Leader For Life: Xi Jinping Strengthens Hold On Power As China Communist Party Ends Term Limits
"China’s inexorable rise is helped by Trump’s retreat"
Salvatore Babones , Contributor I write about Asia's role in the global political economy.
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
Feb 25, 2018 @ 09:55 PM 506
BEIJING, CHINA - FEBRUARY 14: Xi Jinping,the president of China attends the 2018 Chinese New Year celebration party on 14th February 2018 in Beijing, China.(Photo by TPG/Getty Images)
The National People's Congress is dominated by the Communist Party and is widely viewed as a rubber-stamp body. The success of the proposed amendment is all but assured. If passed, it will allow Chinese President Xi Jinping to stay in office indefinitely.
In the absence of a Constitutional amendment, Xi would have to step down from the Presidency in 2023. He was first elected in 2013 by a vote of 2,952-1, and is certain to be reelected this year to a second five year term. Speculation is that the one vote .. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/2592-for-1-against-so-who-didnt-vote-xi-jinping-for-president-8535253.html .. against Xi Jinping in 2013's secret ballot was... Xi Jinping himself. He may have cast the vote as a form of democratic window-dressing.
BEIJING, CHINA - JANUARY 24: Delegates attend the First Session of the 15th Beijing Municipal Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) on January 24, 2018 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Qianlong.com/VCG via Getty Images)
In addition to the office of President, Xi also holds the posts of General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, neither of which carries any term limit. That puts him in charge of the state, the Party, and the army, potentially in perpetuity. In December, the national armed police .. http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2125880/china-brings-peoples-armed-police-under-control-top .. were put under the Central Military Commission as well. Formally as well as informally, Xi is set to hold all the major reins of power in China for as long as he chooses.
There have always been doubts .. https://www.forbes.com/sites/salvatorebabones/2017/10/20/populism-chinese-style-xi-jinping-cements-his-status-as-chinas-first-populist-president/ .. about whether or not that consensus-driven model would outlive China's first post-Mao leader, Deng Xiaoping. After the death of Communist China's founding father Mao Zedong in 1976, there was a tussle for power with massive implications for the future direction of China. On one side were the so-called Gang of Four (led by Mao's wife, Jiang Qing), who planned to continue Mao's legacy. Opposing them were a group of reformers organized around Mao's junior contemporary, sometimes partner, and frequent competitor Deng Xiaoping.
A Chinese paramilitary policeman stands guard on Tiananmen Square in front of the portrait of China's late communist leader Mao Zedong in Beijing on November 8, 2017. (NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images)
Deng ultimately won out and rose to the top, but he did not monopolize power in the way Mao had. Instead Deng laid the foundations for the ensuing three decades of Communist Party rule by elite consensus. China's next two leaders were both recruited and mentored directly by Deng: Jiang Zemin (President 1993-2003) and Hu Jintao (2003-2013). Though Deng died in 1997, the people he put in place ruled China, largely according to his plan, until the elevation of Xi Jinping in 2013.
Xi is China's first true post-Deng leader. He has consolidated more power under his direct personal command than any previous leader since Mao , and he has used his popular anti-corruption campaign to jail an unprecedented number .. https://www.businessinsider.com.au/chinas-jails-full-after-xi-jinping-corruption-graft-2018-2?r=US&IR=T .. of potential opponents and rivals. Where China's authoritarian politics once looked very different from those of other strongman dictatorships, it now seems to be reverting to form.
Just 64 years old and with a legal route to remaining President for life, it now seems certain that Xi will retain not just an informal grip on power, but a monopoly of China's leadership for a generation or more. That may ensure several decades of relative stability and competent government. But personal rule ultimately weakens a political system, no matter how effective the personal ruler. Xi may realize his Chinese Dream .. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/Chinese-dream.html .. of a prosperous and powerful country, but at the cost of hollowing out its political system.
Salvatore Babones is the author of American Tianxia: Chinese Money, American Power, and the End of History. He also hosts Midnight in America Friday nights on YouTube. Follow him on Twitter @sbabones.
For years, China has groomed landlocked Yunnan province in its southwest to be the country’s strategic bridgehead into Southeast Asia, building highways and rail lines to its borders with Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar to one day weave them into a regional, and eventually, transcontinental transport network.
As China pushes ahead with president Xi Jinping’s ambitious $1 trillion One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative—which reimagines a historic trade network as an overland Silk Road Economic “Belt” and a Maritime Silk “Road”—protecting Chinese business executives and other personnel and their rapidly growing investments in the region is more important than ever.
Don Weinland in Hong Kong and Charles Clover in Beijing March 5, 2018
China’s largest state-owned conglomerate has expanded its stake in Erik Prince’s private security company with an eye to expanding operations across Asia, including western China and Pakistan https://www.ft.com/content/97c14e0e-2031-11e8-a895-1ba1f72c2c11
Jeremy Scahill shares some on Erik Prince in this excellent video
Jeremy Scahill on Trump’s Cabinet Shakeup, the Mueller Probe & the Iraq War 15 Years Later [The first part of this interview, i think, must be the bottom one.]
Published on Mar 15, 2018 by Democracy Now! Extended conversation with investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of The Intercept. Scahill talks about Trump’s pick for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Erik Prince’s ties to China, Trump’s ties to Russia and the 15th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. https://www.democracynow.org/2018/3/15/jeremy_scahill_on_trump_s_cabinet [with embedded video, and transcript] [further to the "Jeremy Scahill: Gina Haspel Should Be Answering for Her Torture Crimes, Not Heading the CIA" Democracy Now! segment included as the third item in the post to which this is a reply] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK89bEpNT0g [with comments] .. reposted as the first in, Part 182, some of Russian meddling... https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=140004140
The first part, looks like
Jeremy Scahill: Gina Haspel Should Be Answering for Her Torture Crimes, Not Heading the CIA
Published on Mar 14, 2018 by Democracy Now! Trump has tapped CIA Deputy Director Gina Haspel to replace outgoing CIA Director Mike Pompeo, after Pompeo was named to succeed Rex Tillerson as secretary of state. Haspel was directly involved in the CIA’s torture program under George W. Bush. She was responsible for running a secret CIA black site in Thailand in 2002 where one prisoner was waterboarded 83 times and tortured in other ways. But she enjoys broad support, including from the intelligence community and Democrats in the Senate. For more, we speak with Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of The Intercept. https://www.democracynow.org/2018/3/14/jeremy_scahill_gina_haspel_should_be [with embedded video, and transcript] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTMCiKmABOQ [with comments] [id.] .. reprosted the third down in Part 181, some of... https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=139914658
"China’s inexorable rise is helped by Trump’s retreat"
The people love a winner. The leadership loves a dupe.
Diego Patino [.. image of Trump as Chinese leader inside .. ]
Benjamin Carlson March 2018 Issue Global
In January of last year, around the time of the presidential inauguration, as jitters about the relationship between Donald Trump and China mounted, I regularly joined the mob of reporters at the Chinese foreign ministry’s daily briefings in Beijing. There, the assembled members of the media would press officials on Trump’s latest anti-China comment or Twitter blast—on tariffs, trade wars, North Korea, or China’s “theft” of American jobs. Reporters expected righteous denunciations of the kind China routinely unleashes against South Korea, the Philippines, and other countries perceived as even notionally affronting Chinese interests. But they never came. Day after day, the spokespeople stubbornly, and then impatiently, accentuated a positive view of the prospects for U.S.–Chinese ties under Trump.
Likewise in the state media. While American pundits warned that conflict between the world’s top two economies would lead to meltdown, or speculated about China’s putatively enraged reaction to Trump’s phone call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, Beijing’s state-sanctioned media outlets retained a strangely forbearing, at times vaguely optimistic, tone about the relationship.
From the very beginning, the Communist Party seems to have understood that Trump’s threats were, for the most part, merely for show. By refusing to be rattled, China has enjoyed a series of rhetorical and strategic triumphs that have enhanced its global image and increased its international influence. China also appears to have assessed that Trump, the self-proclaimed master deal maker, would rather have a bad deal than no deal at all, and could be persuaded to compromise on almost anything in order to declare a “win.”
Take the $250 billion in deals announced during Trump’s visit to China in November. Many of the agreements were nonbinding memorandums of understanding, and some had already been negotiated. And while they made a nice headline, they did nothing to address the fundamental problems that U.S. companies face in China: requirements to share technological trade secrets with Chinese partners in exchange for access to Chinese markets; restrictions on entering huge swathes of the economy; industrial policies that explicitly aim to oust foreign firms in fields ranging from information technology to electric vehicles.
Yet China won warm praise from Trump, who professed his “very deep respect” for the country and the “noble traditions of its people.” During an unprecedented “state visit–plus,” as China’s foreign ministry put it, which included a 21-gun salute, a military parade, and a dinner in the Forbidden City, Trump stunned observers by saying he no longer faulted China for its trade policies.
“I don’t blame China,” he said during a joint appearance with President Xi Jinping, adding that he gives the country “great credit” for taking advantage of the U.S. on trade.
Such remarks support the view of Shen Dingli, a professor of international relations at Fudan University. Trump, he told me, is “an especially easy president for China to handle.”
“We are lucky,” he added.
----- Trump may make more sense in China than he does in Washington. -----
Beijing seems to have concluded that the former casino mogul, like a high-rolling gambler, can be made to keep playing the house by showering him with VIP perks.
On the diplomatic front, China’s tactic of acting as a foil to Trump has already paid off handsomely. From Europe to Africa to Latin America, China is enjoying more prestige and respect than it has in years. While Barack Obama vexed Beijing with his idealism, “pivot to Asia,” and China-excluding Trans-Pacific Partnership—a massive trade pact that would have fused the major economies of Asia with the United States—Trump has emphatically reversed course, tearing up the TPP and driving allies to consider China-backed plans instead.
This divergence was nowhere clearer than at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit held in Da Nang, Vietnam, after Trump’s visit in November. There, Xi Jinping outlined a vision of China at the center of the region’s diplomatic, development, and trade architecture, reiterating his country’s support for multilateral free-trade schemes. Trump, meanwhile, struck a pugnacious tone, saying that America had gotten stuck with the bad end of trade deals during previous administrations and warning that “those days are over.”
Trump’s posture stands in marked contrast to China’s plans for engagement of various kinds with countries throughout Asia. The centerpiece of China’s efforts is the Belt and Road Initiative (also known as the New Silk Road), an ambitious strategy to fund infrastructure projects across Eurasia that would increase foreign trade with China’s inland provinces and bolster its geopolitical clout. Often likened to the Marshall Plan, the Belt and Road Initiative brought 29 heads of state to Beijing for a summit last May, where Xi declared it “the project of the century.” Among the attendees was a delegation sent by Trump, a gesture seen as offering a tacit endorsement of Xi’s vision.
Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement further burnished China’s new image as the responsible global power. Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that Germany could no longer rely on its long-standing ally, and when China reiterated its pledge to limit greenhouse-gas emissions, she said, “China has become a more important and strategic partner.” (It’s worth noting that China’s promised carbon-emission target under the Paris Agreement won’t kick in until 2030, and that Beijing has a long history of finding ways to circumvent international promises.)
In all these ways, China has positioned itself to be seen as stepping into America’s vacuum. Shen Dingli emphasized this point to me, saying that Trump’s hostility to multilateral institutions such as the WTO and nato has given China “a huge opportunity.”
With Trump in the White House, Xu Guoqi, a professor at the University of Hong Kong, told me, the Chinese are enjoying a “golden field for their propaganda.” At the same time, Trump’s election, and the wave of political disorder it has unleashed within and beyond the United States, has provided ample fodder for China to attack democracy and extol the one-party state. “American power is based on two legs, the hard power and soft power,” Xu explained. “In terms of soft power, Trump really undermined it substantially.” Trump’s election gave the People’s Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece, the occasion to run a series of commentaries arguing that the “crisis in capitalist societies” was “proof of the truth of Marxism and the superiority of the socialist system.”
Such messages continued to gain force during Trump’s first year in office, boosting not only Beijing’s standing internationally, but the Communist Party’s claim to legitimacy among the Chinese population. Xu describes Trump’s presidency as “a gift for the current regime in China. Because of Trump, Xi Jinping’s Chinese dream”—the resurgence of China’s dominance in world affairs—“could be achievable now.”
Diego Patino
But just as Trump is different things to different Americans—a conservative, a populist, a strongman, a clown—so, too, is he different things to different Chinese. Notably, even as Beijing delights in outwitting Trump on the global stage, many Chinese look upon the American president with sincere admiration. In recent months, I’ve heard from Chinese Trump fans of diverse backgrounds: a journalist, a rural neo-Maoist, an accomplished academic, a highly paid programmer. One pajama-clad pensioner accosted me on the street to inform me that every night he saluted a portrait of Trump he had on his wall, along with images of Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Einstein.
Especially visible among Trump’s Chinese fans are those who pride themselves on being well versed in American politics. Take the online platform Zhihu, a Quora-like forum, where the topic “Donald J. Trump” has garnered some 75,000 followers, nearly half the total following for “America.” One survey suggests that a number of pro-Trump Zhihu users attended college in the U.S. The survey was small, but my own reporting has tended to corroborate this. Those I spoke with said they formed negative impressions of liberalism that helped push them toward Trump. Like many of Trump’s American supporters, they appreciated his hatred of the pieties and shibboleths of the educated American left.
Zhihu users vigorously debate questions that would fit in well on any right-wing platform in the U.S. One page viewed 3.2 million times asks: “Why do many Chinese look down on Western baizuo who consider themselves well-educated?” (The slur literally means “white left,” but is likened to “libtard” on Zhihu.) Forums feature pictures of Pepe the Frog, a symbol of the alt-right, and of a “Liberal Jack-Ass” captioned “Everything I don’t like, must be banned. Everything I do like is a human right and must be paid for by others.”
Contempt for America’s current brand of political correctness is a recurring fixation, as are illegal immigration, Islamist terrorism, affirmative action, transgender activism, and Hillary Clinton. One Zhihu user I spoke with said he supported Trump not because he particularly liked him, but because the style of today’s Democratic Party “reminds us a lot of the Cultural Revolution.”
----- “In the history of mankind, only two people have proposed that the masses must overthrow the social establishment, one is Mao Zedong, the other is Trump.” -----
Many Westerners living in China are surprised to learn that while public discourse is heavily policed, with taboo views on democracy or Mao Zedong harshly punished, Chinese people can be startlingly frank in private conversation, voicing opinions that many Americans would be afraid to express to one another for fear of giving offense. People remark casually and candidly on everything from a person’s weight gain or disability to the supposed collective merits or deficiencies of certain ethnic groups.
This custom makes Trump’s attacks on political correctness appealing to some Chinese, according to Yan Gu, a University of Washington doctoral candidate studying authoritarianism who has researched Chinese online opinion about Trump. Chinese netizens “dislike political correctness and neo-liberal rhetoric,” she told me, noting that “a large portion of Chinese online response” to Obama was “quite racist”; one common slur referred to him as “O-Black.” Sentiment about LGBT issues is rather conservative in much of China, where electroshock therapy is sometimes used as a “cure” for homosexuality.
Trump’s nationalist rhetoric and “strongman style” resonate in China’s political culture, Yan noted. The country’s founding emperor, Qin Shi Huang, is revered for uniting the nation, despite his infamy for burning books and burying scholars alive. Mao, who styled himself as a new emperor, squashed dissent and spurred traumatic and violent campaigns against intellectuals, teachers, and writers, but was idolized by many Chinese and remains, in some quarters, a legend. Xi Jinping has, despite his stolid exterior, proved to be China’s most hard-line leader in decades, and his campaigns to curb foreign influence and vault Chinese companies to dominance in the industries of the future have contributed to his popular appeal.
This helps explain why a portion of pro-Trump sentiment in China comes from a surprising point on the political spectrum: the nationalist extreme left, an odd ally for the capitalist billionaire. Trump’s populist rhetoric and imprecations of the global elite have crossover appeal for Mao nostalgists such as Zhang Hongliang, a firebrand writer known as the “Red Tank Driver.” As he wrote on his Weibo social-media account, “In the history of mankind, only two people have proposed that the masses must overthrow the social establishment, one is Mao Zedong, the other is Trump.”
A scholar who is politically moderate confided privately that he “likes Trump very much,” in part because of his similarities to Xi. “China’s proposed ‘national rejuvenation’ and Trump’s ‘Make America great again’ are the same,” he said. In fact, one could make the case that the slogan Xi embraced as the core of his Chinese dream anticipated Trump’s. Though its official translation is “The great revival of the Chinese nation,” an equally accurate rendition would be “Make China great again.”
And so while the outward differences between Trump and Xi are stark, there may be a reason the two leaders professed to feel personal warmth at their meeting last spring at Mar-a-Lago, in Florida, and again at their summit in Beijing, where Trump boasted of their chemistry. Both are revanchist leaders, denouncing the supposedly venal elite from which they sprang, and claiming to stand between their country and certain disaster.
“Trump’s Republican Party,” Shen told me, “ought to change its name to the Communists.”
This is where these two very different images of Trump—as someone the Chinese feel they can manipulate and as someone who genuinely appeals to them—converge. Whether eliciting respect or scorn, Trump makes a certain intuitive sense in China. In fact, he might make more sense to the Chinese than he does to much of Washington: His unabashed nationalism; rough-hewn arriviste manners; and unapologetic mingling of family, business, and politics make him akin to some newly minted provincial tycoon. In this respect he is less shocking or threatening than commonplace: He’s simply what Chinese call a tuhao, another bumptious billionaire.
While Trump’s continued promotion of his business empire and elevation of his daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, to political power have raised alarm in the United States, such blurring of lines is the norm in China. Even Xi, whom many Chinese seem to regard as corruption-free, has relatives who allegedly amassed huge fortunes while he rose through the ranks. Likewise, family members of Wen Jiabao, known as the “people’s premier” during his decade in power starting in the early 2000s, reportedly piled up several billion dollars during his tenure.
Indeed, Trump’s ferocious loyalty to his clan contributes to his appeal, as it resonates with traditional Chinese values of good leadership, Yan Gu, the University of Washington researcher, told me: “It is a Confucian belief that a great person must ‘improve himself, order his home, govern the country, and bring peace.’ A happy, united family is an indicator of a talented politician.” Online, she noted, Chinese have praised Trump for raising successful sons and daughters, while Hillary Clinton is mocked for her husband’s affair.
Trump’s obsession with “winning” also comports with the winner-take-all attitude of the elite in today’s China, which is less communist than ruthlessly Darwinian. Many successful Chinese believe that “their own success is the result of their own efforts and natural abilities, and those who fail in competition did so because of laziness or other defects,” a commentator named Zhao Lingmin wrote just before the 2016 U.S. presidential election in the Chinese edition of the Financial Times. Winners may be cruel, opportunistic, or corrupt, but they are winners, and therefore they deserve respect. Even Trump’s initial inheritance from his father doesn’t detract from his success, in this view. Rather, it demonstrates his stewardship of the family name and his skill in transforming it into a global brand. As Swallow X. Yan, a politically active entrepreneur who has advised Chinese financiers on Trump, told me, “Chinese people admire success. They look down on losers. If you choose the wrong guy, that is stupid. You are losing face.”
Finally, however overheated Trump’s early China-bashing may have been, the Chinese seem to have long identified him as someone they could do business with, much as they have done business with other strongmen, such as Vladimir Putin and Rodrigo Duterte, despite pursuing divergent or conflicting interests. Unlike previous U.S. presidents, Trump is relatively unconcerned with staking out a moral high ground, or criticizing other countries’ corruption or failings regarding human rights and democracy.
Instead, Trump is transactional. Hoping for cooperation on North Korea, he gave Beijing a better deal on trade. When Beijing didn’t seem to be cooperating enough, he agreed to sell arms to Taiwan. This brand of pragmatic diplomacy, in which relationships hinge on calibrated, concrete bargains that can be altered as conditions change, mirrors Beijing’s way of operating. Although such a contingent approach to relationships entails risks—bilateral cooperation could always collapse as soon as one side feels cheated—it’s a game that China is comfortable playing. With Hillary Clinton, who was, rightly or wrongly, believed to be fundamentally inhospitable to Beijing, things could have been very different. “If Hillary was president of the United States, I can guarantee relations with China would be much worse,” said Xu, the University of Hong Kong professor.
In other words, the “America first” president is in some respects not only amenable to the People’s Republic of China; one could go so far as to argue that he is the first American president with (to borrow a favorite Chinese Communist Party phrase) “Chinese characteristics.” Whether they consider him a global blunderer or a strong leader, a businessman or a family man, Chinese look at Donald Trump and see someone they recognize—and believe they can do business with.
-------
This article appears in the March 2018 print edition with the headline “Why China Loves Trump.”
America’s military might means it remains the most powerful force in Asia – for now, but nervousness over the US president’s policies will speed China’s rise to the top spot, finds Lowy Institute in its first Asia Power Index
By Edouard Morton 8 May 2018 27Comments
If China isn’t already Asia’s pre-eminent superpower, it will be by 2030 if US President Donald Trump .. http://www.scmp.com/topics/donald-trump .. keeps up his unpopular foreign policy decisions, according to an Australian think tank.
The Lowy Institute unveiled its inaugural Asia Power Index on Tuesday in New York, painting a compelling picture of the current and future power balance in a region that houses three of the world’s four largest economies and an increasing majority of the global population, trade and production.
It found that, although not geographically an Asian nation, the United States remains the most powerful of 25 countries, giving it a score of 85. It topped five of the eight sub-measures – economic resources, military capabilities, resilience, defence networks and cultural influence. China, meanwhile, ranked second with a score of 75.5 and led the remaining sub-measures – future trends, diplomatic influence and economic relationships.
Japan, India and Russia rounded out the top five most powerful Asian nations, while Nepal, Laos, Mongolia and Cambodia sat at the bottom end of the ranking.
An F18 fighter takes off from the deck of the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the South China Sea. America’s military force is key to its influence in Asia. Photo: Reuters
Lowy listed America’s unrivalled military force and its defence networks, its university education system and its widely consumed media as its key influences in Asia – after all, China Daily is not as widely read for US news as The New York Times is for China news.
But even with its fire power and far-reaching cultural influence, America’s days at the top in Asia look numbered with its current commander-in-chief.
Lagging well behind China in terms of economic relationships, the institute called Washington’s diplomatic stance in the region “a glaring weakness” – one that is being continually damaged by nervousness about the Trump administration and its foreign policy decisions.
“Whether it is China or the US as the primary power in Asia, both face challenges in Asia,” said Herve Lemahieu, research fellow and director of the Asia Power Index Project at the Lowy Institute.
“For the US, the Achilles’ heel is really economic relationships – we can see that very clearly.
“The Trump presidency is undermining the very aspects of US power that give it that predominant competitive edge over China. He is a sceptic of the alliance system, he is against free trade, and any form of trade war between China and the US would obviously involve other countries as well.”
VIDEO - WATCH: Chinese President Xi hosts Belt and Road forum 00:54
While the US seems to be falling on its military might across Asia to sustain its eroding position in the region, China’s softer “Belt and Road Initiative .. http://www.scmp.com/topics/belt-and-road-initiative ” is doing the opposite – albeit still marred by distrust and scepticism from its own neighbours, Lemahieu said.
“Beijing has surpassed Washington as the most influential capital in the Asia-Pacific region. And that is down to the fact that it understands its economic relationships, and it understands its strategic agenda which it can drive through initiatives like the belt and road,” he told This Week in Asia ahead of Tuesday’s launch.
By 2030, the institute predicts China’s GDP to be almost twice the size as the United States in terms of purchasing power and it will hold top position as Asia’s most powerful nation. But such an accolade will not come easy. The country has an ageing population, which is expected to decline by 42 million working-age people by 2030.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the BRICS summit in Xiamen. Photo: Reuters
Add to that China’s active boundary and territorial disputes with India, Japan, Vietnam and other nations concerned with the South China Sea, its dependence on energy imports and what Lowy describes as its “underdeveloped defence network”, which makes it vulnerable to a military and strategic counterweight.
“[China] is confronted by a political geography that isn’t entirely in its favour. It is surrounded by countries with whom it has a number of territorial and boundary disputes, and Vietnam and India will remain deeply sceptical of China intentions,” Lemahieu said.
“It is also up to Beijing to create confidence in the fact that it is a benign power – and that is far from clear. That sort of confidence in the US is still intact, despite the rise of Trump presidency.”
Lemahieu said until Beijing makes substantial reparations on the territorial disputes and matches US military capability, it will remain a contested force in Asia despite its economic influence.
A Chinese naval task force in the South China Sea. Photo: Reuters
And the race to assert military dominance across Asia is certainly not a one-horse race.
Lowy’s military capability measure offered an interesting reminder of the intensifying security situation facing Asia. While the US and China take first and second spots, Russia, India and North Korea follow as the next most powerful – beating even devoted US allies such as Japan, Australia and Singapore.
“Military strength remains vital in deterring potential military aggression, such as North Korea’s threats in Asia and beyond,” said William Courtney, adjunct senior fellow and executive director at US policy think tank RAND Corporation.
“If America were not to provide a nuclear umbrella to democracies in Northeast Asia, the risks of North Korean nuclear intimidation and coercion in the region would rise.”
Mike Pompeo warns US could 'disconnect' from Australia over Victoria's Belt and Road deal
"China’s inexorable rise is helped by Trump’s retreat "Former Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr says America will find it hard to contain the rise of China as the dominant power in the region ""
Mr. master Trump sir laid it on Ukraine, so guess Pompeo thinks he can threaten Australia too. It's more likely just more 'tough guy' rhetoric in an effort to shore up Trump's weakening base than anything real.
By Yara Murray-Atfield Posted 1 hour ago, updated 1 hour ago
VIDEO - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the Belt and Road initiative comes at a cost to those who sign on.
The US Secretary of State has said his nation could "simply disconnect" from Australia if Victoria's trade deal with Beijing affects US telecommunications.
Key points:
* Victoria has been criticised for sticking with the infrastructure agreement during increased tensions with China
* Mike Pompeo said the Belt and Road project increased the Chinese Government's ability to "do harm"
* The State Government said it would never agree to telecommunications projects under the deal
Mike Pompeo said while he was not aware of the detail of Victoria's agreement, he warned it could impact his nation's Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partnership with Australia.
China's trillion-dollar Belt and Road initiative is a global infrastructure push aiming to recreate the glory days of China's ancient Silk Road trade routes.
The highly controversial scheme has been panned by many Western democracies, including Australia.
The non-legally-binding agreement allows Victorian infrastructure experts to get access to the hundreds of billions of dollars of projects slated for the Belt and Road.
It also encourages Chinese infrastructure firms to establish a presence in Victoria and to bid for major infrastructure projects.
Despite criticism, Premier Daniel Andrews says the deal is in the interest of Victoria's economy.(Twitter: Lisa Tucker)
"I don't know the nature of those projects precisely," Mr Pompeo told Sky News today.
[Insert: It might be wiser to know more about the projects before you make comment as you have. Then again there is an election coming up, eh Mike.]
"To the extent they have an adverse impact on our ability to protect telecommunications from our private citizens, or security networks for our defence and intelligence communities — we simply disconnect, we will simply separate.
"We are going to preserve trust in networks for important information. We hope our friends and allies, especially our Five Eyes partners like Australia, do the same."
Mr Pompeo said the scheme broadly came at "some cost" to those who signed on.
"Every nation has its own sovereign right to make decisions for itself, and I suppose Victoria has some rights that it can undertake but every citizen of Australia should know that every one of those Belt and Road projects needs to be looked at incredibly closely," he said.
Deal 'about Victorian jobs', Premier says
The State Opposition has criticised the Andrews Government for continuing with the infrastructure deal despite increased tensions between Canberra and Beijing.
But Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas last week made a connection to the events, saying: "I don't suppose it would come as a surprise to anybody that this was the consequence of the way that the Federal Government had conducted themselves."
When asked about Mr Pompeo's comments at a press conference, Mr Andrews said while he had not seen the interview, "my position on these matters is very well known".
"It's all about Victoria jobs and we'll continue to work at a strong partnership," he said.
"Doesn't mean we agree on everything, there are many things we don't agree on.
"But what I think all of us here and indeed both parts of our partnership, both Victoria, Australia and China — surely we all have to concede and we all have to recognise that a good, strong partnership is in everyone's interests."
A Government spokesperson later said the Belt and Road framework was "about creating opportunities for Victorian businesses and local jobs — opportunities that will be more important than ever as we rebuild from the coronavirus pandemic".
"Telecommunications regulation is the responsibility of the Commonwealth Government," the spokesperson continued.
"Victoria has not, and will not in the future, agree to telecommunications projects under the BRI."
The American mercenary behind Blackwater is helping China establish the new Silk Road [...] Citic boosts stake in Erik Prince’s security group Frontier Chinese state-backed conglomerate tightens grip on company of Blackwater founder https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=140007820
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