Quotes of the Day:
"Build for your team a feeling of oneness, of dependence on one another and of strength
to be derived by unity." - Vince Lombardi
"Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that
you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them.
Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be
as good as, perhaps, you think it is."
- T.E. Lawrence, 27 Articles (1917)
“It is not to political leaders our people must look, but to themselves. Leaders are but individuals, and individuals are imperfect, liable to error and weakness. The strength of the nation will be the strength of the spirit of the whole people.”
- Michael Collins
1. The curious case of a map and a disappearing Taiwan minister at U.S. democracy summit
2. Here's why US stopped Taiwan Min's virtual Summit for Democracy address abruptly
3. Taiwan says confident Chinese invasion would be very hard
4. Anti-ISIS coalition shifts focus to Africa as Iraq combat mission ceases
5. New National Defense Strategy Must Focus on Competing 'Where It Makes Sense,' Pentagon Official Says
6. Planned military justice reforms are robust, necessary, congressional leaders insist amid criticism
7. Fallen SEAL Team 8 Commander honored during Army Navy game
8. China's state-backed cyberattacks are part of a larger plan
9. Congress must do more to stop China’s military-industrial spying on US campuses
10. US think tank’s smears against China-US academic exchanges reveal its pathological mentality
11. Erdogan hopes to salvage relations with the Gulf to save Turkey’s economy
12. How to Ensure China Doesn't Try to Invade Taiwan
13. Stop Undermining Partners with ‘Gifts’
14. Hong Kong Court Sentences Jimmy Lai to Prison Over Tiananmen Vigil
15. Haiti’s Leader Kept a List of Drug Traffickers. His Assassins Came for It.
16. At least 15 lawmakers who shape US defense policy have investments in military contractors
17. In Competing Versions of Democracy, Biden’s Summit Pales against China’s Multi-billion Dollar Bait
18. U.S., Australia and Japan to Fund Undersea Cable in the Pacific
19. Building on AUKUS to forge a Pax Pacifica
1. The curious case of a map and a disappearing Taiwan minister at U.S. democracy summit
The CCP's propaganda and agitation department's "statement"could be: "My job is done here."
The curious case of a map and a disappearing Taiwan minister at U.S. democracy summit
Chinese and Taiwanese flags are displayed alongside a military airplane in this illustration taken April 9, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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WASHINGTON, Dec 12 (Reuters) - A video feed of a Taiwanese minister was cut during U.S. President Joe Biden's Summit for Democracy last week after a map in her slide presentation showed Taiwan in a different color to China, which claims the island as its own.
Sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that Friday's slide show by Taiwanese Digital Minister Audrey Tang caused consternation among U.S. officials after the map appeared in her video feed for about a minute.
The sources, who did not want to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the video feed showing Tang was cut during a panel discussion and replaced with audio only - at the behest of the White House.
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The White House was concerned that differentiating Taiwan and China on a map in a U.S.-hosted conference - to which Taiwan had been invited in a show of support at a time when it is under intense pressure from Beijing - could be seen as being at odds with Washington's "one-China" policy, which avoids taking a position as to whether Taiwan is part of China, the sources said.
The State Department said "confusion" over screen-sharing resulted in Tang's video feed being dropped, calling it "an honest mistake."
"We valued Minister Tang's participation, which showcased Taiwan's world-class expertise on issues of transparent governance, human rights, and countering disinformation," a spokesperson said.
Tang's presentation included a color-coded map from South African NGO CIVICUS, ranking the world by openness on civil rights.
Most of Asia was shown, with Taiwan colored green, making it the only regional entity portrayed as "open," while all the others, including several U.S. allies and partners, were labeled as being "closed," "repressed," "obstructed" or "narrowed."
China, Laos, Vietnam and North Korea were colored red and labeled "closed."
When the moderator returned to Tang a few minutes later, there was no video of her, just audio, and a screenshot captioned: "Minister Audrey Tang Taiwan." An onscreen disclaimer later declared: "Any opinions expressed by individuals on this panel are those of the individual, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States government."
One source told Reuters the map generated an instant email flurry among U.S. officials and the White House National Security Council (NSC) angrily contacted the State Department, concerned it appeared to show Taiwan as a distinct country.
Washington complained to Taiwan's government, which in turn was angry that Tang's video had been cut.
The source called the U.S. move an over-reaction as the map was not inherently about national boundaries, but the NSC was also angry as the slide had not appeared in "dry-run" versions of the presentation before the summit, raising questions as to whether there was intentional messaging by Tang and Taiwan.
"They choked," the source said of the White House reaction.
A second source directly involved in the summit said the video booth operator acted on White House instructions. "It was clearly policy concerns," the source said, adding: "This was completely an internal overreaction."
The sources saw the move during a panel on "countering digital authoritarianism" as at odds with the summit's mission of bolstering democracy in the face of challenges from China and others. They also said it could signal that the administration's support for Taiwan was not as "rock solid" as it has repeatedly stated.
An NSC spokesman said Reuters' account of the incident was "inaccurate".
"At no time did the White House direct that Minister Tang's video feed be cut," the spokesman said in an email, also blaming it on confusion over screen-sharing and adding that the full video could be viewed on the summit web page.
Asked whether she believed the U.S. government cut the video due to the slide, Tang told Reuters in an email: "No, I do not believe that this has anything to do with the CIVICUS map in my slides, or U.S. allies in Asia for that matter."
Taiwan's foreign ministry blamed "technical problems."
It later said Tang's presentation had been provided in advance and not shown at the last minute.
"Taiwan and the United States have fully communicated on this technical issue, and the two sides have a solid mutual trust and a solid and friendly relationship," it said.
The issue comes at a highly sensitive time for U.S.-Taiwan relations, when some Biden administration critics and foreign policy experts are calling for more overt shows of support for the island, including an end to a long-held policy of "strategic ambiguity" as to whether the United States would defend it militarily.
Taiwan experts said they did not see the color-coding of the map as a violation of unofficial U.S. guidelines, which bar use of overt symbols of sovereignty, such as Taiwan's flag.
"It was clearly not to distinguish sovereignty, but the degree of democratic expression," said Douglas Paal, a former unofficial U.S. ambassador to Taiwan.
Under U.S. government guidelines as of 2020, U.S. government maps showing sovereignty by color require Taiwan to be shown with the same color as China, although exceptions can be made "when context requires that Taiwan be specifically singled out."
Bonnie Glaser of the German Marshall Fund of the United States said the guidelines would not apply to a non-U.S. government map, "but the U.S. would likely want to avoid appearing to endorse that Taiwan is not part of China."
"It seems to me that a decision was made at the outset that Taiwan could/should be included in the Summit for Democracy, but only in ways consistent with U.S. policy."
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Additional reporting by Simon Lewis in Washington and Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Diane Craft
2. Here's why US stopped Taiwan Min's virtual Summit for Democracy address abruptly
Own goal?
Here's why US stopped Taiwan Min's virtual Summit for Democracy address abruptly
Last Updated: 13th December, 2021 15:16 IST
Here's Why US Stopped Taiwan Min's Virtual Summit For Democracy Address Abruptly
A video feed of Taiwan’s minister Audrey Tang was stopped after a map in her slide show presentation displayed Taiwan in a different colour than China
Written By
Image: Twitter/ @audreyt/ AP
During the recently concluded US President Joe Biden's Summit for Democracy from last week, a video feed of Taiwan’s minister Audrey Tang was stopped after a map in her slideshow presentation displayed Taiwan in a different colour than China, which indicated Taiwan as its own. In the virtual summit, Tang had exhibited a map from the South African NGO CIVICUS, which has presented the world in colour codes like green or red, based on civil rights records of openness. Other Asian nations were categorised as "closed," "repressed," "obstructed," or "narrowed," but Taiwan was labelled as "green" or "open," The Hill reported.
As per the inside sources, the colour-coded map that showed Taiwan in a different hue than China caused serious concern among White House officials. It is worth noting that China, Laos, Vietnam, as well as North Korea were all marked "closed" and were coloured red. The video feed of Tang was purportedly cut, keeping only the audio, due to the sensitivities around the "one China policy," Taiwan News cited a Reuters report. According to media reports, White House officials were concerned that this map might jeopardise Washington's "one-China" policy.
The interruption in the video was 'an honest mistake': US
The United States has a policy of "strategic ambiguity" when it comes to Taiwanese sovereignty, which means it does not take a stand on whether Taiwan is a part of China or not. It does, however, acknowledge the "one-China" policy, which states that the People's Republic of China is China's sole government, The Hill reported. Furthermore, after the video ended, a disclaimer came on the screen which stated, “Any opinions expressed by individuals on this panel are those of the individual, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States government,” as per i24 News.
The US State Department, on the other hand, claimed that the film was removed due to "an honest mistake," and that the nation has respected Minister Tang's involvement, which demonstrated Taiwan's world-class experience on problems of open government, human rights, and combatting disinformation. Meanwhile, Audrey Tang also stated that she did not believe that the cut was done intentionally due to her presentation, while the Taiwanese foreign ministry claimed the interruption as technical difficulty, i24 News reported.
In addition to this, on Friday, while speaking spoke at the virtual Democracy Summit, President Biden emphasised the importance of making democracies more transparent, responsible, and robust to the buffering forces of despotism. Biden appreciated everyone in his concluding comments for attending the two-day summit and for reiterating their commitment to the shared ideals that are the foundation of national and international strength. He reaffirmed the democratic norms that underpin the international system and have served as “foundational elements of global growth and prosperity,” as per media reports.
(Image: Twitter/ @audreyt/ AP)
First Published: 13th December, 2021 15:16 IST
3. Taiwan says confident Chinese invasion would be very hard
Hard. Very hard. And if they create the right resistance conditions, Taiwan could become a black ole for PLA forces.
Taiwan says confident Chinese invasion would be very hard
Chinese and Taiwanese national flags are displayed alongside military airplanes in this illustration taken April 9, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
TAIPEI, Dec 13 (Reuters) - A full Chinese invasion of Taiwan with troops landed and ports and airports seized would be very difficult to achieve due to problems China would have in landing and supplying troops, Taiwan's Defence Ministry said in its latest threat assessment.
Tensions between Taipei and Beijing, which claims the democratically-ruled island as its own territory, have risen in the past two years as China steps up military activities near Taiwan to pressure it to accept Chinese rule.
In a report to lawmakers, Taiwan's Defence Ministry said China's transport capacity was at present limited, it would not be able to land all its forces in one go, and would have to rely on "non-standard" roll-on, roll-off ships that would need to use port facilities and transport aircraft that would need airports.
"However, the nation's military strongly defends ports and airports, and they will not be easy to occupy in a short time. Landing operations will face extremely high risks," the ministry said in its report, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters.
China's logistics face challenges too, as any landing forces would need to be resupplied with weapons, food and medicines across the Taiwan Strait that separates the two, it added.
"The nation's military has the advantage of the Taiwan Strait being a natural moat and can use joint intercept operations, cutting off the Communist military's supplies, severely reducing the combat effectiveness and endurance of the landing forces."
China would also need to keep some of its forces in reserve to prevent any foreign forces joining in to help Taiwan and to keep close watch on other fractious areas of China's border, like with India and in the South China Sea, the ministry said.
"U.S. and Japanese military bases are close to Taiwan, and any Chinese Communist attack would necessarily be closely monitored, plus it would need to reserve forces to prevent foreign military intervention," it added.
"It is difficult to concentrate all its efforts on fighting with Taiwan."
Experts say though that China has other means at its disposal to bring Taiwan to its knees short of a full out invasion, including a blockade or targeted missile attacks.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen is overseeing a military modernisation programme to make the island harder to attack, making the military more mobile and with precision weapons like longer-range missiles to take out an attacking force.
The government is planning an extra T$240 billion ($8.66 billion) over the next five years in military spending to go mostly toward naval weapons, including missiles and warships.
Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Michael Perry
4. Anti-ISIS coalition shifts focus to Africa as Iraq combat mission ceases
Anti-ISIS coalition shifts focus to Africa as Iraq combat mission ceases
Moroccan armed forces train on fast rope insertion in Tifnit, Morocco, on June 14, 2021. Morocco is one of four countries co-chairing the Africa Focus Group within the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. ( Rhianna Ballenger/U.S. Army)
The U.S. and its allies are stepping up efforts to counter the Islamic State group in Africa as U.S. forces wind down their combat role against ISIS in Iraq.
Last week in Brussels, the U.S. and Italy announced the formation of the Africa Focus Group within the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, the State Department said. Morocco and Niger will co-chair with the U.S. and Italy, said an agency statement issued Dec. 3.
U.S. and allied officials have warned of a proliferating terrorist threat in Africa, prompting Secretary of State Antony Blinken to say this summer that Washington supports greater coalition efforts there.
U.S. Cpl. Daniel Annis tests a Nigerien soldier’s skills in Tondibiah, Niger, on May 25, 2021. The U.S., Italy, Morocco and Niger will co-chair the Africa Focus Group within the global coalition battling ISIS. (Brandon Julson/U.S. Army)
More than 2,100 people were killed in ISIS-initiated attacks in Africa between October 2020 and October 2021, Blinken said in a video Dec. 2 following the first meeting of the Africa Focus Group.
The Global @Coalition and the U.S. are working to ensure the enduring defeat of ISIS. The Coalition must continue to counter the ISIS threat around the world – including Africa. Launching the Africa Focus Group will help prevent and defeat all terrorist groups. pic.twitter.com/JPBOhmW8kn
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) December 2, 2021
Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said in June that he had urged the creation of an Africa-focused working group after witnessing an “alarming phenomenon” of proliferating terrorist cells in east Africa and the Sahel region, the swath below the Sahara spanning the north and west of the continent.
The anti-ISIS coalition was created a little over seven years ago, as the terrorist group swept across large swaths of Iraq and Syria.
It ousted the terrorist group from the last of its territorial holdings in early 2019, but the U.S. and its partners say the militants remain a threat in both countries.
While supporting increased focus on Africa, the U.S. will still be keep a close eye on Syria and Iraq, Blinken said in June.
This month, the coalition welcomed the African country of Burkina Faso as its 84th member.
The Africa Focus Group is expected to help the coalition build up civilian institutions and synchronize those efforts with existing initiatives, the State Department said.
News of the group’s creation came just days before the announcement Thursday of the formal end of the Pentagon’s combat mission in Iraq.
Thursday also marked the fourth anniversary of Baghdad’s declaration that ISIS had been defeated in Iraq.
The number of U.S. troops deployed there, some 2,500, is not currently expected to change. Those who remain will serve in advisory roles to help the Iraqi military transition to a peacetime force, officials have said.
Chad Garland
Chad is a Marine Corps veteran who covers the U.S. military in the Middle East, Afghanistan and sometimes elsewhere for Stars and Stripes. An Illinois native who’s reported for news outlets in Washington, D.C., Arizona, Oregon and California, he’s an alumnus of the Defense Language Institute, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Arizona State University.
5. New National Defense Strategy Must Focus on Competing 'Where It Makes Sense,' Pentagon Official Says
New National Defense Strategy Must Focus on Competing 'Where It Makes Sense,' Pentagon Official Says - USNI News
A key point in the new National Defense Strategy will be the recognition that “we have to compete only where it makes sense,” according to a senior Pentagon official.
Speaking Thursday, Mara Karlin, performing the duties of the deputy under secretary for policy, said, “we’ve tried to shift the conversation to strategic competition,” and not just competition for its own sake because someone else like the Chinese are doing it.
“We need to enhance our thinking on deterrence” beyond denial or imposing costs on an adversary, Karlin added. “Our thinking on deterrence has declined a bit” since the 1990s after the Soviet Union disintegrated.
The question now for “integrated deterrence,” she said, is “how do you integrate across domains,” across the whole of the United States government and “across the web of allies and partners.” Karlin said that would be the approach in the other reviews the Pentagon is conducting, like nuclear and missile defense.
“I think we’ve done a really good job in laying the groundwork” by being very inclusive of viewpoints inside and outside the Pentagon and developing the strategy through an iterative process, Karlin later added of developing the new NDS.
“We’re really stress-testing ideas … like integrated deterrence [so that] everybody knows what we’re talking about,” she said.
In any new roles and missions reviews, “there needed to be a tight understanding of what missions are” and not simply adding more to an existing list, Karlin said.
Looking back at the 2018 NDS, Karlin said it “was doing a nice job in that view” of identifying China as a pacing competitor. It also identified Russia as a great power competitor.
Karlin reminded viewers of Russia’s 2014 escalation of tensions with Ukraine that led to the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea and overt backing of separatists trying to wrest parts of Kyiv’s easternmost provinces out of its control. She added that the Kremlin moving almost 100,000 troops and equipment close to the Ukrainian border in recent weeks is troubling.
Now, in addition to the over threat to Ukraine, Moscow is operating with expertise and frequency in “gray zone areas” to stir conflict in Europe, she said.
When asked whether the Kremlin and Beijing were planning to operate simultaneously to create crises in different parts of the globe, she said, “it can be a little bit too early to project something” that may not happen. “We need to be sober and clear-eyed [with] what we’re asking the force to do” in developing strategy and in follow-up planning.
Karlin added that threats from North Korea, Iran and terrorist groups are “metastasizing and shifting and not going away.”
Describing the recently completed Global Posture Review as baselining to determine what forces were where and how they were equipped, she said it provided the “disciplining framework” for future requirements. Karlin announced the completion of the review late last month at the Pentagon.
The posture review also created room “for thinking about host nation views” and their requirements for deterrence. “We want to collaborate in meaningful ways” with allies and take advantage of their strengths, like in cyber.
Karlin welcomed Congress’ insistence on having the strategy assessed annually.
The biggest obstacle to implementation of a new National Defense Strategy is “the things we will get wrong” and not expect, like COVID-19. “As you’re going, there’s going to be twists and turns” that need reassessment, she said.
After reviewing the changed circumstances, “are we still on that trajectory” that was the strategy’s “lodestar,” Karlin asked rhetorically.
Related
6. Planned military justice reforms are robust, necessary, congressional leaders insist amid criticism
Planned military justice reforms are robust, necessary, congressional leaders insist amid criticism
“[This bill] will deliver justice for survivors by bringing accountability, independence, and transparency to the prosecution of sexual assault and other sex crimes in the military,” said Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., in a lengthy statement on Friday “Anyone who pretends otherwise is doing survivors a great disservice.”
As part of a compromise version of the annual defense authorization bill passed by the House earlier this week, Defense Department would be required create an independent prosecutorial office within each service to handle some serious crimes, including rape, sexual assault, murder, manslaughter and kidnapping.
RELATED
Lawmakers hope to rush the slimmed down authorization bill through both chambers of Congress this week.
The move is designed to ensure those crimes are handled by specially trained officials, rather than military commanders unfamiliar with the legal specifics.
However, the provisions fall short of a plan drafted by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., to transfer all serious crimes away from the traditional chain of command.
The plan received significant support among Democrats, Republicans and outside military advocates, but was dropped during negotiations on the compromise bill (which Smith was a part of) because of concerns voiced by the Defense Department about the scope of the changes.
Earlier in the week, in a Capitol Hill press conference, Gillibrand called the decision to go with the less sweeping language an insult to sexual assault victims. She said she will vote against the entire defense bill when it comes up for a chamber vote next week.
“This bill does not reform the military justice system in a way that will truly help survivors get justice,” she said. “It does not remove serious crimes out of the chain of command, which is the only way to create the professional, unbiased system that we’ve been advocating for.”
She and several other senators — Democrats and Republicans — criticized Smith and other armed services committees leaders for making the move behind closed doors.
But in his counter-attack, Smith said the bill still contains significant reforms, and lamented that their importance is being “misrepresented and maligned” by Gillibrand and her supporters.
“I have spoken with Senator Gillibrand many times this year as we crafted this legislation, and I understand that she prefers a different approach,” he said. “But her recent claims in the press that the language in the NDAA does nothing to take the commander’s authority away … simply mischaracterizes what are, in fact, bold reforms that deliver independence and justice for survivors of sexual assault in the military.”
Earlier this week, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed, D-R.I. — who has stood in opposition to Gillibrand’s proposal for several years — offered a similar defense of the negotiation work.
“These military justice reforms are the most significant changes to the [Uniform Code of Military Justice] in decades,” he told reporters. “They were a very thorough and comprehensive result of discussions with the House, and we managed to make some significant improvements.”
The authorization bill, as currently written, would also criminalize sexual harassment under the UCMJ, bolster support for military special victim counsel offices and require new studies by Defense Department leaders into sexual assault and sexual harassment crimes.
Gillibrand’s opposition is unlikely to derail the measure, which has passed out of Congress for 60 consecutive years, typically with bipartisan support.
But the decision to drop several difficult provisions from the measure during closed-door work in recent weeks triggered complaints from a number of lawmakers, particularly Democrats who believed that many of the changes cater to the wishes of Republican lawmakers.
RELATED
The House passed a new compromise defense policy bill and sent it to the Senate Tuesday, endorsing a $25 billion increase over President Joe Biden’s defense budget request for 2022
Similar to Gillibrand’s prosecutorial language, a provision to require women to register for possible future military drafts was dropped from the compromise bill, despite support in both chambers for the change. Efforts to address extremism among troops and repeal a still-active war authorization for Iraq were also abandoned.
The bill also authorizes roughly $740 in defense spending for fiscal 2022, about $24 billion more than what the White House requested in its budget plan.
When the first draft of the authorization bill passed out of the House in September, 38 Democrats and 75 Republicans voted against it. Earlier this week, the bill passed with opposition from 51 Democrats and only 19 Republicans.
The Senate is expected to finalize the measure next week, just before beginning its holiday recess.
Reporter Joe Gould contributed to this story.
Leo covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He has covered Washington, D.C. since 2004, focusing on military personnel and veterans policies. His work has earned numerous honors, including a 2009 Polk award, a 2010 National Headliner Award, the IAVA Leadership in Journalism award and the VFW News Media award.
7. Fallen SEAL Team 8 Commander honored during Army Navy game
Thank you to the Navy for honoring him.
Fallen SEAL Team 8 Commander honored during Army Navy game
The U.S. Naval Academy football team honored the recently-fallen SEAL Team 8 commander at this year’s annual Army Navy game.
Cmdr. Brian Bourgeois, the commanding officer of SEAL Team 8, died Dec. 7 after suffering injuries during a fast-rope training evolution Dec. 4 in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The incident is still under investigation.
While the Navy team did its annual field run out with the American, Navy and Marine Corps flags, they also added a SEAL Team 8 flag in Bourgeois’ honor.
The U.S. Naval Academy honored fallen SEAL and former academy football player Cmdr. Brian Bourgeois Dec. 11 with the #13 jersey placed on the sideline. (Rachel Nostrant/ Military Times)
Two wide receivers, senior Michael Salisbury and sophomore Jayden Umbarger sported SEAL Team 8 patches on their uniforms, while a #13 home jersey also featuring patches was placed on the Navy sideline.
Umbarger, sporting the SEAL Team 8 patch, scored the first touchdown for team Navy.
Naval Academy wide receiver Jayden Umbarger sported the SEAL Team 8 patch on his jersey in honor of Cmdr. Brian Bourgeois. (Rachel Nostrant/ Military Times)
“An incident like this weighs heavily on us all,” Capt. Donald Wetherbee, commodore for Naval Special Warfare Group 2, said in a statement. “Brian was as tough as they come, an outstanding leader and a committed father, husband and friend. This is a great loss to everyone who knew him. He will be greatly missed.”
Rachel is a Marine Corps veteran, Penn State alumna and Master's candidate at New York University for Business and Economic Reporting.
8. China's state-backed cyberattacks are part of a larger plan
Of course they are. They are an essential element of Unrestricted Warfare.
China's state-backed cyberattacks are part of a larger plan - Marketplace
Xu is the first Chinese intelligence officer extradited to the U.S. to stand trial for espionage, according to the Department of Justice. (He was arrested in Belgium.) But U.S. prosecutors have been accusing Chinese spies of stealing trade secrets for years.
“And it is most certainly guided by the Chinese government,” said Michael Orlando, acting director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, a government agency that focuses on threats from foreign powers.
These include technologies upon which the industries and wealth generators of the future depend, like artificial intelligence, quantum information systems, biotech, semiconductors and autonomous systems.
“The Chinese government is using all instruments of national power, from espionage to legal acquisitions and joint ventures to acquire specific technologies, so they can be the world leaders in those technologies,” Orlando said, adding that China’s government will use whatever means necessary — legal and illegal.
That has been plain to see for Mark Widmar. He’s CEO of First Solar, the only large-scale U.S. solar cell manufacturer to survive competition from China’s — at one point — highly subsidized solar industry.
First Solar uses a specialized technology for its solar panels that Chinese companies do not have and are, he said, trying to acquire one way or another.
“We spend a lot of time around cybersecurity because we are constantly being attacked, and we know a lot of the efforts are being done with companies in China to get access to our data and our information,” Widmar said.
At the same time, Chinese companies are using more above-board methods, as well.
“I have been approached by Chinese associates requesting us to manufacture in China, and they have highlighted benefits they would be willing to provide around subsidies, not having to pay for buildings, highly subsidized capital and other benefits they would provide,” he said.
Despite the allure, Widmar’s refused. “Because we don’t want to expose our technology to potential risk of theft, so we’ve stayed away from manufacturing in China, and that’s one thing that’s helped us.”
China views national security and economic security as one and the same, said Anna Puglisi, director of biotechnology programs and senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.
“China really looks at development of science and technology as zero-sum,” she said. “That’s really the driver behind a lot of the activities that we see.”
The importance of this is understood at the highest levels, Puglisi said. In a National Development and Reform Commission report from 2017, “[Chinese President Xi Jinping] describes science and technology as a national weapon, that if China wants to be strong, it must have a powerful science and technology,” she said.
Xi has repeated similar language in a more recent speech, where he called science and technology “a sharp weapon for development” and said that “if science and technology are strong, the country will be strong.”
When it comes to sensitive technologies, the relationship between Chinese firms and their government is different than in economies like the United States, Korea, Japan or Europe. Chinese firms can ask specialized “science and technology diplomats” to help them connect with foreign companies that have the technology they need, Puglisi said. “And [those diplomats] help and try and broker those kinds of arrangements and collaborations or business deals.”
The arrangements between the U.S. and Chinese companies have, at times, opened the way for the transfer of that technology to Chinese businesses, both in legal and illegal ways.
“Nonmarket decision-making and state subsidies give unfair advantage to China’s companies and forces U.S. and other Western companies to have to make concessions and give up technology they do not have to do other places in the world,” Puglisi said.
In one example of alleged forced technology transfer on American soil, several former executives of aviation startup Icon Aircraft — including former Boeing CEO Philip Condit — argued in a lawsuit that Chinese majority shareholders lifted Icon’s intellectual property on design and manufacturing.
“Can you imagine if a major American company could say to the U.S. government, ‘Hey we’re entering into negotiations with a partner in X, Y, Z country, can the CIA help answer these questions about this company’s operations and trade secrets?’ Even as you say those words, it’s ridiculous, but it’s a very real thing that’s happening,” Kamphausen said.
He and intelligence officials say hacking — like the cyberattacks First Solar endures — have been a powerful tool used by China’s government to extract technology and economic advantage from foreign companies.
“Well, it’s massive, we’ll start with that,” said Adam Meyers, senior vice president of intelligence at CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm.
In 2015, U.S. President Barack Obama, Xi Jinping by his side, announced an agreement between the two leaders that neither country would “conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property” for commercial gain.
Cyberattacks launched by any of the 51 groups in China tracked by CrowdStrike — including groups associated with the People’s Liberation Army, the Ministry of State Security and Public Safety, as well as regional intelligence services — map closely to China’s stated ambitions for industries and technologies the government wants its country to dominate, Meyers said.
“There’s just a huge shopping list,” he said. And the attacks have been evolving, Meyers added.
They now go after not only individual companies but the services those companies use, like telecom companies, as a portal to multiple targets.
“They’re using the information they’re gleaning from attacks against telecoms to enable going after other targets that might be using those telecoms, businesses or enterprises hosting on telecoms,” he said.
Meyers said China’s government has been at this for decades, with a long-term vision.
“Western businesses are thinking quarter-to-quarter, not 10 to 15 years down the road, which is where Chinese companies are,” he said. “They’re willing to wait until 2049. They are patient, and that’s their secret weapon.”
China’s embassy did not respond to a media inquiry for this story. In public comments, officials have called these kinds of allegations fabrications.
It’s hard to estimate the cost of this technology transfer to the U.S. economy through hacking, theft of intellectual property, knockoff products and other means. But Kamphausen at the IP commission has tried.
“It’s as large as $600 billion a year. The best studies estimate that for [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] countries, trade secret theft alone is between 1% and 3% of GDP. And no matter how you measure it, and no matter the type of IP theft from trade secret theft, counterfeiting, software copying, no matter how you count it,” he said China is inflicting 60% to 80% of the damage.
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9. Congress must do more to stop China’s military-industrial spying on US campuses
Congress must do more to stop China’s military-industrial spying on US campuses
A new report from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies details how China-sponsored Confucius Institutes at campuses across America facilitate Beijing’s espionage. In particular, research partnerships with 28 universities (including Stanford, Tufts and Texas A&M) boost Beijing’s military apparatus, including intelligence, nuclear weapons and cyberespionage platforms.
Confucius Institutes officially just offer Chinese language and cultural programming. But they also give Beijing a presence on campus that enables espionage, including pressure on Chinese students studying here to help the Chinese Communist Party’s objectives, from propaganda to snooping. And they facilitate forming the “research partnerships” that quietly let Beijing steal technology and other intellectual property.
Congress cracked down on the spying by banning universities that host Confucius Institutes from receiving key Defense Department grants and contracts; two-thirds of the institutes across US academia have since closed.
But 34 colleges have kept on: They get more money from partnering with Beijing. Congress clearly needs to crack down further.
10. US think tank’s smears against China-US academic exchanges reveal its pathological mentality
Craig Singleton struck a nerve. The CCP doth protest too much.
US think tank’s smears against China-US academic exchanges reveal its pathological mentality - Global Times
American students practising Chinese calligraphy at the Confucius Institute in San Francisco, US, September 27, 2014. Photo: Xinhua
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a US think tank, issued a report on Thursday, saying dozens of US universities that conduct defense research are supporting China's military buildup and defense modernization.
This report, according to the author, received guidance, expertise, and direction provided by the FDD team, including the FDD China Program Chairman Matthew Pottinger, who served as the US deputy national security advisor in the Trump administration. Pottinger's attitude toward China is rather distorted and extreme, leading to the report with his participation being partly motivated by this prejudiced attitude.
This report reflects the pathological mentality of some people in the US, similar to the "persecutory delusions." It also shows an "apocalyptic view" which becomes more evident since the Trump era, with people believing that the US might re-win the big lead in the world if it maintains its advantage in some key technologies, despite its precarious position.
A Wall Street Journal article also expressed concerns about how Beijing might be using MIT's brain-related research in support of Chinese military through academic cooperation. Indeed, brain sciences are the most cutting-edge technology for human beings since our understanding of this organ is still a scientific blind spot. As such, open joint research in this field by universities in various countries is needed to help human progress.
China needs to remain normal and alert to US' apocalyptic view as it drowns out the sober voices of the elites and will further distort the American public's perception toward the world in general and China in particular, fooling the whole American society.
Chinese and American universities have been maintaining diverse contacts and exchanges since China's reform and opening-up, which have benefited both countries. The FDD report is confusing the distinction between the concepts of knowledge and specific secret technology. Everyone has the right to attend any university worldwide as the knowledge itself is shared by humanity instead of being restricted by certain countries. Should classical mechanics be blocked to other countries? That is obviously not possible.
The knowledge provided by American universities is common to humankind and is beneficial to promote the development of scientific research in both countries through academic exchanges. China has always accepted that some specific institutes and laboratories of the US have never been open to Chinese scholars. But common knowledge of humankind, such as the academic cooperation mentioned in the FDD report, should not be under restrictions despite the competition between the two major powers.
Against the poisoned US political climate, individual universities may come under pressure, in part, from the US government to groundlessly believe that the development of Chinese military benefits from US' science and research. However, China's military development has always been independent under the all-out blockade of the US. Many of China's new technologies have nothing to do with the US, but Washington has always been reluctant to face the independent development capabilities of China's military industry. US media outlets' reports on China's hypersonic weapons are a lesson to the Americans, as China's technology involved is far ahead that of the US.
China's route of military development is different from that of the US, which mirrors the divergence of military strategies of the two countries. China has never considered spending 4 percent of its GDP or more to surpass the US militarily. What is unique about China's military technology approach is that China is committed to seeking technological breakthroughs in a few key areas at minimal cost, instead of following the US' path.
Furthermore, the report said, "the US government should foster alternative Chinese-language initiatives to outcompete CI [Confucius Institutes] language programming." The US has fallen into a contradictory situation - although the country has a huge demand for talents who are equipped with outstanding Chinese language capability, it tries to avoid China controlling its Chinese language education and hopes to develop such talents on its own. Confucius Institutes around the world are all jointly funded by China and their host institutes. They provide primary Chinese education and have never had the intention or ability to "control" the Chinese education market in their host countries.
The US is in a very unstable mind-set, just like an irritable colleague. China should keep a distance from it and be fully prepared, in case it goes out of its mind. China is committed to maintaining the stability of its relations with the US, but it must also make adequate preparations for the breakdown of bilateral relations.
The US is in line with one aspect of Trump's rhetoric, which is to turn it into an unpredictable and elusive country. The future of the US remains unclear even from the perspective of Americans. Biden's words at the "summit for democracy" show that the US has become a directionless country where anything can happen.
The author is a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn
11. Erdogan hopes to salvage relations with the Gulf to save Turkey’s economy
Excerpts:
The Turkish president has made some progress toward patching things up with former enemies. Last month, he received the UAE’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed in Ankara, and is scheduled to visit Abu Dhabi in February. He hopes to take the next step by meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. But should Gulf countries turn a new page and throw the Turkish president a lifeline?
Perhaps Saudi Arabia and the UAE are better advised to wait until the 2023 elections. Following an increasingly likely opposition victory, Gulf countries can then help restore Turkey’s economy as Ankara reorients back to where it once stood: an integral part of NATO and a steadfast ally of the West.
The more Turkey distances itself away from Islamic extremism, the more America, its Gulf allies, and Israel will invest in the Turkish economy and work on restoring its trade ties and once-cordial diplomatic relations. Erdogan, reneged on past pledges of “strengthening relations with all Gulf countries.”
There is no guarantee that he will correct his course or not go back to his notorious policies once the Gulf has bailed him out in the run up to his make-or-break elections.
Erdogan hopes to salvage relations with the Gulf to save Turkey’s economy
Published: 12 December ,2021: 10:25 AM GST
Updated: 12 December ,2021: 11:15 AM GST
In a bid to shore up Turkey’s flailing economy and rescue its nosediving currency, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Doha on Monday in the hope that his Qatari allies can provide much-needed funds to help ease Turkey’s financial woes.
While in Doha, a financial bailout was not Erdogan’s only ask. According to news reports, the Turkish president hoped that his Qatari allies could arrange for him a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to help repair ties with Saudi Arabia. The meeting between the two leaders did not happen, but Turkish officials hope it will take place soon.
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Erdogan said he plans to mend ties with his adversaries, including oil-rich Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in addition to Egypt and Bahrain. Regional vendettas, especially Erdogan’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, have hurt Turkey’s foreign relations and trade.
The Turkish president has also vocally attacked the Abraham Accords for peace between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain, despite Turkey itself maintaining ties with Israel and has been trying to increase its bilateral trade with Jerusalem.
Relations between Ankara and Riyadh suffered further in the aftermath of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder in Istanbul in 2018. Turkish exports to the Saudi market, the region’s biggest, hit an all-time low this year. Ankara’s diplomatic spats with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have also reduced Saudi and Emirati foreign direct investment (FDI).
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan addresses his supporters during a ceremony in the eastern city of Siirt, Turkey, December 4, 2021. (Reuters)
Turkey’s economy has come under unprecedented strain over the last few years, as Erdogan’s unorthodox policy of fighting inflation by lowering interest rates has wreaked havoc in the markets. Since 2018, Turkey’s central bank has burnt through some $140 billion of its reserves through back-door hard currency sales in an attempt to maintain the lira’s value. By doing so, the bank depleted its foreign currency reserves and eroded its ability to continue such a policy. This week, the lira fell to an all-time low of 14 to the dollar, losing nearly half of its value this year alone.
Erdogan was late to respond to Turkey’s diplomatic and economic problems and probably reasoned that with Qatar alone, another one of the oil-rich Gulf emirates, his unorthodox economic views could work, and that he could get away with his “zero friends” policy. But Erdogan was proven wrong.
Qatar is rich but too small to bail Turkey out on its own. Cutting interest rates on the Turkish lira and pumping liquidity into the markets to boost growth prompted local and global investors to dump the lira, causing its depreciation and double-digit inflation.
Erdogan might have hoped that cutting interest rates would cause limited devaluation, but the lira continues to be in freefall. This economic reality has forced the Turkish president to rethink his foreign and security policies, especially in the run up to a challenging presidential and parliamentary election in 2023. Erdogan’s popularity, moreover, has hit an all-time low this year. Having lost his strangle hold on Istanbul to the opposition in the 2019 municipal elections, Erdogan wants to avoid a repeat of that embarrassing defeat.
The Turkish president has made some progress toward patching things up with former enemies. Last month, he received the UAE’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed in Ankara, and is scheduled to visit Abu Dhabi in February. He hopes to take the next step by meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. But should Gulf countries turn a new page and throw the Turkish president a lifeline?
Perhaps Saudi Arabia and the UAE are better advised to wait until the 2023 elections. Following an increasingly likely opposition victory, Gulf countries can then help restore Turkey’s economy as Ankara reorients back to where it once stood: an integral part of NATO and a steadfast ally of the West.
The more Turkey distances itself away from Islamic extremism, the more America, its Gulf allies, and Israel will invest in the Turkish economy and work on restoring its trade ties and once-cordial diplomatic relations. Erdogan, reneged on past pledges of “strengthening relations with all Gulf countries.”
There is no guarantee that he will correct his course or not go back to his notorious policies once the Gulf has bailed him out in the run up to his make-or-break elections.
Read more:
12. How to Ensure China Doesn't Try to Invade Taiwan
Conclusion:
On Taiwan, the path forward seems clear: Speak softly in publicly, speak plainly in private, and carry a big stick.
How to Ensure China Doesn't Try to Invade Taiwan
The debate whether Washington should preserve its policy of “strategic ambiguity” toward Taiwan or shift to “strategic clarity” lurched onward this week when Ely Ratner, the Pentagon assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, went before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. Ratner called for bolstering Taiwan’s defenses, pronouncing it an “urgent task.” According to Reuters, however, he also opined that explicitly committing the United States to defend the island wouldn’t meaningfully strengthen deterrence.
That is passing strange. Deterrence involves issuing a threat. If I want to deter a hostile actor from taking some action its leadership might like to take, I issue a threat while exhibiting the capability and resolve to make good on my threat. If successful I make the hostile leadership a believer in my national power and my resolve to use it. My prospective antagonist refrains from the action I’ve proscribed. By contrast, strategic ambiguity leaves everyone wondering. I have neither issued a clear threat nor yoked power and purpose to it. I have consciously created a gray zone—and recent years have shown that gray zones are playgrounds where the Chinas and Russias of the world romp.
That being the case, Xi Jinping & Co. might gamble in the Taiwan Strait if they come to deprecate American steadfastness, martial prowess, or both. Meanwhile, the island’s inhabitants might despair of American succor rather than stand up for themselves against aggression. Morale in Taiwan could collapse.
But there may be another way to deter. Not all threats need be public. Remaining noncommittal in public, speaking candidly in private, and displaying military might be sufficient to prevail in the Strait and could be a winning formula for deterrence.
It has happened before. In 1902 President Theodore Roosevelt dispatched the U.S. Navy battle fleet to the Caribbean Sea to shadow an Anglo-German fleet blockading Venezuela. The Venezuelan government had defaulted on loans taken out from European banks, and—as was common practice for the day—European capitals sent warships to collect. By levying sufficient economic pressure, and perhaps by bombarding the Venezuelan coast, they hoped to prompt Caracas to pay its debts.
Yet debt collection often meant temporarily occupying the customhouse in a debtor country and using tariff revenue to repay the bankers. And indeed, when committing itself to the Caribbean expedition, the German government had explicitly countenanced “the temporary occupation on our part of different Venezuelan harbor places.” But Roosevelt fretted that Europeans might keep the land where the customhouse stood after they had wrested it away. This wasn’t much of a stretch on TR’s part. European empires, including Germany’s, had spread across Africa and Asia through such stratagems. German leaders openly coveted naval stations in Brazil. Opportunism might tempt them to build one in Venezuela.
Once in possession of strategic real estate a great-power navy might construct a naval station there—and use it to harry Caribbean shipping lanes to the United States’ and its neighbors’ detriment. Moreover, ships of war based there could menace the approaches to the Panama Canal once it opened. If this happened Germany or Great Britain would have breached the Monroe Doctrine, the longstanding policy whereby Washington forbade outsiders to establish new colonies in the Americas.
This would not do.
But how to fend off aggression? Dealing with Kaiser Wilhelm II would prove especially nettlesome. The German emperor’s conduct was alternately bellicose and conciliatory, making it tough to forecast what he might do on any given day or to manage relations with him. TR didn’t relish calling out Wilhelm in public by, say, demanding that the Anglo-German fleet desists from grabbing coastal ground or withdraw from regional waters altogether. As a rule, in fact, Roosevelt preferred to play power politics in private. In so doing he spared foreign rulers’ vanity and reduced the chance of goading them into rash actions.
TR had a reputation for bombast. Deserved or not, it did not apply to his conduct of diplomacy. Biographer Edmund Morris depicts Roosevelt as “a commander in chief who accomplished much of his grand strategy in silence and secrecy.” His credo in stressful times: “speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”
The pattern played out in the Venezuelan crisis. German ambassador Theodor von Holleben visited the White House on December 8, 1902. President Roosevelt took him aside to confer privately about the blockade: “I told him to tell the Kaiser that I put [Admiral George] Dewey in charge of our fleet to maneuver in West Indian waters,” deploying under the guise of peacetime exercises. He went on: “the world at large would know this merely as a maneuver, and we should strive in every way to appear simply as cooperating with the Germans, but . . . I should be obliged to interfere, by force if necessary, if Germany took any action that looked like the acquisition of territory in Venezuela or elsewhere in the Caribbean.”
The president gave Berlin ten days to disclaim any design to occupy Venezuelan soil, after which Admiral Dewey would go south with a mandate, in TR’s words, “to observe matters along Venezuela.” Caracas called for U.S. arbitration after the blockade turned violent on December 9, when German mariners seized four Venezuelan gunboats and sank three of them. William II foreswore land-grabbing after a flurry of clandestine diplomacy between Washington and Berlin, decreeing that “we will allow our flag to follow the lead of the British.” Yet he also rejected the Venezuelan entreaty for arbitration. In a subsequent meeting with Ambassador von Holleben, consequently, TR advanced his ultimatum by twenty-four hours. War would follow unless the German monarch relented.
Holleben left the White House shaken by this latest exchange, and the record went silent at that point. As Morris recalls, White House staffers “saw the ambassador go, but . . . made no record of his visit. Neither did clerks at the State Department or at the German embassy. It suited everybody concerned that the diplomatic record of this matter be blank from thenceforth; Wilhelm would be free to end the crisis without evidence of having been coerced.” Berlin concluded that Roosevelt was not bluffing, and it bowed to realities of naval power, namely that only a fraction of the German Navy would face off against the concentrated might of the U.S. Navy in the U.S. Navy’s backyard. German prestige would suffer a massive blow if German commanders fought and lost. On December 17 the kaiser’s government accepted American arbitration, and the crisis subsided.
So circumspect was Theodore Roosevelt’s handling of the Venezuelan affair that it took a century for historians to conclude that the affair had actually happened. Despite the normal workings of deterrence, declining to publicly commit oneself to execute a threat may have merit. Some pointers from TR vis-à-vis the standoff in the Taiwan Strait. One, American diplomats and spokesmen could comport themselves in his spirit in public communications, neither committing to nor distancing themselves from strategic ambiguity and strategic clarity. Through tact they can grant General Secretary Xi the sort of graceful exit from a crisis that TR granted Wilhelm II in 1902. If Xi can climb down without sacrificing his standing with the Chinese people, that improves the likelihood that he will climb down.
Two, U.S. emissaries must speak with utmost candor in private interchanges with Beijing (and, for that matter, with Taipei; giving Taiwanese hope is the reciprocal of deterring Chinese). They must leave no doubt that the United States will defend Taiwan from cross-strait aggression, much as TR left no doubt that he would order Dewey’s fleet into battle should the Anglo-German squadron seize territory. Convince Chinese Communist prelates of American fortitude and deterrence might yet carry the day.
And three, the Pentagon must field war-winning military forces while the U.S. politico-military apparatus convinces Beijing that these forces would prevail if sent in harm’s way. Now, Roosevelt had it easy by contrast. His fleet was massed and operating relatively close to home, with all the advantages the homefield advantage confers and facing off against a dispersed potential foe; Xi and the People’s Liberation Army will be operating on their home field, against dispersed American forces, should war come to the Taiwan Strait. And yet there is no substitute for fashioning forces, operations, and tactics able to make their weight felt on the far side of the Pacific. That is the mission of our time.
On Taiwan, the path forward seems clear: Speak softly in publicly, speak plainly in private, and carry a big stick.
A 1945 Contributing Editor, Dr. James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and a Nonresident Fellow at the University of Georgia School of Public and International Affairs. The views voiced here are his alone.
More about Dr. Holmes: A former U.S. Navy surface-warfare officer, he was the last gunnery officer in history to fire a battleship’s big guns in anger, during the first Gulf War in 1991. He earned the Naval War College Foundation Award in 1994, signifying the top graduate in his class. His books include Red Star over the Pacific, an Atlantic Monthly Best Book of 2010 and a fixture on the Navy Professional Reading List. General James Mattis deems him “troublesome.”
13. Stop Undermining Partners with ‘Gifts’
Creating dependencies is not always a good idea. That is one of the things that challenged us in the Philippines. We did not bring a lot of "free stuff" to OEF-P. Yes, the normal security assistance processes remained in place and there were some big ticket items provided, but at the tactical level we focused on advising and assistance with what they had and did not require new equipment to reform their military training and tactics, techniques, and procedures. We worked hard not to create dependencies or employ anything that they would not have when we transitioned the mission. I admit many of us were frustrated and wanted to give them "free stuff" to improve their capabilities but I am grateful to the wisdom of our bosses and higher headquarters who did not give in to our requests (though we did do things like fight the security assistance process to allow the AFP to use .45 cal pistols because they produced .45 cal ammunition indigenously. The process would have made them dependent on the US for 9mm ammunition if our Special Forces NCOs did not push back.)
Stop Undermining Partners with ‘Gifts’ - War on the Rocks
Giving partner forces weapons isn’t always good for them. The Taliban’s bounty of American equipment illustrates that the Afghan army didn’t fall for lack of equipment. However, the provision of material aid to partner forces has largely escaped scrutiny in the Afghanistan post-mortem. It might seem that any material assistance is useful assistance. But free equipment is often counterproductive, and the logistics-heavy weapons America gives its partners can prove worse than scrap metal.
My own experience with the Peshmerga in Iraq reveals three principal ways that gifts such as mine-resistant, ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles and high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles (HMMWVs) can create difficulties for U.S. partners. First, there are the maintenance costs. Then there is the continuous need for consumables. And finally, there is the human and organizational capital needed to provide each of these. The U.S. military has an ample budget for maintenance and consumables in combat zones. Furthermore, the United States has well-trained maintenance and logistics personnel — not to mention legions of contractors — who can move the parts and consumables to where they are needed and make sure that the system runs (relatively) smoothly. However, partners often lack this capital and specialized infrastructure. The United States can pay for the partner’s spare parts and depot-level maintenance, but it will do little good if they lack the human capital and organization to maintain and “feed” weapon systems that are gifted to them.
We may imagine that partners can at least benefit from logistics-heavy weapon systems until they break down. However, this is not how it plays out. Partner forces who train for combat using systems that fail in their hour of need will face a much harder fight than the one they prepared for. As a result, they will be worse off with free equipment than they would have been without it. To prevent this, the United States should refrain from giving logistics-heavy weapons and vehicles to partners who cannot appropriately use them. Meanwhile, where partners have already received this kind of equipment, the United States needs to get culturally-sensitive advisors — in uniform or out — off of main bases and into partner units to evaluate readiness and troubleshoot problems.
Free Stuff Costs a Lot
Beyond weapons, logistics-heavy vehicles can also create problems. For example, mine-resistant, ambush protected vehicles were successful in protecting servicemembers from improved explosive devices, but their rapid development led to problems with sustainability. After the drawdown of troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States struggled with the question of what to do with these massive vehicles. Many were shipped out of country to be saved for later while others were sold or scrapped. However, many were given to partner forces without a proper appreciation of the difficulties in sustainment.
Keeping mine-resistant, ambush protected vehicles running is expensive. The initial procurement of MRAPs included a maintenance package that amounted to $1.1 million per vehicle. In 2009, the military budgeted $2.6 billion in sustainment funding for roughly 16,000 mine-resistant, ambush protected vehicles in the field, suggesting an annual maintenance cost of about $164,000 per year. Beyond the costs of parts and depot-level maintenance is the cost of fuel, which is bound to be high for vehicles that get between four and six miles per gallon. Indeed, this is why multiple U.S. police departments have returned their “free” mine-resistant, ambush protected vehicles after discovering the costs of operations and maintenance.
Even the relatively simple high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle creates difficulties for partners. With annual costs of around $4,940, the maintenance for an up-armored wheeled vehicle is about one-tenth that of an mine-resistant, ambush protected vehicles, but is still 10 times as much as for the average civilian sport utility vehicle or pickup truck. The fuel economy of 10 miles per gallon also makes the costs of consumables very high. Nor are these vehicles long-lived. They have a 45,000-mile designed life, which is probably shortened by added armor. This means that for partners receiving them second-hand, high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles will not last for long.
However, the high costs and short lives of these systems are not the only problems facing partners. Even if the United States pays the costs of maintenance and consumables, these systems require human capital and organization to run. Often these systems are given alongside a maintenance contract and a fuel ration, which supposedly takes care of the problems of maintenance logistics. However, fulfilling these contracts is difficult in practice. The whole point of these vehicles is to be used in combat environments, away from a secure rear area. Contractors are limited to performing work in secure rear areas. The free vehicles must therefore be returned to one of the few secure American bases where contractors live in order for maintenance to be performed. Without partners who are capable of towing damaged vehicles, or U.S. troops who can support forward repair areas, this model does not work. Similarly, if the United States provides fuel to its partners, those partners must still accurately project their fuel requirements and transport the fuel to the front lines.
Finally, many advanced systems require unit-level maintenance to be performed every day. To continue with the example of the lowly high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle, in American units (that are well-supplied in tools, spare parts, and oil) each one requires around 168 direct labor man-hours annually for maintenance. Thus, we could expect a properly supplied maintainer to keep nine wheeled vehicles operational, which would be about the right number in a platoon. While it might seem that the United States could simply train a handful of maintainers, this is easier said than done — the maintainers will get sick or wounded, the requisite tools will be stolen, the spare parts won’t arrive on time, etc.
Problems for the Peshmerga
These problems are not limited to Afghanistan. While Afghanistan’s low literacy rate makes it an extreme case, these shortcomings were also demonstrated with the Peshmerga in Iraq’s Kurdistan region.
When the United States began its withdrawal of forces from Iraq last summer, there were tens of thousands of excess MRAPs and high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles s in country. As it can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to ship these vehicles back the United States and refurbish them, it didn’t make sense to bring them all home. Giving these excess vehicles to the Peshmerga and Iraqi forces undoubtedly seemed like an easy way to kill two birds with one stone: avoid shipping costs while also building partner capacity.
I visited a Peshmerga brigade near Kirkuk on an independent research trip in 2021 and saw how ineffective our current material aid model is. In one battalion, four of nine high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles were dead-lined awaiting maintenance. While all of the MRAPs started, one was missing a wheel and was on blocks, raising doubts about the status of the others. The battalion’s fuel reserve was empty, and most vehicles only had a quarter tank of fuel in them. All of the odometers read 15,000 kilometers, yet the Peshmerga reported they have not had basic maintenance such as oil changes.
The upkeep problems I observed persist despite a maintenance contract with DynCorp and U.S. provision of fuel to the Peshmerga. These measures have not mitigated the organizational challenges involved in moving vehicles from the frontlines to the rear for maintenance and for delivering consumables. Transportation is particularly more difficult to contract out, as it requires movement from secure rear areas to more dangerous frontlines. It is also politically difficult for the Peshmerga, as moving valuable military equipment towards the capital raises the possibility of coup or theft in a region riven by mutual distrust. Augmenting this problem are the force-protection restrictions that prevent U.S. advisors from visiting partner units at the point of friction. In the case of the Peshmerga, U.S. and coalition officers can’t leave their base without a large convoy and can’t visit the units who are actually using the equipment that the United States has given them. It shouldn’t be surprising that they are therefore unable to figure out what the maintenance status of systems are and how to improve them.
Fixing Material Aid
Where Washington has already given away equipment, it should work to keep it functional. One first step is to get advisors off base and into partner units. If that is politically infeasible, contractors under less-restrictive force protection measures could evaluate equipment readiness. Additionally, there should be more effort to “train the trainer” and deploy officers with country expertise to oversee equipment programs. Such officers would be better equipped to understand the culture and politics of the partner force. Another solution might be to bring some partners to the United States for training, to embed with American maintainers, and finally to return them as a cadre to their home force. Finally, if U.S. partners are still unable to maintain the equipment that they have, Washington should accept fate and change their model of utilization — for example, envisioning armored vehicles as pillboxes, or planning for cannibalization that at least keeps a core group of partner soldiers equipped with functional equipment.
But to make sure partners don’t find themselves facing these challenges in the future, Washington should shift material aid away from logistics-heavy systems. The procurement costs of any weapon system are generally a third of the lifetime costs. As the case of the Peshmerga and Afghan National Army showed, even paying for consumables and maintenance does not fix a partner’s shortcomings in human and organizational capital. Only partners with strong bureaucracies and sufficient technical training across their forces will benefit in the long term from logistics-heavy equipment. For the others, instead of reflexively imposing its doctrine and detritus on them, the U.S. military should give them what they need.
Matthew Cancian is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His thesis is based on a survey of 2,301 Peshmerga during their war against ISIL. Prior to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he earned a masters from the Fletcher School at Tufts and deployed to Sangin, Afghanistan as a Marine officer during Operation Enduring Freedom.
14. Hong Kong Court Sentences Jimmy Lai to Prison Over Tiananmen Vigil
Hong Kong Court Sentences Jimmy Lai to Prison Over Tiananmen Vigil
Vivian WangAustin Ramzy
By Vivian Wang and Austin Ramzy
Dec. 13, 2021
Updated 5:04 a.m. ET
The former media mogul and other prominent pro-democracy activists were previously convicted of inciting others to take part in an unauthorized assembly.
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A van took Jimmy Lai and other prominent pro-democracy activists to the Wanchai district court in Hong Kong last week for their trial.
Dec. 13, 2021Updated 5:04 a.m. ET
HONG KONG — A Hong Kong court on Monday sentenced the former media mogul Jimmy Lai and seven other prominent pro-democracy activists to prison for their roles last year in trying to commemorate Beijing’s June 4, 1989, crackdown on peaceful protesters in Tiananmen Square.
The sentences — between four months and 14 months — were the latest example of the wide-ranging crackdown on dissent and free speech in the city, a former British colony that once had significantly stronger civil liberties than the rest of China. While this case was not prosecuted under a stringent national security law imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing last year, several of the defendants, including Mr. Lai, also face separate charges under that law.
Mr. Lai and the other activists — including Chow Hang-tung, Gwyneth Ho and Lee Cheuk-Yan — gathered on June 4 last year in Victoria Park before an annual vigil organized by the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, a pro-democracy group. The alliance had hosted those vigils, a potent symbol of Hong Kong’s differences from the rest of China, in the park for three decades. But the government banned the gathering last year, citing the coronavirus pandemic, and again this year.
Mr. Lai received 13 months in prison from the judge, Amanda J. Woodcock. Mr. Lee, a former lawmaker and leader of the alliance, received the heaviest sentence, 14 months. A former chairman of the opposition Democratic Party, Wu Chi-wai, was sentenced to four months and two weeks.
Many of the eight handed prison terms on Monday had already been sentenced in other cases related to the huge pro-democracy protests that roiled Hong Kong in 2019. Mr. Lai, for example, had already received 20 months; he will serve his new term concurrently. But he faces further charges under the security law, which can bring up to life imprisonment.
In statements read in court before the sentencing, Mr. Lai and his co-defendants made clear that they felt no regret for defying the government’s ban.
If commemorating the massacre was a crime, Mr. Lai wrote in a statement read by his lawyer, Robert Pang, “let me suffer the punishment of this crime, so I may share the burden and glory of those young men and women who shed their blood on June 4 to proclaim truth, justice and goodness.”
While the authorities have tried to characterize the 2019 protests as widely violent to justify their crackdown, the case made clear that even nonviolent, seemingly innocuous actions had become potentially risky.
Mr. Lai and Ms. Chow, a vice chairwoman of the alliance, were convicted by Judge Woodcock on Thursday of inciting others to take part in an unauthorized assembly. By participating in a news conference where they “each lit a candle at the same time” and “raised a hand in unison,” the judge wrote, they had encouraged others to participate in the banned vigil.
Mr. Lai, left, was among those who gathered in Victoria Park on June 4 last year for an annual vigil organized by a pro-democracy group.Credit...Kin Cheung/Associated Press
Mr. Lai did not participate in the vigil itself and left the park after about 15 minutes. Still, the judge wrote, “His presence at that press conference was a deliberate act to rally support for and publicly spotlight the unauthorized assembly that followed. He need not use words of incitement to intend to incite others.”
Ms. Chow and Ms. Ho, a journalist turned politician, were convicted of participating in the unauthorized assembly. More than 20 other defendants, including the others sentenced on Monday, had already pleaded guilty in relation to the gathering.
Ms. Chow also delivered an impassioned statement before the sentencing, in which she condemned the government for using public health reasons to justify what she called an explicitly political prosecution.
“Let us not delude ourselves that this is all about COVID-19 and that the criminalization of the vigil is only an exceptional measure at an exceptional time,” she said, reading her own statement aloud. “What happened here is instead one step in the systemic erasure of history, both of the Tiananmen Massacre and Hong Kong’s own history of civic resistance.”
She added: “In closing its eyes to the obvious, the court risks making itself irrelevant to the ailments of our times.”
Ms. Chow has also been charged under the security law.
Even before Monday’s sentencing, many of the people and organizations involved had been targeted by the government. The Hong Kong Alliance disbanded in September, after officials accused it of being an “enemy of the state.” Apple Daily, the pro-democracy newspaper that Mr. Lai founded, also shuttered in July after the police raided its newsroom and arrested top editors.
15. Haiti’s Leader Kept a List of Drug Traffickers. His Assassins Came for It.
Haiti’s Leader Kept a List of Drug Traffickers. His Assassins Came for It.
In the months before his murder, President Jovenel Moïse took a number of steps to fight drug and arms smugglers. Some officials now fear he was killed for it.
Security forces during preparations for the funeral of President Jovenel Moïse of Haiti in July.Credit...Federico Rios for The New York Times
In the months before his murder, President Jovenel Moïse took a number of steps to fight drug and arms smugglers. Some officials now fear he was killed for it.
Security forces during preparations for the funeral of President Jovenel Moïse of Haiti in July.Credit...Federico Rios for The New York Times
By
PORT-AU-PRINCE — President Jovenel Moïse of Haiti was about to name names.
Before being assassinated in July, he had been working on a list of powerful politicians and businesspeople involved in Haiti’s drug trade, with the intention of handing over the dossier to the American government, according to four senior Haitian advisers and officials tasked with drafting the document.
The president had ordered the officials to spare no one, not even the power brokers who had helped propel him into office, they said — one of several moves against suspected drug traffickers that could explain a motive for the assassination.
When gunmen burst into Mr. Moïse’s residence and killed him in his bedroom, his wife, Martine Moïse — who had also been shot and lay bleeding on the floor, pretending to be dead — described how they stayed to search the room, hurriedly digging through his files.
“‘That’s it,’” they finally declared to one another before fleeing, she told The New York Times in her first interview after the assassination, adding that she did not know what the gunmen had taken.
Martine Moïse in Miami in July. Gunmen dug through her husband’s files as she lay bleeding, she said.Credit...Maria Alejandra Cardona for The New York Times
Investigators arrived at the crime scene to find Mr. Moïse’s home office ransacked, papers strewn everywhere. In interrogations, some of the captured hit men confessed that retrieving the list Mr. Moïse had been working on — with the names of suspected drug traffickers — was a top priority, according to three senior Haitian officials with knowledge of the investigation.
The document was part of a broader series of clashes Mr. Moïse had with powerful political and business figures, some suspected of narcotics and arms trafficking. Mr. Moïse had known several of them for years, and they felt betrayed by his turn against them, his aides say.
In the months before his death, Mr. Moïse took steps to clean up Haiti’s customs department, nationalize a seaport with a history of smuggling, destroy an airstrip used by drug traffickers and investigate the lucrative eel trade, which has recently been identified as a conduit for money laundering.
The Times interviewed more than 70 people and traveled to eight of Haiti’s 10 departments, or states, to interview politicians, Mr. Moïse’s childhood friends, police officers, fishermen and participants in the drug trade to understand what happened in the last seven months of the president’s life that may have contributed to his death. Many of them now fear for their lives as well.
The house where Mr. Moïse was assassinated in July. His home office was ransacked, with papers strewn everywhere.Credit...Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times
“I would be a fool to think that narco-trafficking and arms trafficking didn’t play a role in the assassination,” said Daniel Foote, who served as the U.S. special envoy to Haiti before stepping down last month. “Anyone who understands Haiti’s politics or economics understands this.”
A central figure on Mr. Moïse’s list was Charles Saint-Rémy, known as Kiko, two of the Haitian officials tasked with helping draft the dossier said. Mr. Saint-Rémy, a Haitian businessman, has long been suspected by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration of involvement in the drug trade. Notably, he is also the brother-in-law of former President Michel Martelly, who lifted Mr. Moïse out of political obscurity and tapped him to be his successor.
Mr. Martelly, who is considering another run for the presidency, and Mr. Saint-Rémy were hugely influential in Mr. Moïse’s government, with a say in everything from who got public contracts to which cabinet ministers got appointed, according to Haitian officials inside and outside his administration. But Mr. Moïse came to feel that they and other oligarchs were stifling his presidency, his aides say.
American officials say that they are looking closely at Mr. Moïse’s efforts to disrupt the drug trade and challenge powerful families as motives in the assassination, and they note that Mr. Saint-Rémy emerged as a possible suspect early in the investigation. But they caution that Mr. Moïse threatened many of the economic elite, including a number of people with deep criminal connections.
Mr. Martelly and Mr. Saint-Rémy did not respond to a detailed list of questions for this article.
Former President Michel Martelly of Haiti and his wife, Sophia, at a reception in Port-au-Prince in July where Ms. Moïse and her children received condolences.Credit...Federico Rios for The New York Times
The investigation into Mr. Moïse’s killing has stalled, American officials say, and if the assassination is not solved, many Haitians fear it will add to the mountain of impunity in the country, further emboldening the criminal networks that have captured the state.
Suspected drug and arms traffickers have long sat in Haiti’s Parliament. Small planes with contraband frequently land on clandestine airstrips. Haitian police officers have been caught aiding drug smugglers, while judges are regularly bribed to throw cases.
Haiti may now provide the largest route for drugs destined for the United States, but no one knows for sure because the country has become so difficult to police. American law enforcement is unable to run a wiretapping program in the country, or even fully collaborate with its Haitian counterparts, because corruption in the police and judiciary runs so deep, U.S. officials say.
“Anyone involved in drug trafficking here has at least one police officer on their team,” said Compère Daniel, the police commissioner of the Northwest Department of Haiti, a major transit smuggling corridor.
“It is impossible to get police officers to cooperate with me on the field,” he said. “Sometimes they don’t even answer my calls.”
The D.E.A.’s operations in Haiti have also drawn scrutiny. Criticism of the agency has sharpened because at least two of the Haitians suspected of involvement in Mr. Moïse’s assassination were former D.E.A. informants.
A mural depicting Mr. Moïse near the entrance to his home in Pétionville, Haiti, where he was assassinated.Credit...Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times
In November, the Senate Judiciary Committee criticized the D.E.A. for corruption allegations that have swirled around its Haiti operations, citing a Times investigation in August linking Mr. Moïse’s head of palace security to the drug trade. The D.E.A., accused by former agents of mishandling one of Haiti’s biggest drug cases, declined to comment.
‘The True Leader Wasn’t the President’
When Mr. Moïse was chosen by Mr. Martelly in 2014 to be his successor, Mr. Martelly introduced the nation to a supposed outsider with peasant origins, a man of the countryside who had lifted himself out of poverty by running banana plantations.
Mr. Martelly’s associates said he first met Mr. Moïse during a conference and was struck by the entrepreneur’s business acumen.
Key Figures in This Story
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Jovenel Moïse: Haiti’s president until his assassination on July 7, 2021.
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Martine Moïse: Former first lady and widow of Jovenel Moïse. She was in the room when assassins gunned down her husband.
- Joverlein Moïse: Son of Jovenel Moïse. He now lives in Canada.
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Michel Martelly: Former president of Haiti. He chose Jovenel Moïse to be his successor.
- Sophia Martelly: Former first lady, wife of Mr. Martelly. She, too, was influential in Mr. Moïse’s government.
- Charles “Kiko” Saint-Rémy: An influential Haitian businessman. Brother-in-law of former President Martelly, and brother of Sophia Martelly.
- Esther Antoine: One of Mr. Moïse’s former campaign managers who became a senior government official until his death.
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Gabriel Fortuné: A close friend and adviser to Mr. Moïse. He died in the August 2021 earthquake, a day after speaking with The Times.
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Dimitri Hérard: He commanded the guards at the presidential palace at the time of Mr. Moïse’s assassination. Mr. Hérard is a suspect in the killing.
- Keith McNichols: A former D.E.A. agent stationed in Haiti who investigated Mr. Saint-Rémy and Mr. Hérard.
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Ariel Henry: The current prime minister of Haiti and a close associate of Mr. Martelly and his wife.
- Evinx Daniel: A close friend of Mr. Martelly, Mr. Saint-Rémy and Mr. Moïse. Mr. Daniel disappeared in 2014 and is presumed dead.
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Joseph Felix Badio: A former D.E.A. informant who is accused of commanding Mr. Moïse’s assassins.
But the story was misleading: Mr. Moïse had mostly grown up in the capital, several of the original board members of his banana plantation say it was a failure, and Mr. Moïse was already a close associate of Mr. Saint-Rémy and at least one other suspected drug trafficker.
Mr. Moïse, 53 at the time of his assassination, was born in Trou-du-Nord, French for “hole of the North,” an agricultural town that has suffered under decades of government neglect. His father drove a tractor at a nearby sisal plantation but lost his job when it closed, according to interviews with local residents.
When Mr. Moïse was 7, his mother moved him and his siblings to Carrefour, a slum of Port-au-Prince, in search of work and a secondary school for her children, relatives said. In university, Mr. Moïse met his wife and they moved together to her hometown, Port-de-Paix, in the northwest.
Trou-du-Nord, Haiti, where Mr. Moïse was born.Credit...Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times
By 2000, Mr. Moïse had met and become business partners with Evinx Daniel, according to relatives and acquaintances of both men. Mr. Daniel, a close friend of Mr. Martelly’s, would later be accused of drug trafficking.
Mr. Moïse worked with Mr. Daniel on one of his ventures, Mariella Food Products, which produced biscuits with a pigtailed schoolgirl on the packaging. A former high-ranking Haitian police officer said the company was suspected of being a money laundering front.
The full extent of Mr. Moïse’s involvement in the company is unclear, but a former senator, Jean Baptiste Bien-Aimé, recalled the men coming to his office to talk about the company about a decade ago, and said the men were often with Mr. Saint-Rémy, the brother-in-law of Mr. Martelly.
“They were always together. They were fish crushed in the soup,” said Mr. Bien-Aimé, using a local saying to describe close relationships.
Mr. Saint-Rémy has publicly admitted that he sold drugs in the past but claims all his businesses are now legitimate. Haitian law enforcement officials and former D.E.A. officers who recently served in Haiti say he is still believed to be one of the country’s biggest drug traffickers.
Jacques Jean Kinan, Mr. Moïse’s cousin, said he and Mr. Moïse worked with Mr. Saint-Rémy in the eel industry.
With his brother-in-law as president, Mr. Saint-Rémy wielded enormous influence, often demanding that choice licenses and contracts be awarded to him, particularly eel export licenses, according to officials in Mr. Martelly’s government.
When his demands were not heeded, he could turn violent: In 2015, Mr. Saint-Rémy assaulted an agriculture minister for issuing a contract without his consent, an altercation reported at the time and confirmed by a former government minister.
As Mr. Saint-Rémy’s hold on the eel trade solidified, Mr. Moïse decided to get out of the sector and focus on Agritrans, a banana plantation near his hometown.
“My father said that the Martelly family cornered the eel business and made it difficult to get in,” said Joverlein Moïse, the slain president’s son.
Joverlein Moïse, right, with his brother Jovenel and sister Jomarlie at a reception for condolences in July.Credit...Federico Rios for The New York Times
Mr. Moïse also kept in touch with his associate, Mr. Daniel, who had opened a hotel in Les Cayes, a coastal city in the south, an official and a relative said.
In 2013, Mr. Daniel told the authorities that he found 23 packages of marijuana floating at sea while he was on his boat and decided to bring them home. Mr. Daniel said at the time that he and Mr. Saint-Rémy called the D.E.A. to pick up the load he discovered.
A prosecutor, Jean Marie Salomon, doubted the story, suspecting it was a ploy to cover up a drug deal gone bad after locals had stumbled on the stash. He arrested Mr. Daniel on drug-trafficking charges, but he said Mr. Martelly’s minister of justice personally intervened and ordered his release.
Shortly after, Mr. Martelly went to Mr. Daniel’s hotel with a delegation in a clear display of support, Mr. Salomon said. “The message was, justice does not matter,” he said.
Just months after his release, Mr. Daniel went missing in 2014, his abandoned car found at a gas station. Two people — a relative of Mr. Daniel’s and a police officer at the time — said Mr. Moïse was one of the last people to see him alive. Mr. Daniel is presumed dead.
Mr. Salomon suspects that drug traffickers killed him, concerned that he would expose their network as part of a plea deal, and Mr. Daniel’s disappearance remains unsolved. Two investigators said they were sidelined by a federal police unit controlled by Mr. Martelly’s government that took over the investigation and tampered with the evidence.
Barred by the Constitution from running for two consecutive terms, Mr. Martelly began looking for a successor. He wanted to find someone to keep the bench warm for him until he could launch another presidential bid and shield himself from corruption allegations involving the misappropriation of billions of dollars during his tenure, according to former officials in the Martelly and Moïse administrations.
He settled on Mr. Moïse, marketing him as a successful entrepreneur and nicknaming him the “Banana Man” on the campaign trail.
“I told Martelly, you have to look for the peasant vote, someone who looks like them, someone with black skin,” said a former senator, Jacques Sauveur Jean, a friend and sometimes political ally of Mr. Martelly. He said Haitians were tired of the privileged light-skinned elite who ran the country, like Mr. Martelly, and felt that Mr. Moïse, with his dark skin and rural origins, better represented them.
Mr. Martelly arriving in Les Cayes, Haiti, to distribute medical supplies after an earthquake in August. He is said to be considering another run for president.Credit...Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times
In interviews, three of the original board members of Mr. Moïse’s plantation business, Agritrans, described the venture as a failure, with their original investments lost and little but a barren field to show for it.
Esther Antoine, one of Mr. Moïse’s campaign managers, said she worked to polish his image, to get rid of a stutter that had haunted him and improve his confidence onstage. But on the campaign trail Mr. Martelly took center stage, she said, outshining the man he was supposed to be promoting.
Ms. Antoine, who worried that Mr. Martelly’s outsize presence was “drowning” her candidate, said she convinced the president to give Mr. Moïse the space to campaign alone. That did not sit well with Mr. Martelly’s wife, Sophia, she said.
She said the first lady grew suspicious of Ms. Antoine and called her to the Martelly family home in the middle of the night, reprimanding her for not informing them of Mr. Moïse’s every move.
Ms. Antoine said she pushed back, arguing that she was there to work for Mr. Moïse, not the Martelly family.
“That’s when the wife looks at me and says, ‘Jovenel is a property. You don’t seem to understand that,’” Ms. Antoine recounted. “I was shocked. When I asked her to repeat it, she then switched to French: ‘Jovenel est une propriété.’”
The former first lady did not respond to a detailed list of questions for this article.
When he won and took over the presidency in 2017, Mr. Moïse felt suffocated by Mr. Martelly but remained loyal to him, his aides said.
Protests erupted the day before Mr. Moïse’s funeral in July. The investigation into his assassination has stalled, U.S. officials say.Credit...Federico Rios for The New York Times
Mr. Moïse was unable to choose his own cabinet without the approval of the Martelly family or Mr. Saint-Rémy, they said. The Martellys would often call Mr. Moïse, yelling at him for his legislative initiatives, according to several people who overheard the conversations.
“The true leader wasn’t the president,” said Gabriel Fortuné, a close adviser to Mr. Moïse who died in an earthquake a day after speaking with The Times. “It was his godfather, Martelly. When we talk about the godfather we are talking about the Italian way,” he added, “the family.”
Ms. Antoine acknowledged that Mr. Moïse often turned a blind eye to the corruption in his government, to avoid making enemies and advance his own initiatives.
“He would say, ‘Let me feed them so they leave me alone. If they’re making money, they’ll let me do my electricity and build my roads,’” Ms. Antoine recalled him saying.
But Mr. Moïse’s critics said he joined in the corruption. Before he came to power, the Haitian government was investigating Mr. Moïse, his wife and their company, Agritrans, for large amounts of money found in their bank accounts that could not be explained by the level of business they were generating, an official who worked on the case said.
Two government anti-corruption units also questioned why Mr. Martelly’s government gave a $6 million loan to Agritrans, a company with such a limited record. But when Mr. Moïse came to power, he fired the directors of the two anti-corruption units who worked on the inquiry.
‘They Will Kill Me’
As Mr. Moïse settled into office, he soon realized that the withering control Mr. Martelly and his family exerted on the campaign trail extended to his personal security, several officials said.
Mr. Moïse inherited Dimitri Hérard, a pivotal member of Mr. Martelly’s presidential security force who became the head of the police unit protecting Mr. Moïse’s presidential palace.
Mr. Hérard was also a drug-trafficking suspect. In 2015, when a Panamanian-flagged cargo ship docked in Port-au-Prince with 1,100 kilograms of cocaine and heroin aboard, Mr. Hérard was seen commanding police officers in uniform to load the drugs into vehicles before speeding off with them, according to a witness and Keith McNichols, a former D.E.A. agent stationed in Haiti who led the agency’s investigation into the missing drug shipment.
Port-au-Prince, where an investigation into a cargo ship loaded with cocaine and heroin once drew in the man who headed Mr. Moïse’s palace security.Credit...Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times
But Mr. Martelly shielded Mr. Hérard from being questioned by investigators in the case, a former United Nations official said.
Mr. Moïse deeply mistrusted Mr. Hérard, according to several presidential advisers and an international diplomat the president confided in. On at least one occasion, they said, Mr. Hérard was found spying on the president for Mr. Saint-Rémy, informing him about Mr. Moïse’s meetings.
Mr. Hérard, now in detention as a suspect in the assassination, could not be reached for comment.
In January, Mr. Hérard ordered about 260 weapons from Turkey — including M4 carbines and handguns — making out the order to the presidential palace, Mr. Fortuné and a former security official said. But instead of arming his own unit, they said, Mr. Hérard sold most of the weapons to gangs and businesses.
“When Moïse found out about the weapons Hérard ordered, he wasn’t surprised — he was scared,” Mr. Fortuné said.
Mr. Moïse’s relationship with the presidential security forces, already on tenterhooks, further soured. But that changed in February, when Mr. Hérard claimed to have foiled a coup attempt against Mr. Moïse. Suddenly, the distrust waned. Some former aides, like Ms. Antoine and Mr. Fortuné, wondered whether the supposed coup was a false flag, to throw off Mr. Moïse’s suspicions about Mr. Hérard.
After the coup scare, Mr. Moïse went on the offensive, publicly blasting Haiti’s oligarchs and political elite for trying to kill him, including in one of his final interviews with The Times before his death.
Behind the scenes, Haitian officials say, Mr. Moïse began working to take down his perceived enemies. He spoke with his closest aides and select officials to start compiling the dossier breaking down narcotics and weapons smuggling networks in Haiti, including Mr. Saint-Rémy, according to the people involved with the document.
In February, Josua Alusma, the mayor of Port-du-Paix and a close Moïse ally, ordered a crackdown on the eel trade, the industry dominated by Mr. Saint-Rémy. Many of the eels go to China, but the Haitian police are investigating the industry as a way to launder illicit profits.
“I don’t like this business. It happens at night, do you know what I’m saying?” Mr. Alusma said. “There’s no security.”
He said the industry needed to be regulated and taxed. “People like Kiko go in and out of the city,” he said, using Mr. Saint-Rémy’s nickname. “But we are the ones here cleaning his trash,” he added, referring to illegal weapons seized during a raid this year.
Port-du-Paix, Haiti, where the mayor ordered a crackdown on the eel trade.Credit...Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times
The same month, the president also started to discuss plans to nationalize a seaport owned by allies of Mr. Martelly, where several shipments of illegal weapons have been found and seized over the years, two senior Haitian officials said.
“Jovenel told me that he had an agenda that he wanted to implement but he couldn’t because, he said, ‘They will kill me,’” recounted a powerful politician who served as an informal aide to Mr. Moïse, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of his life. The port, he said, “was part of the plan.”
Mr. Moïse also tried to push customs, despite considerable resistance, to start inspecting Mr. Saint-Rémy’s shipments and charging taxes on his goods, according to several presidential aides, two senior security officials and an official at the customs department. Haitian economists estimate that the country loses about $500 million a year because of corruption at customs.
Then, in mid-May, Dominican security forces arrested Woodley Ethéart, also known as Sonson Lafamilia, a close friend of Mr. Martelly and Mr. Saint-Rémy’s. When Mr. Martelly was president in 2015, he stood by Mr. Ethéart after he was arrested on kidnapping charges.
This year, Mr. Ethéart still had a warrant out for his arrest and generally kept a low profile. But in May, he and Mr. Martelly took photos of themselves partying together in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic’s capital, that were posted on social media, a senior Dominican official said.
Mr. Moïse was ecstatic, his aides said.
The president’s phone buzzed with calls from Mr. Martelly and Mr. Saint-Rémy, but he refused to answer them, according to a close friend and a presidential adviser.
“Sonson Lafamilia is very close to the Martelly family,” said Joverlein, Mr. Moïse’s son. “It is possible that Martelly saw that arrest as some kind of disrespect, that my father was a traitor and was betraying the Martelly family.”
Mr. Moïse’s funeral in July.Credit...Federico Rios for The New York Times
Drug trafficking routes in Haiti’s north also came under pressure. In the 1990s, little Cessna planes from Colombia landed on dirt airstrips on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. But as the population expanded, the landing strips became surrounded by slums. Poor residents realized the valuable illicit cargo the planes held and began raiding them, according to a security official.
So, about a decade ago, traffickers moved the airstrips north, to Savane Diane, a sprawling, isolated area. Since then, the drug trade has evolved and boomed. The planes no longer come solely from Colombia — Venezuela has become a big player, too, with family members of President Nicolás Maduro arrested by the D.E.A. in Haiti in 2015 for drug trafficking. The son of Honduras’s former president was also arrested in Haiti by the D.E.A.
The small lake nearby was filled with fish, in an area where malnutrition is rampant, yet locals would not go near it. When The Times asked them why, farmers explained that human remains were often dumped there.
And when The Times went to the local airstrip, a farmer with a machete in his hand approached, asking if a drug delivery was happening so that he could get a bribe to look the other way.
Two jagged dirt strips — one path for each wheel — cut through waist-high grass. Yards from the airstrip lay the hull of a small plane that, residents say, crashed over the summer. The wreckage of another charred plane lay close by.
The charred remains of a plane near a clandestine air field in Savane Diane, Haiti.Credit...Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times
When the police cars that are often seen offloading the planes’ cargo get stuck along the rough roads, local tractor drivers get paid a few dollars to tow them out, residents said. Before a plane comes, they added, farmers cut the grass around the airstrip and start fires in empty cans so pilots know where to land at night.
Mr. Moïse’s aides said he became aware of the airstrip after a furious call from the D.E.A.
Between May and June, the airstrip in Savane Diane and another in Haiti’s north hosted an inordinate amount of traffic, with at least a dozen planes coming through, potentially carrying thousands of kilos of cocaine, Haitian security officials say. In mid-June, the D.E.A. called the Haitian authorities, demanding to know why there was such an uptick, according to Haitian officials with knowledge of the communication.
Several of the planes had even stopped in Port-au-Prince to refuel in the middle of the night, when the airport was closed, they said.
When Mr. Moïse found out about the deliveries in mid-June, he was fuming, his aides said. Then came an order from the presidential palace: Destroy the airstrip.
But the local authorities refused to do it, according to several officials interviewed.
About a week later, Mr. Moïse was at home with his wife and two children when hit men burst into his home. They had been let into the presidential compound by Mr. Hérard’s forces. In his initial testimony, Mr. Hérard said they stood down when the gunmen identified themselves as D.E.A. agents.
Not a single shot was fired between the assassins and Mr. Moïse’s guards. As the gunmen stormed the residence, the president called Mr. Hérard and another security official to rescue him, his widow told The Times. No help came.
Prime Minister Ariel Henry of Haiti in his office in August.Credit...Victor Moriyama for The New York Times
Mr. Badio is still on the loose, but in the weeks after the assassination he was seen in bulletproof government vehicles, according to a security officer who was involved in the investigation.
Mr. Henry has stripped the government of Mr. Moïse’s former allies. Last month, he appointed a new justice minister, Berto Dorcé — who, according to a D.E.A. investigation, bribed one of the judges overseeing the case of the Panamanian-flagged vessel with 1,100 kilos of drugs aboard. A former senior Haitian law enforcement official also said Mr. Dorcé once spent months in jail in connection with drug trafficking.
Mr. Dorcé did not answer a list of questions for this article. Mr. Martelly is in Miami, where he lives, mulling another presidential run, his associates say.
National elections will be held next year, and Mr. Martelly is considered a front-runner.
Julian Barnes contributed reporting from Washington.
16. At least 15 lawmakers who shape US defense policy have investments in military contractors
At least this is a bipartisan effort. (note sarcasm)
At least 15 lawmakers who shape US defense policy have investments in military contractors
Business Insider · by Warren Rojas, Camila DeChalus, Kimberly Leonard, Dave Levinthal
- The politicians hold posts on either the House or Senate armed-services panels.
- They're investing their money in defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Boeing.
- Potentially profiting off oversight duties is indefensible, ethics watchdogs say.
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At least 15 lawmakers who hold powerful positions on a pair of House and Senate committees that control US military policy have financial ties to prominent defense contractors that together were worth nearly $1 million in 2020, according to an Insider analysis of federal financial records.
And throughout 2021, both Democrats and Republicans serving on the congressional Armed Services committees have continued to invest in or cash out of the most important players in the military and defense industry.
Lawmakers with investments riding on defense contractors' well-being — some worth upward of five figures — include seasoned Capitol Hill veterans and Washington newcomers, Insider found when analyzing documents disclosing their personal financial holdings for 2020.
The tally is part of the exhaustive Conflicted Congress project, in which Insider reviewed nearly 9,000 financial-disclosure reports for every sitting lawmaker and their top-ranking staffers.
House investments
Atop the list is the 16-term Rep. Jim Cooper, a Democrat of Tennessee who chairs the House panel's Strategic Forces Subcommittee. He reported owning up to $65,000 worth of stock in General Electric at the end of 2020, with up to $50,000 worth of it held in a tax-favored individual retirement account and up to $15,000 worth held in a brokerage account established for one of his children.
A diversified company that produces a variety of products, GE describes itself as a "leading supplier of integrated systems and technologies for combat aircraft, military transport, helicopters, land vehicles and unmanned aerial vehicles."
Democratic Reps. Joe Courtney of Connecticut and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey reported briefly owning defense-related stocks during 2020. Courtney is in his eighth term and chairs the House panel's Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee. Sherrill is a second-term lawmaker and considered a more junior member of the House Armed Services Committee.
Both told Insider they had since divested themselves of individual stock holdings and diversified their portfolios by investing in mutual funds or exchange-traded funds.
The wife of Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California, Ritu Khanna, invested up to several hundred thousand dollars in a collection of defense contractor stocks at some point in 2020, including Boeing, General Dynamics, General Electric, Honeywell, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon. Ro Khanna served on the House Armed Services Committee then, as he does now in his third term as a member of Congress.
While Ritu Khanna sold many of those stocks before 2021, she has made several four- or five-figure trades in Honeywell in 2021, according to federal financial disclosures.
House Armed Services Committee member Ro Khanna, a Democrat of California, fields questions from reporters after a meeting of the House Democratic Caucus in the US Capitol.
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
"My wife has assets prior to marriage which are legally not mine, and it's not my place to tell her what to do with her separate assets," Ro Khanna told Insider.
Two more Democrats — Reps. Rick Larsen of Washington and Joe Morelle of New York — both reported having less than $1,000 tied up in defense companies.
Larsen is in his 11th term and one of the House committee's most senior members, though he doesn't hold an official leadership position on the panel. Morelle is in his third term but just got his seat on the Armed Services panel in January. Their offices did not respond to repeated requests for comment about their finances.
Across the aisle, Republican Rep. Pat Fallon, a freshman of Texas who secured a coveted spot on the armed-services panel upon his arrival on Capitol Hill, reported buying and selling up to $1.4 million worth of Boeing stock this year, much of it between January and April. He also reported owning up to $50,000 worth of stock in General Electric.
Fallon did not respond to repeated requests for comment about his finances. Insider earlier this year reported that Fallon failed to properly disclose dozens of stock transactions together worth millions of dollars, which his spokesperson attributed to the congressman's unfamiliarity with federal conflict-of-interest laws.
Fellow new arrival Rep. Blake Moore, a GOP freshman from Utah, reported owning up to $50,000 worth of stock in Boeing and up to $50,000 in Raytheon shares at the end of 2020. The congressman has continued purchasing defense contractor stocks in 2021, buying up to $60,000 worth of Raytheon shares between February and May and $15,000 worth of Boeing shares in July. Shares in Raytheon have increased in value since the beginning of 2021, while shares in Boeing have fallen.
Moore in 2021 has also bought and sold up to $180,000 worth of stock and stock options in Alibaba Group, the Chinese e-commerce giant that has demonstrated ties to China's Communist Party. His most recent Alibaba stock option purchase came on November 19, federal records show. US military officials have regularly warned of China's advances in military technology and capabilities, and Moore himself is an outspoken critic of China's government.
Moore, who also this year failed to properly disclose stock trades in violation of federal law, did not respond to repeated requests for comment about his finances for this story. In July, Moore's office told Insider in a written statement that "upon entering Congress, Congressman Moore made an intentional effort to learn the new financial requirements and simplify and consolidate his financial investments."
Republican Rep. Austin Scott of Georgia reported buying and selling up to $45,000 worth of stock in General Electric in late 2020. A spokesperson for the six-term lawmaker, Rachel Ledbetter, said Scott and his wife "own stocks like millions of American families do.
"And they follow all laws on trading," she added.
Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, now in his third term in Congress, reported that his wife, Anne Horak Gallagher, sold up to $50,000 worth of stock in Lockheed Martin in January 2020 as part of the couple's shift to investing in mutual funds or exchange-traded funds. Six-term Republican Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama said he inherited shares of General Electric when his mother died in 2019 but otherwise depended on a financial advisor to handle his investments.
Republican Rep. Rob Wittman of Virginia said he had no knowledge of the up to $15,000 worth of Lockheed Martin stock and up to $15,000 in Honeywell shares that flowed through his portfolio, telling Insider an investment manager handled his finances. Now in his eighth term, Wittman is the GOP ranking member for the panel's Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee.
"Mr. Wittman believes members of Congress should not improperly benefit from their role," Sarah Newsome, a spokesperson for Wittman, wrote in an email, adding that her boss "remains committed to accountability and transparency in government."
Senate investments
Across the Capitol, Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a freshman of Alabama, reported owning nearly $200,000 worth of stock combined in Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, General Electric, Raytheon, and General Dynamics.
Tuberville also violated the federal Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012 this year by disclosing nearly 130 stock trades weeks or months late.
Tuberville has continued trading defense contractor stocks during 2021, most recently on October 18, when he sold his stakes in General Dynamics and General Electric, each worth up to $50,000, according to federal records. Like Moore, Tuberville also trades heavily in Alibaba, buying and selling up to $215,000 in stock options on September 13.
Freshman Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a Republican of Alabama, quizzes US military leaders about ongoing operations during Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on September 28, 2021 on Capitol Hill.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Ryann DuRant, his spokesperson, previously downplayed questions about her boss' finances, telling Insider the former college-football coach had "long had financial advisors who actively manage his portfolio without his day-to-day involvement."
Altogether, Tuberville's campaign received $89,100 in contributions from defense-sector PACs and employees when he ran for office in 2020, according to OpenSecrets.
Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada and her husband, Larry Rosen, reported co-owning up to $110,000 worth of stock in General Electric. Democratic Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan reported owning up to $15,000 worth of stock in Raytheon.
Rosen and Peters — both are more junior members without leadership roles on the Senate Committee on Armed Services — did not respond to repeated requests for comment about their personal finances.
Dialing up defense
Whether they have leadership positions on the committees or not, all 15 lawmakers who have made investments in the defense industry all sit on the House and Senate panels responsible for writing the annual defense-authorization bill that bankrolls the military personnel and subcontractors in their home districts.
"If you are invested in any of the top defense contractors then you stand to benefit personally from that bill," said Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, government affairs manager at the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight who called the investments "a clear conflict of interest."
Under current law, members of Congress must disclose all of their individual stock trades in a public database within 30 to 45 days of conducting the transaction, depending on the trade. There is also no prohibition against lawmakers sitting on congressional committees, writing legislation, or voting on bills that might affect them financially.
The defense companies that members of Congress invested in spend millions of dollars annually lobbying the federal government, including Congress, on a variety of issues. In 2020, Lockheed Martin spent nearly $14 million, General Dynamics spent nearly $11 million, and Honeywell spent nearly $5 million, according to OpenSecrets.
The defense-contracting industry also has huge influence on other congressional panels, including the House and Senate Appropriations committees that funnel hundreds of billions of federal dollars every year into government programs and contractors, Hedtler-Gaudette said. Numerous federal policymakers also have defense contractors in their states and districts, who call up lawmakers as the defense spending bills are being drafted to warn that people will lose jobs if funding decreases.
"The hardest thing to do is 'vote against the military' or 'vote against the troops,'" Hedtler-Gaudette said. "That's why every year you see an increase in the Pentagon's spending budget."
Numerous federal policymakers also have defense contractors in their states and districts. Their job is to call up lawmakers as the defense-spending bills are being drafted to say people will lose their jobs if funding decreases.
This year, as Congress prepared to debate the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2022, Rep. Diana Harshbarger, a Republican of Tennessee, purchased thousands — possibly up to tens of thousands — of dollars of stock in the defense contractors Oshkosh Corp. and Raytheon, according to a federal financial disclosure.
Harshbarger, who Insider in August reported violated the federal Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act through her tardy disclosure of hundreds of stock trades, is a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security. The committee has congressional oversight responsibilities for the Department of Homeland Security, an agency that frequently contracts with Raytheon, for one.
The congresswoman employs a financial planner to manage her portfolio "without any authorization, direction, or approval from Congresswoman Harshbarger," said Zac Rutherford, her chief of staff.
Reps. Diana Harshbarger of Tennessee (left) and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia (right) pose for a group photo on the steps of the US Capitol with other freshmen from the House Republican Conference on Monday, January 4, 2021.
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Meanwhile, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican whom the House stripped of committee assignments earlier this year over the 1st-term congresswoman's history of violent comments and promotion of conspiracy theories, purchased up to $15,000 worth of Lockheed Martin stock as recently as November 15, federal records indicated.
Conflicts between stock portfolios and constituents
Government watchdogs criticized the practice of US lawmakers trading in defense-contractor stocks, especially members of the committees with oversight of policy, budgets, and spending.
"It is impossible to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest when you have individual stock in a company whose industry you influence, and you can pick the winners and losers," Kedric Payne, the general counsel and senior director of ethics at the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center, told Insider.
Divorcing policymaking power from personal enrichment is paramount to preserving our democracy, officials at the nonprofit watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said.
"Americans shouldn't have to be concerned about members of Congress being more focused on their stock portfolio than on the country's problems and their constituents' best interests," Meghan Faulkner, CREW's digital director, wrote.
One of her colleagues who spoke to Insider put it more bluntly. This person who was not authorized to speak to a reporter flat out urged Congress to ban individual stock trading — for the good of everyone.
"At worst, it's a sign of abject corruption," the CREW aide told insider. "And at best, it's a distraction — even for well-meaning members — from the work that they're actually supposed to be doing: passing laws and conducting oversight."
Senior correspondent Robin Bravender contributed to this report.
Business Insider · by Warren Rojas, Camila DeChalus, Kimberly Leonard, Dave Levinthal
17. In Competing Versions of Democracy, Biden’s Summit Pales against China’s Multi-billion Dollar Bait
I guess to be effective at wolf diplomacy you need "bait."
Conclusion:
In reality, the feel-good Summit is more about politics, reclaiming leadership and influence and less about democracy. Building a coalition of like-minded countries is a delicate, serious and laborious task that requires consistency and a long-term commitment. Even the QUAD comprising just four countries is struggling to finalize its agenda. President Biden wants to have a similar event next year, yet one year is like an eternity in politics. With the Republicans smelling blood and midterm congressional elections scheduled next year, there is little certainty that a follow-up Summit would even materialize.
In Competing Versions of Democracy, Biden’s Summit Pales against China’s Multi-billion Dollar Bait
Vishnu Prakash
https://www.news18.com/news/opinion/in-competing-versions-of-democracy-biden-summit-pales-against-china-multi-billion-dollar-bait-4548707.html
US President Joe Biden convened a two-day global Summit for Democracy in the virtual format on December 9-10, 2021. What was the purpose, need or rationale for having the event, to which political and business leaders, officials, civil society activists and journalists from some 110 “undemocratically selected” countries were invited? Did the exercise achieve its objectives, stated or otherwise? It would be pertinent to delve a bit deeper.
First the invitees. By betraying political expediency in selecting invitees instead of following transparent criteria, the US may have damaged its relations with several countries including in South Asia. Inviting jihadi Pakistan and leaving out Bangladesh as well as Sri Lanka defies logic. It also gives credence to the view that Pakistan is America’s blind spot. It encourages the former to continue with its machinations, which imperils peace and stability in the region and beyond. Yet far from being appreciative, Islamabad declined to join the event, in solidarity with its mentor China, which had not been invited. Hope Washington realizes how rapidly its clout is diminishing.
Again, simple folks would like to know how is Singapore any less democratic than the Philippines? Manila made the cut to the invitees’ list, but Singapore did not. What then is the definition of democracy and who can appraise the democracy quotient of a state?
Different Definitions of Democracy
Not surprisingly, there are a number of self-appointed western referees who have appropriated the authority to pass judgment on every country. Take the ‘venerable’ Freedom House, for example. It has determined that India (67), Philippines (56), Hong Kong (52), Malaysia (51), Singapore (48), Bangladesh (39), Pakistan (37) and Turkey (32) are all ‘partly free’ but the US (83) is ‘free’.
That the sitting President of the country encouraged his angry and emotionally charged followers to march to the Capitol Hill not exactly with benign intentions; or that hundreds of distraught kids of illegal migrants were separated from their parents under the 2018 ‘zero-tolerance’ plan; or that African Americans were 20 times more likely to be imprisoned than a white person—do not make the world’s oldest democracy any less free.
Now please do not ask ‘uncharitable’ questions like who pays the piper? In 2021, the (un)Freedom House received 93 per cent of its total revenues ($59.7 million out of $64.2 million) in federal US grants. I rest my case!
As such it may be fair to say that democracy, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder. The fact remains that democracy and ‘love’ are two of the most misused or even abused words. The world’s most oppressive and authoritarian state—North Korea—is not bashful of calling itself the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
One of the popular definitions of democracy is a government of the people, by the people, for the people.
Repressive China styles itself as a People’s Republic. In a bizarre move, the Chinese State Council released a white paper—China: Democracy That Works—on December 4 asserting that China was the world’s largest democracy with 900 million voters. For good measure, it claims to have contributed a “New Model of Democracy … to the international political spectrum” which has fuelled “the development of the country and driven the revitalization of the nation”. As if that was not enough, the paper admonishes the world for “excessive democracy, democracy implemented in a haste, democratic deficit and fading democracy”.
Tokenism at Best
Now that the “fog” has been so helpfully cleared by Beijing, let us examine the purpose of the Summit. It is “intended to rally the world’s democracies against the authoritarian models of Russia and China,” opines The New York Times. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida underlined that, “It is necessary for like-minded countries to be united in tackling actions that would undermine fundamental values such as freedom, democracy and the rule of law.”
In his inaugural remarks, President Biden expressed concern at the “sustained and alarming challenges to democracy, universal human rights … more than half of all democracies have experienced a decline in at least one aspect of their democracy over the last 10 years, including the United States … And as a global community for democracy, we have to stand up for the values that unite us.” He pitched the US as a “champion for democracy” while recognizing that many champions were needed all around the world.
And no doubt India is one such champion although we do not believe in propagating our model of governance. In his brief yet pithy intervention, PM Narendra Modi observed that the democratic spirit was integral to India’s civilization ethos and that nations were following “different paths of democratic development”. Thus, it is necessary to constantly improve democratic systems and jointly shape global norms for emerging technologies like social media and crypto currencies, so that they empower democracy, not undermine it.
In his very first foreign policy speech at the US State Department on February 4, President Biden had committed to host a “Summit of Democracy … to rally the nations of the world to defend democracy globally and to push back the authoritarianism’s advance” while promising to be “a much more credible partner”.
The Biden administration has been speaking about cooperating and competing with China, but also confronting it. The establishment has been quite vocal about condemning human rights abuses, particularly in Xinjiang. Last week, it was announced that no American official would attend the Chinese Winter Olympics although the athletes would participate. A few countries have followed suit. This is a small step in the right direction.
On December 9, Biden launched the “Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal” and other initiatives to bolster democratic resilience and human rights globally. He seeks to promote transparent and accountable governance, media freedom and independence, fight international corruption, defend fair elections, to cite a few examples. For this purpose, he wants to earmark a ‘princely sum’ of $424 million with the approval of Congress.
Any initiative that promotes democracy and rule of law globally is welcome but the Summit for Democracy is tokenism at best. Democratic ethos cannot be generated through a virtual conference that too on the cheap. To contextualize, China has committed $100 billion under the Belt and Road Initiative in South Asia alone, which includes some $60 billion to Pakistan and about $30 billion to Bangladesh.
In reality, the feel-good Summit is more about politics, reclaiming leadership and influence and less about democracy. Building a coalition of like-minded countries is a delicate, serious and laborious task that requires consistency and a long-term commitment. Even the QUAD comprising just four countries is struggling to finalize its agenda. President Biden wants to have a similar event next year, yet one year is like an eternity in politics. With the Republicans smelling blood and midterm congressional elections scheduled next year, there is little certainty that a follow-up Summit would even materialize.
The author is Former Envoy to South Korea and Canada and Official Spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
18. U.S., Australia and Japan to Fund Undersea Cable in the Pacific
U.S., Australia and Japan to Fund Undersea Cable in the Pacific
December 13, 2021 08:22
The United States, Australia and Japan said Sunday they will jointly fund the construction of an undersea cable to boost internet access in three tiny Pacific countries, as the Western allies seek to counter rising Chinese influence in the region.
The three Western allies said they would develop the cable to provide faster internet to Nauru, Kiribati and the Federated States of Micronesia.
"This will support increased economic growth, drive development opportunities, and help to improve living standards as the region recovers from the severe impacts of COVID-19," a joint statement from the United States, Japan and Australia said. The three allies did not specify how much the project will cost.
A person types on a laptop keyboard, in this file photo taken on June 19, 2017. /AP
The development of the undersea cable is the latest funding commitment from the Western allies in the telecommunications sector of the Pacific.
The United States and its Indo-Pacific allies are concerned that cables laid by the People's Republic of China could compromise regional security. Beijing has denied any intent to use commercial fiber-optic cables, which have far greater data capacity than satellites, for spying.
Australia in 2017 spent about US$98.2 million to develop better internet access for the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.
- Copyright © Chosunilbo & Chosun.com
19. Building on AUKUS to forge a Pax Pacifica
Building on AUKUS to forge a Pax Pacifica
US should expand the security pact and build new strategic collaborations with Japan, South Korea and Europe to deter China
America’s offer to supply British and US nuclear submarine technology to Australia (AUKUS) became a political fact almost instantly. President Biden and prime ministers Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison announced it.
Yet, whatever its outcome, if it’s just limited to building subs, it’s unlikely to deter Beijing. To accomplish that and create a real Pax Pacifica, Washington will have to up its ante and forge additional strategic technology collaborations between Japan, South Korea, and Europe.
What will happen if Washington doesn’t? Seoul and Tokyo could go their own way. Having been rebuffed after asking Washington to help it build nuclear submarines in 2020, South Koreans now wonder why Washington just said yes to Australia.
Assuming Seoul proceeds with its plans, though, it would squander billions on nuclear submarines unlikely to perform well in the closed and shallow seas that surround Korea.
Worse, it would give Seoul a pretext to enrich uranium for its subs with plants that could also produce weapons-grade material for bombs. Japan would hardly stand for this. Count on it, and possibly others, developing additional nuclear weapons options, straining rather than strengthening America’s security ties in the region.
This, however, is hardly inevitable. Washington, Tokyo, Seoul, Canberra, and Europe could create a Pax Pacifica by tightening the nuclear rules and collaborating on new, cutting-edge technological projects.
The aim would be to get China to realize that any regional hot war it might threaten in the short run would only further catalyze a larger cool competition against it that it would likely lose.
How might the United States and its allies pull this off? One way, recently suggested by former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, would be to amplify the Australian-UK-US deal’s nonnuclear features—its space cooperation, unmanned underwater warfare systems development, and advanced computing and missile collaboration—and open them up to the participation of Japan, South Korea, and others as appropriate.
Washington also could forge new collaborations. One might be an ROK-French-US (ROKFUS) initiative to build an enhanced space surveillance system that, among other things, could aim to eliminate the blind spots the moon’s brightness creates near it for our ground-based telescopes.
France, the hips of the European Space Agency and NATO’s space command, should be interested. So should Seoul, which otherwise is poised to waste billions on unnecessary space launch systems and redundant navigational satellite constellations.
Meanwhile, the project’s surveillance system could keep track of Chinese military and civil satellites, including those near the moon, threatening critical US and allied satellites in geostationary orbits.
The USS John Warner, a nuclear-powered submarine of the type Australia will soon be developing. Source: US Navy
Another useful project would be to have Germany, as the European Union’s lead, work with Japan and the United States on advanced computer and communications systems that could help could crack codes, secure communications, and open up closed internet systems.
This deal (DEJPUS?) could exploit Japan’s, Europe’s and America’s considerable accomplishments in these fields, Japan’s and Germany’s current cooperation on advanced computing, and help assure US and European markets for the systems the undertaking might generate.
This, after China’s rush to tap the European 5G market, would be no mean accomplishment. It also could help penetrate Beijing’s Great Firewall, which tracks and censors open communications in and outside China.
These additional initiatives could include additional participants. Their aim would be to reduce Japan’s and South Korea’s incentives to go their own way (or nuclear); encourage Europe’s democracies to engage more deeply with those of the Pacific; and create peaceful counters to Chinese economic, military, and diplomatic forms of intimidation.
Sound too good to ever be true? It may be. Certainly, there’s one question Chinese and Russian critics of AUKUS raise that could make all this stillborn: Isn’t sharing nuclear submarine technology with Australia directly at odds with reining in nuclear risks? For many, the answer is yes. It ought to be just the opposite.
Former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans has publicly supported AUKUS so long as Australia keeps clear of enriching its own uranium.
Scott Morrison’s Australia’s Liberal Party, which enjoys a mere one-seat majority in Australia’s House, seems to be listening: Prime Minister Morrison recently stated that Canberra does not intend to develop a civilian nuclear program.
Even if it did, Australia has no need to enrich uranium or reprocess spent reactor fuels. As such, Australia could follow the UAE and Taiwan’s example by forswearing these activities in its nuclear cooperative agreement with the United States.
Aerial of Ranger Uranium mine in Kakadu National Park from which a share of the profits go to aboriginal landowners in the Northern Territory of Australia. Photo: Rob Francis / Robert Harding Heritage via AFP
This could be done by amending the existing US-Australia nuclear cooperative agreement or 123, which currently prohibits the transfer of any controlled US nuclear technology for any military purpose.
Agreeing legally to forgo enriching and reprocessing also has the advantage of short-circuiting nuclear proliferation critics at the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference this coming January.
Finally, it would help further restrain South Korea, which would like to enrich uranium and reprocess US-origin spent fuel but is prohibited from doing so by its current nuclear cooperative agreement with Washington.
As for concerns regarding highly enriched uranium, which would fuel the subs but could also help make nuclear weapons, both the US Los Angeles and the British Astute-class submarines use this fuel.
Their reactor cores, however, do not require refueling for 33 years or more and cannot be serviced without cutting open the hulls. Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom should exploit this by announcing that either the United States or the UK will retain title to the fuel, so Australia will have no need to touch it.
Combine that with a legally binding pledge not to enrich or reprocess and additional American-European strategic technological collaboration with Japan and South Korea, and Washington could set the stage not only for less nuclear proliferation but a Pax Pacifica with real staying power.
Henry Sokolski (henry@npolicy.org) is the executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Arlington, Virginia, and author of Underestimated: Our Not So Peaceful Nuclear Future. He served as deputy for nonproliferation policy in the office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense during the George H.W. Bush administration.
This story originally appeared on PacNet and is republished with permission.
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.
