the successful privatization of the subway system and populist policies like free education and pay cuts for lawmakers. And like a local sports team, the JIP enjoys fierce fan support in Osaka.
Japan’s second-largest city is a major financial center and Osakans often greet each other with the phrase, “Making any money?” Though known to be brusque and direct, their city is known for its multicultural and cosmopolitan character.
In addition to the Osaka Securities Exchange, the city is the headquarters of Japan’s largest trading company, Itochu, and electronics colossi Panasonic and Sharp. A number of major universities are located in the city.
Yet, despite nearly quadrupling their number of Diet seats from 11 to 41, the party won only one constituency other than Osaka. And that was in Hyogo Prefecture’s 6th district, which includes Takarazuka City and Itami City – both bedroom communities of Osaka.
From local to national
Striding from the Osakan to the national stage, the JIP is building on past successes. It stands for federalism, free education, limited government and neoliberalism.
At a time when long shadows are spreading over the strategic landscape of a region which is also engaged in a multi-front arms race – from missiles to aircraft carriers – the JIP’s manifesto is strongly pro-military.
During the national election, the party garnered not only right-wing support. More broadly, it also became a “third force” for those unhappy with both the LDP and the traditional opposition.
The big question is going to be how successfully, over the next four years, the JIP can shift its Osaka appeal to the national stage.
“It is not impossible that the JIP will break away from being the ‘party of Osaka’ and grow into a national party,” Masahiro Zenkyo, a professor of Political Behavior at the Faculty of Law at Kwansei Gakuin University wrote in a recent essay. “But there are still many issues to be resolved.”
The party clearly knows this and is astutely leveraging its newfound oomph to secure allies in the Diet. The center-right Democratic Party for the People (Kokumin Minshu-To) is leaning toward the JIP.
Both parties claim to be reform-oriented and “middle-of-the-road.” The first unofficial announcement of the alliance came via conservative broadcaster Fuji TV on November 7.
DPP leader Yuichiro Tamaki told Fuji TV: “There are many areas where I agree with the JIP that we are promoting,” he said. “We want to move forward, where we can, together in the Diet.”
The JIP’s Yoshimura appeared on the same program. “We have similar values to the DPP,” he said. “It is important that we work together to realize our individual policies and bills.”
The JIP and the DPP reached a cooperation agreement on November 9. With their combined strength of 51 Lower House seats, the two parties (just) exceed the 50 seats needed to submit budget-related bills.
They are already pushing ahead with populist measures.
They have agreed to submit legislation to cut the salaries of Diet members by 20%, to reduce government spending. The LDP isn’t happy.
Another proposed bill by the parties would lift a freeze on cutting the gasoline tax as a way to reduce spiraling fuel costs.
Matsui is making clear that the new voices will be heard. He told reporters that the JIP “has become a presence that cannot be ignored by either the ruling coalition or other opposition parties.”
And there appears to be plentiful common ground between the JIP and the ruling LDP.
LDP and JIP, Japan and China
One initiative the JIP-DPP leaders are agreed on is likely to be watched with a hawkish eye in both the Koreas and in China – all of which retain strong memories of Japan’s past militarism. The parties agreed to promote the debate on constitutional reform in the Constitutional Review Committees of both houses of parliament.
“The Constitutional Review Board should meet every week,” Tamaki insisted. “We are paid to debate the issue, and there is no choice but to hold it.”
That would be a reawakening. For years, the board held sporadic meetings, but real debate about changing the constitution in the Diet barely got off the ground.
Previously, only the LDP had championed the belief that Japan’s post-war pacifist constitution, written by America, should be revised. It was a long-held ambition that prime minister Shinzo Abe was unable to accomplish, or even make significant headway on, during eight years in office – the longest term of a sitting, post-war Japanese premier.
Granted, the LDP may not entirely welcome input from the other two parties, as there are differing visions of what format constitutional revision should take.
But clearly, given Tamaki’s statement, the issue will be resurrected.
This picture from the Japan Coast Guard on November 6, 2011, shows a Chinese fishing boat, left, being chased by a Japanese Coast Guard vessel near the Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands in the East China Sea. Photo: AFP / Japan Coast Guard / Jiji Press
On the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, the JIP believes that Japan should “strengthen its effective control over the islands through the exercise of administrative authority.”
The LDP has avoided touching on the emotive issue in recent years because Japan is increasingly dependent on tourism from China. Almost 10 million Chinese tourists visited Japan in 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic, contributing to improved bilateral sentiment.
Those numbers, however, have dropped to about one-ninth, and Japan’s image among the Chinese has deteriorated significantly in recent years.
According to Genron, a Japanese non-profit think tank, 66% of Chinese respondents said they have an “averse” or “somewhat averse” perception of Japan. This is an increase of about 13 percentage points from the previous survey in 2020.
If China isn’t happy with Japan, the JIP may not care. Osaka isn’t as dependent on tourism as other regions.
The JIP has also proposed legislation that would give Japan’s coast guard a freer hand in dealing with Chinese vessels’ frequent incursions into Japan’s territorial waters.
The rise of the JIP creates, potentially, a new dynamic for the ruling party and the ruling coalition.
Traditionally, the LDP’s long-term coalition partner, Komeito, has promoted good relations with China. Komeito is a pacifist, Buddhist political party and has long applied brakes to the LDP’s attempts to strip the critical Article 9, which prohibits war-making, from Japan’s constitution.
But with the arriviste JIP on the scene, the LDP could, feasibly, change alliances.
If that happens, Komeito would be essentially disempowered in the Diet. However, if it drops Komeito, the LDP risks losing the vote-getting machine that is Komeito – thanks to its sponsorship by the Soka Gakkai religious group.
A related risk for LDP strategists as they mull these scenarios is how much longevity the JIP will display in national politics.
Regardless of the constitution, Japan’s ongoing remilitarization has been accelerated by hawkish factions and personalities within the LDP.
North Korea continually lobs missiles in Japan’s direction, while endless South Korean animosities over historical issues have caused many Japanese to lose patience with their democratic neighbor.
Added to this is increasing Chinese regional assertiveness. Most recently, rising threats toward Taiwan, which many Japanese consider their closest friend in the region, are raising fears among the media and punditry.
Japan is the world’s third-largest economy, but traditionally has been a low military spender. Now it is climbing the ranks and is the ninth biggest military spender in the world.
And it has, in recent years, been acquiring the kind of assets it has not possessed since the Pacific War.
In 2018 it stood up a marine brigade, a force that is, by its very nature, expeditionary. It has also tested its first post-war aircraft carrier – albeit, it has not yet acquired the F35s that will comprise its air arm. A second carrier is being converted.
The Aegis Ashore anti-missile system in a file photo. Photo: US Defense Department
And after canceling – to Washington’s apparent surprise – an Aegis Ashore missile defense program, Japanese strategic thinkers are now mulling a “first strike” capability, as a high-risk, pre-emptive capability to deter missile threats.
The JIP is pro-increased military spending.
Looking ahead, with this substantial build-up having been undertaken without significant political backlash, constitutional revision looks like the next logical step. And it is more feasible now than at any time in recent years due to the new right-wing forces in the Diet.
Of course, it is by no means a done deal. The results of the upcoming upper house elections next summer will be critical in setting the scene. And even if politicians in the Diet are aligned, there are even more public hurdles to jump.
Article 96 of Japan’s constitution requires a two-thirds majority vote in each house of the Diet and a majority vote in a national referendum before amending the document.
It is far from clear if that would be achievable.
What is clear is that Japan’s overall political ground has shifted to the right. Machinations and alliances in the Diet over the coming months will bear watching.
12. Japan doubles its supplementary defense budget to meet growing security challenges
Excerpts:
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Nov. 19 said Japan will accelerate improvements to its defense capability to deal with the international security environment.
“We will speed up improving necessary defense power, such as missile defense capability and defense of islands in Southwest region,” the defense ministry’s document on the supplementary budget stated.
Japan doubles its supplementary defense budget to meet growing security challenges
Japan's record-breaking supplemental defense budget includes money to acquire the Lockheed Martin PAC-3 air-defense interceptor missile. (Lockheed Martin)
TOKYO – Japan’s Cabinet on Friday approved the country’s highest-ever supplementary defense budget, aiming to hasten improvements to the nation’s defense capabilities as regional challenges become increasingly severe, according to Ministry of Defense officials.
The Cabinet approved nearly twice last year’s supplementary budget, adding more than 773.8 billion yen, about $6.8 billion, in defense spending for the current fiscal year, which ends in March. This marks the biggest supplementary defense budget ever, according to defense officials. Last year’s supplementary budget for defense was 390 billion yen, according to the Defense Ministry.
With this approval, the total defense budget for this fiscal year is more than 6 trillion yen, about $52 billion. It brings Japan to the same level of defense spending of Germany and France, Nikkei Asia reported on Nov. 19. However, Japan’s budget is only a quarter of that of its closest rival, China, the news service reported.
Among other programs its supports, the supplemental budget pledges further spending on a new airfield on Okinawa for the U.S. Marine Corps that the prefectural governor has actively resisted.
The supplementary defense budget usually covers unexpected costs from disasters or maintenance and improvements for its troops, officials said. Government officials in Japan customarily speak to the media on condition of anonymity as a condition of their employment.
Defense officials say this year’s supplementary budget is “packaged” with the next fiscal year’s defense budget. The supplementary budget covers the cost to acquire new defense equipment that is included in the coming year’s budget request.
“In order to significantly strengthen the necessary defense power, it is our pressing issue to further speed up the process of implementing various projects as the security environment surrounding our country is evolving faster than ever,” the Defense Ministry’s supplementary budget document states.
The supplementary budget includes funds for new equipment, such as the Lockheed Martin PAC-3 air defense missile, three Kawasaki P-1 maritime patrol aircraft and 13 Bell Subaru UH-2 multi-role helicopters. Including costs for such equipment in this year’s supplementary budget will speed up their acquisition by three to six months, officials said.
The budget also includes 80.1 billion yen, about $701 million, for construction of a new airfield in Henoko, Okinawa, to relocate Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, the document stated. Another 86.5 billion yen will go to costs for U.S. troop realignment, the document stated.
Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki on Thursday denied permission for design changes for the airfield project, a move calculated to delay construction. Tamaki has been overruled on similar administrative moves in the past. The project schedule has lengthened by 16 years and its budget has grown from $2.2 billion to $8.7 billion.
The decision comes as the U.S. hopes Japan will increase its defense spending. A joint statement from the U.S.-Japan summit meeting in April stated that Japan “resolved to bolster its own national defense capabilities to further strengthen the Alliance and regional security.”
During Japan’s lower house elections in October, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party pledged to spend more than 2% of gross domestic product on defense, Asahi Shimbun reported on October 12.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Nov. 19 said Japan will accelerate improvements to its defense capability to deal with the international security environment.
“We will speed up improving necessary defense power, such as missile defense capability and defense of islands in Southwest region,” the defense ministry’s document on the supplementary budget stated.
Hana Kusumoto
13. ‘Nothing left’: Solomon Islanders wander torched capital as Australian troops arrive
‘Nothing left’: Solomon Islanders wander torched capital as Australian troops arrive
As lockdown lifted in the capital of the Solomon Islands on Friday after two days of violent protests and looting, residents wandered the debris-strewn streets while burned-out buildings still smoldered and smoke rose into the sky.
“Oh my,” said one woman as she walked through Honiara’s Chinatown, recording the scene. “This is really heartbreaking.”
But even as locals assessed the damage, the chaos continued, with rioters rampaging across the city and police responding with tear gas.
Two dozen Australian federal police officers had arrived overnight as the tip of a 120-strong force aimed at quelling the unrest in the South Pacific island nation. Rioters had torched dozens of buildings, including Chinese-owned shops and part of the national Parliament complex.
As residents took to the streets on Friday after the end of a 36-hour lockdown in Honiara, however, there was not yet any sign of the Australian peacekeepers, according to local journalist Georgina Kekea. And rioting continued in the center and east of the city.
“It still hasn’t settled,” Kekea said in an interview. “I’ve been to Chinatown. There is basically nothing left there. There are only six buildings that are still standing, but otherwise most of the shops have been looted and burned. Scavengers are now … trying to look for whatever they can to carry back home.”
The violence had begun on Wednesday morning after hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the national Parliament building to demand Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare step down. Some demonstrators then set fire to a grass hut next to Parliament before torching a police station and several buildings in Chinatown.
The rioting continued on Thursday, as much of Chinatown went up in flames. On Thursday afternoon, Sogavare called his Australian counterpart to ask for help, and Scott Morrison announced he was sending about 80 Australian Federal Police officers and more than 40 military personnel.
Many of the protesters came to Honiara, on the island of Guadalcanal, from Malaita, the most populous island in the archipelagic nation in the South Pacific, about 1,000 miles northeast of Australia.
Tensions have simmered between the two islands since the national government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China in 2019, a move opposed by Malaita’s premier, Daniel Suidani, who claimed he had been offered a bribe to support the switch. Sogavare denied the accusation.
Suidani pledged Malaita would never engage with Beijing and terminated licenses of businesses owned by ethnic Chinese, drawing a rebuke from the national government.
Sogavare defended the diplomatic switch, even as he said the decision was the root cause of the current unrest.
“That’s the only issue,” he said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation published Friday. “And unfortunately, it is influenced and encouraged by other powers.”
“These very countries that are now influencing Malaita are the countries that don‘t want ties with the People’s Republic of China and they are discouraging Solomon Islands to enter into diplomatic relations” with Beijing, Sogavare said in an apparent reference to Taiwan and the United States. “I don‘t want to name names, we’ll leave it there, we know who they are.”
Opposition leader Matthew Wale denied Sogavare’s claim that he was one of the people behind the unrest and dismissed the idea that foreign powers were to blame.
“The people in this country feel that the democratic processes are not working for them, that their own government is the puppet of China,” he told the ABC.
14. More than 9 in 10 federal workers and military personnel are vaccinated, with only a small percentage seeking exemptions, White House says
More than 9 in 10 federal workers and military personnel are vaccinated, with only a small percentage seeking exemptions, White House says
Ninety-two percent of federal employees and military personnel have received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine, while nearly 5 percent more have asked for exemptions on religious or medical grounds, the White House said Wednesday.
Among civil servants, vaccination percentages range from 86.1 percent at the Agriculture Department to 97.8 percent at the Agency for International Development (AID). Percentages of employees asking for exemptions also vary, from 10.2 percent at the Department of Veterans Affairs to 1.3 percent at AID and the State Department.
At the largest federal agency, the Defense Department, 93.4 percent of military and federal personnel combined have received at least one vaccination dose, while another 5.5 percent have asked for exemptions.
Figures from the Office of Management and Budget formed the most complete accounting to date of compliance with a requirement that federal employees be fully vaccinated as of Nov. 22, even if they are teleworking full-time. Deadlines for uniformed military personnel vary by service.
Although the vaccination mandates issued by President Biden in September defined “fully vaccinated” as at least two weeks beyond the sole or second shot, depending on the vaccine, the data released Wednesday characterize employees as vaccinated if they have received at least one dose.
Those requesting an exemption also are deemed in compliance with the mandate, as the government decides on their requests. The remaining 3 percent have not shown they are vaccinated, nor have they asked for an exemption.
While the announcement listed figures for only the two dozen federal departments and largest independent agencies, the White House on Monday said that compliance — counting both vaccinations and requests for exemptions — was 99 percent in the Executive Office of the President, which includes White House staff, the OMB and other offices related to the White House.
“This week’s deadline wasn’t an end point. For those employees who are not yet in compliance, agencies are beginning a period of education and counseling, followed by additional enforcement steps, consistent with guidance from the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force and the Office of Personnel Management,” the announcement said.
The recommended sequence for those refusing vaccines — unless they have asked for an exemption — is a week of counseling about them and the potential career consequences of not complying with the mandate, then a possible unpaid suspension of under two weeks. Only after that would they face being fired.
“At any point, if an employee gets their first shot or submits an exemption request, agencies will pause further enforcement to give the employee a reasonable amount of time to become fully vaccinated or to process the exemption request,” Wednesday’s announcement said.
At least one department, Veterans Affairs, the second-largest in the federal government, has started the disciplinary sequence for some employees. VA is ahead of other agencies because it required vaccinations for its medical employees more than a month before Biden issued the wider directive for federal workers.
Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough said last week that even with the process underway, he was unaware of any decisions to fire employees and said the disciplinary process could “stretch out as much as three months, start to finish.”
The process of firing a federal worker typically takes at least a month, since employees have a right to respond and agencies must consider those replies before taking final actions. During that time employees are to keep working, subject to tighter distancing and mask-wearing standards and regular testing when in the workplace.
Federal employees who have pending requests for exemptions are to follow those safety procedures, which also would apply if their request is granted. If the request is denied, the disciplinary process would begin.
The rate of exemption requests varied by agency, with 6.2 percent seeking one at the Department of Homeland Security, the third-largest federal agency with a vaccination rate of 88.9 percent. At the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Science Foundation, only 2.4 percent each requested exemptions. Vaccination rates at both exceeded 96 percent.
Employees with questions and concerns about their legal rights are “knocking down our door,” said Andrea Ennis, an associate with the Tully Rinckey law firm, which specializes in federal employment law. That includes some cases in which the agency has asked the employee to explain how a religious belief “guides their daily life,” she said in a phone interview.
“With most of the denials, they’re being provided an opportunity to provide additional information. If either they don’t give that information or the agency says you’re denied, then they would start the disciplinary process,” she said.
An employee who is denied a request could file an equal-opportunity complaint immediately, but “while they’re fighting it, they may end up losing their job due to a disciplinary action,” she said, adding that the firm is not yet representing employees with any such complaints.
Several lawsuits are pending against the mandate, including one filed Tuesday by a union representing Federal Bureau of Prisons employees.
National Treasury Employees Union President Tony Reardon urged agencies to work swiftly on the requests for exemptions.
“For those who have raised religious or medical reasons that they should remain unvaccinated, we hope the agencies process those requests quickly and provide whatever accommodations are necessary to maintain employee safety in the workplace,” Reardon said in a statement. “For the small minority who have not requested an exemption and are still unvaccinated, there is still time for them to change their minds and avoid potential disciplinary action.”
The numbers released Wednesday include some 2.2 million federal employees plus uniformed armed forces personnel, around 3.5 million in all. The U.S. Postal Service and its 600,000-plus employees aren’t subject to the mandate; a separate mandate for companies with more than 100 employees — which currently is on hold due to a court challenge — would apply to postal workers.
“As we have seen throughout the pandemic, federal employees remain ready to serve — with public health at the forefront,” Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), chairman of the House subcommittee on government management, said in a statement. “Civil servants hold positions of public trust and are meeting this moment.”
15. Pentagon will track unexplained airborne objects through new intelligence group
Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group
So how many paid parachutist positions will be authorized in this Airborne unit? (apologies for the attempted humor).
Pentagon will track unexplained airborne objects through new intelligence group
The Pentagon has created a new intelligence division exclusively dedicated to investigating unidentified objects that breach sensitive U.S. airspace, to understand both their origin and whether they could threaten national security.
Announced late Tuesday night, the new division — which the Defense Department will call its Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group — is a direct response to more than 140 reports of “unidentified aerial phenomena,” or UAP, dating back nearly two decades and documented in a government study issued this past summer. That inquiry, intended to determine whether such sightings were signs of foreign threats, atmospheric anomalies, faulty sensors or even extraterrestrial life, yielded a report with few firm conclusions.
The group’s formation was directed by Kathleen Hicks, President Biden’s deputy secretary of defense. In a statement accompanying Tuesday’s announcement, defense officials said the government study made clear a need “to improve our ability to understand UAP.” The Pentagon treats reports of such “incursions — by any airborne object, identified or unidentified — very seriously,” particularly sightings occurring “on or near DOD training ranges and installations,” it said.
Before the UAP report, produced by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, public scrutiny of such sightings was largely anecdotal, shrugged off in many circles as fantastical. But many of the observations it documented originated with U.S. military personnel, mainly Navy aviators. And there has been pressure on the Pentagon since, especially from Capitol Hill, to come up with more exacting and comprehensive answers about what these objects are and whether they pose a threat to U.S. interests.
The report released in June presented multiple possible explanations for what the source of these unidentified objects could be. Three of the categories — space junk, climate or atmospheric idiosyncrasies, and classified aircraft tests by U.S. contractors — posed no critical threat to the United States, though the authors did not rule out that such objects could pose other potential dangers to flight safety.
A fourth category suggested that the unidentified objects could be evidence of advanced technology operated by foreign adversaries.
In recent weeks, U.S. officials have scrutinized China’s apparent test of a hypersonic missile capable of orbiting Earth and delivering weapons — potentially nuclear warheads — to targets in a manner difficult to track. Russia, meanwhile, recently completed an antisatellite missile test, creating a concerning amount of space debris.
The government report from June left open the possibility that there are “other” explanations for the observed unidentified phenomena, though its authors were careful to note they found no evidence of alien life.
A task force that had led the Pentagon’s efforts to understand UAP will be replaced by the new airborne object identification group, which will function under the authority of the undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security, the Pentagon’s statement said. The group’s mandate will include not only collecting intelligence and counterintelligence data but offering solutions for any threats that such objects may pose. Its director — who has not yet been named — will recommend what personnel and other resources are needed.
A separate oversight counsel, made up of officials from the Defense Department and intelligence community, will scrutinize the group’s work.
16. Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets train with Greek special operators as bilateral military ties deepen
Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets train with Greek special operators as bilateral military ties deepen
A Greek UH-1H Huey provides security during a training drill Nov. 24, 2021, with Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets in Athens. The U.S. recently donated Mark V special operations boats to Greek forces. (Molly Collins/U.S. Army)
STUTTGART, Germany — Navy SEALs and Green Berets operated alongside their Greek counterparts this week in Athens, where watercraft recently donated by the U.S. to an elite Greek unit were on display.
“I have been so impressed to see not only the growth in the U.S. – Greece Special Forces partnership but also the way the Hellenic Special Forces are working across a wide region,” Geoffrey Pyatt, U.S. ambassador to Greece, said in a statement Wednesday after a joint training event in the Greek capital.
For the U.S., finding ways to step up military cooperation with Greece has been a priority over the past couple of years as units increase rotations to the region.
The U.S. recently donated four Mark V special operations craft to Greece. The high-speed patrol vessels, once used by SEALs but now withdrawn from service, originally cost a total of about $21 million, Pyatt said. They were given to Greece under the U.S.’s excess defense articles program.
U.S. and Greek special operations forces maneuver during drills near Athens, Nov. 24, 2021. Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets were among the troops taking part in the exercises, which utilized U.S. vessels recently donated to Greek special warfare units. (Molly Collins/U.S. Army)
On Wednesday, U.S. Special Operations Command Europe troops patrolled off the coast of Athens to showcase the capabilities of the donated boats.
The drills were aimed at demonstrating how conventional and special operations units can coordinate for rapid response missions across the Mediterranean region, according to SOCEUR. A Greek UH-1H Huey also joined in the drills.
In October, the United States updated its defense agreement with Greece that allowed for greater access to Greek military bases in the eastern Mediterranean, where Russia has expanded naval operations and maintains air and naval bases in nearby Syria.
The U.S. Navy has maintained a decadeslong presence at Souda Bay in Crete, but the Army and Air Force have begun to play larger roles in the country, with rotational forces moving through military sites in Alexandroupoli, Larissa and Stefanovikio.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, after signing the new defense cooperation deal with Greece last month, said the plan would enable U.S. forces to train from an expanded array of bases indefinitely.
John Vandiver
John covers U.S. military activities across Europe and Africa. Based in Stuttgart, Germany, he previously worked for newspapers in New Jersey, North Carolina and Maryland. He is a graduate of the University of Delaware.Stars and Stripes · by John Vandiver · November 26, 2021
17. How Bali Bombings Group Infiltrated Indonesian Institutions to Resurrect Itself
Violent extremist organizations (VEO) or violent nonstate actors(VNSA) never die. They just reinvent themselves.
Conclusion:
Additionally, it is important for Indonesia to not focus on arrests alone, but also develop effective grassroots counter-radicalization programs. As JI’s current focus is not on using physical violence but on winning a narrative war that delegitimizes the government’s ideology, such counter-radicalization programs are a must.
To end the threat from JI Indonesia needs to address this ideological battle.
“You can kill a man but you can't kill a idea.”
- Sophocles
"Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas."
- Joseph Stalin
How Bali Bombings Group Infiltrated Indonesian Institutions to Resurrect Itself
Indonesia’s arrest of more than 300 suspected terrorists this year has uncovered just how successfully Jemaah Islamiyah, the group that carried out the 2002 Bali bombings, has rebuilt itself over the last 13 years.
Jemaah Islamiyah, or JI, which was banned in 2008, leaned heavily on infiltrating Islamic socio-religious organizations to scout for recruits, gather funds, and even become politically influential via quasi-state religious organizations.
This tactic has complicated counterterrorism operations as crackdowns against members of religious groups are increasingly viewed as targeting Muslims. Stymieing JI’s future would require the government to complement mass arrests with inclusive, grassroots counter-radicalization programs and increased transparency of counterterrorism operations.
Here is a look at recent developments related to JI and how they impact security operations in Indonesia.
What is Jemaah Islamiyah?
Jemaah Islamiyah is an organization aligned with the al-Qaeda militant group that achieved notoriety with the 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people.
Six years after the bombings, Indonesia banned JI and labeled it an illegal terrorist organization for wanting to turn the country into one ruled by Islamic laws. Soon after, joint police and military operations arrested and killed many JI members.
Today, however, JI poses a significant threat.
Over the past decade, the organization has rebuilt its ranks, and in 2019, JI was Indonesia’s largest terrorist organization with around 6,000 members, according to police officials.
JI’s transnational links are currently weak, although it still has transnational ambitions.
Huge rise in terror suspect arrests
Indonesia’s counterterrorism operations were significantly more aggressive in 2021, as the large number of “preemptive arrests” of terrorist suspects show.
Between January and mid-November, Indonesian security forces said they arrested 339 people and killed 18 terrorist suspects. This marks a 56 percent increase from 2020 and is the second-highest number of annual terrorist arrests in Indonesia in the last five years.
More important, most of the arrests this year have targeted suspected members of JI. Of the arrested terrorist suspects whose organizational affiliations were uncovered, nearly 45 percent were JI members.
By comparison, only about 38 percent belonged to Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), an Indonesian militant network affiliated with the so-called Islamic State (IS) group. This shows a significant shift in security forces’ operations compared with 2020, when only 27 percent of all arrests were of JI suspects.
A majority of these arrests targeted JI suspects who played vital day-to-day operational and strategic roles in the organization. Some sent arms to pro-IS Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT) militants and others worked for so-called charitable organizations and the like.
JI and the ‘battle of concepts’
It was these arrests that uncovered JI’s tactic of infiltrating popular social and religious organizations. Security officials also learned that JI members had been participating in religious charity organizations such as One Care, Syam Organizer, and LAZ ABA since 2018.
In December 2020, these charities were found to have placed around 20,000 charity boxes in 12 provinces. More recently, police reports said that some of these charity organizations managed to collect a total of 70 million rupiah (U.S. $4,900) a month. Some of those funds were sent to JI for its operations, police said.
Security officials also learned this year that JI’s reach has gone beyond charities to include politico-religious organizations. Two of three JI suspects police arrested last week had top positions in such groups.
JI’s presence in these organizations is motivated by three operational needs.
Non-violence is one motivation for this group that carried out the region’s worst terror attack with the Bali bombings. JI formalized non-violence in 2008 as it prioritized “dakwah,” which means preaching, and justified the use of “jihad through words.”
The second JI imperative, the use of socio-political organizations, is motivated by financial concerns. For instance, charity organizations are an extremely lucrative source of funds. Social organizations are also a low-risk means to transport and recruit members.
The overarching motivation is JI’s wish to win the “battle of concepts” before winning the battle for the Caliphate. This victory of concepts, termed “tamkin risalah,” requires JI to systematically undermine and delegitimize the government and its ideology via an “information war.”
By placing its members in key positions of popular organizations and political parties, JI can more easily and more authoritatively spread its divisive and delegitimizing narrative.
Winning the ideological battle
JI’s participation in these popular socio-religious organizations has complicated Indonesia’s counterterrorism operations.
Due to these organizations’ popularity, many arrests made by the anti-terror police unit Densus 88 are characterized as being driven by Islamophobia – specifically targeting Muslims, and “ulama” or religious scholars.
It is, therefore, important for security forces to increase the transparency and accountability of their anti-terror operations. This means issuing statements about what happened during an arrest, ensuring the death of a suspect during an arrest is formally investigated.
Additionally, it is important for Indonesia to not focus on arrests alone, but also develop effective grassroots counter-radicalization programs. As JI’s current focus is not on using physical violence but on winning a narrative war that delegitimizes the government’s ideology, such counter-radicalization programs are a must.
To end the threat from JI Indonesia needs to address this ideological battle.
Alif Satria is a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Indonesia. His research focuses on terrorism and political violence in Southeast Asia.
18. The End of Trust
A fascinating article and very interesting history.
Conclusion:
A trust spiral, once begun, is hard to reverse. One study found that, even 20 years after reunification, fully half of the income disparity between East and West Germany could be traced to the legacy of Stasi informers. Counties that had a higher density of informers who’d ratted out their closest friends, colleagues, and neighbors fared worse. The legacy of broken trust has proved extraordinarily difficult to shake.
It’s not hard to find advice on how to build a culture of trust: use humor, share your vulnerabilities, promote transparency. But striking the right tone in today’s pitched political climate, often over Zoom, possibly under surveillance, is no easy feat.
Even so, it may be instructive for companies trying to navigate this moment to remember why they were formed in the first place. By the late 19th century, it was evident that some jobs were too crucial to leave to a loose association of tradespeople. If the mill had to be running full steam at all hours, you needed to know who could handle the assembly line, who could fix a faulty gasket, and above all who would reliably show up day after day. Then you needed those people legally incorporated into one body and bound by the norms, attitudes, and expectations baked into the culture of that body.
Not so incidentally, those first corporations went by a particular moniker. They were called “trusts.” And without that component underpinning all the industrial might and entrepreneurial ingenuity, you have to wonder if they could ever have been built at all.
The End of Trust
Suspicion is undermining the American economy.
Albert Tercero
Manufacturer inventories. Durable-goods orders. Nonfarm payrolls. Inflation-adjusted GDP. These are the dreary reportables that tell us how our economy is doing. And many of them look a whole lot better now than they did at their early-pandemic depths. But what if there’s another factor we’re missing? What if the data points are obscuring a deepening recession in a commodity that underpins them all?
Trust. Without it, Adam Smith’s invisible hand stays in its pocket; Keynes’s “animal spirits” are muted. “Virtually every commercial transaction has within itself an element of trust,” the Nobel Prize–winning economist Kenneth Arrow wrote in 1972.
But trust is less quantifiable than other forms of capital. Its decline is vaguely felt before it’s plainly seen. As companies have gone virtual during the coronavirus pandemic, supervisors wonder whether their remote workers are in fact working. New colleagues arrive and leave without ever having met. Direct reports ask if they could have that casual understanding put down in writing. No one knows whether the boss’s cryptic closing remark was ironic or hostile.
Sadly, those suspicions may have some basis in fact. The longer employees were apart from one another during the pandemic, a recent study of more than 5,400 Finnish workers found, the more their faith in colleagues fell. Ward van Zoonen of Erasmus University, in the Netherlands, began measuring trust among those office workers early in 2020. He asked them: How much did they trust their peers? How much did they trust their supervisors? And how much did they believe that those people trusted them? What he found was unsettling. In March 2020, trust levels were fairly high. By May, they had slipped. By October—about seven months into the pandemic—the employees’ degree of confidence in one another was down substantially.
Each of these data points could, of course, have multiple causes. But together they point in a worrisome direction: We may be in the midst of a trust recession.
Trust is to capitalism what alcohol is to wedding receptions: a social lubricant. In low-trust societies (Russia, southern Italy), economic growth is constrained. People who don’t trust other people think twice before investing in, collaborating with, or hiring someone who isn’t a family member (or a member of their criminal gang). The concept may sound squishy, but the effect isn’t. The economists Paul Zak and Stephen Knack found, in a study published in 1998, that a 15 percent bump in a nation’s belief that “most people can be trusted” adds a full percentage point to economic growth each year. That means that if, for the past 20 years, Americans had trusted one another like Ukrainians did, our annual GDP per capita would be $11,000 lower; if we had trusted like New Zealanders did, it’d be $16,000 higher. “If trust is sufficiently low,” they wrote, “economic growth is unachievable.”
If you can rely on people to do what they say they’re going to do—without costly coercive mechanisms to make them dependable—a lot of things become possible, argued Francis Fukuyama in his 1995 book, Trust. In the late 19th century, it was “highly sociable Americans” who developed the first large-scale corporations, effectively pooling the ideas, efforts, and interests of strangers. In the late 20th, some of the earliest iterations of the internet emerged from the same talent for association. Throughout nearly all of America’s history, its economy has benefited from a high degree of trust.
But leaks in the trust reservoir have been evident since the ’70s. Trust in government dropped sharply from its peak in 1964, according to the Pew Research Center, and, with a few exceptions, has been sputtering ever since. This trend coincides with broader cultural shifts like declining church membership, the rise of social media, and a contentious political atmosphere.
Data on trust between individual Americans are harder to come by; surveys have asked questions about so-called interpersonal trust less consistently, according to Pew. But, by one estimate, the percentage of Americans who believed “most people could be trusted” hovered around 45 percent as late as the mid-’80s; it is now 30 percent. According to Pew, half of Americans believe trust is down because Americans are “not as reliable as they used to be.”
Those studies of suspicious Zoom workers suggest the Trust Recession is getting worse. By October 2021, just 13 percent of Americans were still working from home because of COVID-19, down from 35 percent in May 2020, the first month the data were collected. But the physical separation of colleagues has clearly taken a toll, and the effects of a long bout of remote work may linger.
Why? One reason is: We’re primates. To hear the anthropologists tell it, we once built reciprocity by picking nits from one another’s fur—a function replaced in less hirsute times by the exchange of gossip. And what better gossip mart is there than the office? Separate people, and the gossip—as well as more productive forms of teamwork—dries up. In the 1970s, an MIT professor found that we are four times as likely to communicate regularly with someone sitting six feet away from us as with someone 60 feet away. Maybe all that face time inside skyscrapers wasn’t useless after all.
Trust is about two things, according to a recent story in the Harvard Business Review: competence (is this person going to deliver quality work?) and character (is this a person of integrity?). “To trust colleagues in both of these ways, people need clear and easily discernible signals about them,” wrote the organizational experts Heidi Gardner and Mark Mortensen. They argue that the shift to remote work made gathering this information harder. Unconsciously, they conclude, we “interpret a lack of physical contact as a signal of untrustworthiness.”
This leaves us prone to what social scientists call “fundamental attribution error”—the creeping suspicion that Blake hasn’t called us back because he doesn’t care about the project. Or because he cares about it so much that he’s about to take the whole thing to a competitor. In the absence of fact—that Blake had minor dental surgery—elaborate narratives assemble.
Add to the disruption and isolation of the pandemic a political climate that urges us to meditate on the distance—ethnic, generational, ideological, socioeconomic—separating us from others, and it’s not hard to see why many Americans feel disconnected.
What has suffered most are “weak ties”—relationships with acquaintances who fall somewhere between stranger and friend, which sociologists find are particularly valuable for the dissemination of knowledge. A closed inner circle tends to recycle knowledge it already has. New information is more likely to come from the serendipitous encounter with Alan, the guy with the fern in his office who reports to Phoebe and who remembers the last time someone suggested splitting the marketing division into three teams, and how that went.
Some evidence suggests that having more weak ties can shorten bouts of unemployment. In a famous 1973 survey, the Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter discovered that, among 54 people who had recently found a new job through someone they knew, 28 percent had heard about the new position from a weak tie, versus 17 percent from a strong one. When the weak ties fall away, our “radius of trust”—to borrow Fukuyama’s term—shrinks.
That’s a problem for individual employees, as much as they may appreciate the flexibility of working anywhere, anytime. And it’s a problem for business leaders, who are trying to weigh the preferences of those employees against the enduring existence of the place that employs them. They don’t want to end up like IBM. It saved $2 billion making much of its workforce remote as early as the 1980s, only to reverse course in 2017, when it recognized that remote work was depressing collaboration. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently wondered whether companies were “burning” some of the face-to-face “social capital we built up in this phase where we are all working remote. What’s the measure for that?”
A trust spiral, once begun, is hard to reverse. One study found that, even 20 years after reunification, fully half of the income disparity between East and West Germany could be traced to the legacy of Stasi informers. Counties that had a higher density of informers who’d ratted out their closest friends, colleagues, and neighbors fared worse. The legacy of broken trust has proved extraordinarily difficult to shake.
It’s not hard to find advice on how to build a culture of trust: use humor, share your vulnerabilities, promote transparency. But striking the right tone in today’s pitched political climate, often over Zoom, possibly under surveillance, is no easy feat.
Even so, it may be instructive for companies trying to navigate this moment to remember why they were formed in the first place. By the late 19th century, it was evident that some jobs were too crucial to leave to a loose association of tradespeople. If the mill had to be running full steam at all hours, you needed to know who could handle the assembly line, who could fix a faulty gasket, and above all who would reliably show up day after day. Then you needed those people legally incorporated into one body and bound by the norms, attitudes, and expectations baked into the culture of that body.
Not so incidentally, those first corporations went by a particular moniker. They were called “trusts.” And without that component underpinning all the industrial might and entrepreneurial ingenuity, you have to wonder if they could ever have been built at all.
This article appears in the December 2021 print edition with the headline “The End of Trust.”
V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
