Table of Contents

PAKISTAN
1. Pak-China-Russia Trilateral Strategic Gamut By Syed Qamar Afzal Rizvi ......................................... 3
2. Bureaucracy and Society By Iftikhar Ahmad .................................................................................... 7
3. Energy Reforms | Editorial............................................................................................................. 11
4. Paradigm Shift in Pak-Russia Relations By Sehrish Khan ............................................................... 13
5. Major Power Relationships in Pakistan’s Neighbourhood By Shahid Javed Burki ........................ 16
6. Journey Since Independence By Abbas Nasir ................................................................................ 19
7. Areas of Cooperation Between the US and Pakistan By Maheen Shafiq ...................................... 22
8. Why is Biden Ignoring Pakistan? By Shahid Javed Burki ................................................................ 25
9. India, Pakistan Relations Likely to Remain Thorny: Experts .......................................................... 28
ECONOMY
1. National Security Policy and Economic Diplomacy By Prof Shazia A Cheema ............................... 31
2. Economy: Misconceptions and Targeting Relief By Dr Kamal Monnoo ........................................ 34
3. The Wages of the IMF By Durdana Najam ..................................................................................... 37
4. Rethinking Economic Equations By Dr Kamal Monnoo ................................................................. 39
5. Some Important Economic Issues Entering 2022 By Dr Omer Javed ............................................ 43
6. Pakistan’s New Strategic Pivot: Geo-Economics By Dr Qaisar Rashid ........................................... 47
7. 2022: Unshackling Pakistan’s Economy By Dr Kamal Monnoo ...................................................... 50
EDUCATION
1. Quality Higher Education By Atta-ur-Rahman ............................................................................... 54
2. Prioritising Education in Pakistan By Hisham Khan ....................................................................... 58
3. Sustainable Educational Institutes By Muhammad Ali Falak ......................................................... 60
4. Education: Not Enough Mistakes to Learn From By Arooj Naveed Haq ........................................ 63
WORLD
1. Post-withdrawal US-Taliban Talks By Dr Qaisar Rashid ................................................................. 65
2. Who’s to Blame for Asia’s Arms Race? By Thomas Shugart; Van Jackson..................................... 68
3. Superpower and its Credibility By Dr Farah Naz ............................................................................ 74
4. China and Global Challenges By Mustafa Talpur ........................................................................... 78
5. The Unending Variants — Coronavirus By Inam Ul Haque ............................................................ 81

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 6. The Hidden Threat to Globalization By Niccolo W. Bonifai, Irfan Nooruddin, and Nita Rudra ..... 84
7. Iran’s Nuclear Strategy By Neville Teller ........................................................................................ 90
8. India’s Attempt to Get Back into Afghanistan By Shahid Javed Burki ........................................... 93
9. Where Will Afghanistan be in a Year? By Kamran Yousaf ............................................................. 97
10. What do Indo-Russia Ties Mean for the US? By Prof. Abdul Shakoor Shah .................................. 99
11. Shifting Tides in the Middle East By Azhar Azam......................................................................... 102
12. Washington Is Preparing for the Wrong War With China By Hal Brands and Michael Beckley .. 105
13. Escaping North Korea Under Kim Jong-Un – Analysis By Jay Song .............................................. 112
14. Russia-China Alliance Poses Defining Challenge For The West – OpEd By Andrew Hammond .. 115
15. The Iran Deadlock | Editorial ....................................................................................................... 118
16. The Growing Threat of Nukes By António Guterres .................................................................... 119
17. China’s Foreign Policy Review 2021: An Expert Opinion By Dr Mehmood-ul-Hassan Khan ........ 122
18. The Real Crisis of Global Order By Alexander Cooley and Daniel H. Nexon ................................ 126
19. Will the World Recognise Taliban Rule? By Kamran Yousaf ........................................................ 142
20. Global Trends: Possible Impact in 2022 By Talat Masood ........................................................... 144

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PAKISTAN

Pak-China-Russia Trilateral Strategic

Gamut By Syed Qamar Afzal Rizvi
THE strong relationship between China and Pakistan, as illustrated most recently
by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, has long played a key role in Asia‘s
geopolitics thereby paving the way towards trilateral strategic bonds between
China-Pakistan and Russia.

However, broader regional developments over the last few months also mark the
possibility of a new coalition involving Pakistan, China, and Russia.

This article focuses on the evolving relationship between the three countries;
considers how real and potentially effective this trilateral partnership-perhaps
fuelling the US policymakers to weave a strategy, thereby counterbalancing the
US interests in the region and beyond.

This piece also endeavours to analyze the factors propelling such development
and seek to discern the possible implications it may have on global geopolitics.

Needless to say, Russia‘s robust engagement with China coupled with the
recalibration of its ties with Pakistan, coming at the backdrop of Russia‘s
increasing estrangement with the West, Pakistan‘s dissatisfaction with the USA
over the suspension of security assistance, and India‘s closeness toward the
latter are leading scholars and political analysts to remark that Russia, China and
Pakistan are gradually inching toward the formalization of an ‗axis‘ or a strategic
‗counter alliance‘ against the US-India ,and the US-NATO-Quad trajectory.

And yet, there are emerging signs that this trilateral symmetry is going to be a
reality without any iota of doubt.

The undeniable significance is the emergence of converging interests among

these three states that is gradually leading to deeper engagements among them.

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The ongoing trilateral partnership between the three states is certainly dominated
by the energy cooperation accompanied by opening new corridors of economic
cooperation among them.

This development is a logical corollary to China‘s expanding economic footprint

and influence in South and Central Asia, Pakistan and Russia will likely desire to
lessen their economic dependency on China.

Certainly, it is in their best interests to revitalise bilateral economic cooperation.

Russia, with its abundance of natural and human resources, possesses huge
potential to grow economically.

Arguably, beyond South and Central Asia, Moscow has taken its eastward pivot
actively by pursuing FTAs with Southeast Asia such as Vietnam (2016) and
Singapore (2019).

As Moscow‘s economic footprint in Asia is still relatively low, Islamabad can

dynamically capitalise on this opportunity to expand cooperation and attract
Russian investment.

And most importantly, entailed by the strategic expediencies or concerns

regarding China‘s growing economic prowess and the deepening of United
States (US)-India relations, Russia has developed a new interest in engaging
with Pakistan.

Following the conclusion of the Russia-Pakistan Technical Committee meeting in

2020, both countries revived discussions on the North-South Gas Pipeline
Project.
The project was initially inked in 2015, but it was put on hold due to Western
sanctions imposed on Rostec, a Russian state-controlled company that was a
stakeholder.
The PSGP is one of the largest Russian investments in Pakistan since the
(former) Soviet Union assisted in developing the Oil and Gas Development
Company and Pakistan Steel Mills in the 1960s and 1970s.

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Russia is eager to welcome Pakistan as a new energy client as it plans to triple
its LNG production capacity and increase LNG exports by 2035. Besides the
PSGP, Russian companies have filed proposals to supply more LNG to Pakistan.

Lavrov, the Russian FM highlighted in his visit to Islamabad in April 2021 that
Rosatom and the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission are exploring cooperation
in using nuclear energy for medicine and industry purpose.

The Pak-Russian officials meeting in the last week of November In Moscow is

evidence to this development.

Moscow is likewise concerned with Beijing‘s increasing assertiveness in foreign

policy and improved economic and military capabilities.

In 2017, Russia initiated the expansion of the SCO membership to India to dilute
the Chinese dominance in the organisation; China responded that this would be
possible on the condition that Pakistan too joined as a member.

Recently, Pakistan and Russia signed the ―Security Training Agreement‖ to train
Pakistani military officers in Russian military institutions for the first time.

While Pakistan and Russia are not publicizing the nature of their cooperation as
openly as Islamabad would do in Pakistan‘s agreements with China, the
trajectory is quite clear.

Pakistan is keeping its options with Moscow and Beijing open after the Trump
Administration stopped military support and training for Pakistan military.

For the NSG bid, Pakistan logically expects from both China and Russia to
support Pakistan to qualify for the eligibility criteria.

Pakistan envisages NSG membership to be a crucial element of Pakistan

becoming part of the mainstream in the nuclear world order, which it believes
would confer some sort of legitimacy to its nuclear weapons program, as has
been the case with India.

Afghanistan is another core area where Islamabad, Beijing, and Moscow share
their joint interests.
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The increasingly close bilateral relationship between China and Russia is one of
the most interesting, consequential, and surprising geopolitical developments
since the end of the Cold War.

Beijing and Moscow, once bitter adversaries, now cooperate on military issues,
cyber security, high technology and in outer space, among other areas. While it
falls short of an alliance, the deepening Sino-Russian partnership confounds the
US policymakers in Washington.

Some have proposed driving a wedge between the two countries, but this
stratagem seems unlikely for the foreseeable future.

In the immediate aftermath of the Taliban takeover, China and Russia seemed to
have pursued shared interests and avoided undercutting each other.

The two countries have engaged in some parallel actions of late by holding
military exercises with Central Asian partners — both bilaterally and within the
framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Russia has been expanding its economic cooperation and diplomatic outreach
with Pakistan, while China perseveres in developing the China0Pakistan
Economic Corridor, a key artery of the Belt and Road Initiative.

It appears that Washington is also developing its geostrategic clout in global

affairs, as has been richly evident to the fact that the US, UK and Australia have
forged a new AUKUS.

The fact remains that a tug of geopolitical supremacy runs between the US,
China, and Russia.

—The writer, an independent ‗IR‘ researcher-cum-international law analyst based

in Pakistan, is member of European Consortium for Political Research Standing
Group on IR, Critical Peace & Conflict Studies, also a member of Washington
Foreign Law Society and European Society of International Law.

Source: Published in Pak Observer

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Bureaucracy and Society By Iftikhar Ahmad
The study of comparative administrations and case studies helps us understand
bureaucracy and its various shades and consequences in terms of change in
society and the issues of power and power play. The structure of bureaucracy
reflects on behaviours and the need for norms desirable for a way forward.

The political challenge of the permanent civil service‘s strength and influence,
with its own goals and traditions, was unimportant as long as the bureaucracy‘s
social and economic principles and those of the ruling politicians did not clash.
However, when a new political force gains office and proposes reforms that go
outside the customary frame of reference of the prior governmental activity or
disrupt the established system of ties with the bureaucracy, the problem
becomes critical.

According to Max Weber, the absolute dictator is often entirely dependent on his
bureaucracy. Unlike a democratic ruler, he has no way of knowing whether his
plans are being implemented. In a democracy, the bureaucracy has less
authority since the public keeps the ruling politicians informed. However, this
assertion is only half-true because the public is only aware of a portion of the
government‘s operations. Cabinet ministers are frequently denied access to
areas of government operations that are not visible to the public. When a
government department‘s consumers and civil personnel both disagree with the
minister‘s ideas, there is a good chance that the policies will not be implemented.
Clients and bureaucrats will try to persuade the minister that his approach is
incorrect or correct.

Civil officials, of course, do not operate in a social vacuum; their views on relative
―right‖ and ―wrong,‖ like those of all people, are shaped by the pressures present
in their social environment. A department official is concerned not just with
whether a minister‘s recommendations can be implemented but also with the
impact of such policies on the department‘s conventional practices and long-term
relationships with other organisations.

Elections will lose much of their relevance unless the people are allowed to
change crucial experts and politicians.

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Equally essential are government officials‘ assessments of the practicality of
each idea, which are always influenced by their political views and the climate of
thought in their social group. Humans, not robots, make up the bureaucracy. The
desire to preserve a specific bureaucratic organisation is merely a complicated
set of considerations that influences their decisions. Depending on its
background, each group acts differently in a particular situation. The lack of a
sociological perspective among political scientists has aided the reliance on a
single theory of bureaucracy. They have mostly avoided raising concerns about
the government administration‘s social origins and principles.

Political scientists have realised that the government bureaucracy substantially

influences policymaking. However, they continue to leave the bureaucracy in a
social vacuum. The activities of the bureaucrat are examined in light of the civil
service‘s goals of self-preservation and efficiency. These concerns might be
classified as preservation and efficiency. These interests could be defined in
terms of prestige and privilege, the conservation of organisational patterns or
links with a department, or the upholding of departmental traditions and policies.
There is scant awareness that government officials‘ behaviour is influenced by
the non-governmental social background and interests of individuals in charge of
the bureaucracy. Civil servants belong to a variety of non-governmental social
organisations and classes. Individual conduct is mostly determined by social
influences stemming from a variety of group memberships and loyalties. An
individual‘s or a group‘s behaviour in a specific situation cannot be viewed as if
the individuals or group members had no other life outside of the studied events.

Only when a ―radical‖ party takes power does it become necessary to address
the problem of bureaucratic opposition to change. When the state‘s overall goals
later, the principle of civil-service neutrality breaks down. The socialist state aims
to reintegrate societal values, prioritise underserved groups in government
services, and secure significant government control. The initiative may fall short
of its goals if it places administrative power in the hands of men whose social
background and previous training prevent them from empathising with the new
government‘s goals. ―Men of ―push and go,‖ enthusiastic innovators, and hard-
driving managers will be required by the planned state…men who are fully
devoted to the goal the state is undertaking to serve.‖

There was no simple solution to the challenge of maintaining government

administration affectionately yet also sensitive to the voters‘ desire during the
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American New Deal period in the 1930s. The current government‘s increased
power, functions, and sheer bulk necessitate the search for a way to control the
bureaucracy. ―The question is always who controls the existing bureaucratic
machinery,‖ Max Weber said.

Today, the government is a large-scale administrative undertaking that

necessitates the use of professionals. Elections will lose much of their relevance
unless the people are allowed to change crucial experts and politicians. This
challenge will become increasingly prominent as efforts are made to strengthen
the state‘s economic and social welfare role.

The writer is former Director (National Institute of Public Administration); a

political analyst; a public policy expert and a published author.

Balancing Ties With Washington & Beijing Will Not Be Easy For Pakistan |
Editorial

A DAY after the Foreign Office said that Pakistan did not mind engaging with the
US ―on a range of issues‖ though ―at an opportune time‖, Prime Minister Imran
Khan added clarity to the reason behind the government‘s decision not to
participate in Washington‘s Summit for Democracy.

After referring to CPEC as a glorious opportunity at the Islamabad Conclave

2021 yesterday, the prime minister went on to say that Pakistan should not be
part of any bloc as the world heads towards a new Cold War — this one primarily
involving China and the US. Mr Khan was absolutely correct in sounding the
alarm: diplomatic neutrality is compromised when countries get involved in bloc
politics that aims to undercut ideological or economic rivals.

The lessons of being part of the anti-communist blocs Seato and Cento should
not be lost on Pakistan. Perhaps there was also a realisation of the danger in
taking sides when in 2015, parliament, to its credit, refused to involve the country
in the Saudi-led campaign inside war-torn Yemen.

But can the Summit for Democracy — a one-off event — be described as an

international bloc? Certainly, the rivalry is clear as China and Russia were left out
and Taiwan, Beijing‘s bête noire, was invited by the US. However, among the

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over 100 participants are also countries that have normal ties with those whom
Washington deems its rivals.

Pakistan could have attended the virtual summit — perhaps even raised the
prime minister‘s point about guarding against divisive international blocs from
that very platform to make its stance clear, putting paid to any hopes that it was
inclined to favour one party over the other. In an increasingly polarised world,
open communication between states is crucial to forging a common agenda for
democracy — both domestically and in interstate relations. Many countries like
Pakistan know the dangers of despotic rule only too well. Spreading this
awareness and enlisting global support for democratic rule and trust-building
between nations can deter the authoritarian elements forever waiting in the
wings.

For Pakistan, balancing its ties with Washington and Beijing will not be easy. If
the current developments are anything to go by, the Sino-American confrontation
may get uglier. Tensions are already intensifying as the US, together with
Canada, the UK and Australia, is officially boycotting the 2022 Winter Olympic
Games (although the athletes will attend) in China over the latter‘s alleged
human rights violations. Pakistan will need to make intelligent, and at times
tough, decisions in order to maintain a neutral posture. There are many factors
which will constrain such attempts, among them this country‘s dependency on
foreign funds and investment, something which is often taken advantage of in
international relations. Even so, it must find the strength to resist any temptation
or pressure to root for one country at the expense of another.

Published in Dawn, December 10th, 2021

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Energy Reforms | Editorial
PAKISTAN‘S energy sector is in a total mess, riddled with shortages,
inefficiencies, massive debt, dependence on imported fossil fuels etc. We have
consolidated different energy-related ministries and institutions under one
ministry but failed to develop a comprehensive and integrated policy for ensuring
national energy security. The lack of a well-defined national energy strategy also
means the absence of a proper mechanism for coordination among different
entities, which mostly work in silos and often in opposite directions. Thus, the
government has never been able to do more than firefight at times of crises. Not
only is this a serious threat to Pakistan‘s fragile economy and energy security, it
also imposes massive additional costs on the consumers.

Take the example of the power sector. The country has dramatically enhanced
its generation capacity over the last few years. Yet frequent blackouts continue
because we did not invest in the distribution infrastructure to evacuate power
from the plants to consumers. Likewise, we have unused, surplus LNG re-
gasification capacity — which can be increased significantly in no time — at the
two terminals in Karachi. But the government‘s reluctance to allow them third-
party access is keeping us from increasing imports to meet gas shortfalls in the
winter. Hence, we see massive gas rationing for various sectors as temperatures
fall. The authorities‘ unwillingness to implement politically unpopular policy
changes to address the worsening situation means that no company is prepared
to invest capital in local oil and gas exploration. The story of local oil refineries
operating at 60pc-65pc of their capacity is no different as the government imports
refined products at the expense of precious foreign exchange.

So it would not be incorrect to point out that our energy troubles are more
complex than they appear to be, and are more rooted in bad governance and
lack of political will than supply shortages alone. In the late 2000s and the first
half of the 2010s, energy shortages were estimated to have cost the country up
to 4pc of GDP, forcing hundreds of factories to close down and leaving tens of
thousands of workers jobless. Sadly, the economy is paying this price even today
in spite of investments of billions of borrowed dollars in generation capacity under
CPEC. Resolving the energy crisis requires much more than implementing
supply-side fixes. The public energy sector cannot be repaired without deep
governance and management reforms to remove inefficiencies and plug

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leakages. Nevertheless, reforms will not help overcome energy troubles unless
there is competition from private parties and significant public investments are
made in infrastructure. Indeed, the task is not easy as it will involve many
politically unpopular decisions. But this bitter pill will have to be swallowed for the
sake of the nation‘s economy and the consumers. The government can start by
developing an integrated energy policy with clearly defined goals and milestones.

Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2021

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Paradigm Shift in Pak-Russia Relations By
Sehrish Khan
IN the last two decades, the attitude of the developed nations, especially in
bilateral relations, has undergone such dramatic changes that they could not
have been imagined some time ago.

Relationships based on hostility and confrontation have turned into relationships

of friendship and cooperation.

Countries that once had strictly closed their borders to neighbouring states are
now not only having good trade relations but also having cultural exchanges and
economic cooperation between them.

How was this transformation possible in the world politics? The reason behind
the conflicts was artificial system devised by the great powers to keep nations
away from each other, which they imposed on the world, strictly unnaturally, on
the basis of ―ideology‖.

The system was called the Cold War, in which the (former) Soviet Union and the
US, the two great powers that conquered Germany and Japan in the World War-
II, divided the world.

With this division, the two countries became ―superpowers‖, while nearly 200
other countries of the world remained mired in poverty and backwardness.

However, the unexpected collapse of the ―Berlin Wall‖ in 1989 ushered in a

series of political upheavals in Europe that eventually led to the disintegration of
the Soviet Union and the end of the ―Cold War‖.

While the end of the Cold War forced almost all countries of the world to make
necessary changes in their foreign and defence policies, the Soviet Union and
present-day Russia also had to reconsider its relations with the outside world,
especially with its neighbours.

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The environment, which has been created internationally since the end of the
Cold War, has certainly played a significant role in the growing cooperation
between Pakistan and Russia in various fields.

During the ―Cold War‖, close and friendly relations between Pakistan and Soviet
Union did not develop because both of these countries were in opposite camps.

As India was closed ally of Russia at that time but as usual India‘s friendship is
limited to its personal gains so, she changed her focused (arms deal) from
Russia to US and Russia got free to develop its relations with any country it want.

As in recent years, both countries have made efforts to bury their bitter past and
open a new chapter in bilateral ties.

To strengthen strategic ties of Pakistan-Russia, Joint Military Consultative

Committee was established in 2018 to support Pakistan-Russia bilateral military
cooperation.

Russian warships participated in the 45-nation AMAN-21 Biennial Naval

exercises hosted by Pakistan in Arabian Sea in February 2021.

In November 2020, Russian Special Operations troops held joint drills with their
Pakistani counterparts in the Friendship 2020 exercises at the Tarbela training
ground KP.

Moreover, US President Donald Trump ended Pakistan‘s participation in its

international military education programme. Pakistan signed a security training
agreement with Moscow for training of military officers in Russia.

Whereas, the recent visit of Pakistan NSA, Moeed Yusuf to Moscow, will further
pave the way in strengthening their relations as Pakistan and Russia have
shared a similar view on Afghanistan, both countries have sought engagement
with the Taliban government.

They also urged the United States to unfreeze $9.5 billion assets of the Afghan
Central Bank.

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However, Washington is using Afghan foreign assets as leverage over the
Taliban to make them meet international expectations.

Both Russia and Pakistan are worried that the economic collapse of Afghanistan
may allow terrorist groups to gain a foothold in Afghanistan. Russia is particularly
concerned over the threat posed by Daesh in Afghanistan.

The visit of Moeed Yusuf was part of increased exchanges between the two
countries in view of the changing regional situation. Russia is close to signing a
deal with Pakistan to lay a gas pipeline from Karachi to Lahore.

Similarly, Russia, which has remained a strong ally and arms supplier of India, is
also keen to deepen defence ties with Pakistan.

Interestingly, Moeed‘s visit comes just days before Russian President Vladimir
Putin is due to visit India and the timing of his visit suggests that Putin‘s visit may
also come up in the discussions.

In April 2021, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited Islamabad and
conveyed a message from President Putin that Russia was ready to extend all
possible help to Pakistan and agreed to remain engaged on all matters of mutual
importance.

After sketching the whole picture, with concluding remarks, I would say that
Pakistan has a significant role in the emerging geopolitical chessboard in Eurasia
owing to its geopolitical location, strong military with advancing nuclear capability
and considerable influence in the Islamic world.

As far as westward connectivity is concerned, CPEC is one of the key future

gateways which would help Pakistan to join CARs, Russia and Eurasia to our
warm waters.

—The writer is contributing columnist.

Source: Published in Pak Obsever

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Major Power Relationships in Pakistan’s
Neighbourhood By Shahid Javed Burki
The full significance of developing geopolitics in Pakistan‘s neighborhood needs
to be grasped by those responsible for making foreign policy in Islamabad. At the
international level, geopolitics is the study of foreign policy to understand, explain
and predict international political behaviour through geographical variables.
These include area studies, national strategic interests, topography, demography
and climate of the region being studied. Looked at foreign policymaking from this
perspective, we see significant changes occurring in Pakistan‘s immediate
neighborhood. The regime change in Kabul is of obvious interest for Pakistan but
so should be the evolving relations among four large states — China, India,
Russia and the United States. Two of these are Pakistan‘s neighbours.

The week of December 4 brought a number of developments that Pakistan

should be watching carefully. There were high level contacts between Russia
and India on the one side and the United States and Russia on the other. The
first of these involved a visit by Russia‘s President Vladimir Putin to New Delhi,
the Indian capital. The visit to Delhi was the first foreign trip taken by the Russian
leader in several months. The second was the telephone call made by Joe Biden,
the American President, to discuss Russia‘s moves involving Ukraine. Biden‘s
call to Putin was made after careful review by senior American officials of
developing relations with Putin‘s Russia.

On December 6, India and Russia announced expanding defence ties between

the two countries that included the purchase by New Delhi of the highly
sophisticated missile defence system, the S-400. It is one of the most advanced
defence systems in the world, having the ability to reach multiple targets as far as
250 miles from its location. It is also more affordable, costing half of that of the
US Patriot system. Indian military officials have called it a ‗booster dose‘, using
the term that had gained currency in the use of vaccines to deal with the Covid-
19 pandemic. The Indians have struggled to modernise their defence systems
because of financial constraints. This is the same system the Turkish
government purchased in 2017 which led to the near severing of relations
between Ankara and Washington. In 2020, the Trump administration issued
sanctions against Turkey for going outside the NATO system for making

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important defence purchases. The Indians were betting that that would not
happen in their case since China was a factor in the way the Americans would
look at the Moscow-Delhi deal. ―S-400 deal doesn‘t have only a symbolic
meaning,‖ Russian Foreign Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying. ―It has a very
important practical meaning for an Indian defense capability.‖

India has had a long-established defence relationship with Russia which dates
back to the days of the Cold War. At that time, India had proclaimed itself to be a
‗non-aligned‘ nation which really meant not getting close to the United States that
was busy crafting a number of defence pacts India wanted to stay out of. India
was then led by the long-serving Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru who was very
impressed by the Soviet-style economic system. He believed that the
Communists had found a way of achieving two objectives that were dear to him:
a high rate of economic growth and better distribution of wealth and incomes. It
was shown by a number of scholars that in fact neither of these two objectives
had been achieved by the Soviet Union.

In welcoming Putin to Delhi, Prime Minister Modi said that ―in the last few
decades, several fundamentals have changed‖ — no doubt referring to the rapid
rise of China and the emergence of the Taliban-led government in Kabul,
Afghanistan. ―New geopolitical angles have emerged. Amidst all such variables,
Indo-Russian friendship has been constant.‖

In addition to the S-400 missile defence system, Moscow and Delhi signed a
$600 million deal to locally manufacture hundreds of thousands of Russian AK-
203 rifle which would be made by a joint public sector enterprise located in the
state of Uttar Pradesh, a highly priced political space for Prime Minister Narendra
Modi‘s Bhartiya Janata Party. The AK-203 would replace the older Kalashnikov
rifle which was a standard issue for the Indian soldiers. Modernisation of India‘s
defence capability was overseen by General Bipin Rawat, the country‘s defence
chief. He was killed in a helicopter crash on December 8.

The second move involving Russia was made by President Joe Biden when, on
Tuesday December 7, he had a long telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin.
The subject of the call were two fears: on the part of Russia the United States
and its allies were boxing it in by using Ukraine that had a long border with
Russia and was once an important part of the Soviet Union. Putin was of the
view that Ukraine posed a threat to Moscow. The other fear was on the part of
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the West. The American intelligence community had concluded that Putin had
massed his country‘s troops on Ukraine‘s eastern border to attack it in the early
part of 2022.

In the two-hour-long conversation, Biden was direct and gave a clear message
that any such action would result in sanctions that would personally hurt Putin
and his close associates and completely isolate his country. Russia would not be
able to use the international system to do any financial transactions. Its access to
SWIFT code used by banks to do business with one another would be totally
blocked. In the press briefing given by Jake Sullivan, the American National
Security Advisor, it was indicated that the American president came away with
the impression that the Russian leader had not made up his mind whether he
would order the invasion of Ukraine. After the conversation with Putin, Biden
called major European leaders and briefed them what had transpired in the talk.
This time around, the West was not going to sit idly by as it did in 2014 when
Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed the Crimean Peninsula. The only major
action taken then was to remove Russia from the membership of the Group of
Eight, the G8.

In the post-conversation statements, it was not indicated whether the two leaders
also discussed Afghanistan. Putin made his first public comments on the Afghan
situation at a joint press conference on August 22, 2021 in Moscow with Angela
Merkel who was preparing to retire as German Chancellor, a job she had held for
several years. He said that he knows Afghanistan well and understood that it was
counterproductive to impose external forms of government. ―Any such
sociopolitical experimentation has never been crowned with success and only
lead to the destruction of states, and degradation of their political and social
systems.‖ He said that ―it is necessary to stop the irresponsible policy of imposing
other people‘s values from outside, the desire to build democracy in other
countries, not taking into account either historical, national and religious
characteristics, and completely ignoring the traditions by which people live.‖ He
was speaking not just about what Americans and the West had attempted to do
in Afghanistan but had in mind the interference in the countries of Eastern
Europe that were once part of the Soviet Union.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 13th, 2021.

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Journey Since Independence By Abbas Nasir
DOES the name Shaukat Ahmed Ghani mean anything to you? In all likelihood
you have never heard of the young Kashmiri student who has spent the past two
months in a jail in the Indian city of Agra where he was studying civil engineering.

Two of his fellow engineering students from India-occupied Kashmir, Inayat Altaf
Sheikh and Arshad Yusuf, are also facing sedition charges. Their crime: their
WhatsApp status was applauding and supporting the Pakistan team when it
defeated India in the T20 World Cup last October.

All three are currently being held in Agra prison with local lawyers refusing to
accept their brief because they committed a ―crime against the motherland‖. A
governing BJP official told the BBC that the three are in custody because of fear
of ‗disturbances‘.

At their last hearing, BJP activists tried to assault them as police led them to a
vehicle to transport them back to jail and raised slogans against them and
Pakistan. One can be reasonably sure Gandhi and Nehru would have
(metaphorically) turned in their final resting place.

The one politician who‘d be pleased with this no end would be the Conservative
peer Lord Tebbit who‘d coined the phrase ‗The Tebbit test‘ for those South Asian
and Caribbean Britons who cheered cricket teams from their old countries on tour
rather than England.

There seems to be intense competition among the three most populated South
Asian countries to trample on freedoms.

Tebbit advanced his theory in 1990 and maintained that those who failed to pass
the Tebbit Test were not ―significantly integrated‖ into Britain and asked them:
―Are you still harking back to where you came from or where you are?‖

This of course put the onus of integration into Britain, and in a sense loyalty, on
the immigrants and their children and not on the British government which failed
to make take concrete steps to integrate them for years. In many cases, two
generations of immigrants have spent their entire lives ghettoised.

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However, having often failed the Tebbit Test in my nearly two decades in the UK,
nobody imprisoned me or tried to lynch me for supporting the ‗wrong cricket
team‘ or for not supporting England in the football World Cup. In any case,
England football‘s performance in the international arena does not make it easy
to be its fans.

Attitudes and prejudices in a former colonial power are hardly the issue here
anyway, but 70 years on from independence, the state of freedom in our own
societies is. Despite oppression in Kashmir and the denial of the Kashmiris‘ rights
since 1947, more generally the state of democracy and free speech in India
remained much better than, say, in Pakistan and, since 1971, Bangladesh too.

But as we speak, there seems to be intense competition among the three most
populated South Asian countries to trample on media freedoms, and curtail free
speech and political freedoms. In India, the oppression the Kashmiris have been
familiar with is now being rolled out everywhere in the country.

Images of BJP supporters setting upon rights protesters in New Delhi and then
expanding their attacks on the Muslim minority community in the capital; and
Muslims being lynched on suspicion of transporting beef in different parts of Uttar
Pradesh, which has a saffron-clad preacher as its chief executive, with the police
largely remaining either complicit or being helpless bystanders are just two
examples.

Many Pakistanis appear very smug when they see human rights being trampled
upon in India and forget we have an elected member of the National Assembly,
Ali Wazir, jailed without trial for over a year now because he dared to criticise
those allegedly committing excesses on the very people they are assigned to
protect.

After nearly a year in prison, he was granted bail by the Supreme Court of
Pakistan but a couple of weeks later, he is still to see the light of day and breathe
freely. He remains confined to his dark, dingy cell in the Karachi Central Jail.

Ali Wazir lost 17 members of his immediate family to the TTP when the terror
group enjoyed free rein in the erstwhile Fata and, to be honest, even if the most

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powerful institution in the country was upset at his remarks, a little compassion,
understanding and tolerance would not have been out of place.

But no. A demand has been murmured in the presence of journalists that Ali
Wazir could be freed if he apologised. The response of the proud Pakhtun was
too strong to be detailed here for fear of recrimination but suffice it to say he
refused.

Whether Pakistan or Bangladesh, power is never shared in proportion to your

rightful share in the people‘s mandate. Machinations and manipulation
undermine the democratic will of the people and the more power is usurped by
whosoever is able to.

Jailing political opponents, who might provide a check on your arbitrary use and
abuse of power and question you in parliament, is routinely resorted to as are
legal cases to influence the outcome of elections. This, where outright rigging
may not be possible.

In India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and even Sri Lanka, free media is anathema to
the power brokers as a vibrant, free media can expose the designs of those who
see democracy and its principles as a huge inconvenience, an obstacle to their
ambitions, and are ever-willing to contemptuously disregard them.

Cases against journalists, arrests of media practitioners and outright physical

threats and intimidation apart from choking the lifelines of media groups by
blocking even private advertising streams are just some of the tools used across
South Asia.

What a place to be nearly three-fourth of a century after independence, which

was won with such huge hopes, ideals, goals and ambitions for creating societies
not answerable to a distant colonial master but to the people who would be their
own masters through their elected representatives and institutions.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

[email protected]

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2021

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Areas of Cooperation Between the US and
Pakistan By Maheen Shafiq
SINCE the withdrawal of the US/NATO forces from Afghanistan, US-Pakistan
relations are standing on the edge of a cliff and at crossroads.

Nevertheless, despite the undesired agitation between the two nations, there is
still room for cooperation over several subjects where their mutual interests
converge.

These subjects could be cooperation to counter transnational terrorism, arms

control, trade, media, education, democracy and climate change. In fact, these
areas could become a foundation for realignment of this relationship.

Since the fall of Kabul, there is an undeniable threat of the rise of terrorism in
Afghanistan feared in Washington and Islamabad.

This looming threat could be from IS-Khorasan (IS-K), Al-Qaeda, and Hezbollah.
The prevailing perception in Pakistan is that domestic like-minded groups could
take inspiration, funding and training from these groups.

While on the other hand, the vacuum in Afghanistan could give transnational
terrorist groups a fertile ground to breed. Under such circumstances, a rapid rise
of terrorism could impact the US National Security Strategy as well as threaten
Pakistan‘s national security.

To counter these threats, the US can engage with Pakistan‘s National Counter-
Terrorism Authority (NACTA). Furthermore, the two states can coordinate efforts
in devising a strategy, training, intelligence and technology sharing to counter
transnational terrorism.

In addition to terrorism, Pakistan and the US could put in efforts towards arms
control in the region.
It is part of the US‘ National Security Strategy to re-engage with Russia to cater
to the threat posed by nuclear weapons. Countries in the South Asian region
have been building their offensive capability aggressively.

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This build-up could cause miscalculations and unintended escalation. The level
of miscalculation also increases due to emerging technologies, such as AI and
cyber, being incorporated into offensive and defensive capabilities.

Moreover, hypersonic ambitions also add complexities to strategic stability in the

region and could impact the deterrence calculus gravely.

Pakistan, despite the precarious security situation of the region, has been making
efforts to develop economically. This offers vast potential for bilateral trade and
economic cooperation. The US is Pakistan‘s largest export destination and one
of the country‘s top five investors.

Data released by the State Bank of Pakistan showed that during the first quarter
of the fiscal year (July-Sept FY22), Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from the US
was five times higher than China. This indicates that the US investment has not
died down despite the ongoing Chinese projects in Pakistan.

Notwithstanding the antagonistic relations between the US and China, Pakistan

has attempted to maintain a balanced approach towards the two and it remains
open for business for both countries.

Furthermore, the two states can also enhance cooperation in news and
journalism. Given the rise of misinformation, fake news and deep fakes, it would
be ideal to strengthen communication in order to avoid the fabrication of
narratives.

For this purpose, the two governments can improve cooperation through
journalism exchange programs, partnerships and workshops. In addition to this,
according to research conducted by Google and Kantar, Pakistan‘s internet
penetration stands at 54% in major cities.

This presents an opportunity for Silicon Valley‘s giants such as Facebook (aka
Meta), Twitter, Amazon and so on to enhance their business linkages here. This
opportunity can further add value if local offices are set up in various Pakistani
cities.

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Lastly and most importantly, climate change is seen as a national security threat
in the US. Similarly, climate change and its adverse impact on food security are
important for Pakistan as it is an agrarian country.

Pakistan actively participated in COP26 and put forth a realistic goal to cut
emissions by 50% and make the shift to renewable energy by 2030.

Its drive towards forestation is now widely recognized. Both countries can learn
from each other‘s best practices in the areas of mitigation and adaptation.

However, in order to work together in these areas, it would be essential that an

accommodating and broad-minded approach be adopted. Both states view their
relations through the lens of China, India or Afghanistan.

Pakistan assesses its relations with the US based on how intimate Washington is
with New Delhi and similarly, the US analyzes its relations with Islamabad based
on Pak-Sino coziness.

Afghanistan is the third triad between the two. If the US and Pakistan continue to
view their relations through the lens of other states, complexities would continue
to add up turning the relationship into a triangle to square to hexagon, rather than
a straight line.

Therefore, in order to strengthen bilateral ties, external third-party noises need to

be muted and a collaborative effort to achieve mutual goals needs to be put in
place.

—The writer is a researcher at Centre for Aerospace & Security Studies (CASS),
Islamabad.

Source: Published in Pak Observer

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Why is Biden Ignoring Pakistan? By Shahid
Javed Burki
There is now plenty of evidence in the way the administration headed by
President Joe Biden is handling United States‘ relations with the world outside.
He and his officials are focused much more on Southeast Asia than on the
western part of the continent or on the Middle East. America is out of
Afghanistan, has distanced itself from Turkey and is openly snubbing Pakistan.
Imran Khan, Pakistan‘s Prime Minister, is the only major world leader Biden has
not talked to on the telephone. Islamabad has not been visited by any senior
American official who is close to President Biden. India, instead, is the focus of
considerable attention by the US administration. It is the most important part of
what is now called the Indo-Pacific Area strategy.

Secretary of State Antony J Blinken paid a short visit to East Asia which included
stopovers in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. He cut short his visit upon
arriving in Bangkok, the last leg of his trip. That had to be done as a member of
the staff traveling with him tested positive for Covid-19. While recognising that
China had developed strong ties with many countries in the region, the United
States also had a significant presence. America has more members of its military
stationed in the Indo-Pacific region than anywhere outside the contiguous United
States. Blinken‘s main message was that his country was committed to ―peace
and security‖ that is ―vital to prosperity in the region‖. The region is by far the
most integrated with the world than any other geographic space. This implies that
there should be few constraints on the movement of goods. But, according to the
Secretary of State, China poses a threat to open trade in the region where an
estimated $3 trillion of commerce flows every year.

In the speech delivered on December 14 at Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta,

Blinken recalled that it was also the site 60 years ago of an address by Robert
Kennedy who spoke then of open relations among states, so long as one did not
threaten the rights of others. The Secretary of State said it was remarkable that
the broader goal had changed so little for a region that in 2021 accounted for 60
per cent of the global economy and was growing faster than any other place in
the world. The Secretary defined the region beginning with India in the northwest
and Japan and South Korea in the northeast. America‘s policymakers and policy

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analysts call the region Indo-Pacific. Pakistan was excluded from this definition
whereas China was the heavyweight in the region. It overshadowed US in trade
in most countries. In Southeast Asia alone, two-way trade with China reached
$685 billion in 2020, more than double that of the region‘s trade with the United
States.

China‘s Belt and Road Initiative, the BRI, launched in 2013 by President Xi
Jinping is aimed at building infrastructure like ports, railway lines and roads in
this region as well as in Africa and southern part of Europe. Italy, for instance,
had parted company with other European Nations and invited China to revive the
port of Trieste. When completed, this port will link with the port of Gwadar in
Pakistan. The two ports would carry most of the merchandise imported and
exported by China to the world outside.

―We all have a stake in ensuring that the world‘s most dynamic region is free
from coercion and accessible to all,‖ Blinken emphasised in his address. ―This is
good for people across the region and it‘s good for Americans, because history
shows that when this vast region is free and open, America is more secure and
prosperous.‖ However, this vision had an Achilles heel. China was investing
much more than the United States; the BRI would link it with most countries in
the region. According to Jonathan R Stromseth, a Southeast Asia expert and
senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, this competition with China risks that ―a
bipolar divide is hardening for the long term with potentially serious
consequences for regional stability and development‖. Many countries in the
region are wary of being drawn into Cold War standoff between the United States
and China. In November, Singapore‘s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that
he was uncomfortable with Biden‘s calls to persuade leaders from democracies
to present a more unified front against China. ―We all want to work together with
the US,‖ said Lee, but ―I think not very many countries would like to join a
coalition against those who have been excluded, chief of whom would be China.‖
He was referring to the list of countries the United States had invited to attend the
summit of democracies. China and Russia were not invited.

Blinken took note of this competition. ―We don‘t want conflict in the Indo-Pacific.‖
Yet he described ―much concern‖ in the region over Beijing‘s actions which he
said had distorted world trade with state-subsidised products, limited trade by its
adversaries and engagement in illegal fishing. ―Countries across the region want
this behavior to change. We do too.‖ Blinken‘s main message was that the United
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States is a better bet as a partner. He used several examples to show that his
country was making investments without seeking political return. He noted a
$500 million commitment to help finance a solar manufacturing facility in India as
among efforts to help the region stave off environmental crises without disrupting
economies. He pledged to introduce agreements to bolster data privacy and
secure technology used in economic transactions ―because if we don‘t shape
them others will‖. Across Southeast Asia, private investments by the United
States amounted to $328.5 billion, outpacing China. But with China the
comparison is not valid since it has small private sector compared to America.
Although Blinken did not touch upon his country‘s relations with Russia, he noted
that when he landed at Jakarta‘s airport, he noticed that a Russian government
plane was already parked on the tarmac. He was told that the plane had brought
President Vladimir Putin‘s senior aide Nikolai Patrushev. ―I can‘t or won‘t speak
to why anyone else might be here,‖ he responded when asked why he thought
that a high level Russian official was in Jakarta at precisely the time when they
would have known that he would be in the Indonesian capital. Blinken was also
asked to give his views on widespread corruption in the region and whether that
would impact progress towards creating more democratic institutions. He dodged
the question.
Blinken‘s Jakarta speech was well received by some who commented on it from
Indonesia. Tom Lembong, who was once Indonesia‘s trade minister, said it hit
the bull‘s eye on what policymakers across the region want ―which is concrete
and practical solutions, and less of soaring rhetoric that has dominated American
official engagement with Southeast Asia‖.
Pakistan‘s relations with the United States should be seen in the context of
developments in Afghanistan. The liberal opinion in the United States has never
cared particularly for Pakistan; Islamabad‘s close relationship with the Taliban
was one of the reasons for the liberal communities‘ reservations about Pakistan.
In his first tweet of the year 2018 after he had been in office for less than a year,
President Donald Trump used very harsh language for Pakistan. After taking
office on January 2021, President Joe Biden called most important world leaders.
Prime Minister Imran Khan was not one of those who were called, a fact that was
noted in Pakistan with considerable dismay. This was evident once again as
President Biden began to prepare for a ―democracy summit‖ he had promised
during the campaign for the US presidency. The summit was held but took the
virtual form. Although Pakistan was invited it chose not to attend as China, which
was Islamabad‘s closest partner, was excluded.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 27th, 2021.
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India, Pakistan Relations Likely to Remain
Thorny: Experts
When India and Pakistan in a surprise announcement early this year agreed to a
cease-fire along the disputed Kashmir border, it was believed that the months
ahead would see a thaw in the relations between the two South Asian nuclear-
armed neighbours.

But as the year comes to an end, there has been no major breakthrough.

Relations between India and Pakistan plummeted to a new low after August
2019, when New Delhi scrapped the longstanding special status of Indian
Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), prompting Islamabad to
downgrade its diplomatic ties with New Delhi.

In November this year, when India hosted a dialogue on Afghanistan, Pakistan‘s

National Security Adviser Moeed Yusuf announced that he would not attend the
meeting.

"Bilateral relations are likely going to stay the same in 2022 and may further get
complicated because of the upcoming domestic political events in both countries
such as the 2023 general elections in Pakistan and state polls in India," said
Sarral Sharma, a New Delhi-based security analyst.

Sharma, who has also served in the National Security Council Secretariat which
advises the prime minister on key issues, told Anadolu Agency that the status
quo would remain.

"Terrorism and Kashmir issue will continue to remain the bone of contention. The
status quo should likely remain intact unless an untoward incident, like a big
terror attack in India, will lead to further complications in the ties," he said.

Islamabad has been maintaining the normalisation of ties with New Delhi is
linked to a review of the Aug 5 decision and ultimate resolution of the Kashmir
dispute. In August 2019, India scrapped the special status of IIOJK and
unilaterally bifurcated the erstwhile state in two union territories.

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Soumya Awasthi, an associate fellow at the New Delhi-based Vivekananda
International Foundation, told Anadolu Agency that a number of decisions taken
by Pakistan recently have further complicated the relations, with little chances of
improvement expected in 2022.

"Pakistan initially denied trade passage to the civil aid that India wanted to send
to Kabul during the Covid-19 peak period and Pakistan not allowing the air
passage for Kashmir and Sharjah flight and skipping of NSA's meet by Pakistan.

"Hence, India-Pakistan relations will continue to be bitter and the hope of having
any positive change is a tricky thing to expect," she said.

‗Afghanistan battleground'

According to analysts, the situation in Afghanistan may create more friction

between the two neighbours in the future.

"The return of the Taliban has put Pakistan in de facto control of Afghanistan.
This has created some unease in Delhi since it has lost a significant space and
influence in Afghanistan after the return of the Taliban," said Sharma, adding that
Pakistan seems to be in the "driver‘s seat" on all matters in Afghanistan.

He said India, on the other hand, is also actively discussing the situation in
Afghanistan, especially issues of governance, terrorism, and human rights
concerns. "It is apparent that both countries have different priorities vis a vis
Afghanistan," he said.

"That will likely create frictions between India and Pakistan in the near future, as
we have seen in the recent case of how Islamabad put conditions on India‘s
attempt to send humanitarian aid to Afghanistan via land route through Pakistan."

Awasthi said 2022 is expected to be eventful "in the sense that there will be
some progress on the situation in Afghanistan".

"India should be able to ensure regional support at the diplomatic level which will
not only keep Pakistan in check but also strengthen its ties with other
neighboring countries," she said. "When India offered civil aid in the month of
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October-November, Taliban regime welcomed the support and also from time to
time it has been respectful towards India‘s sentiment over Kashmir."

Major events in 2021

This year will also be remembered as the year for farmers' struggle against the
three new laws, which were finally repealed by the Indian parliament on Nov 30.

Thousands of farmers from Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan

camped outside Delhi for a year, demanding that the laws be withdrawn. The
farmers said the laws will threaten their livelihoods and benefit large corporations
and industrialists.

On Jan 26, on the day of the county's Republic Day as farmers decided to hold a
separate Republic Day parade, heavy clashes between the farmers and police
happened at several places in New Delhi, with the situation worsening in Central
Delhi where farmers managed to enter the historical Red Fort.

Indian government finally had to repeal the laws to end the agitation by the
farmers, which saw one of the biggest challenges Prime Minister Narendra Modi
has faced since coming to power in 2014.

India also came under the grip of the deadly pandemic with daily cases crossing
400,000. Deaths were reported nationwide as many hospitals ran out of oxygen
supplies.

Moreover, the minorities in the country continued to bear the brunt of hate crimes
amid rising intolerance.

Right-wing Hindutva groups disrupted Christmas celebrations at a number of

places in India.

"Religious minorities are facing a threat," Niyaz Farooqui, secretary of Jamiat

Ulama-i-Hind, India's largest socio-religious Muslim organisation, told Anadolu
Agency. "In 2021, there was no decline, and organisations and individuals were
threatened by Hindutva groups and the problem seems to be aggravating."

Source: Published in Express Tribune

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National Security Policy and Economic
Diplomacy By Prof Shazia A Cheema
TWO important pieces of news came from Pakistan this week that need
academic review because people like me who live abroad and wish to see a
prosperous motherland they left behind for getting a higher education and desire
to serve their country once back at home.

The first news was that Pakistan‘s first-ever National Security Policy (NSP) 2022-
2026 was approved by the National Security Council (NSC), putting economic
security at the core. The second news was that Pakistan is seriously working on
Economic Diplomacy.

Nevertheless, details of NSP are not available but it is reported by newspapers

that Pakistan, through NSP, will shift to a Comprehensive National Security
Framework for achieving overall national security, safety, and dignity of the
citizens of Pakistan.

As a part of my studies, I keep following the security‘s dynamics of developing

countries and understand that food security through water security is a must for
the survival of nations having large populations and comparative thin masses.

Pakistan is almost at the top of this sensitive list. The current population of
Pakistan is 227.24 million (based on Worldometer-UN data).

The population density has gone up to 287 persons per Km2 and 35.1 % of the
population is urban. Around 63% population comprises the youth aged between
age 15 and 33 (UN Population Fund Report 2017) and one can see at roads and
traffic signals how educated, decent and well-mannered is our youth.

I support the statement of Prime Minister Imran Khan that our security rests in
the security of its citizens but my question is that can we ensure the security of
our citizens without securing our water resources and managing population
growth? Remember history testifies that many nations imploded within and they
did not need any external enemy to invade them.

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Unplanned population growth, horizontal civic growth that is eating out
agricultural lands for housing schemes, unskilled and aggressive youth,
depilating food resources and the huge trade imbalance is more dreadful
enemies than any external one.

Prime Minister Imran Khan has been raising his voice that corruption is the
biggest issue of the country but I suggest he should review the list of dangers
being faced by Pakistan.

How many vocational/technical education institutes does Pakistan have to

convert the threat of inappropriate population growth into strength? What value
addition do we have to introduce in our agriculture sector and education sector?

I have been teaching in Pakistan for many years and know that our syllabus is
too obsolete and outdated that cannot provide new thoughts, out-of- box
perceptive power and futuristic vision to our students.

Even top educational institutions of Pakistan are using at least one-decade old
curriculum while taking the same fee for a semester that is offered by European
educational institutions. Visa for European countries for Pakistani students is one
of the greatest problems for planning their educational future.

I had been studying in Denmark and now in the Czech Republic and I know our
government does not help students to find admissions or visas abroad while
several neighboring countries of Pakistan use all diplomatic resources to ensure
the admission of their students to top educational institutions in Europe.

I believe when Prime Minister Imran Khan says that the security of the citizens
will be focused on by NSP, he should include better and competitive education,
capacity building, value addition and state help for students who are bright
enough to find admission in a foreign educational institution should be included in
NSP list.

Moreover, the government‘s efforts to promote Economic Diplomacy should also

consider promising and bright students as ―products‖ and must work for their
placement in foreign educational institutions for their value addition and capacity
building because foreign-educated students would bring new ideas and new

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opportunities for Pakistan when they will be back home, they will get better jobs
abroad and would send better remittances to Pakistan.

You can find mostly unskilled Pakistani labour in Europe having lower income
strata while citizens of neighbouring countries are leading in high technology jobs
and premier human development sectors.

The growing significance of geo-economics in international politics cannot be

denied and if Pakistan is really serious in a paradigm shift from geopolitical
contestation to geo-economic cooperation, it must invest in youth for value
addition by accepting the fact that youth is an important ―product‖.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its Missions abroad should help find
educational opportunities for Pakistani students in the same manner they find
what Pakistani products can be sold in their respective country of appointment.

In September 2021, I had an opportunity of attending a virtual conference of

academicians from Europe and South Asia and came to know that our
neighbouring South Asian countries invest in their students studying abroad as
they invest in any industry or business for value addition. Why Pakistan cannot
learn from its neighbours and follow this strategy?

—The writer is Prague-based foreign affairs expert and writes for national and
international media outlets.

Source: Published in Pak Observer

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ECONOMY

Economy: Misconceptions and Targeting

Relief By Dr Kamal Monnoo
In a surprising move, the Ministry of Planning last week released some statistics
that aim at downgrading the performance of not only its own co-Commerce
Ministry, but also that of the national export sector. The report argues that while
Pakistan‘s exports grew significantly in Dollar terms, the actual production of
certain exportable items registered a sizable decrease, e.g. grey cloth in
meterage, some unfinished MMF categories, etc. So, therefore the exporters
have in fact failed the country despite being given massive government dole
outs; that is whatever the term massive dole-outs or subsidies means? The only
thing one can think of in terms of input costs is somewhat maintaining the
electricity price, but then again it still stood slightly higher than some regional
competitors and if what in effect is being recommended to arbitrarily jack up
electricity tariff for exporters, then how anyone expects exports to compete
internationally while having to absorb inefficiencies and corruption in the state-
owned power sector is at least beyond my imagination! All other facilities like
zero-rating, in-house bonded areas, etc. stand long gone with the sector today
competing in an open-borders environment in compliance with the WTO
principles. One is not even sure that why such a flawed report has a) been
released and b) fails to take into account several key factors when making
comparisons and drawing conclusions, because not only does it damage the
industry‘s confidence, but even more dangerously can also lead the government
in the wrong policy direction, which needless to say could be disastrous,
especially for the health of the external account. The argument in the report that
import contraction is undesirable and could further impact exports adversely is
again a half-baked theory that assumes that the contraction being recommended
by most economic analyst primarily aims at curtailing unnecessary and luxury
imports while giving a free hand to goods that in-turn boost exports or enhance
production capacities. Also, it is pertinent to note that Pakistan‘s export sector in
fact has performed very well in Covid times, posting almost a 38 percent growth,
even if at some places it is mainly price driven. Why? First, because it reflects

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value-addition kicking in, something that one has been talking about since a long
time and second, that on a comparative basis regionally and globally, it reflects a
robust performance in a like-to-like period where thriving traditional export
economies have faltered: Japan negative 15 percent, Czech Republic negative
20 percent, Hong Kong negative 17 percent, Indonesia negative 48 percent,
Egypt negative 49 percent (a large textile exporting nation), France negative 17
percent, Brazil negative 28 percent, etc. Even the regional ones that have posted
growth remain either comparable or below the Pakistani performance while also
relying heavily on price driven growth: Bangladesh positive 25 percent, India
positive 27 percent, whereas Sri Lanka remained negative 4 percent.

Nigeria confirms first cases of omicron variant

On to the more important thing then, which is; what can this government do to
ensure that the fruits are equitably distributed and how to successfully harness
the current buoyancy in the economy for the benefits to reach the bottom of the
pyramid and that too quickly? Well, other than of course clamping an emergency
on undesirable imports (above) and curtailing domestic manufacturing that
stokes non-productive consumption on the back of imported components, it will
do well by championing three key areas; One, tweaking its Covid stimulus efforts
in a way that it directly targets SMEs (Small and Medium sized Enterprises),
Two, ensuring that its infrastructure build or rebuild projects are ones that are
fuelled only by local currency and not exposed to foreign exchange fluctuation,
and Three, invest in human infrastructure to tangibly take advantage of a young
population, which otherwise would turn into a liability rather than an asset. A
good example here could be Joe Biden‘s recently announced stimulus
package—a brainchild of Larry Summers—aimed at propelling the real GDP
growth (it is almost now going at 5 percent in this running quarter) that in
essence results in falling unemployment, the average household income going
up, and the domestic retails sales registering an increase. However, the best part
being that the lion‘s share of the $1.90 trillion package directly engages the
people‘s segment that is ‗in official books‘ already way down the education and
income ladders, and a host of businesses in retail, cottage scale operations,
mom and pop stores, self-driven manufacturing and similar level enterprises that
simply couldn‘t afford the disruptions caused by the pandemic.

NCOC announces free booster after six months of last vaccine dose
Likewise, it has been legislated that any infrastructure spending, which draws on
this new stimulus bill needs to statistically correlate related justifications to
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national productivity enhancement. However, no growth or heating up of an
economy is without the pain of inflation. Like in Pakistan, US policymakers also
face the same challenges, albeit the difference being that over there Larry
Summers pre-empted this coming and provisioned accordingly. His argument
being that a stimulus along with all the global supply chain disruptions and labour
shortages that are inevitable when coming of a pandemic are bound to boost
inflation. In addition, the simple public exhaustion due to grappling with this
never-ending pandemic would mean a reduced resistance threshold of people in
general to deal with a mounting inflation. And to overcome this resultant
challenge where on one hand you are trying to put the economy on a recovery
path while on the other you need to protect the people from rising prices and
shortages, the only way is to direct all relief and resources (of the stimulus
package) to the lower end of the pyramid and leaving very little or none for the
ones at the top. So far, it seems to be working both for Larry Summers and the
Democrats and perhaps this is exactly what the PTI government needs to ensure
here in Pakistan as well.

Source: Published in The Nation

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The Wages of the IMF By Durdana Najam
Despite having some of the best internationally recognised minds to manage
Pakistan‘s financial affairs, why is there no exit from the economic woes? Is there
a probability that these able minds have been working as the so-called economic
hitmen to keep Pakistan financially bankrupt? This is not an illusion of a
conspiratorial mind as the readers might be tempted to think. There are reasons
for the doubt. For instance, take the case of the IMF‘s six billion dollar package.
We have not even received half of the total package as the debt is released in
bits and pieces. With every new tranche, a list of dos and don‘ts is handed down
for compliance. Being negotiated currently is a tranche worth $1 billion. So far,
the walk on the tightrope has been made possible with the massive devaluation
of the rupee, high electricity and gas tariffs, elimination of Rs350 billion worth of
subsidies, the reincarnation of petroleum levy by Rs33, cut in the development
budget to the tune of Rs300 billion and imposition of new taxes. Soon a mini-
budget will be floated to give a legal cover to these demands. According to
experts, this will be one of the biggest mini-budgets in the history of Pakistan.
How will this affect a common man? That is not on the agenda of the government
economic wizards. What is on their hit list is compliance with the IMF demand.

Now let us talk about the illusion part.

As compared to the $1billion IMF tranche, which is so far behaving like a sinking
boat that may tumble the country with it if not rescued, Pakistan has earned $6
billion from textile export in the first four mounts of the current fiscal year.
Juxtapose the part receipts of the IMF package with $6 billion from only four
months of textile export, and you will find yourself questioning the justification for
the anxiety to keep the IMF boat afloat. With an industrial output sufficient to
overcome the so-called current account deficit, why have we tied ourselves to the
IMF programme, which for all its purposes is only tightening the noose around
common men‘s neck? The question is: what justifies our eagerness to meet the
IMF unjust demands for a $1 billion tranche, especially when our economy has
the potential to wade us out of solvency — if there is any?

Recently, Dr Arthur Betz Laffer, an American economist, was in Pakistan to

attend Pakistan Prosperity Forum — 2021 arranged by the Prime Institute in
Islamabad. During his address, he advised Pakistan‘s economic heads to refrain

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from taking dictation from the IMF and the World Bank. Adding further to his
anguish against the lending institutions, he said that the IMF and the World Bank
have been of no use other than deliberately exacerbating Pakistan‘s economic
woes. He reminded us that we were not their slaves and that we should act
independently.

This advice of acting ‗independently‘ brings to mind the ardent opposer of the
IMF and the World Bank, Mr Yanis Varoufakis, a Greek-Australian economist and
politician. He served as Greek Minister of Finance from January to July 2015.
During his stint as finance minister, he refused to bend to the demands of the
lending institutions and instead said that ―…we are insolvent, and we have to
embrace our insolvency.‖
Varoufakis equated these creditors with terrorists. Like terrorists, they instil fear
and trepidation so that their targets bend and give in. The weapons used in this
warfare are the economic experts drawn usually from the targeted countries.
They deliberately make flawed policies. Each policy digs a hole in the exchequer.
Eventually, a time comes when this leaking bucket becomes a burden to the
community of greedy and expedient politicians, military personals and
businessmen, who had been raised over the period to make this leaking bucket a
reality. Later, each hole is patched from the creditor‘s debt in return for more
taxes, exorbitant utility bills, and inflationary pressures.
Varoufakis met Barack Obama at the Greek Independence Day celebration in the
East Room of the White House and was asked to ―swallow bitter stuff‖ like he did
to survive the 2008 economic crisis. Varoufakis replied, ―You inherited a mess
when you came to office, but at least you had your central bank behind you. We
inherited a mess and we have a central bank‖ — the European Central Bank —
―trying to choke us‖. The creditors wanted Greece ―to privatize state assets, such
as Athens‘s port; reform institutions and practices perceived to be inefficient,
including its health-care and welfare systems, in ways likely to result in mass
dismissals; and adjust its budget through further tax increases and spending
cuts, to the point where Greece‘s income significantly exceeded its spending on
everything but its repayments‖.
From Laffer to economic experts like Dr Ikramulhaq, government is advised to
downgrade income and sales tax to widen the tax net. However, the government
has no appetite to hear sane voices. Instead, it is fuelling the 134 non-functioning
state-owned organisations with an annual injection of $4 million. How does
Pakistan‘s economic wizard justify this loss is anybody‘s guess.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 2nd, 2021.
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Rethinking Economic Equations By Dr
Kamal Monnoo
Amid all the wild swings in Pakistan‘s economic policymaking over almost the
past three years, one thing has remained constant, repeated experimentation
where none was needed. A cursory look at the economic history of nations that
have made big over the last half century and the important and lucid commonality
that literally stares one in the face is that almost all made it big on the back of
exports.

Not going too far back, take the example of Bangladesh—our very own flesh and
blood till 1971—the underlying reason for why they have left us behind in recent
years is exports: Bangladesh‘s almost $45 billion as compared to ours only $25
billion. This single minded commitment of the Bangladeshis to connect into the
developed world by becoming its preferred apparel supply-chain has in-turn
helped them contain their population growth (only 165 million people as
compared to our 230 million, whereas, we were the minority half, back in 1971); a
refocused emphasis on education and skill development; micro-finance; women
empowerment and with a per capita income today that is almost double that of
ours.

PKR hits historic low in interbank intraday trade

And for us, despite the clear writing on the wall, we have still not been able to put
our heart and soul in adopting the true spirit of an exporting culture or in fact
declaring a kind of ‗export emergency‘ in the country. Instead, finance ministers
are changed repeatedly, new teams of economic advisors are inter-changed
every couple of years and foreign experts are parachuted in regularly to run key
financial institutions,; all ironically all with just one singular vision: Fiscal deficit.
On working to the dictates of the IMF (International Monetary Fund) regardless of
whether or not they suit the domestic ground realities.

Still, Pakistanis are a resilient lot and tend to rise against all odds. However, of
late, just when one thought the Pak economy was again about to turn a corner,
after a testing struggle of economic contraction as a result of both, governmental
policies and a global Covid pandemic, in walks yet another IMF programme-
resumption, one that regrettably aims at once again erode whatever little that had

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been achieved over the last few months. Not surprisingly, nothing new in this
programme either, as like its previous blueprints, this one also looks to raise
taxes, tariffs and utility and input prices, thereby retarding growth, stoking
inflation and damaging competitiveness (essentially for exports).

As for our economic managers, they seem all set to walk into another period of
pain, the brunt of which is invariably borne by the people (through inflation and
unemployment) and manufacturing businesses (through outright closures). The
particular disappointment though in the recipe being handed down is that in
today‘s environment, it just does not fit and naturally the advised IMF policy
measures come across as being rather baffling.

The changed reality is that the quick outbreak of the global pandemic has all of a
sudden forced the economists to have an altered view about the very economics
of government debt per se. Gone are the days—at least for now—on the single-
minded focus on fiscal deficit. Of late the echo on national debt and respective
required thresholds as a percentage of GDP is all but dead. Even the latest
narrative of the international financial institutions (such as the IMF) stands
completely changed or just plays a totally different tune.

Sialkot lynching case: ATC approves 13-day physical remand of eight suspects
Only last month, talking to the G20, the much renowned former IMF chief
economist, Olivier Blanchard, talked about a ―shift in fiscal paradigm.‖ And this
new paradigm suggests two things: One, that public debt is not a major problem
anymore and two, that a government‘s borrowing for the right purposes is
actually now the responsible thing to do. We have of late seen massive
accumulation of debt and quantitative easing dole outs by the developed
economies that in fact are being lauded today as the right things to do. So, why
then play with a separate deck of cards when it comes to countries like Pakistan?
Well, something for our government to ponder upon.

The other glaring area where the economic managers seem to be getting it
wrong is in finding the equilibrium of competitiveness that will allow our exports to
grow. Pakistan‘s is a complex work environment with excessive departmental
oversight and where doing business is not easy by any stretch of imagination.
So, naturally this has its own implications mainly that unless returns/profits are
comparatively higher and return on investment quicker than average world
economies, the investor is reluctant to invest.
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Bigotry is what fuels the mob
This is the main reason that we have seen FDI (foreign Direct Investment),
especially in the manufacturing sector that primarily creates jobs, almost dry up
since June last year. Although this writer was against the Rupee devaluation
initially undertaken—perhaps about 15-17 percent more than what was
necessary at the time—the thing is that over time, markets and businesses
automatically start adjusting themselves to the operational ground realities and
this is exactly what happened here in Pakistan as well. Subsequent knee-jerk
changes tend to become counterproductive. Going by the data of the previous
one year, the abrupt devaluation finally started manifesting itself, even if only in
the short-term, in competitive pricing of Pakistani products abroad, something
that resulted in a surge of national exports and LSM (Large Scale Manufacturing)
numbers from September 2020 onwards.

From an economy‘s perspective it could be fair to state that industries and

businesses started working on the resultant equilibrium of costs and revenues—
despite one of the highest interest rates in the region—giving Pakistan an
advantage over its main competitors. For the government to capitalise on this
temporary advantage it was imperative that it kept input prices in check to ensure
that these short-term gains are turned into a sustainable operating model. To be
able achieve this, what was essentially needed to be factored was that a
breathing space is allowed for at least two years where domestic manufacturing
could work on creating its own entrepreneurial efficiencies and productivity
enhancements.

Sheikh Rashid asks opposition to shift long march schedule

Pakistan generally operates at around 7 percent higher inflation rate than its end
markets and to keep the growth momentum, this differential either needs to be
covered through currency devaluation or by lowering cost of capital and
increasing productivity; naturally the latter is preferred. Sadly, of late the policy
direction seems headed in the opposite direction with a brewing perception on
continuity of the current high interest rates regime while the likelihood of
burdening the cost of production with increased taxes and energy tariffs.

Also, with a strengthening PKR, albeit on the back of borrowing, the trend is not
helping, in fact making matters worse by moving away from the desired
competitiveness equilibrium (temporarily achieved towards the end of 2020) in
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the process making it increasingly elusive. Little wonder then, that any gains
made over the last six months are eroding quickly.

To conclude, given what we have learned and where we are, it is clear that the
Pak government should be investing and focusing heavily in the nation‘s future
and it is okay to for the time being to set input costs at levels that allow us to
retain the competitive equilibrium necessary for growth (especially exports), even
if we have to temporarily borrow to ensure this. With a new finance minister,
young and fresh, one hopes that he will have a proactive and long-term approach
in re-thinking our presently flawed economic equations.

Source: Published in The Nation

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Some Important Economic Issues Entering
2022 By Dr Omer Javed
The current year saw the spread of Covid-19 vaccines, from their beginnings in
the later part of 2020. Yet, while on one side the absence of removal of
intellectual property rights (IPRs) meant that the world struggles more than it
should have to, in order to reach one most potent vaccine against the Covid
pandemic, on the other hand, vaccine inequality still remains a potent tool in the
hand of the virus to keep transforming to more aggressive mutations, mainly at
the back of seriously low vaccination in Africa, and in global south overall.

Project Syndicate (PS) editors in a recent article ‗PS commentators‘ predictions

for 2022‘ pointed out with regard to issues revolving around covid-19 vaccines as
follows: ‗With the covid-19 pandemic heading into its third year, last year‘s
radically different ―new normal‖ is no longer so new. The coronavirus continues to
acquire mutations and threaten economic and social stability around the world.‘
Going into 2022, an important pledge the policymakers of both countries and in
multilateral institutions should make is to come together as one global humanity
facing a global threat. Vaccine apartheid needs to end, and with it, inordinate
favours for domestic voter bases and corporate interests.

Renowned economists, Mariana Mazzucato and Jayati Ghosh, in their recent PS

article indicated in this regard ‗In addition to prolonging the covid-19 pandemic
and threatening the economic recovery, the new omicron variant is a reminder
that our system for managing global health emergencies remains woefully
inadequate. Until we can ensure rapid production and equal availability of
vaccines globally, the coronavirus will remain in charge.‘

Another important issue, and even more consequential in terms of being both an
important reason for covid-19, and also overall a significant determinant of
existence of life as we know of it, climate change, which continues to remain a
big challenge as 2021 saw, especially in the wake of lukewarm response of the
COP26 conference in terms of commitments primarily in terms of finishing
reliance on fossil fuel in a much faster manner. Co-author of the important and
famous book Why nations fail: the origins of power, prosperity, and poverty,
Daron Acemoglu highlighted this in the same PS article about predictions for

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2022 as ‗It is difficult to be optimistic about 2022. Despite all the corporate
pledges and media attention focused on climate change, the COP 26 conference
was a failure. In 2022, we will continue to realize that greenhouse-gas emissions
are not declining, and that more radical responses are needed.‘

In addition, highlighting the needed sense of urgency with regard to combating

climate change that needs to be shown going into 2022, especially by the main
polluters, Agnes Binagwaho pointed towards some of the significant impacts of
climate change in the same PS article ‗Global carbon dioxide emissions will
continue to increase, with the largest contributions coming from high- and upper-
middle-income countries (European, Chinese, and US per capita emissions are,
respectively, six, seven, and 14 times higher than Africa‘s). Human activities will
continue to fuel climate change, contributing to the fatal decline of important
species such as bees, whose colonies are also being decimated by the
inappropriate use of pesticides, habitat destruction, and air pollution. Given that
heatwaves, droughts, floods, and other extreme weather events prevent people
from engaging in agricultural work, and that bees and other pollinators affect 35
percent of the world‘s agricultural land and support the production of 87 of the
leading food crops, we will see an increase of global insecurity, even in
developed economies. Unable to sustain the production of the food they need,
many of the world‘s poor will be pushed into extreme poverty, suffer malnutrition,
and migrate.‘

Institutions like IMF persisting with procyclical policies, should adopt a contrary
stance going into 2022, while greater financial support needs to be provided by
rich countries to developing countries, in the wake of the recession-causing
pandemic, slow economic recovery in global south due to serious vaccine
inequality, and a significant supply-side global commodity price shock
Call it a lack of ability, or the heightened sense of greed to serve selfish and
immediate interests that is hindering policymakers to see the fast-approaching
edge of cliff for world, and falling into a very difficult world of high global
temperatures and its consequences on environment, economy, and everyday life
as we know it, the fast is that the world is entering 2022 with a huge backlog of
inaction, and of such important issues as climate change, and vaccine inequality.

And if this was not enough, the world may be getting closer to a debt pandemic
and fast as 2022 unfolds, given continued significant influence of
Neoliberalism/Washington Consensus on the policy frameworks of many
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countries, including many rich, advanced countries having strong bearing on
global financial system, and multilateral institutions, for instance, International
Monetary Fund (IMF).

Such persistence, in turn, has meant that inclination towards procyclical policies
in both advanced – since many western capitals already pushing towards tight
monetary policies, with a similar stance also likely to be adopted on the fiscal
side, sooner than later – and developing countries will lead to curtailing
aggregate demand, when the contrary should be persisted with in the shape of
looser macroeconomic policies, a balanced macroeconomic policy is pursued
that allows giving proper attention to both macroeconomic management, and
adequately attending to stimulus/development expenditure, and climate
expenditure needs.

Jayati Ghosh in the same PS article regarding predictions for 2022, pointed out
‗For the developing world, the era of cheap money will end, even if central
bankers in advanced economies hold back on plans to tighten their own
monetary policies. Given the uncertain, uneven, and unequal recovery from the
pandemic, this is bad news for most of the world. Prepare for massively
increased financial instability, with more debt crises and banking crises
generating economic turmoil in many parts of the world. In fact, 2022 may be the
year when global ―leaders‖ finally learn the hard way that protecting their elites‘
own interests at the expense of everyone else can have damaging, even
catastrophic, consequences.‘

Therefore, instead of policies that lead to austerity, rich, advanced countries

should continue with macroeconomic policies on a loose side at home while
keeping in mind the mainly supply-side nature of inflation. At the same time, both
rich, advanced countries, and multilateral institutions move towards undoing the
neoliberal nature of policies, which for instance protect IPRs with regard to Covid
vaccines, even during the pandemic, and on the other hand, understand the
limitedness of the usage of macroeconomic policy tools with developing countries
given the longevity of the pandemic, and slow economic recovery in the wake of
vaccine inequality, producing greater demands on governments to provide for
stimulus/development expenditures, especially for health sector, and also overall
greater and more inclusive economic growth, given the highly likely rising levels
of inequality and poverty.

thecsspoint.com Page 45
Hence, institutions like IMF persisting with procyclical policies, should adopt a
contrary stance going into 2022, while greater financial support needs to be
provided by rich countries to developing countries, in the wake of the recession-
causing pandemic, slow economic recovery in global south due to serious
vaccine inequality, and a significant supply-side global commodity price shock.

Source: Published in Pakistan Today

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Pakistan’s New Strategic Pivot: Geo-
Economics By Dr Qaisar Rashid
On 14 December 2021, addressing the Margalla Dialogue Forum 2021 on
―Foreign Policy Challenges of Future in changing Geo-political Landscape‖, a
debate organized by the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI), Pakistan‘s
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said, ―Indeed, we live in times of
uncertainty. The world order seems to be in a state of severe stress and disarray.
In these times, foreign policy and geo-politics is largely linked to geo-economics.
I have consistently maintained, from here on, that the economy is in many ways
our strategic compass with a dominant presence as a priority of foreign policy.‖

The major drawback inherent in the statement is that it is Qureshi‘s personal

opinion, and not a declaration on behalf of Pakistan‘s Foreign Office.
Nevertheless, in the statement, Qureshi has admitted that Pakistan‘s foreign
policy has been in the throes of seeking relevance. Two points are implied. First,
long ago, the world went economic but Pakistan failed to read the transferal.
Second, anchored in geography, Pakistan‘s priority for politics has not paid
dividends. It is high time Pakistan forsook its denial mode and moved its focus to
economy.

For the failure to shift the focus of the foreign policy to economy, Qureshi also
mentioned the reason: the mindset. In this regard, Qureshi expressed his wish
explicitly: ―Pakistan as a geoeconomic centre with unparalleled regional
connectivity has to come as a mindset, top down… We have had to reset the
existing geopolitical mindset and embrace the importance of geo-economics.‖
That is, the mindset infatuated with ideological conflict and geopolitical strategies,
which brought wars, drugs, terrorism and instability to Pakistan, has to be
reformed. In this statement, the major admission is that the geopolitical mindset
is still dominant, hindering the path to economic prosperity. Even today, Pakistan
is beset with the ravages of archaic thought. The Pakistanis have to shift their
mindset from geopolitics to geo-economics.

Qureshi is uttering the right sounds, against the background that the Cold War
(1945-1991) remained anchored in ideology, dictating its terms to politics. After
the end of the Cold War, the world made the economy its priority and the

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economy started dictating its terms to politics. Compared to that, the Pakistanis
remained obsessed with the idea that ideology was still relevant and that
ideology could bring up another Cold War which could benefit them owing to
Pakistan‘s geographical placement at the crossroads of South, Central and West
Asia. The Pakistanis have spent three decades waiting for the delivery on the
idea but in vain. The mindset created or shaped during the Cold War kept on
asserting itself even after the end of the war. The hangover of the Cold War still
lingers on in many brains in varied forms.

On the occasion, Qureshi also said, ―For a shift from geopolitics to geo-
economics, Pakistan wants a relationship with the USA in sync with our changed
priority.‖ This is where the ordeal lies. Qureshi did not generalize the shift in
priority but localized it to the Pak-US bilateral confines. Nevertheless, the reason
for the confinement or the selective application is fathomable. That is, Qureshi
did not want to give an impression that generalization could also impinge upon
Pakistan‘s relations with India. Such is a constraint Pakistan has been enmeshed
in. Yet, Qureshi felt forced to say that Pakistan alone could not achieve the goal
of geo-economic strength unless it was at peace with its archrival, India, as
Qureshi said, ―Pakistan‘s quest for peace and geo-economic strength cannot be
a solo performance. It takes two to tango.‖

In short, Qureshi is right in saying that Pakistan has to make a strategic pivot
from geo-politics to geo-economics. That is, seeking the benefit of its geography,
Pakistan‘s orientation (or preference) has to be shifted from politics to economy.
Focusing on Pak-US relations, Qureshi said, ―Pakistan does not want a
transactional relationship with the USA. We want multifaceted ties that are not
susceptible to the vagaries of regional and international policies.‖ Nevertheless,
Qureshi was aware of the USA‘s reservations on Pakistan‘s growing trade
relations with China. This was why he tried to strike a balance between the USA
and China by saying, ―Enhanced trade and investment ties with the USA and
cooperation in regard to regional connectivity can work to our mutual benefit.‖
The statement was in line with Qureshi‘s utterance on the occasion, ―a country
like Pakistan …cannot make binary choices. We will remain equidistant,
accessible to all, reaching out to all.‖

Two points are significant here. First, squeezed in between the national interests
of the USA and China, Pakistan has been making efforts to seek economic
benefits from both countries. Pakistan cannot make an either-or choice, as the
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binary choice, but Pakistan is not alone in the equation. The USA is driven by its
own priorities, and so is China. Much depends upon whether or not they offer
Pakistan sufficient leeway diplomatically to circumvent the binary choice.
Second, Pakistan is not in a position to present itself as equidistant to both the
USA and China, even if Pakistan claims that it prefers geo-economics to
geopolitics. The reason is that Pakistan has fostered different kinds of relations
with both the countries. The past haunts the present and the present dictates the
future.

In his address, Qureshi also laid an overly greater emphasis on digital technology
by mentioning phrases such as digital diplomacy, digital economy, digital growth,
digital alliance, digital sphere, digital space, and so on. Many people believe that
digital technology is reshaping inter-state relations. Social media is considered a
source of connection conveying one‘s message instantly, as the former US
President Donald Trump used to do. Nevertheless, social media remains an
informal medium that can be used to convey kneejerk reactions but not a
thought-through answer. Using social media to convey critical messages, other
than pleasantries, has an evanescent life. Diplomatic outreach does not rely on
digital technology, especially when formal relations between two countries are
concerned.

Qureshi not only linked the foreign policy with the economy but also with digital
technology. That is, the better the economy; the better the future of the foreign
policy. Similarly, the better the control over the digital sphere, the more the
chances for amassing and monopolizing data, and the better the chances of
influencing mindsets, controlling narratives and crafting perceptions.

In short, Qureshi is right in saying that Pakistan has to make a strategic pivot
from geo-politics to geo-economics. That is, seeking the benefit of its geography,
Pakistan‘s orientation (or preference) has to be shifted from politics to economy.

Source: Published in Pakistan Today

thecsspoint.com Page 49
2022: Unshackling Pakistan’s Economy By
Dr Kamal Monnoo
s Pakistan enters its seventy-fifth year of independence, a conventional policy is
unlikely to combat the breadth of its economic challenges. Across a range of
areas—human capital, technology, agriculture, finance, trade, public service
delivery and more—new ideas must (innovation) now be on the table. The Covid-
19 pandemic has not only cost Pakistan many lives and livelihoods, it has also
exposed major structural weaknesses in the economy.

A huge agriculture and employment crisis, rising and massive inequalities, tepid
investment growth, chronic banking sector challenges and unprecedented Pak
Rupee devaluations have plagued the economy, exacerbated by the Covid-19
pandemic.

It has also exposed the limitations of the Pakistani state, which tries to control too
much—and ends up stifling the economy and the inherent energies of its young
population; Bangladesh in this respect would be a good role model to follow
where the state has tangibly demonstrated on how ‗responsible‘ outsourcing to
the private sector on key deliverables can not only take away from the burden of
the state, but also impart them in a much more efficient and quality-oriented
manner.

Oil edges higher as US crude inventories decline

Climate change is no longer a distant threat, while disruptive technology has
huge implications for Pakistan‘s demographic dividend—already by now a
significantly reduced annual snowfall level in the Himalayas is raising alarm bells.
In addition, the dangerous lurch towards growing intolerance and public anger
and frustration will cast its shadow on Pakistan‘s pursuit of prosperity for all.

While persistent inflation could be a contributing factor in the general national

unease, the Sialkot incident involving the Sri Lankan operations manager tends
to be a litmus test for the State to re-establish its firm writ over some right-wing
elements spiralling out of control. So in essence, unshackling Pakistan would
largely depend on the key question: Can Pakistan use the next twenty-five years,
when it will reach the hundredth year of independence, to restructure not only its

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economy but rejuvenate its democratic energy and unshackle its potential—to
become a genuinely developed economy by 2047?

Punjab registers vehicles worth over Rs80 billion in 2021

For this to happen, the institutions that rule, the political apparatus, the
establishment, the political diaspora, the bureaucracy and the judiciary, will need
to jointly re-think the national vision, which fosters a prosperous and inclusive
economy. They will jointly have to set their minds to new development priorities,
acknowledge the hard truths, and lay out the clear choices and new ideas that
Pakistan must adopt towards the goal of inclusive development and international
acceptability.

So, what does Pakistan really deserve? With half the Quaid‘s vision already lost,
will we keep on muddling through the current course or do we somewhere
possess the inherent resolve to course correct and try and make Pakistan the
state that its founding leader had envisioned? This is what will define the next 25
years and whether or not we can restore sanity to pick-up ourselves and bring in
the right leaders or continue on the path of self-interest and placing concentrated
wealth over larger national interest.

Ying Xiong‘s remarks at awarding ceremony for 'outstanding Pakistani staff of

CPEC project'
Global economic development over the last 100 years teaches us an important
lesson—through examples of the European Union, China, the Asian Tiger
economies and the others—on how progress must be an amalgamation of
economic growth and social prosperity, since neither can occur in isolation. We
will have to address the question of how Pakistan can use the next twenty-five
years, up to the centennial year of independence, to restructure not only its
economy but rejuvenate its democratic energy and unshackle its potential to
become a genuinely developed economy by 2047.

Unshackling Pakistan would require an unshakeable and sustainable focus on

key ideas such as restricting the state‘s role to the universal provision of
fundamental necessities, affirmative action to enjoy the advantages of a strong
female workforce, as well as measures that ensure the demographic dividend is
harvested.

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To be able to clearly understand and comprehend and without resorting to typical
economic jargon about why Pakistan‘s economy in the 60s‘, lauded as one of the
most dynamic in the world, is now ailing, and what it will take to fix it, the answers
lie in some sweeping agendas of reforms in order to reinvigorate growth and
share the benefits more equitably, or in other words to make the country both
more prosperous and happier.

Taliban uncharted economic policy may exacerbate ISIS threat

There is this rather urgent and pressing case for Pakistan‘s policymakers to fully
and frontally confront long ignored realities about the Pakistani economy—its
fragility, structural inequality and the low levels of state capacity which have been
made especially visible in the ravages of COVID-19; the urgency to now finally
place a much-needed spotlight on challenging the current economic status-quo
and to offer important and even provocative policy prescriptions.

If Pakistan is to come out of its current and ongoing economic impasse, engaging
with these provocations will be in finding the way back to sustainable growth and
development. Meaning, unleashing wide-ranging second-generation reforms in
the Pakistani economy with the sole purpose of reaching its full potential and
delivering greater prosperity for its 230 million citizens by honestly grappling with
the real concerns on gender, climate, health, education, state capacity and other
challenges that remain unaddressed simply because the state never had the
requisite resources and the capacity to look into them.

If Pakistan has to truly progress, then the urgency of the present moment, in the
wake of Covid-19, has to be grasped in a revolutionary way against a backdrop
of worsening global climate, and at a time when a manufacturing-led pathway to
prosperity can no longer be taken for granted.

Unless we create a happier, more inclusive and prosperous society by the

hundredth anniversary of independence and that too with a very specific
roadmap to attain it, things will disintegrate very quickly leading to a situation that
may render itself uncontrollable. The idea therefore should be to bring out the
new possibilities of high-quality growth by successfully managing today‘s global
concerns; climate change, greener operations, money laundering and
responsible financing and to undertake bold structural reforms that aim to
displace the present obsolete policy thinking and lay a strong emphasis on the

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urgency of mobilising the latent economic growth potential of our women with the
needed policy measures for their empowerment.

The kind of needed reforms being referred to are going to be both painful and
painless. Pakistan should set aside its partisan divides and heed their wise
advice. In essence, the key would be to look outwards and to start locking into
the US$80 trillion world market. If Indians can compete successfully in global
markets, so can we Pakistanis and if we bravely jump into global markets,
Pakistan‘s economy could explode. Seize the moment. Yes, we can!

Source: Published in The Nation

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EDUCATION

Quality Higher Education By Atta-ur-

Rahman
In 2002, when the Higher Education Commission (HEC) was established under
my chairmanship, Pakistan was around 400 percent behind India in terms of
research publications per capita, according to the Web of Science. Fortunately,
educational reforms that we introduced, and that were continued for the next
decade, resulted in astonishing progress that has been applauded by neutral
international experts.

The landscape of higher education changed dramatically between 2002 and

2008 so much so that Pakistan not only caught up with India but also overtook it
in the year 2018. This is no small achievement as India had been investing in
higher education since its very birth – this includes the visionary policies of Nehru
who established the IITs and other good quality higher education institutions in
the 1950s and 60s.

The single most important element that determines the quality of higher
education is the quality of faculty. For this reason, when the HEC was set up in
2002 under my chairmanship, the highest priority was given to the training and
recruitment of high-quality faculty in our universities.

After a rigorous screening process, some 11,000 students were sent to the
world‘s leading universities, and to attract them back on completion of their
doctorate degrees, several important initiatives were introduced. First, a new
contractual salary structure was introduced with the salaries of professors
several times higher than that of federal ministers in the government. Second,
students completing their PhD degrees could apply for research grants of up to
$100,000 – one year before completion of their work.

Third, graduates would have jobs on arrival with the HEC paying the salary.
Fourth, an excellent digital library was set up that provided free access to 65,000

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journals and 25,000 textbooks through the Pakistan Educational Research
Network (PERN) that connected all universities with high-speed internet. Fifth,
free access to sophisticated instruments was provided. Sixth, grants were made
available through a liberal research grants scheme – National Research Projects
for Universities (NRPU) – to help young academics to win sizeable research
funding. These and other such measures led to a 97.5 percent return rate of
scholars.

To control plagiarism, specialised software was introduced, which controlled this

problem to a great extent. However, this issue persists – to a small extent – both
in India and Pakistan and other countries. According to an article published in
2019 in ‗Nature India‘, 980 papers published by top Indian institutions, including
those from the IITs, between 2000 and 2017, were fraudulent or plagiarised and
had to be retracted. Between 2005 and 2021, 254 publications were also
retracted from Pakistan. This is an average of 15 papers per year (about 0.1
percent to 0.3 percent retractions annually).

To promote blended education, a mirror website of the MIT Open Courseware

was set up in 2005 when I was the HEC chairman, and many undergraduate
computer science courses were downloaded, copied on CDs, and distributed to
all universities. An exciting scheme for live distance education was also
introduced by us with top professors delivering daily lectures which were listened
to live and interactively across Pakistan. A major programme was initiated to
attract our highly qualified Pakistan diaspora back to the country.

Some 600 eminent academicians returned and played a valuable role in uplifting
the quality of higher education in the country. Split PhD programmes were
introduced so that PhD students in Pakistan could do a split PhD with a part of
their time being spent in good foreign universities under the supervision of
eminent foreign scholars. Pakistan was soon recognised internationally for these
efforts, and glowing tributes were paid in numerous articles written by the world‘s
leading educational authorities as well as by neutral experts of the British
Council, World Bank, USAID, and UN. I was conferred the highest prize for
institution-building by the World Academy of Sciences (Italy) and by the Austrian
and Chinese governments.

Unfortunately, there was a sharp decline in the quality of higher education due to
the actions of the former chairman HEC in the last three years which were
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condemned by 178 out of the 180 vice chancellors of different public and private
universities, who participated in a recent event organised in Bhurban.

Prime Minister Imran Khan is interested in the development of science and

higher education in Pakistan. This is reflected in several actions of his
government to support the efforts of the PM Task Force of Knowledge Economy:
First, after years of stagnation, the present government has announced a
sizeable increase in the operational budget of universities by a grant of an
additional Rs15 billion on top of the Rs66 billion previously allocated – this is an
increase of about 23 percent.

Second, after a decade of neglect, the salary structures of the tenure track
faculty have been increased by 35 percent for all and by 100 percent for the best
faculty members. Third, the Pakistan-Austrian University of Applied Science and
Engineering has been established which is the only university in the country (and
possibly in the Subcontinent) with 100 percent PhD-level faculty. This university
has been developed in collaboration with three Austrian and five Chinese
universities – its academic session has already started. Two other such
universities are now being set up in Sialkot and Islamabad.

Fourth, a huge scholarship programme of Rs13 billion has again been launched.
Fifth, the research grants NRPU initiative that had been dropped by the previous
chairman has been given a new life and some 1,200 research grants will be
given to young faculty members across Pakistan this year. Sixth, centres of
excellence in new and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence,
nanotechnology, materials engineering etc are being set up across Pakistan, and
26 projects worth over Rs67 billion have already been approved.

Seventh, the development budget of the Ministry of Science and Technology has
now been increased by about 600 percent by the Knowledge Economy Task
Force projects after years of stagnation. Eight, IT education is being prioritised.
The visionary new policies proposed by the IT/Telecom task force of which I
happen to be co-chairman have resulted in a 50 percent growth of IT exports
from $1.3 billion to $2.1 billion during the last one year, and a huge revival of the
IT industry is underway.

A silent revolution is now finally underway in Pakistan. The credit for this goes to
Prime Minister Imran Khan and his whole-hearted support to three important task
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forces – the Science and Technology Task Force, the IT/Telecom Task Force
and the Knowledge Economy Task Force – that are being steered by us.

The writer is chairman PM

National Task Force on Science and Technology, former minister, and former
founding chairman of the HEC.

Email: [email protected]

Source: Published in The News

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Prioritising Education in Pakistan By
Hisham Khan
T is true that Pakistan has come a long way since the days of the Millennium
Development Goals (MDG) in terms of prioritizing primary education for the
country‘s children. It is also a fact that Pakistan was unable to meet its MDG
targets within the allocated period of 15 years, i.e., from 2000 – 2015.

For me, at least, the above statements are not contradictory. They are merely a
reflection of the fact that while Pakistan‘s education indicators have certainly
shown improvement over the last two decades, the pace of this progress has
been slow.

This brings us to the present day and Agenda 2030 and its related Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs).

After the passage of almost six years since Pakistan ratified the SDGs, swift
progress does not seem to be on the cards.

Once again, we are explicitly lagging in terms of meeting the few targets that we
had set under SDG 4, i.e., equitable education for ourselves. Once again, we are
likely to repeat the same story and leave the SDGs unmet.

To begin with, 22.8 million children between the ages of 5 and 16 are out-of-
school in Pakistan and around 53% of the out-of-school children are girls.

To be fair, this figure is based on the estimates presented in the Annual

Education Statistics report 2016-17 since the most recent report conveniently
discarded the chapter on out-of-school children without any reasonable
explanation.

This alarming situation continues to persist despite the presence of Article 25-A,
which pledges free and compulsory quality education to every Pakistani child
between the ages of 5 to 16 years.
Contrary to and in complete disregard of this constitutional promise, most regions
within Pakistan have been unable to notify and begin implementation against

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Article 25-A despite the passage of 11 years since it was first made part of the
Constitution.

Even in the provinces where it has been notified, quite clearly, 100 per cent
access to education has not been achieved.

A recent white-paper ―Public Investment in Education: Covid-19 and other

emergencies in the Past‖ authored by Economist Asim Bashir Khan and
published by Pakistan Youth Change Advocates (PYCA) clearly states that
emergency or no emergency, cuts on education development expenditure are a
routine practice and have little to do with the fall-out of emergency situations.

This clearly points at the fact that emergencies like earthquakes, floods and even
Covid-19 cannot be blamed for Pakistan‘s persistent lack of education funding.
The real culprit would have to be an acute lack of political foresight and will.

Speaking about prioritizing girls‘ education – since the majority of out-of-school

children in Pakistan are girls – another white-paper ―Public Investment in
Education: An Appraisal of SDG 4 in Pakistan‖ also authored by Asim Bashir
Khan and published PYCA and the Education Champion Network (ECN)
highlights several glaring gaps that negate the high priority accorded to education
on paper.

For instance, except for Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, which has – partially if not entirely
– adopted the practice of gender-responsive education budgeting, no other
province or region in Pakistan has budgets disaggregated by gender.

The state of education in Pakistan requires an urgent overhaul and a lot needs to
be done swiftly and effectively for things to take a turn for the better.

Putting into action an effective strategy to curtail drop-outs, making Pakistan‘s

education system shock resilient, incentivising education for the most
marginalized children, especially girls, broadening of the tax net at the federal
and provincial levels, adopting gender-responsive budgeting and conducting
robust awareness drives to promote the value of girls‘ education (including
married girls of school-going age, young mothers, and girls living with disabilities)
would be a few things to set Pakistan on the right track.
Source: Published in Pak Observer
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Sustainable Educational Institutes By
Muhammad Ali Falak
The world has changed; so, does the definition of success for the students in this
post-crisis world. Institutions need to create spaces for students to achieve their
meaning of achievements. While an institution‘s success is gauged by the
number of graduates it produces every year; students‘ success depends upon
whether they have the right training to perform in the professional world. For a
long time now in Pakistan, institutes are blamed for only serving their interests
without equipping their students with the right skillset giving them financial
independence, etiquette and learning behaviour.

This generated a vacuum – filled by Motivational speakers, Influencers,

TikTokers, E-commerce gurus who are seen on social media relegating the
importance of degree programmes in the universities, calling formal education a
farce, advising students to spend time and money instead in learning skills for
swift financial gains. Jobless degree holders work as a catalyst to support this
stance.

Instant gratification, glamour and returns are what enable the message of these
content creators seep seamlessly into the impressionable mind of the youth who
are promised endless opportunities without even given a hint of what they are
missing – precious time of their youth to develop their personalities, vision, social
intelligence and analytical abilities inside the classrooms.

In the post-pandemic world, change is silently sweeping the education sector of

Pakistan where students like in developed countries will be responsible for
paying for their university education instead of their parents like in the past.
Universities must realise that in the changing socio-economic scenarios, success
for students now may be more than knowledge and degrees. They want to be
socially responsible, financially independent and be able to contribute to solving
complex problems in society – all that is claimed to be achieved once they
become a TikTok star.

Think of a student in the US who works as a carpenter during the day to support
his degree and is only able to take time out during the weekends and evenings

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with his staggering schedule for work. He manages to continue his education
only because the institutes offer him face to face, distant, remote, online and
offline learning facilities. He can pick the time, space, even mode of examination
as per his convenience. What a similar guy will do in Pakistan? Start a YouTube
channel? Become a TikToker? All without any training?

In Pakistan, unfortunately, educational institutions are only as flexible as a fat

man in a yoga class! Courses offered by these institutes have outdated
curriculums, lack hands-on training, and are rigid in terms of time and space.
They adapt to new trends at a snail‘s speed. E-commerce, online content
creation, cryptocurrency, blockchain and cybersecurity are emerging fields but
are hardly offered by leading universities in the countries.

With no formal training, skills and educational background, the youth in Pakistan
can hardly meet the international standards of these latest skills needed in the
world. Also, on a platform like Upwork, Fiver and Amazon most do not perform
well because of their superficial knowledge and aversion to research and
development. The youth needs grooming. Period. Universities must provide it
even if for being a TikToker.

It is high time for institutes in Pakistan to shun ‗one size fits all‘ practice and
emphasise acknowledging the individuality of the students. Focusing on the
academic involvement of the students includes where the students are coming
from and the career path they choose for themselves. Flexibility is pertinent.

There must be more alternative pathways and credit to job and degree for
students for their future, including prior learning assessments, micro-
credentialing, competency-based education and badging. With a changing labour
market, students must experience a relevant and inclusive curriculum, gain skills
of the future and now, and be provided experiential learning opportunities. The
equity-minded lens approach is essential. Students are participating in learning
activities from various locations: libraries, classrooms, dorm rooms, parent‘s
houses, crowded apartments, cafes or workplaces.

The pandemic highlighted the basic needs gaps for students and the importance
of social connection. Institutions need to ensure security including housing, food,
jobs, transportation and technology through appropriate funding and support,
including emergency loans, affordable tuition, free texts and course materials.
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There is a dire need to move forward towards sustainable educational institutions
and a robust learning system that focuses on skill-based learning, enabling
students to be financially independent and socially responsible to be able to
contribute to their families, society, country and the world. It‘s time for a class!

Published in The Express Tribune, December 21st, 2021.

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Education: Not Enough Mistakes to Learn
From By Arooj Naveed Haq
How does learning happen? From Math, to leadership, we know that learners
need to move beyond simply being told how something works and must
practically try their hand at it in order to build neural connections that last, and to
more generally speaking, achieve mastery at what they are doing. While we do
live in a scholastic culture that admits the importance of practical application,
implementation of hands-on opportunities is lacking in our average classroom.
This is only one gap of very many, and a root cause behind much of this is a
behavioral one — learned and institutionalised through draconian policies that
further aggravate the very learning crises they seek to solve: an unwillingness to
allow people to make mistakes, and learn from them.

If you attempt to do something different in the average government school

classroom — say modify a textbook at teacher‘s discretion, spend time doing
unusual activities such as playing a game through which students learn to divide,
or allocate time differently to allow students to really master a skill rather than
simply regurgitate a few lines — you are likely to be met with panic and staunch
opposition from school administration and staff. While most Pakistanis are biased
towards blaming teachers for failing to ‗instill creativity‘ or encourage ‗practical
application‘ of concepts, the truth is that the institutional environment that the
average government school teacher operates in is actually responsible for
disincentivising any and all experimentation with learning.

Teachers at government schools risk far too much to try anything different in the
classroom. In my experience, this anxiety extends to newcomers within the
system that veterans are apprehensive of, and why should they not be? Daily
wagers seeking to gain a permanent position are afraid of not being brought into
the fold of ‗government job security‘ if something goes wrong with their end-
ofyear results, others are worried about the backlash they may face if an inquiry
is called to question their performance.

Of course, the intention behind the policies that have our teachers scared today
was to create a sense of accountability for a system that lacked it for a long time.
In a country where ghost schools have been an everyday story, and some

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teachers instead of doing their jobs at school were found pursuing alternative
career paths in the outside world, there was a need to create structures that
ensured those tasked with teaching our children had to answer to someone.
However, the very performance metrics upon which schools are currently judged
do more harm than good; teachers are afraid to deviate from old-school practices
that get kids through to the next grade (teaching to the test, reliance on rote-
memorisation etc) and in fact resort to practices that are downright
unconstitutional in far too many cases. From convincing students‘ parents that
they cannot give a board exam (that they cannot even try) while registered under
the school‘s name, to pre-emptively failing students who risk board exam failure,
a lot of teachers in the government school system strategise ways to ensure 100
per cent pass rates — and often succeed — thus showing perfect results that are
otherwise impossible to achieve in an educational system that is broken for more
than one reason.

The demonising attitude and repercussions with which many government school
teachers are now treated often translate to their treatment of students too.
Instead of creating classrooms that allow for mistakes and subsequent growth,
we find adults telling primary school children outright that they are nalaiq (stupid,
incompetent), that they are going to fail anyway. This is an oppressive system
that leaves no room for learning from error; where from top to bottom, past to
future, we see policymakers demonising school staff and teachers, and the latter
demonising students that step out of line. How will we create a better world
where learners can flourish and be creative when we can‘t even create that sort
of environment for the adults that teach them?

A lot needs fixing in our education system, and world. We don‘t stand a chance if
we don‘t give ourselves, and those around us, the leeway to learn from our
mistakes, and rebuild from where we are most broken. For policymakers and
teachers alike, we need to create more room for error — and hence, learning —
in the environments we are tasked with managing.

Source: Published in Express Tribune

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WORLD

Post-withdrawal US-Taliban Talks By Dr

Qaisar Rashid
On 23 November 2021, the State Department of the United States (US)
announced through its spokesperson Ned Price that under the stewardship of
Tom West, the new US Special Representative for Afghanistan, the US would
send its delegation to Doha (Qatar) to spend two days on talks with the Taliban
next week.

The last formal US-Taliban talks were held in Doha on 29 February 2021. Now
after a hiatus of nine months, the US is ready to resume talks with the Taliban.
As announced, top agenda items would be three: first, to ensure the safe
passage of US citizens and certain Afghans from Afghanistan; second, to agree
on ways to handle the impending humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan; and third, to
seek reassurances from the Taliban not to outsource the country to the terrorists
for turning Afghanistan into a launching pad for terrorism.

On the part of the US, the new strategy to deal with Afghanistan is interesting:
avoid claiming a victory publicly, hand over power to the main adversary, and
make the adversary do the lender‘s bidding. Apparently, on 29 February 2021,
the US made the Taliban its proxy, who would watch the US interests of counter-
terrorism in Afghanistan. That is, the Taliban would rout out the al-Qaeda
leftovers and subdue the Islamic State (ISIS) called the Islamic State of
Khorasan (ISIS-K). By the way, the spawning of the al-Qaeda before 2001 and
that of the ISIS-K after 2001 in Afghanistan means that the land of Afghanistan
abides schism, whether in the name of ethnicity or religion. The Afghan land
thrives on fractions proclaiming sovereign and sequestered enclaves.
Decentralized and dissociative trends have become a norm in Afghanistan, no
matter how much the drifts are incongruous with the age. In a way, on 29
February 2021, the US tasked the Taliban with centralizing their authority and
running against the factious tendencies innate in Afghanistan. The Taliban have
yet to deliver on the assigned onerous task.

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The fear swaying Afghanistan is that the Taliban government in Kabul may
founder on the challenge of economic inadequacy

Currently, the fear swaying Afghanistan is that the Taliban government in Kabul
may founder on the challenge of economic inadequacy. Two decades of
occupation (from 2001 to 2021) have taught the US two lessons. First,
Afghanistan is rife with rampant corruption, which is inescapable for government
employees. In the two decades, the US drowned around $ 1 trillion of its
economy in Afghanistan. Of the spent amount, the US spent $ 146 billion to
reconstruct and rehabilitate Afghanistan. Further, the US disbursed $89 billion to
train and equip Afghanistan‘s National Security Forces, which melted away with
munitions on 15 August 2021 in the face of the Taliban‘s onslaught on Kabul.

Second, negotiating with the Taliban is a gruelling task. The US has learned it
the hard way since 18 June 2013 when Qatar permitted the Taliban to open their
office to let US-Taliban negotiations take place in Doha. The US now knows that
the Taliban believe in holding rounds and rounds of protracted mutual
consultations before they agree on a point. A pall of scepticism keeps hanging
over the conclusion of the US-Taliban negotiations until the Taliban‘s
spokesperson surfaces at a press conference, later on, to proclaim the Taliban‘s
consent to the offered proposals. Further, the Taliban can easily end negotiations
in nought. The US expects that this time the talks would also be time-consuming.
Better spare two days.

The Taliban are excited at the prospects of the forthcoming talks. They consider
themselves consummate negotiators, who adroitly defied their subaltern
combatant position, thrashed out a winning deal, and snatched victory from the
jaws of the US-NATO dominance. This time, the Taliban would be haughty. They
might reckon the talks a new beginning, but the US might consider the talks an
equivalent to just picking up the threads.

The priority of the Taliban is to get their government recognized internationally,

and this is not possible without the US‘ consent for it. The Taliban face diplomatic
isolation, which no country of the region dares to breach. For regional
neighbours, Afghanistan is still backwatering unless flagged by the US to
embrace. The ascendance of the Taliban government was not a product of the
efforts of regional countries but it was because of the willingness of the US and
its allies to vacate Afghanistan.
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The second priority of the Taliban is to get financial assets and assistance
restored. The Taliban have been already asking the US to release their frozen
$9.5 billion. For the time being, the Taliban have been demanding Afghan
money, but their need is more than that. The Taliban have also come to grips
with the reality that without financial help they cannot sustain control. A civil war
might set in. The world has gone economic. If the Taliban become able to
persuade the US to open the financial route of aid, other developed countries
might think of rescuing the Taliban government financially. The dependence of
the Taliban on external financial help is bound to be consequential. Nevertheless,
it may not be the priority of the US to make the Taliban self-sufficient financially,
but finance would offer the US requisite leverage over Afghanistan to achieve the
much-touted objectives. The US may think of doling out Afghanistan the money
just adequate to endure the throes of the cold weather, unless the Taliban start
delivering on the Doha agreement of February 2021.

Afghanistan‘s economy cannot survive by itself. It is now a foreign assistance

based economy. Equally, it would be difficult for the US to see its investment to
rebuild Afghanistan reels under the weight of Kabul‘s bankruptcy. The US wants
dialogue to continue but the US may like to offer assistance in the humanitarian
domain only. Apparently, the US intends to squeeze the Taliban both
diplomatically and financially to make them deliver on their promises: fighting
terrorism, installing an inclusive government, respecting the rights of women folk
and minorities, and providing equal access to all to education and employment.
The Taliban are still dilly-dallying on this account.

The writer can be reached at [email protected]

Published in Daily times

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Who’s to Blame for Asia’s Arms Race? By
Thomas Shugart; Van Jackson
BEIJING‘S BELLIGERENCE HAS SET THE STAGE FOR CONFLICT
Thomas Shugart

China‘s military buildup is undeniable. It has built hundreds of long-range and

precise ballistic missiles, launching them for years at mockups of U.S. ships and
bases in Asia. It has constructed the world‘s largest navy in terms of the number
of ships, vastly exceeding the U.S. Navy‘s rate of warship production in recent
years. As Beijing has grown stronger, it has also become increasingly belligerent:
it bullies neighbors that have had the temerity to use their own natural resources,
and its state-controlled media routinely threaten Taiwan with invasion.

But in ―America Is Turning Asia Into a Powder Keg‖ (October 22), Van Jackson
argues that an ―overly militarized‖ U.S. approach is to blame for increasing the
risk of war and worsening negative regional trends. Although Jackson concedes
that Washington is not ―the cause of these troubling trends,‖ and ―should not be
blamed for the actions of China and North Korea,‖ his article leaves the opposite
impression. Furthermore, he makes his case by presenting facts that are at times
misleading, mischaracterized, or inaccurate. He portrays as recklessness what is
in fact a rational U.S. and allied response to a dramatic expansion of China‘s
offensive military capabilities.

Jackson starts by blaming Washington for ―surging troops and military hardware
into the region.‖ Although there have been a number of initiatives to ―pivot to the
Pacific‖ and rebalance the U.S. military toward Asia, the change in American
troop presence has not been as dramatic as this rhetoric suggests. According to
the Pentagon‘s personnel records, roughly 89,000 U.S. active-duty troops were
stationed in the Indo-Pacific theater as of this summer. A decade ago, the
number was about 84,000. An increase of 5,000 troops, constituting less than
half a percent of the U.S. armed forces‘ personnel, does not constitute a ―surge‖
that is aggravating tensions in the region, even if one takes into account the few
thousand additional soldiers that are likely present at any time on rotational
missions.

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Jackson also blames the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden for
embarking on defense initiatives that he claims escalate an arms race with
China. He cites its encouragement of Japan to develop hypersonic weapons (a
program that was unveiled in March 2020, ten months before Biden‘s
inauguration) and extend the range of its antiship missiles (also begun in 2020).
He further states that the administration has announced plans for an expanded
presence in Guam—reference to the ongoing move of 5,000 U.S. Marines to
Guam from Okinawa, Japan (farther away from China), which has been planned
since 2006. Finally, he mentions a new base in Papua New Guinea—actually an
upgrade of an existing base, which was announced in 2018—and new radars in
Palau, which lie more than 1,500 miles from China and whose arrival was first
announced in 2017. These policies to counter China‘s growing military threat
should not be attributed solely to Biden‘s team; instead, they represent a cross-
administration and bipartisan effort to cope with the clear reality of a rapidly
deteriorating military balance.

In the realm of nuclear forces, Jackson also mischaracterizes the timeline of

events and gets some of the details wrong. He states, for example, that the ―the
Trump administration drew up plans for a three-decade nuclear modernization
effort that would cost between $1.2 and $1.7 trillion‖ and points to China‘s
expansion of its nuclear arsenal as one reason for this initiative. In fact, President
Donald Trump inherited those plans from his predecessor, Barack Obama. And
although China‘s activities constitute one factor in Washington‘s need to maintain
a nuclear deterrent force, far and away the greatest reason for the modernization
program is the aging of decades-old U.S. nuclear platforms, which are vital to
U.S. national security for a host of reasons, many of which have nothing to do
with China.

As Beijing has grown stronger, it has also become increasingly belligerent.

Jackson also mischaracterizes U.S. nuclear modernization plans as an
―expansion.‖ In reality, the plans will reduce the number of nuclear-only strategic
launchers—that is, intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles—
that Washington maintains. The U.S. Air Force will reuse launch facilities, and
the ballistic missile submarine force will drop from 14 to 12 submarines and from
20 to 16 missile tubes on each one. The air force‘s planned purchase of B-21
bombers will increase the number of aircraft, but the new bombers are intended
for both nuclear and conventional roles. And although Jackson describes the B-
21 as replacing the current B-2 bomber force with ―more than six times as many
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planes,‖ the B-21s will in fact replace both the B-2 and the larger B-1 fleet—and
possibly even the venerable force of 1960s-built B-52s.

Finally, Jackson asserts that China‘s recent and breathtaking nuclear expansion
is ―clearly a response to the gratuitous, unrestrained nuclear policies of the
Trump administration.‖ This is far from clear, however. Several other factors may
account for China‘s moves: Beijing may want to be able to overwhelm U.S.
missile defenses, may be trying to escape U.S. nuclear coercion, or may be
seeking to maintain leverage in the event of a conventional conflict. And China‘s
leaders stated in 2017—well before the release of the Trump administration‘s
2018 Nuclear Posture Review and National Defense Strategy—their desire to
have a ―world-class military by the middle of the century.‖ Developing world-class
nuclear forces may be part of that larger effort, which would take place
regardless of the actions of the Trump or Biden administration.

Jackson is correct that the United States should be working harder to find ways
to cooperate and compete with China in nonmilitary arenas. But he presents
Washington as busied ―with new arms sales and expanding its force posture‖ as
China has become an economic giant—as if China weren‘t also selling arms and
dramatically altering the military balance in the region while it did so. China, like
the United States, has the ability to walk and chew gum at the same time.

Washington is finally coming to recognize the looming danger that an aggressive

and increasingly powerful techno-authoritarian Chinese regime poses to the
region and the world and is taking action accordingly. Failing to recognize this
danger and to pursue appropriate responses would increase the chance of
conflict by making it more likely that the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party
will someday decide that the military balance of power has tipped in their favor—
and that they should take advantage of the shift by resorting to force.

THOMAS SHUGART is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New

American Security. He served for over 25 years as a submarine warfare officer in
the U.S. Navy, where he last worked in the U.S. Department of Defense‘s Office
of Net Assessment.

AMERICAN MILITARISM IS ENDANGERING THE REGION

Van Jackson

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Thomas Shugart dismisses the idea that Washington‘s adversaries might react to
its overmilitarized foreign policy in undesirable ways. His critique compiles minor
complaints that misrepresent what I wrote and also fail to refute my argument.
The larger point that Shugart misses is that U.S. policy in Asia remains on the
wrong side of trends that adversely impact both regional security and U.S.
interests. He appears to be primarily concerned with ensuring that Washington
receives no ―blame‖ for Asia being awash in militarism, and he shows little
interest in having the United States improve an increasingly precarious situation
in Asia.

Shugart mostly quibbles with my choice of words rather than challenge the
claims I advance. For instance, I describe the broad trend of Washington
―surging troops and military hardware into the region‖ and then detail precisely
what I mean over the course of several paragraphs. Shugart ignores my
description in favor of telling the reader how many troops the United States
positions in Asia. This does not refute my argument, as the surge of militarism I
describe has taken place over the course of several years and is as much about
hardware and bases as it is about personnel. Disputing the rate of change and
whether rotational forces or weapons systems count as ―surging‖ litigates a
gerund rather than addressing the actual posture and force structure changes I
describe in my essay. Moreover, Shugart‘s figure of 89,000 U.S. troops stationed
in the Indo-Pacific—which is a lot in its own right—excludes forces that surge into
the region for the many large-scale exercises the United States conducts each
year.

Shugart also incorrectly states that I blame President Joe Biden‘s administration
for Japan‘s pursuit of hypersonic missiles. I do not, and my essay makes clear
that Biden is the steward of a bad trend that predates him. I do not state that the
administration initiated the development, as Shugart suggests.

In response to my cataloging of Washington‘s many new military initiatives over

the past several years, Shugart rationalizes these programs by writing that they
aim to ―counter China‘s growing military threat.‖ Of course they do. He states this
as a rebuttal, yet I say explicitly that the United States justifies its litany of
changes to the U.S. force posture in response to China‘s military modernization.
My problem with it is that it reflects poor judgment.

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As Asia‘s military hegemon, the United States has a hand in shaping the trends
that endanger the region.

On the issue of U.S. nuclear forces, Shugart argues that former President Donald
Trump‘s gratuitous nuclear plans were actually former President Barack Obama‘s
policies. This is not entirely correct and is in any case irrelevant. During the
Obama administration, the Pentagon did draw up nuclear modernization plans
that Trump inherited. (I worked there at the time.) But Trump‘s nuclear-related
budget submissions expanded the Obama-era nuclear agenda. Even so, Biden‘s
nuclear policies are no more vindicated by assertions that they date to the
Obama era than that they date to the Trump era. I care about the consequences
of U.S. actions, not their genealogy.

Here again, Shugart shadowboxes with my diction rather than my analysis. I

characterized U.S. nuclear modernization many times in my essay and toggled
between describing it as ―modernization‖ and ―expansion‖ for the sake of variety,
but both terms are accurate. Shugart seizes on the word ―expansion‖ to point out
that the number of long-range nuclear-capable missile launchers that the United
States possesses is not increasing. But I never said it was. What‘s expanding is
the lethality and cost (and opportunity costs) of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

But even if all of these misleading complaints were valid, they do not amount to a
defense of current U.S. policies or their military-first character. As Asia‘s military
hegemon, the United States has a hand in shaping the trends that endanger the
region. For politicians, American exceptionalism means never having to
acknowledge Washington‘s complicity in bad outcomes. Analysts, however, can‘t
afford to be so myopic.

Shugart aligns himself with what I see as America‘s militarist drift without
specifying how U.S. efforts to ―counter‖ China‘s military modernization with more
missiles, ships, and nuclear weapons help anything. And he neglects to address
the concern that takes up the final third of my essay: the idea that an obsession
with military strategy distracts from what actually threatens Asia. Gross economic
inequalities, environmental degradation, and the devastation wrought by the
pandemic are what Asians most worry about and what threaten to sow the seeds
of future military conflict. Shugart‘s failure to acknowledge, much less address,
these problems reflects the very obsession with military affairs that my essay
sought to highlight. In this sense, he inadvertently makes my point. The
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Pentagon has warped analysts‘ ability to contemplate statecraft beyond defense
policy.

The totality of Shugart‘s criticisms fails to refute my case that the U.S. approach
to Asia is overmilitarized. Shugart declines to propose any particular way of
seeing or understanding China. And if his assumptions about the intrinsic
goodness of American power become a basis for U.S. policy, the region will face
a grim future.

VAN JACKSON is a Distinguished Fellow with the Asia Pacific Foundation of

Canada, Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Victoria University of
Wellington in New Zealand, and Defence & Strategy Fellow at the Centre for
Strategic Studies.

Source: Published in Foreign Affairs

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Superpower and its Credibility By Dr Farah
Naz
A superpower should be a role model for all sovereign states. The US, enjoying
being one of the superpowers by holding the largest economy, military might,
freedom & free enterprises, excellent democracy that makes her champion of the
world. Today, more than 200 countries and entities look up to it in times of crisis,
help and support.

All these developing countries look up to the US for kindness, political and
economic support, benevolence and all. No doubt, there is a huge responsibility
on the shoulders of the superpower as the powerhouse of global politics.

It has to work in such a fashion that it remains neutral, unbiased and should not
be in the business of cherry-picking exercises.

The US attitude towards world issues should be free of unfairness, partiality and
prejudice. Well, these are the public expectations from the job description of the
superpower in world politics.

But, when it comes to power dynamics and working unbiased, does the US
satisfy all of its above stated credentials or not? Does it fulfil its job requirements
free of prejudice or not?

It is generally observed that the US is not treating all states fairly and on equal
footings.

The recent blacklisting events have exposed the credibility of the superpower
that plays double standards in global politics.

The Biden Administration added a dozen Chinese companies to its trade blacklist
on 24 November 2021.

According to western media, of those blacklisted, eight Chinese technology

entities were added for their alleged role in assisting the Chinese military‘s
quantum computing efforts. US officials have long complained that Chinese

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companies are beholden to the People‘s Republic of China and collect sensitive
information on behalf of the People‘s Liberation Army.

The blacklisting does not stop with the Chinese companies alone, it moves
beyond. The Commerce Department also listed 16 entities and individuals
operating in China and Pakistan for their work on Islamabad‘s nuclear and
ballistic missile program.

In all, the Biden Administration added 27 entities and individuals located in the
People‘s Republic of China, Pakistan, Russia, Japan and Singapore.

According to the US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo in a statement

shared that ―global trade and commerce should support peace, prosperity and
good-paying jobs, not national security risks. The Department of Commerce is
committed to effectively using export controls to protect our national security.‖

The US Commerce Department claims that they want to stop the Chinese
military from developing its counter-stealth technology, which could include
equipment like advanced radars and counter-submarine applications such as
undersea sensors.

These actions also block US material from being used to help China break
encryption or develop unbreakable encryption.

They set a condition that suppliers to companies on the entity list should apply for
the licence before they can sell to them, which are likely to be denied in the first
place.

Indeed, national security is supreme and, above all, not only for the world‘s
superpower but all states including China that happens to be the second-largest
economy and an emerging power.

They also have all the rights under the law to protect and defend themselves
against their potential rivals/competitors.

But such recent measures test the credibility of the US as a superpower with all
military and economic might which is keen to improve its image in the world.

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The international law as exercised by the superpower selectively uses the ―pick
and choose‖ as a formula that goes beyond its job/role description in global
politics.

The Chinese government reaction to such measures seriously tests the credibility
of the superpower where such measures are coming up in times of serious
tension between the two superpower blocs, the US and China, over Taiwan
conflict and trade issues.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington charged that the US uses the catch-all
concept of national security and abuses state power to suppress and restrict
Chinese enterprises in all possible means.

The Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu reiterated that China is firmly
opposed to that.

He further said the US should ―follow the spirit‖ of a virtual meeting between Joe
Biden and Xi Jinping and ―meet China halfway instead of going further down the
wrong path.‖

According to Shu Jueting, a spokesperson for the Chinese Commerce Ministry

said on Thursday 25 November 2021 that China strongly opposes the sanctions
on the Chinese companies, and will lodge solemn representations with the US.

Zhao Lijian, the spokesman at the Chinese Foreign Ministry, warned that China
will take all the necessary steps to defend its companies, and reserves the right
to take countermeasures against the sanctions.

Pakistan also condemned the attempts made by the US where Pakistan‘s

nuclear weapon is in a foolproof security environment duly acknowledged by the
superpowers, IAEA and several US officials such as Admiral Micheal Mullen,
John D Negroponte, General Petraeus, Robert Gates, P J Crowley, Micheal
Flournoy, James Clapper, etc.

They need to monitor and keep a close watch on the black marketing of Indian
nuclear material for being repeatedly sold in the market for a few pennies as per
media reports such as: on 30 August 2021, two persons were arrested for illegal
possession of extremely rare Sealed Radioactive Source Californium which is
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highly radioactive and toxic substance; on 4 June 2021, 6.4 kg of uranium was
seized in India and police arrested seven persons; on 11 May 2021, the
Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad arrested two persons with 7 kg of natural
uranium.

The so-called champion of non-proliferation, the US has remained silent as if on

holidays on the nuclear material black-marketing.

Had this been found in the case of Pakistan, the US might have suspended its
holidays and would have come/treated Pakistan with the sanction and strict
measures.

Isn‘t it a dual standard in international political politics? Is it consistent with the

job description of the superpowers as mentioned above? It is in this background,
that the people are questioning on what grounds the US can blacklist Chinese
firms for allegedly aiding Pakistan‘s nuclear activities where the US itself is not
taking any action against nuclear material black marketing in India, its strongest
ally and being a partner in the US-India nuclear deal. Other concerned countries
will surely express serious reservations on such extreme measures.

Because, it‘s not only favouritism in tech and trade policies that all states are
upset with the US but global politics, war strategies and human rights issues that
question the superpower credibility in the world, today.

To be a role model and powerhouse representing all states fair treatment is

required, not cherry-picking!

—The writer is Assistant Professor, Department of Government and Public

Policy, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, National University of
Sciences and Technology.

Source: Published in Pak Observer

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China and Global Challenges By Mustafa
Talpur
China has taken some surprising yet bold steps to combat the three major global
challenges: the relentless fight against economic inequality, addressing
catastrophic climate change effects, and vaccinating a billion people in a year.
On top of this list is the country‘s remarkable success in ending extreme poverty
in just two decades.

The entire world is facing these three major challenges, but Chinese leaders paid
attention to the latest trends and either took concrete action or are devising plans
to deal with the challenges in a swift manner.

The last three decades have seen an unprecedented level of income and wealth
inequality. Despite the global Covid-19 pandemic, the wealth of the world‘s
billionaires increased significantly, and they bounced back – after facing the
slump in business operations caused by worldwide lockdowns – within a few
months. On the other hand, the world‘s poor may need a decade to reach pre-
pandemic levels. These disparities are an outcome of the neo-liberal economic
policies that were promoted in the 1980s.

A flawed market-driven economic model where a government – whether elected

or unelected – just plays a subservient role to the global capital has caused
extreme levels of inequalities.

China has been a beneficiary of market-led economic growth. But the benefits of
this growth were not equally distributed. By 2018, China had 373 billionaires –
331 new billionaires were added between 2008 and 2018, with the top one
percent increasing its share in national wealth from 21. 1 percent in 2000 to 32.6
percent in 2018. It is well known that China used to be an egalitarian country, but
following the 1978 economic reforms, the country‘s income gap widened sharply.

This massive inequality and the rising divide are still a major challenge for the
Chinese government which has initiated several programmes to tame it. The first
step is to reduce the urban-rural income gap through migration, urbanisation,
subsidies to farmers and social protection programmes. Second, China‘s

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targeted poverty reduction actions include increasing wage income, government
transfers and regional development programmes – all of which helped in
reducing poverty.

Third, the country took several steps to narrow down the gender gap. The urban
economy and government policies contributed to narrowing the gap. Education
also played a significant role in dealing with the problem. Through the country‘s
efforts, the gap in the education level between women and men decreased and
the proportion of women with college degrees and higher education caught up to
that of men.

Despite these progressive policies, realising the higher level of the rich-poor
divide, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced, in August this year, to ―adjust
excessive incomes‖, giving a clear message to the super rich that the state plans
to redistribute wealth to tackle widening inequality. During a meeting of the
Chinese Communist party‘s Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission,
the president said that the government should ―regulate excessively high
incomes and encourage high-income groups and enterprises to return more to
society‖. This declaration could be an example for the world and other countries
in the Asia Pacific, which are drafting inequality reduction policies.

Climate change is another major and existential threat. China is on the forefront
to combat climate change – both at home and abroad – and is investing in
renewable energy, climate adaptation, and resilience building. It also tried to fill
the vacuum created by the US under former president Donald Trump. However,
the major challenge remained with China‘s coal-based power plants abroad.
During his speech at the recently held UNGA – in September – Chinese
President Xi Jinping announced that China will stop financing coal power plants.
This announcement, though be taken cautiously, will be a game changer in the
future energy development in Asia.

Asian economies were on the path of rapid growth before the pandemic hit in
2020. There is a danger that countries will rely on fossil fuel-based energy
sources for their economic recovery. Therefore, it is critical that countries
implement this Chinese decision of doing away with coal-based power plants and
have a robust monitoring mechanism. This will lay the foundation of more
sustainable and greener recovery. Other rich countries must also follow this
decision to combat global climate change effects.
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Covid-19, which was first detected in China in late 2019, has been affecting the
entire world for the last two years now, causing a high number of deaths and
economic shocks. Millions of workers were sent home; a majority of them were
women and low-paid or underpaid care workers. The situation required swift
action from governments and communities to get back to normalcy. Despite its
huge population, China was able to contain the virus to a large extent.

Like some Western companies which were able to introduce Covid-19 vaccines
in the market, Chinese companies also produced their vaccines in a timely
manner. They not only succeeded in vaccinating over a billion people in a year,
but also donated vaccines to other countries including Pakistan. Because of the
Chinese vaccines, today, over 50 million Pakistanis are fully vaccinated and over
80 million partially vaccinated. It also helped mitigate the spread of the virus in
Pakistan.

China follows a different political system, which does not allow the same level of
individual freedom that exists in Western societies. The state has much more
control over people‘s right to assembly and association, and freedom of
information. However, progressive policies and their long-term impact on China
and the world are long lasting. Pakistan and countries in the region have lot to
learn from the country‘s economic policies and see what is better for the people.

The writer is an Islamabad-based environmental and human rights activist.

Source: Published in The The News

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The Unending Variants — Coronavirus By
Inam Ul Haque
wrote ‗The great equaliser‘ outlining the implications and response to the Covid-
19…the ‗Pandemic‘ on 29 April 2021. Coronavirus ever since has remained a
‗Suez moment‘ in human history; that is affecting being human in not yet fully
comprehensible ways. From work to leisure to travel to living normal lives to
commerce to geopolitics to vaccine economy to disturbed trade and supply
chains to oil price volatility…nothing seems to have remained untouched by the
visible implications of the invisible.

The lessons learnt so far include; responding to the pandemic together as

humanity, since the pathogen respects no international borders. That SOPs and
restrictions are creating unattended economic, social, political and psychological
downsides. That this Pandemic has — yet again — exposed the inadequacy of
human knowledge. That the virus challenges ideologies, bloc-politics, leadership
and social systems. That healthcare and medical sector is seemingly the only
winner. That vaccine politics has changed the Europe‘s core and relations among
big powers…the US, China, Russia and the EU. And that China seems to be
winning the contest of global leadership with the ‗Quad‘ (Australia, India, Japan
and US) grouping unable to contain the ‗Rising Dragon‘.

Nature works in strange ways. Ill-will begets ill-will. With China demonised as the
virus‘s birthplace; the US, finding an opportunity, went after communist China to
arrest its indomitable rise. Instead, Europe and the US, in particular the US, went
in a tailspin due to incompetent handling of the Pandemic because of inept
leadership. The situation went from bad to worse given a confused and fearful
scientific and medical community…more intent on saving their lucrative jobs
rather than speaking the truth. And now, we are on the verge of a ‗South African
Wave‘. Meanwhile the entire humanity is to be vaccinated with most getting a
booster shot ‗forever‘ in the new normal. And the efficacy of this response
against Omicron, the new variant, is ‗reportedly‘ questionable.

Fear again grips a fearful humanity. There would be renewed debates, studies
and conclusions coming from the bitterly divided experts…who guided us from
herd immunity to universal vaccination, in not too distant past. Profiteers would

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fish with more enthusiasm in the troubled waters and governments would be lost
again to find an ‗optimum‘ response. A response that protects their citizenry and
economy at the same time.

With democracies withering, personal freedoms surrendered — voluntarily and

involuntarily — and the West‘s imperialism morphing into ‗Vaccine Colonialism‘,
new regional orders are shaping up. In response to the Pandemic, ‗regionalised
healthcare systems‘ have been administratively efficient. Without claim to any
scientific, medical and virological expertise, one has always maintained that
‗fighting and eliminating the virus‘ has historically remained a tough ask. Virus
debut is part of our shared life story. Virus mutation along with human mutation is
God‘s ways of letting humans survive and heed His wake-up calls.

In the interim period, countries need to deploy flexible, expandable software and
hardware to deal with surges. And to do so, humanity has to cooperate globally
and regionally and not compete. Hoarding medical supplies for national usage
and export controls on raw materials reflect callous selfishness. The virus
resurgence is teaching us this single lesson over and over, if we care to note.
Combined with a near climate disaster, the whole human ship needs to be
protected not the ‗first class‘…to paraphrase the Spanish foreign minister,
Arancha González. Most associated expense can be defrayed through corona-
related taxation.

Besides the above zahiri asbab (visible responses), a lot lies in the realm of
ghair-zahiri asbab (invisible responses). With the pronounced inadequacy of the
physical world, recourse to the meta-physical dominion might lead the way. With
generalised theoretical underpinnings gleaned from the Quran…the Pandemic-
like calamities are Allah‘s way of showing us His unhappiness. Otherwise, the
Supreme being, the All Powerful, the Omnipotent and the Omnipresent can take
life out of our obscure planet in His unimaginably vast universes and
kingdoms...in a zillionth of a second. But He would not, till the appointed time; till
everyone gets the message for salvation, and till everyone is led to the right path
and then allowed to choose the right or the wrong under a free will, bestowed by
Him.

In our mostly rationality-driven, science-obsessed world, the above iteration

would certainly raise eyebrows. But major religious thought under the Abrahamic
Religions attest to His rehma (blessings) bestowed on His creations. Just like the
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air that we breathe, the land that we walk upon, or cultivate for food and go back
in to; and the sky that unbundles our imagination; and the body that we
possess…the harmony and excellence of His creation. This consensus warrants
actionable commonality of faith by the otherwise bickering clergy from the three
Great Religions, to heal our divisive world.

And talking of the timelines; His timelines are stretched, invisible in life spans and
only discernable through belief system. And belief in the unseen is the
cornerstone of the edifice of all major religions. And in the 21st Century of earth
time (the recorded fraction of it), He…the unseen, decided to be seen through an
unseen (the virus). So, if Pakistan and/or some other parts of the world are
spared the fate of Italy, India, Iran and/or other countries on account of the
severity of the Pandemic, the ghair-zahiri explanation is His rehma. Every other
zahiri explanation is questionable.

So besides tying the camel, that we should; recourse to Him and asking for
forgiveness and deliverance, we must. And then believe that ajal (the appointed
time) is unchanged in time, space and details. Therefore, in addition to gloating
over the success of policies by the NCOC (National Command & Operation
Center) and this or that strategy (without discounting their effectiveness, of
course), a big thank you to Him regularly would go up to the heavens and come
down with more blessings.

A ‗National Day of Prayer‘, yearly, is a good idea above and beyond the so many
other useless anniversaries. A secular America just celebrated the yearly
thanksgiving for the bountiful harvest years ago. Our ‗National Day of Prayer‘,
this year, could be combined with renewed focus on the Pandemic; to educate
the unknowing and refresh and restrain the culpable. We can find reasons to
thank Him each year then; and the reasons are innumerable.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 2nd, 2021.

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The Hidden Threat to Globalization By
Niccolo W. Bonifai, Irfan Nooruddin, and
Nita Rudra
Globalization has lost its shine in wealthy countries, particularly among low-
skilled workers. From 2002 to 2018, for instance, support for free trade fell
significantly in Japan, the United States, and many European countries, driven
largely by rising hostility toward free trade among the poor and working classes.
Among low-skilled workers in Italy, opposition to free trade grew from nine
percent to 28 percent during that period, and it more than tripled among the
same group in France. Disapproval among this demographic more than doubled
in Japan and in the United States, causing overall support for free trade to fall by
more than ten percentage points in those countries. The rising opposition to free
trade has fueled successful, inward-looking populist movements, most strikingly
in the United Kingdom and the United States.

The reasons for the growing hostility vary, but the most politically potent charge
is that globalization has hurt workers in rich countries in order to help those in
poorer ones. Donald Trump, for example, won the U.S. presidency in 2016 in
part by arguing that Americans were losing their jobs to workers in China, India,
and Mexico—what he termed the ―greatest job theft in the history of the world.‖
Marine Le Pen, currently polling second in France‘s coming national election,
declared during her 2017 campaign that trade with developing economies ―has
been devastating to the French and European industries‖ and has ―led to the
destruction of millions of European jobs.‖

It is true that trade agreements have generated economic opportunities in poor

countries and have sometimes created pockets of economic loss within wealthy
states in the process. But there is something ironic about Western populists‘
complaints that globalization has hurt their countries and helped poorer ones. If
these leaders seriously examined how people in developing states felt about
globalization, they would encounter a familiar situation. As we have illustrated in
a new study, differences between support for globalization among high-skilled
and low-skilled workers—and gaps in the optimism the two groups feel about

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their prospects for upward mobility—have grown in poor countries as well as rich
ones. As a result, overall backing for economic integration is eroding.

What accounts for the decline in support for globalization and free trade even in
countries that seem to have the most to gain from them? The answer is
straightforward: even in the developing world, high-skilled employees have
benefited disproportionately from globalization, whereas much of the working
class has missed out. Although policymakers promised that trade and
international investment would provide widespread upward mobility in developing
countries, only a fraction of low-skilled workers have actually seen their earnings
meaningfully increase, and the disparity between what these workers expected
and what actually happened has generated growing disappointment. In some
cases, it has bred outright resentment. So far, the anger has been most
pronounced in wealthy countries, such as the United States. But if globalization
continues to disproportionately help the rich, the fierce backlash will inevitably
spread to poorer states.

This is an outcome that all countries should work to avoid. Irrespective of what
Trump, Le Pen, and other populists may claim, workers in rich economies have
greatly benefited from globalized markets. By raising manufacturing employment
and wages over the last eight decades, trade fueled the United States‘ rise to
global hegemony in the first half of the last century and allowed European states
to rebuild their economies after two world wars. And despite their failure to
distribute wealth broadly, policies that favor trade and international investment
are helping many poorer countries establish middle classes and build robust
domestic economies. To keep this system in place, however, countries will have
to make it more inclusive of low-skilled workers everywhere—and especially in
developing states.

UNKEPT PROMISES
The global economic system was not designed with poor countries in mind. In the
aftermath of decolonization, most newly independent states preferred
protectionist policies to economic integration with the rest of the world. Following
its independence in 1947, for instance, India raised tariffs and instituted capital
restrictions to promote local production. Several countries in Latin America
adopted import substitution industrialization policies in the 1960s and the 1970s,
hoping that high tariffs and protectionism would create homegrown champions
that could compete globally. In the 1970s, East Asia‘s then industrializing
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countries, such as South Korea, adopted similar measures under an export-
oriented industrialization paradigm with more success, creating domestic
powerhouses that spearheaded rapid, export-led growth.

The pressure to lower tariffs and open borders for Western capital, goods, and
services came from Washington. Mired in debt and currency crises, developing
countries had little choice but to ask the U.S.-dominated International Monetary
Fund for financial assistance. Help did not come cheap. To get foreign
investment, governments in developing countries had to swallow painful
conditions, pledging to divest from public-sector enterprises; reduce government
spending, especially on employment and social insurance; and allow in more
international competition. India is a canonical case in point: a balance-of-
payments crisis in 1991 forced the country to adopt harsh austerity measures in
exchange for IMF funding.

To advance these difficult reforms, leaders cultivated support from poor and
working-class citizens, who had been largely excluded from secure government
employment and pensions. Globalization, policymakers promised, would mean
more jobs, better wages, and greater consumer power for this silent majority. In
2001, responding to IMF demands, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
proposed labor reforms that he argued would make it easier for companies to lay
off workers but would ultimately ―protect Indian industries and businesses by
enabling them to become more competitive, more profitable, grow faster, and,
hence, employ more people both directly and indirectly.‖ (The reforms never went
through then, but some are being put in place passed now.) Nearly two decades
later, Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa echoed that claim while
selling his own painful agreement. To help secure over $3 billion in foreign
investment in early 2018, Mnangagwa enacted a variety of austerity measures,
including cuts to fuel and electricity subsidies. Many residents protested, but the
president pledged that the tradeoff would be worth it. ―We want this country to
move forward,‖ he said. ―We want jobs for our children.‖

Initially, globalization delivered on these promises. Fresh foreign funds in

developing countries created relatively well-paying jobs for a younger generation.
Factories, information technology offices, and call centers began opening across
the developing world. And although not everyone gained right away, workers still
trapped in poverty could reasonably dream that they would soon find better

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employment. In the meantime, they could enjoy foreign-branded consumer
goods, which had become increasingly affordable and available in local stores.

Developing countries are willing to restrict access to their markets.

But as time has passed, optimism has begun to fade. Support for free trade
among the developing world‘s low-skilled workers remains high, but it is clearly
decreasing. Among respondents in South Africa, for example, support dropped
from 88 percent to 76 percent between 2002 and 2018. In Brazil, it went from 84
percent to 68 percent. And in Mexico, it fell by a sizable 20 percentage points—
from 89 percent to 69 percent. Support also dropped in India, Pakistan, and other
developing states.

The story behind this disillusionment will be familiar to anyone who has read
about left-behind manufacturing towns in the United States. The mechanisms are
different: the angst in ―middle America‖ is for the factories that left, whereas in
Brazil and Nigeria, it is for the factories that never arrived. But the process is the
same. In both places, low-skilled workers have observed globalization without
fully experiencing its gains. The longer this bait and switch persists, the more
likely it is that protests will erupt, societal trust will drop, and frustrated citizens
will elect opportunistic populists who offer protectionism as a panacea.

Indeed, there are already signs that developing countries are willing to restrict
access to their markets. Poor states are acting aggressively to protect their digital
interests; India, for example, is considering data localization laws that would
force companies to store and process all data gained from Indians within the
country. Multiple states are passing laws that require multinational companies to
invest in domestic brick-and-mortar operations in exchange for access to their
consumer markets. The political logic of such policies is obvious, but the
economic logic is unsound. Barriers to the flow of capital, goods, and services
across these borders ultimately undermine growth.

If developing states do pull back from the global economic order, it could have
disastrous consequences. A withdrawal, for example, would make today‘s supply
chain nightmares seem miniscule: without access to low-cost labor and
materials, product prices would sharply increase, fueling worsening inflation.
Decoupling the world‘s economies would also slow job growth by making it more
difficult for businesses to expand their operations. This would, in turn, decrease

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productivity, hinder innovation, and lower overall economic growth in both rich
and poor nations.

IF YOU CAN KEEP IT

Plenty of U.S. scholars and policymakers, especially those who closely followed
Trump‘s rise, are well aware that an angry working class can threaten
globalization‘s gains. To avoid drifting further into isolationism, many have
argued that the United States must find new ways to share the upsides of trade
with its low-skilled workers. Some Europeans have issued similar calls for their
own countries. But to safeguard globalization, rich countries can‘t just take action
at home. They must also make sure that trade and foreign investment help poor
workers across the developing world.

In some instances, that will require developed countries to provide greater

access to their markets. Protectionism in agriculture among rich countries, for
instance, has long made it challenging for less-skilled workers in poorer states to
move up the economic ladder. The same goes for protectionism in digital
services and the intellectual property rights regimes in rich countries that lock in
the advantages of U.S. and European pharmaceutical giants. Both are areas in
which developing countries are becoming increasingly competitive, and rich
countries could lift millions of people out of poverty at home and abroad if they
did not prevent these sectors from experiencing healthy competition from lower-
cost producers.

But policymakers in the ―global South‖ also need to act. Many developing states
have economic systems that do far too little to help their low-skilled workers, and
their governments must make serious reforms. That means enacting and
enforcing policies that bolster employee rights, penalizing companies when they
violate environmental and social obligations, and making innovative investments
in education and training so that workers can compete for better jobs—and, in so
doing, enjoy larger shares of the benefits that come from foreign investment.
Developing countries should also avoid protectionism, including by not walling off
their economies to outside technology businesses. Digital technology and data
will help drive economic growth during the next several decades, and developing
countries should not be left out.

Fixing globalization requires international collaboration.

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None of this will be easy. Global democratic backsliding means that an
increasingly large number of politicians cannot be held publicly accountable, and
many of the world‘s leaders are minimally interested in helping the poor. Many
countries are controlled by elites who actively redistribute wealth upward to the
powerful, including into their own pockets and those of their cronies. And even
when policymakers have the right institutional incentives, asking countries to
further open their markets is daunting in an era of nationalist backlash. Rich
countries will especially struggle to expose their agricultural systems to
international competition given the political power of the farm lobbies. Poor
countries fear the wrath of small- and medium-sized enterprises threatened by
foreign competition.

Yet today‘s international community has proved that it is capable of taking bold
steps to counteract inequality. All 20 of the world‘s largest economies, for
example, have now endorsed a minimum corporate tax—a once unthinkable act
of policy coordination that shows how countries can work together to create a
fairer society. States should make a similar effort across a range of other policy
domains, especially worker protections. Policymakers could begin by requiring
that firms receiving government contracts honor collective-bargaining rights
throughout their supply chains.

Ultimately, the future of globalization may come down to whether leaders can
recognize the stark consequences of failing in this fight and, hence, the necessity
of action. Fixing globalization requires international collaboration. It demands that
countries commit to difficult economic reforms and public investments even at the
cost of vested domestic interests. Otherwise, decades of economic gains could
melt away, as billions of the world‘s poorest citizens watch their patient dreams of
prosperity evaporate.

Source: Published in Foreign Affairs

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Iran’s Nuclear Strategy By Neville Teller
The parties to the world‘s nuclear deal with Iran, including Iran itself, have started
a new round of discussions – the seventh since April 2021, when newly elected
US president Joe Biden initiated meetings aimed at America re-entering an
updated agreement. The talks – if you can call a meeting ―talks‖ where the US
and Iran do not converse face-to-face but only through intermediaries –
reconvened on November 29 in Vienna.

It was in 2015, in an effort to restrain Iran‘s nuclear program, that the permanent
members of the UN Security Council together with Germany concluded an
agreement with Iran known as the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

No doubt all those involved, including then-US President Barack Obama, had the
very best of intentions. They were convinced that with that deal, which
incorporated a substantial financial boost to Iran, they had put the regime‘s
nuclear ambitions on hold for at least 15 years, making the world a safer place.
Moreover they believed that they had taken an important step toward normalizing
relations with Iran – a rogue state proved to have been behind terrorist actions
across the world ever since its foundation in 1979 – and bringing it back within
the comity of nations.

Donald Trump, soon to be president of the US, disagreed. He believed the deal
was flawed and in effect gave Iran the green light to acquire a nuclear arsenal in
the comparatively near future. In May 2018 he withdrew the US from the deal
and, adopting instead a policy of maximum pressure, imposed sanctions on Iran.

Speaking on January 8, 2020 he said: ―They chanted ―death to America‖ the day
the agreement was signed. Then Iran went on a terror spree, funded by the
money from the deal, and created hell in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan,
and Iraq. The missiles fired last night at us and our allies were paid for with the
funds made available by the last administration.‖

Much of the world, including the EU and the other parties to the deal, opposed
Trump‘s withdrawal. Biden certainly did. During his presidential campaign he
promised, if elected, to move quickly to rejoin the nuclear deal, provided Iran also
came back into compliance. In essence that remains the US position, as it

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resumes the apparently endless rounds of talks with a regime notably more
hardline following the recent Iranian presidential election. The Iranian regime has
used the hiatus since June to place new limitations on the UN inspectors of the
IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency). The obvious deduction is that Iran
has been proceeding apace with its nuclear program in defiance of the deal.

Iran under its new president, Ebrahim Raisi, has already signaled that it does not
wish to resume the talks exactly where they left off. Iran‘s foreign minister
Hossein Amirabdollahian said in October: ―We don‘t want to enter the Vienna
negotiations from the deadlock point of the Vienna negotiations‖.

Iran‘s already announced position – which does not augur well – is that the US
must compensate Iran for its withdrawal from the deal, lift all the sanctions
imposed since 2015 at once rather than in phases, and provide assurances that
no future US administration will back out of the deal. Given that list of demands, it
seems clear that Iran is set on dragging out the negotiating process.

On November 21 Israel‘s president, Isaac Herzog, traveled to the UK for a 3-day

official visit. In a statement ahead of his trip Herzog wrote: ―One issue that
demands British-Israeli dialogue is Iran‘s race toward nuclear weapons and
regional hegemony. Iran does not want dialogue. It is exploiting the world‘s
willingness to negotiate to buy time. Israel cannot allow the fundamentalists of
Tehran to acquire a nuclear bomb. The moderate nations of the Middle East
need their allies, including Britain, to engage them in an urgent dialogue on how
to stop Iran instead of wasting time on its games.‖

For 42 years world leaders have been unable, or perhaps unwilling, to

acknowledge what motivates the Iranian regime – namely, the philosophy behind
its Islamic revolution of 1979. Iran‘s original Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini, affirmed repeatedly that the foundation stone of his convictions, the
very purpose of his revolution, was to destroy Western-style democracy and its
way of life, and to impose Shia Islam on the whole world. He identified the United
States and Israel, together with the USSR, as prime targets.

―We wish to cause the corrupt roots of Zionism, Capitalism and Communism to
wither throughout the world,‖ said Khomeini. ―We wish, as does God almighty, to
destroy the systems which are based on these three foundations, and to promote
the Islamic order of the Prophet.‖ By this he meant his strict Shia interpretation of
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Islam, for elsewhere he had declared that the holy city of Mecca, situated in the
heart of Sunni Saudi Arabia, was in the hands of ―a band of heretics‖.

Ever since 1979 the world could have recognized, if it had had a mind to, that the
Iranian regime was engaged in a focused pursuit of these objectives, quite
impervious to any other considerations. Instead wishful thinking has dominated
the approach of many of the world‘s leaders to Iran, and continues to do so.

―We shall export our revolution to the whole world,‖ declared Khomeini. ―Until the
cry ‗there is no god but Allah‘ resounds over the whole world, there will be
struggle.‖

Pursuit of this fundamental purpose of the Islamic Revolution has involved the
state – acting either directly or through proxy militant bodies like Hezbollah or the
Houthis – in a succession of acts of terror directed not only against Western
targets, but against non-Shia Muslims as well. For decades Iran has also made
determined efforts to develop nuclear power, with the aim, never openly
acknowledged, of producing nuclear weapons as a vital means of achieving its
objectives.

The Sunni Arab world knows its main enemy is Iran – the Abraham Accords
attest to that. Western leaders want to believe in an accommodation with the
regime. A clear-eyed look at the facts shows that this is simply not possible. This
Iranian regime is not, and has no intention of ever becoming, one of the comity of
civilized nations. To do so would be to negate the fundamental purposes
underlying the revolution, purposes to which the ayatollahs remain unshakably
committed.

To quote President Herzog: ―Iran does not want dialogue. It is exploiting the
world‘s willingness to negotiate to buy time.‖

Source: Published in Eur Asia Review

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India’s Attempt to Get Back into
Afghanistan By Shahid Javed Burki
When the mujahideen fought the Soviet Union troops out of their country, and the
Taliban took charge, India decided to sever diplomatic relations with Afghanistan
and closed its embassy in Kabul. Pakistan went in the opposite direction. It was
one of the three countries to recognise the Taliban-led regime. New Delhi aided
the overthrow of the Taliban by developing strong relations with the non-Pashtun
groups, in particular the Tajiks and the Uzbeks in the northeast. These two ethnic
groups had formed what came to be known as the Northern Alliance. The
Alliance provided foot soldiers to America‘s 2001 move to remove the Taliban
from power. In the twenty-year period that followed, the Indian influence in
Afghanistan increased.

India was generous in aiding Kabul. It was the biggest regional donor to
Afghanistan and fifth largest donor globally with over $3 billion in assistance. It
built over 200 public and private schools, sponsored over 1,000 scholarships,
and hosted 16,000 Afghan students. The UNDP partnered with India to train
Afghan civil servants. More than 60,000 Afghans returned to help rebuild their
country that was left in ruins by the conflict between large ethnic groups — the
Pashtuns, the Tajiks and the Uzbeks. India funded 400 small development
projects.

Would India‘s relation with Afghanistan change with the United States pulling out
of the country? Would the Taliban headed Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan change
the position with respect to India that was followed by the regime headed by
President Ashraf Ghani? According to Rakesh Sood, a retired Indian diplomat,
―India‘s geography will ensure our presence though our role will undergo
changes. US leaves because it can, India stays because it belongs.‖ Sood
believes that the world has long recognised that India has a role to play. ―At the
2001 Bonn Conference, India was invited because it had been a key supporter
(along with Russia and Iran) of the Northern Alliance that had emerged as an
influential player, following the Taliban ouster. During the last twenty years,
India‘s economic cooperation program has earned it the distinction of being
Afghanistan‘s preferred development partner.‖

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In 2011, India became the first country to sign a Strategic Partnership Agreement
but New Delhi‘s involvement in security matters was marginal largely due to the
United States and NATO sensitivity about its presence in a major way. Pakistan
used its location to lay the ground for close economic relations with its neighbour.
As a landlocked county, Afghanistan depended on Pakistan as Karachi was the
only port it could access. Recognising the built-in advantage Pakistan had, India
sought to develop an alternative route the Afghans could use. It developed the
port of Chabahar in Iran and built a 200 kilometer long highway in Afghanistan to
link the port with the Iranian border town of Zahedan. According to Sood, this
investment was ―part of reviving Afghanistan‘s traditional role as the cross roads
between South and Central Asia. Chabahar became part of this regional
connectivity. India also spearheaded Afghanistan‘s membership into the South
Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC)‖.

Sood went on to place his analysis in the context of the enduring India-Pakistan
rivalry. ―India‘s development role was acknowledged by the Afghans and the
international community. There was one exception — Pakistan — which tried
hard to limit India‘s role and presence. As Taliban‘s insurgency grew, India was
often targeted. Indians working on road projects were kidnapped and killed, guest
houses where Indians stayed were often targeted and in 2008, there was a
suicide attack on the embassy in Kabul. Four Indians, including the Defense
Attaché, were killed; the bombing also claimed over 50 Afghan lives. Intelligence
pointed the finger at the Haqqani group.‖

India attempted to work its way back into Afghanistan by agreeing to host the
third Regional Security Defense Dialogue (RSDD) in New Delhi on September
10, 2021 — less than a month after the Taliban had taken over Kabul. The RSDD
is an Iranian initiative which hosted the first two meetings of the forum in 2018
and 2019. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan
accepted the Indian invitation issued by its National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval.
There were two significant no shows: Pakistan and China. The meeting in India
issued what came to be known as the ―Delhi Declaration‖. It asked the Taliban-
led government to ensure that its territory ―would never become a safe haven for
global terrorism‖. It stressed the need for an ―open and truly and inclusive
government‖ and ensuring the ―rights of women, children and minority
communities‖.

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China has entered the Afghan picture. It is using its enormous public savings to
build an impressive road, rail and internet network that would connect it with the
parts of the world that are to its west. The multibillion-dollar CPEC project was
launched with this objective in Beijing‘s sights. CPEC is being redefined to
increase its scope to include not only Afghanistan but the landlocked countries of
Central Asia.

The Taliban have built their political structure on two pillars: ethnicity and religion.
They draw their support from the Pashtun population in the country and from
their adherence to radical Islam. Looking at relations with India from these two
perspectives, it is hard to imagine, that the warmth for India of the Ashraf Ghani
era would return. In my long session with Ghani when I visited him in Kabul, I
asked him whether religion was a factor in the way he looked at his country‘s
relations with the world outside. He said that religion did not contribute to the way
he crafted his dealings with the outside world. That certainly will not be the case
with the Taliban in charge in Kabul.

The New York Times wrote a report on how ―the erosion of human rights in India
has weakened its moral high ground in a region where ethnic and sectarian
tensions are worsening. India is losing leverage in South Asia as its government
tries to reshape the country into a Hindu state. In marginalising and maligning its
minority Muslims at home, Mr Modi has weakened India‘s traditional role of
encouraging harmony in a region of many fault lines.‖ The newspaper looked at
the distance India had traveled from a society tolerant of differences, to the one
in which only Hinduism is the right way for people to order their lives.
―Traditionally, how India — the largest and the most diverse of the nations —
tried to manage its affairs set the tone for the rest.‖ That was then; now the
Indian leadership has gone on a different route. ―The policies of Mr. Modi‘s party
have chipped away at that position, not unlike the erosion of United States‘ global
standing during the Trump administration. His Bhartiya Janata Party has pursued
a Hindu-first agenda that has often left the country‘s Muslims at a disadvantage.
The party has also refused to rein in hard-line elements within its ranks,
sometimes leading to violence.‖

Aparna Pande, director of the India initiative at Washington-based Hudson

Institute, who had lauded India as a pluralistic example of governance now finds
that Narendra Modi‘s ―neighborhood first‖ policy is at odds with backlashes
caused by the Hindu nationalist vision at home. ―If you are pushing a nationalist
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narrative, it is difficult to then ask your neighbors not to do the same,‖ she wrote
in a comment published by her institute. ―You will then see every country in
South Asia becoming more nationalist and forget about anything else, that
creates a strategic challenge for India.‖

Published in The Express Tribune, December 6th, 2021.

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Where Will Afghanistan be in a Year? By
Kamran Yousaf
It‘s been over 100 days since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in Kabul. The
international community, particularly the west, is still grappling with the key
question: should they recognise the Taliban government or wait until the
insurgent group fulfills their expectations? While they try to solve this puzzle, the
people of Afghanistan are suffering. The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, is
appealing for much more support amid acute and rising humanitarian needs for
3.5 million people displaced by conflict inside Afghanistan — including 700,000
who were displaced in 2021.

―The humanitarian crisis is escalating daily in Afghanistan. Hunger in the country

has reached truly unprecedented levels. Nearly 23 million people — that‘s 55 per
cent of the population — are facing extreme levels of hunger, and nearly 9 million
of them are at risk of famine,‖ according to the UN assessment.

The international community is making pledges and even the US, which
otherwise blocked $9.5 billion assets of the Afghan Central Bank, is willing to
provide humanitarian assistance. Pakistan and India joined hands for the sake of
Afghan citizens. Pakistan allowed India to use its land route for the transportation
of 50,000 metric tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan. It is important to note this
exception was created only for the people of Afghanistan as otherwise Pakistan
does not allow India to export goods to Afghanistan using the Wagah crossing.
Yet, all these measures may not be enough to avert another crisis in
Afghanistan, which has seen four decades of war, unrest and bloodshed.

Taliban for now controlled most parts of the country and there has been no
resistance to their rule other than the threat posed by Daesh Khorasan. But can
the Taliban achieve sustainable peace? In 2001 when the US-led international
alliance removed the Taliban from power, there was euphoria that Afghanistan
might be entering a new era of peace and prosperity. Afghan Taliban were in
total disarray and foot soldiers were willing to reconcile. But the US wanted to
avenge the 9/11 attacks and was not interested in any grand reconciliation. Even
former military ruler General Pervez Musharraf, who was the US ally, advised the
same to then US President Bush to speak to the Afghan Taliban. The opportunity

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was lost and the Afghan Taliban gradually regrouped and eventually forced the
US to strike a withdrawal deal on their terms. Such was the swiftness of the
Taliban victory that the US and its allies even could not evacuate their nationals
and others.

But soon the euphoria of their victory over the superpower would be replaced by
harsh realities. For over 20 years the Afghan Taliban successfully fought the war
against the US and foreign forces but now suddenly they need to transform
themselves from an insurgent group to the one that governs the country. And this
has to happen at a time when Afghanistan‘s economy is facing a precarious
situation. The Taliban government does not have enough money to pay salaries
to the government employees. Next 6 to 12 months are going to be critical. The
likely scenario is that the initial enthusiasm of the international community may
recede. The US is in no mood to pump in any more investment or funding. China
is keen to help but will not take the plunge without stability. The Gulf countries
can provide some funding but it is unlikely to make a difference in a manner that
the Afghan economy stands on its feet.

Economic collapse appears imminent. Empty stomachs provide perfect breeding

ground for extremists like Daesh to lure common Afghans. As happened in the
past, the administration in Kabul always faces some form of resistance. By the
end of 2022 one may see resistance emerge in Afghanistan against the Taliban
rule. If history is any guide, long-term peace and stability will remain a distant
dream in Afghanistan!

Published in The Express Tribune, December 6th, 2021.

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What do Indo-Russia Ties Mean for the US?
By Prof. Abdul Shakoor Shah
India-Russia defense and trade ties for the next decade are seemingly going to
shift power in south Asia in near future. It is notable that after the US
decampment from Afghanistan, Russia has entered in Asian power ring. The
Indian draconian thirst for absolute regional power is quite obvious from current
strategic agreements. India-Russia has already set a target of $30 billion in
bilateral trade by 2025. Indian-US ventures to counter China are considered
critical and Russian entry to make a triangle is really of great significance. Russia
has expressed its concerns over block formation by the U.S, India, Japan and
Australia to intercede China in the Indo-Pacific region. It seems, Russia is not
there to build a triangle but it has some other goals. Now India has plunged
between the devil and the deep sea. Though it tries its utmost to play on both
sides, it seems irrational to invite the bull into a china shop. Indian cold war
weapon dependency on Russia compelled the reluctant India to shake hands
with the US. During the Donald Trump era the U.S-India accomplished defense
deals worth over $3 billion. Bilateral defense trade increased from near zero in
2008 to $15 billion in 2019.

India‘s acquisition of Russian S-400 missile systems, which it mulls over to be

critical in offsetting China, could prove to be an annoyance in Indo-U.S. ties.
Moscow has put India at risk of U.S. sanctions. Moscow-Delhi hand shake it multi
fold either the India-US bond is weakling or India has realized that she has put
herself in cynical hands as the US is notorious for its fair weather friendship.
India seems to be realigning its defense strategy in the China-Russia-USA
triangle. India aspires to be Eurasian muscle vacillating between East and West
in accordance with its preferences. India has become a rolling stone among
military ties of Moscow, the economic importance of Beijing and strategic
counterweight of the U.S. The contemporary global situation is the rise of China
and the conversion of the Sino-Russian relationship from antagonism to détente
and now entente.

Sino-Russian enmity or amity carries global consequences. Both developments

have a burnt on India, the earlier historically, and the latter in vista. Russia had
enjoyed long and durable ties with India than the U.S in boosting up her military

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profile and precious political support to India on an array of regional matters.
Sino-Russian had been transferring military technologies in the past as well, now
they are exchanging economic ties based on cross border trade and Chinese
investment in Russia. The Sino-Russia positive ties may melt the Sino-India
hostility and the U.S will be pushed back to home like the Afghanistan strategy.
There is a possibility of a new triangle like RIC groups Russia, India and China.
Russian bending to India is the gleam of hope to balance China and push the
U.S out of the region. India had defied the United States and created a non-
aligned bloc of nations to maintain a middle posture between the two rivals in the
Cold War. But the Russian cold shouldering pushed reluctant India to join hands
with the US. The US is left with no other option than India to counter China and
the same is the case with India for materializing her dreams of Asian supremacy.
During Sino-India border tension in the late 1950s, India was equipped with
supersonic Mig-21 jets, AN-12 transports and Mi-4 helicopters by Russia. During
the Sino-Soviet rift Russia further equipped India with submarines, corvettes,
tanks and artillery and helped India to stave off US-Chinese pressure in
1971.The Soviet collapse at the end of 1991 hit New Delhi mainly hard. But the
heft of their relationship is inadequate by the fact that by 2015-16, India only
constituted 1.2 % of total Russian trade, while Russia was only 1 % of Indian
trade. The NATO expansion in the west and the presence of the United States in
Afghanistan brought Moscow-Beijing closer than before. The Russian pouncing
may serve to alleviate U.S and Chinese gravitational pull. The current ties are a
result of the Russia-Europe and China-US estrangement. But things can take
over in turn as in the past 60 years. Russia and China have been friends at one
time enemies at another, likewise, the US/Europe and Russia.

India is the only one that has remained largely with the same perspective that it
had in the 1950s. It is in the best interests of the U.S to keep Russia and China
apart and Russian aligning with the U.S is almost impossible particularly in Asian
rink.

India is the only one that has remained largely with the same perspective that it
had in the 1950s. It is in the best interests of the U.S to keep Russia and China
apart and Russian aligning with the U.S is almost impossible particularly in Asian
rink. India must refrain from putting all its eggs into American baskets. Chinese
relationship to Central Asia is undermining the Russian influence in the region,
the Indo-Russia ties may improve it via Indo-Iran influence in central Asia. Indo-
Russian ties are also the result of India‘s reluctance to US or Japanese notion of
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free and open Indo pacific (FOIP). India must realize that joining the U.S camp
will cause Indian worth as it not only loses Chinese collaboration but it will also
get a severe jolt from Russia. That kind of divergence between New Delhi and
Moscow used to be virtually unthinkable. India has long had a warm relationship
with Russia, and the Soviet Union before it, rooted in a sense of enduring
convergence of interests at both the global and regional levels. When the United
States and Britain allied with India‘s archrival Pakistan starting in the 1950s, New
Delhi deeply appreciated Moscow‘s support, including arms deliveries and its
veto on Kashmir-related issues in the Security Council. Even after the collapse of
the Soviet Union, Russia remained India‘s main international political partner. As
that much celebrated convergence breaks down, New Delhi is now learning to
live with growing divergence with Moscow on key regional and global issues.
Moscow has jumped to New Delhi with the intention of minimizing Beijing-Delhi
tensions to avert Indian bending to the U.S as it is not favoring Russia. Indo-
Russia ties are also the expression of India‘s disparate depression of the US
decamping from Afghanistan. Now the Indian profile in Afghanistan has shattered
to pieces. Russia is growing its ties with Taliban, Pakistan and China and it
seems wise for India to realign itself with Russia and China rather than the U.S.

Source: Published in Pakistan Today

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Shifting Tides in the Middle East By Azhar
Azam
Turkey and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) maintained warm economic,
cultural and political ties until relations descended into deep animosity in 2010
over Ankara‘s support for the Arab Spring and the Muslim Brotherhood‘s
government in Cairo. Turkey backed the Islamist organisation while Saudi Arabia
and the UAE opposed its rule. Broad approval of the pan-Islamic religious
movement in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria was perceived as a threat to the
dynastic rule in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Qatar, another hereditary state,
endorsed Mohamed Morsi before he was overthrown by Egyptian army in 2013
and died during a trial over charges of espionage in 2019.

Qatar‘s diplomatic crisis, Jamal Khashoggi‘s killing, competition for influence in

Sudan and exchange of accusations to undermine the Palestinian cause
deteriorated Saudi-Turkish relationship even further. Each of them wanted to
lead the Muslim world. Ankara‘s pursuit of irredentist and neo-Ottoman ideology
across the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Mediterranean and Caucasus widened
the trust deficit. Nevertheless, Turkey and Saudi Arabia managed to find
consensus on Syria where they backed the opposition forces. Notwithstanding
the differences on the Brotherhood, the US — through one of the costliest CIA
covert programmes, Timber Sycamore, in Syria — managed to align regional
rivals in 2013 and started to deliver lethal assistance to 50 vetted opposition
factions. The operation, staffed by representatives from America, France, Jordan,
Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, conked out as patrons supported their
favoured groups. Resultantly, the US policy in Syria failed and many CIA-
supplied weapons ended up in the hands of Al-Qaeda.

In March 2015, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan supported the Saudi-
led mission in Yemen and slammed Iran for trying to dominate the region by
following a sectarian agenda and backing the Houthi rebels, demanding of
Tehran to withdraw forces from Yemen, Syria and Iraq. There are speculations
that Ankara can still intervene in Sana‘a affairs over requests to jump into the fray
from the Al-Islah Party — the Yemeni affiliate of the Brotherhood that ostensibly
played an important role to cool tensions between Saudi Arabia and Turkey and
whose cooperation in the conflict Abu Dhabi has long opposed.

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In December 2017, ties between Ankara and Abu Dhabi plunged to a new low
after Erdogan, without naming the UAE foreign minister, chided him as an
―impudent‖ nouveau riche after he shared a tweet denunciating Ottoman leader,
Fakhreddin Pasha, of stealing money and manuscripts from Madinah in 1916. In
turn, Abu Dhabi stressed that the Arab world ―will not be led by Tehran or
Ankara‖.

Egypt, the UAE and Turkey have been at odds on multiple fronts in the Middle
East and the Horn of Africa. Last year, bickering turned into fierce diplomatic spat
once Abu Dhabi indicted Ankara for interference in Libya, and Turkey claimed
that the UAE was assisting Al-Shabab militants in Somalia while Egypt was
―trying to destabilise the whole region‖.

Erdogan, who threatened to suspend diplomatic relations with the Emirates on

normalising relations with Israel, seems to tow the UAE line as he recently
agreed to minimise ―differences of opinion‖ and emphasised on a ―mutually
beneficial‖ relationship with Tel Aviv in a phone talk with his Israeli counterpart,
Isaac Herzog. The US‘s consistent deprioritisation, reduced engagement and
phased pullback from the greater Middle East that started under Obama, adopted
by Trump and being followed by Biden to shift focus on a theatre of strategic
importance — i.e. the Asia-Pacific — propelled countries for a wider regional
rapprochement. Qatar‘s blockade by the Arab quartet — Saudi Arabia, Bahrain,
the UAE and Egypt — which demanded that Doha downgrade diplomatic ties
with Tehran and close a Turkish military base on Qatari soil was withdrawn and
diplomatic relations were restored in January. After lifting the embargo, Abu
Dhabi said it didn‘t ―cherish any feuds‖ and expressed willingness to bury the
hatchet with Ankara.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavusoglu gave an affirmative response and

said that contacts between Ankara and Cairo had been restored since the two
regional powers sparred and broke off in 2013. Tensions eased between Egypt
and Turkey once the Turkish government forbade three Brotherhood-linked TV
channels in the country from airing criticism against Cairo.

In a glaring move, Erdogan bypassed diplomatic protocol and personally

received the UAE National Security Advisor, Tahnoun bin Zayedon, on August
18. The ―historical and positive‖ meeting, focused on cooperation and economic
partnership, was a carpe diem moment for Ankara that helped an increasingly
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isolated Turkey to recalibrate relations with the Emirates, Egypt and Saudi Arabia
to launch a charm offensive to curry favour with Abu Dhabi for ―serious‖
investments.

A rare phone call between Erdogan and the UAE de facto ruler, Mohammed bin
Zayed, on August 31 further opened up the way for new wider regional
reconciliation. Abu Dhabi profited from the détente too since it has been seeking
to shore up Middle East collaboration under Washington‘s steady withdrawal
from the region.

The cost of the bitter Turkey-UAE rivalry — which fueled conflict in Libya, tested
their relations on the Brotherhood and their allies in Syria and Tunisia, and
pushed to vie for influence in Somalia — is particularly high for Ankara where
stubbornly high inflation has reached 19% forcing the central bank to sell $128
billion forex reserves to support the free-falling Lira.
The establishment of a $10 billion fund by the UAE in Turkey and cooperation
agreements between the two countries would shift the trend from conflicts to
economic issues. The pivot to the economy and possible swap deals should
support the Lira, which has shed 45% of its value this year, and set the tone for
other countries to follow and contribute to region‘s stability and growth.
The UAE has been trying to cap rivalries with both Turkey and Iran as the Gulf
state hones in on a post-pandemic economy after the US retreat from
Afghanistan provided a ―very worrying test‖ about the opaque US commitment.
After Abu Dhabi said it would take steps to de-escalate tensions with Tehran,
bilateral rifts took a backseat during the Iranian officials‘ visit to the UAE as the
two sides agreed to work for regional stability and prosperity. In a latest
diplomatic overture, the UAE‘s top diplomat reached Damascus and threw trust
behind the Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad. Meanwhile, Erdogan is keen to
enhance ties with Saudi Arabia and make use of the ―close cooperation‖ for
regional peace, stability and prosperity. Albeit expressing strong reservations
about resumption of talks on the Iran nuclear deal, Riyadh intends to continue
negotiations with Tehran.
Washington‘s allies in the Arabian Peninsula have voiced their ―angst‖ to the
Biden administration on the declining US commitment to the region. The US
President‘s snub to the greater Middle East at the ―Summit for Democracy‖
further establishes his lagging interest in the region and would accelerate this
novel, localised framework of cooperation and broader regional rapprochement.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 14th, 2021.
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Washington Is Preparing for the Wrong War
With China By Hal Brands and Michael
Beckley
The United States is getting serious about the threat of war with China. The U.S.
Department of Defense has labeled China its primary adversary, civilian leaders
have directed the military to develop credible plans to defend Taiwan, and
President Joe Biden has strongly implied that the United States would not allow
that island democracy to be conquered.

Yet Washington may be preparing for the wrong kind of war. Defense planners
appear to believe that they can win a short conflict in the Taiwan Strait merely by
blunting a Chinese invasion. Chinese leaders, for their part, seem to envision
rapid, paralyzing strikes that break Taiwanese resistance and present the United
States with a fait accompli. Both sides would prefer a splendid little war in the
western Pacific, but that is not the sort of war they would get.

A war over Taiwan is likely to be long rather than short, regional rather than local,
and much easier to start than to end. It would expand and escalate, as both
countries look for paths to victory in a conflict neither side can afford to lose. It
would also present severe dilemmas for peacemaking and high risks of going
nuclear. If Washington doesn‘t start preparing to wage, and then end, a
protracted conflict now, it could face catastrophe once the shooting starts.

IMPENDING SLUGFEST
A U.S.-Chinese war over Taiwan would begin with a bang. China‘s military
doctrine emphasizes coordinated operations to ―paralyze the enemy in one
stroke.‖ In the most worrying scenario, Beijing would launch a surprise missile
attack, hammering not only Taiwan‘s defenses but also the naval and air forces
that the United States has concentrated at a few large bases in the western
Pacific. Simultaneous Chinese cyberattacks and antisatellite operations would
sow chaos and hinder any effective U.S. or Taiwanese response. And the
People‘s Liberation Army (PLA) would race through the window of opportunity,
staging amphibious and airborne assaults that would overwhelm Taiwanese

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resistance. By the time the United States was ready to fight, the war would
effectively be over.

The Pentagon‘s planning increasingly revolves around preventing this scenario,

by hardening and dispersing the U.S. military presence in Asia, encouraging
Taiwan to field asymmetric capabilities that can inflict a severe toll on Chinese
attackers, and developing the ability to blunt the PLA‘s offensive capabilities and
sink an invasion fleet. This planning is predicated on the critical assumption that
the early weeks, if not days, of fighting would determine whether a free Taiwan
survives.

Yet whatever happens at the outset, a conflict almost certainly wouldn‘t end
quickly. Most great-power wars since the Industrial Revolution have lasted longer
than expected, because modern states have the resources to fight on even when
they suffer heavy losses. Moreover, in hegemonic wars—clashes for dominance
between the world‘s strongest states—the stakes are high, and the price of
defeat may seem prohibitive. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, wars
between leading powers—the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War, the world
wars—were protracted slugfests. A U.S.-Chinese war would likely follow this
pattern.

If Washington doesn‘t prepare for conflict now, it could face catastrophe once the
shooting starts.
If the United States managed to beat back a Chinese assault against Taiwan,
Beijing wouldn‘t simply give up. Starting a war over Taiwan would be an
existential gamble: admitting defeat would jeopardize the regime‘s legitimacy and
President Xi Jinping‘s hold on power. It would also leave China more vulnerable
to its enemies and destroy its dreams of regional primacy. Continuing a hard fight
against the United States would be a nasty prospect, but quitting while China
was behind would seem even worse.

Washington would also be inclined to fight on if the war were not going well. Like
Beijing, it would view a war over Taiwan as a fight for regional dominance. The
fact that such a war would probably begin with a Pearl Harbor–style missile
attack on U.S. bases would make it even harder for an outraged American
populace and its leaders to accept defeat. Even if the United States failed to
prevent Chinese forces from seizing Taiwan, it couldn‘t easily bow out of the war.
Quitting without first severely damaging Chinese air and naval power in Asia
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would badly weaken Washington‘s reputation, as well as its ability to defend
remaining allies in the region.

Both sides would have the capacity to keep fighting, moreover. The United
States could summon ships, planes, and submarines from other theaters and use
its command of the Pacific beyond the first island chain—which runs from Japan
in the north through Taiwan and the Philippines to the south—to conduct
sustained attacks on Chinese forces. For its part, China could dispatch its
surviving air, naval, and missile forces for a second and third assault on Taiwan
and press its maritime militia of coast guard and fishing vessels into service. Both
the United States and China would emerge from these initial clashes bloodied
but not exhausted, increasing the likelihood of a long, ugly war.

BIGGER, LONGER, MESSIER

When great-power wars drag on, they get bigger, messier, and more intractable.
Any conflict between the United States and China is likely to force both countries
to mobilize their economies for war. After the initial salvos, both sides would
hurry to replace munitions, ships, submarines, and aircraft lost in the early days
of fighting. This race would strain both countries‘ industrial bases, require the
reorientation of their economies, and invite nationalist appeals—or government
compulsion—to mobilize the populace to support a long fight.

Long wars also escalate as the combatants look for new sources of leverage.
Belligerents open new fronts and rope additional allies into the fight. They
expand their range of targets and worry less about civilian casualties. Sometimes
they explicitly target civilians, whether by bombing cities or torpedoing civilian
ships. And they use naval blockades, sanctions, and embargoes to starve the
enemy into submission. As China and the United States unloaded on each other
with nearly every tool at their disposal, a local war could turn into a whole-of-
society brawl that spans multiple regions.

Bigger wars demand more grandiose aims. The greater the sacrifices required to
win, the better the ultimate peace deal must be to justify those sacrifices. What
began as a U.S. campaign to defend Taiwan could easily turn into an effort to
render China incapable of new aggression by completely destroying its offensive
military power. Conversely, as the United States inflicted more damage on China,
Beijing‘s war aims could grow from conquering Taiwan to pushing Washington
out of the western Pacific altogether.
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All of this would make forging peace more difficult. The expansion of war aims
narrows the diplomatic space for a settlement and produces severe bloodshed
that fuels intense hatred and mistrust. Even if U.S. and Chinese leaders grew
weary of fighting, they might still struggle to find a mutually acceptable peace.

GOING NUCLEAR
A war between China and the United States would differ from previous
hegemonic wars in one fundamental respect: both sides have nuclear weapons.
This would create disincentives to all-out escalation, but it could also,
paradoxically, compound the dangers inherent in a long war.

For starters, both sides might feel free to shoot off their conventional arsenals
under the assumption that their nuclear arsenals would shield them from crippling
retaliation. Scholars call this the ―stability-instability paradox,‖ whereby blind faith
in nuclear deterrence risks unleashing a massive conventional war. Chinese
military writings often suggest that the PLA could wipe out U.S. bases and
aircraft carriers in East Asia while China‘s nuclear arsenal deterred U.S. attacks
on the Chinese mainland. On the flip side, some American strategists have called
for pounding Chinese mainland bases at the outset of a conflict in the belief that
U.S. nuclear superiority would deter China from responding in kind. Far from
preventing a major war, nuclear weapons could catalyze one.

Once that war is underway, it could plausibly go nuclear in three distinct ways.
Whichever side is losing might use tactical nuclear weapons—low-yield
warheads that could destroy specific military targets without obliterating the other
side‘s homeland—to turn the tide. That was how the Pentagon planned to halt a
Soviet invasion of central Europe during the Cold War, and it is what North
Korea, Pakistan, and Russia have suggested they would do if they were losing a
war today. If China crippled U.S. conventional forces in East Asia, the United
States would have to decide whether to save Taiwan by using tactical nuclear
weapons against Chinese ports, airfields, or invasion fleets. This is no fantasy:
the U.S. military is already developing nuclear-tipped, submarine-launched cruise
missiles that could be used for such purposes.
A local war could turn into a whole-of-society brawl that spans multiple regions.

China might also use nuclear weapons to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
The PLA has embarked on an unprecedented expansion of its nuclear arsenal,
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and PLA officers have written that China could use nuclear weapons if a
conventional war threatened the survival of its government or nuclear arsenal—
which would almost surely be the case if Beijing was losing a war over Taiwan.
Perhaps these unofficial claims are bluffs. Yet it is not difficult to imagine that if
China faced the prospect of humiliating defeat, it might fire off a nuclear weapon
(perhaps at or near the huge U.S. military base on Guam) to regain a tactical
advantage or shock Washington into a cease-fire.

As the conflict drags on, either side could also use the ultimate weapon to end a
grinding war of attrition. During the Korean War, American leaders repeatedly
contemplated dropping nuclear bombs on China to force it to accept a cease-fire.
Today, both countries would have the option of using limited nuclear strikes to
compel a stubborn opponent to concede. The incentives to do so could be
strong, given that whichever side pulls the nuclear trigger first might gain a major
advantage.

A final route to nuclear war is inadvertent escalation. Each side, knowing that
escalation is a risk, may try to limit the other‘s nuclear options. The United States
could, for instance, try to sink China‘s ballistic missile submarines before they
hide in the deep waters beyond the first island chain. Yet such an attack could
put China in a ―use it or lose it‖ situation with regard to its nuclear forces,
especially if the United States also struck China‘s land-based missiles and
communication systems, which intermingle conventional and nuclear forces. In
this scenario, China‘s leaders might use their nuclear weapons rather than risk
losing that option altogether.

AVOIDING ARMAGEDDON
There is no easy way to prepare for a long war whose course and dynamics are
inherently unpredictable. Yet the United States and its allies can do four things to
get ready for whatever comes—and, hopefully, prevent the worst from
happening. First, Washington can win the race to reload. China will be much less
likely to go to war if it knows it will be outgunned as the conflict drags on.
Washington and Taipei should therefore aggressively stockpile ammunition and
supplies. For the United States, the critical assets are missiles capable of sinking
China‘s most valuable ships and aircraft from afar. For Taiwan, the key weapons
are short-range missiles, mortars, mines, and rocket launchers that can decimate
invasion fleets. Both nations also need to be ready to churn out new weapons in
wartime. Taiwanese factories will be obvious targets for Chinese missiles, so the
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United States should enlist the industrial might of other allies. Japan‘s
shipbuilding capacity, for example, could be retooled to produce simple missile
barges rapidly and on a massive scale.

Second, the United States and Taiwan can demonstrate their ability to hang
tough. In a long war, China could try to strangle Taiwan with a blockade,
bombard it into submission, or take down U.S. and Taiwanese electrical grids
and telecommunications networks with cyberattacks. It could use conventionally
armed, hypersonic missiles to attack targets in the U.S. homeland and flood the
United States with disinformation. Countering such measures will require
defensive preparations, such as securing critical networks; expanding Taiwan‘s
system of civilian shelters; and enlarging the island‘s stockpiles of fuel, food, and
medical supplies.

China might use nuclear weapons to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Breaking a Chinese campaign of coercion also requires threatening Beijing with
painful retaliation. A third objective, therefore, is to own the escalation ladder. By
preparing to blockade Chinese commerce and cut Beijing off from markets and
technology in wartime, the United States and its allies can threaten to turn an
extended conflict into an economic catastrophe for China. By preparing to sink
Chinese naval vessels anywhere in the western Pacific and destroy Chinese
military infrastructure in other regions, Washington can threaten a generation‘s
worth of Chinese military modernization. And by developing the means to hit
Chinese ports, airfields, and armadas with tactical nuclear weapons, the United
States can deter China from initiating limited nuclear attacks. Washington should
confront Beijing with a basic proposition: the longer a war lasts, the more
devastation China will suffer.

Because controlling escalation will be essential, the United States also needs
options that allow it to dial up the punishment without necessarily dialing up the
violence. By subtly demonstrating that it has the cyber-capabilities to cripple
China‘s critical infrastructure and domestic security system, for example, the
United States can threaten to bring the war home to Beijing. Similarly, by
improving its ability to suppress Chinese air defenses near Taiwan with
cyberattacks, electronic warfare, and directed-energy weapons, the United
States can increase its freedom of action while limiting the amount of physical
destruction it wreaks on the mainland.

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Any escalatory moves risk ratcheting up the intensity of a conflict. So the final
preparation Washington must make is to define victory down. A war between
nuclear-armed great powers would not end with regime change or one side
occupying the other‘s capital. It would end with a negotiated compromise. The
simplest settlement would be a return to the status quo: China stops attacking
Taiwan in exchange for a pledge that the island will not seek formal
independence and that the United States will not endorse it. To sweeten the deal,
Washington could offer to keep its forces off Taiwan and out of the Taiwan Strait.
Xi would be able to tell the Chinese people that he taught his enemies a lesson.
The United States would have saved a strategically positioned democracy. That
may not be a satisfying end to a hard-fought conflict. But in a long war between
great powers, protecting vital U.S. interests while avoiding Armageddon is good
enough.

Source: Published in Foreign Affairs

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Escaping North Korea Under Kim Jong-Un –
Analysis By Jay Song
As of September 2021, data from the South Korean Ministry of Reunification
suggest that 33,800 North Korean defectors currently live in South Korea. This
number has soared over the past two decades — before 1998, they numbered
under 200.

Following the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the devastating famine in North
Korea in the mid-1990s, the turn of the century saw an influx of North Korean
arrivals into South Korea rise each year, reaching its peak in 2009 at 2914. Since
Kim Jong-un took power in 2012, the flow has largely stagnated and decreased,
with COVID-19 reaching an all-time low.

Following Kim‘s succession, annual arrivals have not exceeded 1600. In 2020,
with increased border restrictions due to COVID-19, only 229 entrants were
recorded. A number of factors explain this. The first is strengthened border
control between North Korea and China. In the 1990s and 2000s, there were few
barbed wire barricades across the exit route of choice, the Tuman river
separating both countries. But under Kim‘s regime, both China and North Korea
have heightened border security with more fences and checkpoints.

Increased social surveillance practices in China have also amplified the

challenges facing defectors once they enter. In 2012, with China amending
border laws affecting North Korean defectors, efforts to locate them have
increased. Without official identification, it is extremely difficult to move around
China without attracting suspicion. The adoption of AI-driven face recognition
CCTV systems and other systems of social control have further restricted the
mobility of defectors hoping to avoid detection. If they are caught and repatriated,
there are detrimental consequences, individually and for their families.

Gender disparity across the North Korean migrants in South Korea is another
clear dimension. From 2002, women have comprised 75 to 85 per cent of
defectors in South Korea. This is a product of social norms in North Korean
society. While all men in North Korea must complete at least 10 years of military
service, women with middle or high school education are enlisted only between

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the ages of 17 and 22. Women are relatively more mobile and are more
commonly involved in entrepreneurial and informal trading activities across the
Chinese border. This likewise exposes women and children to increased risks of
human trafficking, and many were sold as wives or cheap domestic labour during
the famine and post-famine periods.

Changes in South Korean entry requirements for verifying the identity of self-
claimed North Korean refugees is another challenge. These changes are
attributed to fears of North Korean espionage and the propensity of Korean-
Chinese to enter South Korea falsely claiming defector status to receive
government subsidies and more favourable work and residence rights than those
of other foreign migrants. The South Korean government also changed the scale
and nature of various subsidy schemes for North Korean defectors. Instead of
outright cash payments, it now provides incentives that are tied to education,
training and employment for long-term settlement and capacity building.

Fees for brokering services to cross borders via land, sea or air have also
increased dramatically. In the 2000s, fees per person were around US$3–4000.
Now they have skyrocketed to US$20,000. The air route has become largely
inaccessible as faking Chinese passports is almost impossible. This has
significantly restricted the number of individuals who can afford to leave.

Despite the barriers, North Koreans still have significant motivation for defecting.
According to the 2020 survey by the Hana Foundation, the biggest driver for
leaving North Korea was the food shortage, followed by political repression, a
better environment for families, family reunion, economic opportunities,
secondary family migration, personal security and recommendation from others.
Family-related motivations have become a dominant pull factor for North Korean
migration to South Korea under Kim.

Life satisfaction levels among North Korean migrants in South Korea are
moderately high. Male defectors identify South Korea‘s competitive society as a
main source of unhappiness, while women attribute life dissatisfaction to family
separation. One in five North Koreans have experienced discrimination in South
Korea. Teenagers commonly point to their low-income status, while older North
Koreans attribute this to incompatible skillsets compared to their South Korean
peers.

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Some North Koreans prefer to undertake onward migration to Western countries.
According to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees,
the top destination countries for North Korean asylum applications in the past 10
years were Canada, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Russia and the Netherlands.
Despite their strong human rights campaigns against North Korea, the United
States has not accepted many North Korean refugees.

Migration in contexts like these elsewhere around the world is characterised by

natural selection for survival. North Koreans are not unique in this respect.
Humans have always tried to move to new locations where more freedom, safety
and a higher quality of life are available. Families and social networks play key
roles in facilitating and reality the choice for mobility. States have likewise always
sought to control people‘s inbound and outbound movements, especially in times
of crisis.

For ordinary North Koreans life proceeds from crisis to crisis, rooted in patterns
that stem back to the Korean War. As North Korea tightens border restrictions to
prioritise regime survival — a strategy compounded by pervasive restrictions in
neighbouring countries due to COVID-19 — most of its citizens simply seeking to
survive will continue to face an uphill battle.

*About the author: Jay Song is Korea Foundation Senior Lecturer in Korean
Studies at the Asia Institute in the University of Melbourne. This work is funded
by the Academy of Korean Studies.

Source: This article was published by East Asia Forum. A version of this article
appears in the most recent edition of East Asia Forum Quarterly, ‗The Korean
Way‘, Vol 13, No 4.

Source: Published in Eur Asia Review

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Russia-China Alliance Poses Defining
Challenge For The West – OpEd By Andrew
Hammond
Russian President Vladimir Putin had been isolated on Ukraine in a series of
major summits throughout December, but that changed significantly on
Wednesday when his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping offered his strong support,
strengthening an emerging Moscow-Beijing axis.

The Chinese premier‘s alliance with Putin — one of the key factors emboldening
Russian foreign policy in recent years — has significant implications not only for
geopolitics but also the global economy. With both men potentially in power until
well into the 2030s, they may well be seen by future historians as the two
dominant figures in international relations in the first three to four decades of the
21st century.

The warmth of bilateral ties is very much driven by the apparent personal
camaraderie between the two. Putin, who refused to travel to the G20 or COP26
summits in recent weeks, on Wednesday highlighted his delight at plans to
attend the Beijing Winter Olympics next February when much of the West will
stage a diplomatic boycott to protest China‘s human rights record. Xi clearly
welcomes Putin‘s support, saying that ―both sides should strengthen coordination
and cooperation on international affairs to make louder voices on global
governance.‖

On Ukraine, Xi left no doubt where he stands, saying that he ―understands

Russia‘s concerns to work out security guarantees,‖ given NATO‘s perceived
encroachment on Moscow‘s former territories. He added that ―both China and
Russia need to carry out more joint actions to more effectively safeguard our
security and interests‖ against the Western powers, and expressed his
appreciation that Putin ―strongly supported Beijing‘s efforts to protect key national
interests and firmly opposed attempts to drive a wedge between our countries.‖

The standoff on the Ukraine border may die down again in 2022, as happened in
spring when Russian troops last mobilized there in their tens of thousands, but

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that is by no means guaranteed. Putin‘s mission since assuming power almost a
quarter of a century ago has been to restore Russia‘s geopolitical prominence
through international gambits such as the annexation of Crimea and the
intervention in Syria.

Putin is also targeting Africa, seeking to restore Moscow‘s influence in the region
that faded after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He is keen to entrench Russia‘s
economic and political foothold in the continent, with bilateral trade having risen
significantly in the past decade.

While Putin‘s foreign policy escapades have — so far at least — generally played
well domestically, they have resulted in much frostier relations with the West. A
key question in coming years is how the relationship, specifically with the US, will
fare under President Joe Biden, who will remain in office until at least early 2025,
but may not choose to seek re-election when he is his 80s.

As last week‘s Biden-Putin summit highlighted, the most likely outcome is

continuing frosty ties. Putin, at 69, may already be thinking ahead to the next US
president, hoping for another maverick figure more congenial to his interests,
potentially even Donald Trump again. The Russian leader knows that he could
yet see out several more US leaders if he wins two more terms of office by which
time he would surpass even Joseph Stalin‘s time in power.

Yet, while Putin appears to be firmly entrenched, if not impregnable, numerous

challenges remain. The pandemic, for one, has posed a major problem,
particularly after a wave of infections in recent weeks.

This underlines that Putin is far from certain to serve till 2036, especially if his
political luck finally goes south, fueled by potential foreign policy misadventure or
domestic economic travails. To keep his hold in power, it seems likely that Putin
will continue to rely on the playbook that has served him well so far — namely,
forging a sense of post-Cold War patriotism of which the current build-up in
Ukraine may be only the latest example.

This could have profound implications, especially given his growing closeness to
Xi, who is another potential ―president for life.‖ The closeness of their relationship
is one key reason the frost appears unlikely to thaw in Russia‘s relations with the
West. In this context, Putin is increasingly asserting Russian power in other
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areas of the globe from Asia-Pacific to Africa and the Americas, doubling down
support for longstanding allies who are Western foes, including Venezuela, Syria,
North Korea and Iran.

The implications of Putin‘s long period in office go well beyond the Russian
domestic political landscape and Ukraine. The key foreign legacy of his
presidency is likely to be a significantly closer relationship with Beijing, which
poses a much broader, potentially defining, challenge for the West in the coming
decades.

Andrew Hammond is an Associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of

Economics.

Source: Published in Eur Asia Review

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The Iran Deadlock | Editorial
It is not surprising that Iran‘s response to any of the Western powers on a nuclear
deal is less than friendly. The seventh round of talks in Vienna to restore Iran‘s
2015 nuclear deal has ended and the negotiating world powers are not close to
an agreement.

Why should the global community have seen this coming? Firstly, there is the
evident fact that Iran‘s government has seen a major change. There has been
the arrival of a new government in Iran, which is markedly different; the new
President Ebrahim Raisi is reported to be more conservative and hardline than
the previous Rouhani government. The Raisi foreign policy was always expected
to be firmer and more unforgiving.

Secondly, world powers must also be cognisant of the fact that what is
happening on the diplomatic stage with other countries affects any potential
transactions in the region. Escalations of the European Union and the US with
Russia or China are bound to have an impact on Iran‘s approach towards
reconciliation over nuclear matters.

The result is the current scenario. Talks have come to a stale point, with both
sides frustrated. The Iranian side, aggravated by US‘ initial betrayal and the
developments occurring in the region, wants significant changes to the
agreement and lifting of all sanctions.

The UK, France and Germany, also representing the US, have adopted a more
rigid position, asking Tehran to return to the original deal. Iran has granted
repaired cameras at nuclear facilities, but the European powers expect that the
programme is at its most advanced stage.

What is missing most is an inherent lack of trust between the parties. If the EU
wants Iran to back down this, it should consider the carrot approach, rather than
the stick, which has been shown to fail. The EU must also bring the US back to
the fold and look to ease some sanctions to allow for more trust by Iran, and
rather the whole region, to be built.

Source: Published in The Nation

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The Growing Threat of Nukes By António
Guterres
We live in worrying times. The climate crisis, stark inequalities, bloody conflicts
and human rights abuses, and the personal and economic devastation caused by
the Covid-19 pandemic have put our world under greater stress than it has faced
in my lifetime.

But the existential threat that cast a shadow over the first half of my life no longer
receives the attention it should. Nuclear weapons have faded from headlines and
Hollywood scripts. But the danger they pose remains as high as ever, and is
growing by the year. Nuclear annihilation is just one misunderstanding or
miscalculation away – a sword of Damocles that threatens not only suffering and
death on a horrific scale, but the end of all life on earth.

Through a combination of luck and judgement, nuclear weapons have not been
used since they incinerated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. But with more than
13,000 nuclear weapons held in arsenals around the world, how long can our
luck hold? The Covid-19 pandemic has brought a new awareness of the
catastrophic impact of a low-probability event.

Following the end of the Cold War, nuclear arsenals were dramatically reduced
and even eliminated. Entire regions declared themselves nuclear-weapons free
zones. A deep and widespread repudiation of nuclear testing took hold. As Prime
Minister of my country, I ordered Portugal to vote for the first time against the
resumption of nuclear testing in the Pacific.

But the end of the Cold War also left us with a dangerous falsehood: that the
threat of nuclear war was a thing of the past.

Nothing could be more mistaken. These weapons are not yesterday‘s problem.
They remain today‘s growing threat.

The risk that nuclear weapons will be used is higher now than at any point since
the duck-and-cover drills and fallout shelters of the Cold War.

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Relationships between some countries that possess nuclear weapons are
defined today by distrust and competition. Dialogue is largely absent.
Transparency is waning and nuclear weapons are assuming greater importance
as national security strategies find new contexts for their use.

Meanwhile, technological advances and the emergence of new arenas of

competition in cyber space and outer space have exposed vulnerabilities and
increased the risk of nuclear escalation. We lack international frameworks and
tools that can deal with these developments. And today‘s multipolar global order
means that regional crises with nuclear overtones threaten to draw in other
nuclear-armed countries.

The nuclear landscape is a tinderbox. One accident or miscalculation could set it

alight.

Our main hope to reverse course and steer our world away from nuclear
cataclysm is the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons – better
known as the NPT – which dates from the height of the Cold War in 1970.

The NPT is one of the main reasons why nuclear weapons have not been used
since 1945. It contains legally binding commitments to achieve nuclear
disarmament, including by the five largest nuclear-armed countries. It is also a
catalyst for disarmament – the only way to eliminate these horrendous weapons
once and for all.

The 191 countries that have joined the NPT – representing the vast majority of
the world – have pledged not to acquire or develop nuclear weapons. And these
pledges are policed and enforced by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

One month from now, the countries that are members of the NPT will meet for
their regular five-yearly conference to look at the Treaty‘s progress.

Another United Nations conference for a treaty with an acronym may not seem
particularly newsworthy. But the NPT is critical to the security and prosperity of
all people on earth.

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We must seize the opportunity of January‘s NPT Review Conference to reverse
dangerous and growing trends and escape the long shadow cast by these
inhumane weapons.

The review conference must take bold action on six fronts: 1) Chart a path
forward on nuclear disarmament. 2) Agree new measures of transparency and
dialogue, to reduce the risk of nuclear war. 3) Address simmering nuclear crises
in the Middle East and Asia. 4) Work to strengthen the global frameworks that
support non-proliferation, including the IAEA. 5) Promote the peaceful use of
nuclear technology for medical and other uses – one reason why the NPT has
won the adherence of non-nuclear-weapons states. 6) Remind the world‘s people
– especially its young people – that eliminating nuclear weapons is the only way
to guarantee they will never be used.

I urge governments to approach the conference in a spirit of solidarity, frank

dialogue, and flexibility.

What happens in the NPT negotiating rooms in January matters to everyone –

because any use of nuclear weapons will affect everyone.

The fragility of our world has never been clearer.

I hope people everywhere will push governments to step back from the abyss
and create a safer, more secure world for all: a world free of nuclear weapons.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 21st, 2021.

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China’s Foreign Policy Review 2021: An
Expert Opinion By Dr Mehmood-ul-Hassan
Khan
THE People‘s Republic of China outperformed the West and especially the US in
many fronts of engagements, conflicts resolution, peaceful persuasions of soft
image projection and last but not the least cultural diplomacy in which its dynamic
foreign ministry played very important role to mitigate false and fake propaganda
of the US and its regional allies as well as international supporters. Foreign
Ministry of China constantly defused unjust escalations of the US and the West
alike through logic, wisdom and rational dissemination of facts. It successfully
mitigated the Western paramount hoopla against its mega project of One Belt
One Road Initiative (BRI) and even outclassed in case of China-Pakistan
Economic Corridor (CPEC).

It successfully countered corporate, technology, economic and social sanctions

scenarios through pragmatic media projections. It even succeeded to disdain the
West and the US on the issue of origin of COVID-19 virus, Beijing Winter
Olympics boycott, Hong Kong democracy, Taiwan succession, Lithuania
provocations, South China Sea demography, and last but not the least minorities
issues. In addition to this it discredited the Western whoopla against so-called
superiority of their democratic norms and rightly projected the unlimited blessings
and socio-economic dividends of its socialist economy and people‘s friendly
governance.

Most recently, while delivering a keynote speech during the opening ceremony of
a Beijing-based annual symposium on international relations, Chinese State
Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi rigorously reviewed China‘s diplomacy
in 2021, and strongly defended China‘s principled stance on various issues and
termed it right side of history. Wang Yi shared that year 2021 opened a new
window of opportunities which changed global crises into opportunities and
steadfastly forged ahead through struggle as well as cooperation. The Chinese
Foreign Minister appreciated President Xi Jinping diversified but integrated
diplomatic efforts in terms of building a community with a shared future for
mankind, leading role of the Chinese people and the CPC with remarkable

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feature to adapt to changes properly and keep breaking new ground. He
showcased Chinese policy essence consisting of serve national rejuvenation
amidst a complex situation and advance peaceful development in a fast-
changing world.

Wang highlighted holistic anti-COVID policies of China during the pandemic

which fulfilled the responsibility of a major country. He urged the international
community to enhance cooperation against the pandemic. In this regard, China
has set a good example of COVID response through a ―dynamic zero-COVID‖
strategy as well as a good example of solidarity against the pandemic through
greater international cooperation. With concrete actions, we have spearheaded
the path to emerging from the darkest hour of the pandemic and kept moving
forward, he added.

He termed current vaccine divide as the biggest impediment to ending the

pandemic, with only five percent of the populationin low-income countries fully
vaccinated. In this connection, President Xi Jinping has pledged another one
billion doses of vaccines to Africa, including 600 million doses as donation, to
support the African Union‘s goal of vaccinating 60 percent of the African
population. It has injected new impetus into economic recovery and created new
opportunities for common development.

Wang highlighted Chinese development-oriented solutions and dedicated efforts

toward more robust, green and balanced global development. President Xi
Jinping has officially put forth a Global Development Initiative aimed at enhancing
all people‘s well-being and realizing all-round human development he added. The
Chinese President prioritized the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,
and stressed the need to have cooperation on poverty reduction, food security,
COVID response and vaccines, development financing, climate change, green
development, industrialization, digital economy and connectivity.

While talking on China‘s macro-economy, he shared that his country strongly

boosted the global economic recovery. China has been actively participating in
the World Trade Organization, the Boao Forum for Asia, the World Economic
Forum in Davos, the China International Fair for Trade in Services and the China
International Import Expo (CIIE) during which President Xi announced a series of
new measures such as a shorter negative list, a more business-friendly
environment and greater institutional opening-up, to open wider to the world and
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share China‘s development opportunities with other countries thus China
remained hope of the last resort for regional socio-economic integration and
global recovery. On the other hand, world has been divided and swinging
between true and false multilateralism, however, China held high the torch of true
multilateralism, and firmly upheld the authority of the UN and a stable
international order and thus instrumental to discourage unilateralism.

China and the United States have explored a new mode of interaction based on
mutual respect and equality. Since the beginning of this year, President Xi
Jinping has had two requested telephone conversations with President Joe
Biden, and the two presidents also held their first virtual meeting recently.
President Xi Jinping gave comprehensive exposition of China‘s principled
position on China-US relations. China and the European Union have overcome
challenges and made new progress in their comprehensive strategic partnership.
President Xi Jinping has attended two video summits with French and German
leaders. A China-CEEC Summit has been held successfully via video link. The
China-EU agreement on geographical indications has come into force. President
Xi Jinping highlighted the spirit of China-Africa friendship and cooperation, spelt
out four proposals for building a China-Africa community with a shared future in
the new era, and announced nine programs for cooperation with Africa.

Moreover, the strategic partnership between China and Arab states has scaled a
new height. China has maintained close communication with Arab states at the
leaders‘ level, and had interactions with the entire Arab world at the foreign-
minister level. In this connection, China has proposed a five-point initiative on
achieving security and stability in the Middle East, a four-point proposal for the
political settlement of the Syrian issue, and a three-point vision for the
implementation of the two-state solution, contributing positive energy to peace
and stability in the Middle East. To conclude, China tried to stop the Cold War
mentality, provoking division, confrontation and creating blocs and advocated
solidarity and cooperation for the common well-being of mankind, win-win
cooperation, equality and respect.

Despite constant indoctrination of the US and the West, China stood on the right
side of history and worked for human progress, international equity and justice
and promoted befitting proposition for all the developing countries. Moreover,
China choose cooperation over confrontation, coordination over contradiction,
collaboration over conspiracy, openness over isolation, mutual benefit over zero-
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sum game and equality over power politics and bullying. China has selected the
path of peaceful co-existence, concept of shared prosperity, socio-economic
prosperity, socio-economic integration and greater regional connectivity.

This scribe highly appreciates China‘s leading role in fighting COVID-19, fragile
economic recovery, promoting multilateralism, multiculturalism, equitable
international order, accountable global governance system, nurturing and
supporting of South-South cooperation and safeguarding regional peace and
stability. This scribe suggests that China should take all possible measures to
ensure success of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, initiation of positive,
productive and participatory steps to tackle challenges in the post-COVID era,
implementation of the Global Development Initiative (GDI) and expansion of
deepened global partnership in the days to come.

—The writer is Director, Geopolitics/Economics, Regional geopolitical expert of

China, CPEC & BRI.

Source: Published in Pak observer

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The Real Crisis of Global Order By
Alexander Cooley and Daniel H. Nexon
The election of Donald Trump in 2016 sparked a major debate over the nature
and fate of the liberal international order, suddenly caught, it seemed, between
the Charybdis of illiberal great-power challengers and the Scylla of a hostile U.S.
president. Trump may have lost the presidency in 2020, but the liberal order
remains under threat. If anything, recent events have underlined the magnitude
of the challenges it faces—and, most important, that these challenges are only
one manifestation of a much broader crisis endangering liberalism itself.

For decades after World War II, the dominant factions in both the Democratic and
the Republican Parties were committed to the project of creating a U.S.-led
liberal international order. They saw Washington as central to building a world at
least partly organized around market exchanges and private property; the
protection of political, civil, and human rights; the normative superiority of
representative democracy; and formally equal sovereign states often working
through multilateral institutions. Whatever its faults, the order that would emerge
in the wake of the Cold War lifted millions out of poverty and led to a record
percentage of humanity living under democratic governments. But it also
removed firebreaks that made it more difficult for turmoil at one political level to
spread to another—by, for instance, jumping from the subnational to the national
to the regional and, finally, to the global level.

Key players in the established democracies, especially in Europe and North

America, assumed that reducing international barriers would facilitate the spread
of liberal movements and values. It did for a time, but the resulting international
order now favors a diverse array of illiberal forces, including authoritarian states,
such as China, that reject liberal democracy wholesale, as well as reactionary
populists and conservative authoritarians who position themselves as protectors
of so-called traditional values and national culture as they gradually subvert
democratic institutions and the rule of law. In the eyes of many right-wing
Americans and their overseas counterparts, Western illiberalism looks perfectly
democratic.

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Soon after his inauguration, U.S. President Joe Biden began talking about ―a
battle between the utility of democracies in the twenty-first century and
autocracies.‖ In doing so, he echoed a widespread view that democratic
liberalism faces threats from both within and without. Authoritarian powers and
illiberal democracies are seeking to undermine key aspects of the liberal
international order. And the supposed pillars of that order, most notably the
United States, are in danger of succumbing to illiberalism at home.

Whether they want to ―build back better‖ or ―make America great again,‖ every
American analyst seems to agree that the United States needs to first sort itself
out to effectively compete with authoritarian great powers and advance the cause
of democracy on the global stage. But the two major political parties have very
different understandings of what this project of renewal entails. This schism is far
greater than disputes over economic regulation and public investment. Partisans
see the other side as an existential threat to the very survival of the United States
as a democratic republic.

The United States is one of the more polarized Western democracies, but its
political conflicts and tensions are manifestations of broader, international
processes. The U.S. reactionary right, for example, is linked to a variety of global
networks that include both opposition political movements and governing
regimes. Efforts to shore up liberal democracy in the United States will have
cascading and sometimes unpredictable effects on the broader liberal order; at
the same time, policymakers cannot set the country‘s affairs in order without
tackling wider international and transnational challenges.

All of this goes way beyond giving American democracy a fresh coat of paint and
remodeling its kitchen. The crisis cannot be addressed by simply recommitting
the United States to multilateral institutions, treaties, and alliances. Its roots are
structural. The nature of the contemporary liberal international order leaves
democracies particularly vulnerable to both internal and external illiberal
pressures.

In their current form, liberal institutions cannot stem the rising illiberal tide;
governments have struggled to prevent the diffusion of antidemocratic ideologies
and tactics, both homegrown and imported. Liberal democracies must adapt to
fend off threats on multiple levels. But there is a catch. Any attempt to grapple

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with this crisis will require policy decisions that are clearly illiberal or necessitate
a new version of liberal order.

OPEN FOR INSTABILITY

Critics of the notion of a new cold war between China and the United States
highlight fundamental differences between the world of today and that of the
early decades of the Cold War. The Soviet Union and the United States formed
the centers of discrete geopolitical blocs. By contrast, Beijing and Washington
operate in overlapping and interconnected geopolitical spaces. For years,
politicians in Washington have debated how many restrictions to place on
Chinese investment in the United States. There was no such angst, and no need
for it, when it came to the Soviet Union. U.S. companies did not outsource
production to Soviet factories; the Soviet Union was never a significant supplier
of finished goods to the United States or its key treaty allies.

A wide range of developments—all of which accelerated over the last three

decades—have made the world denser with flows of knowledge and commerce,
including the expansion of markets, economic deregulation, the easy mobility of
capital, satellite communications, and digital media. People are more aware of
what is happening in different parts of the world; formal and informal
transnational political networks—limited during the Cold War by hard geopolitical
borders and fewer, costlier forms of long-distance communication—have grown
in both importance and reach.

These unfolding changes jumbled the geopolitical landscape that emerged after
the implosion of the Soviet Union. No single, uniform international order replaced
the more bifurcated international order of the Cold War; the world, despite the
hopes of neoliberal politicians, never became ―flat.‖ Instead, the international
order that took shape by the turn of the century was highly variegated. Many of
the new democratic regimes that appeared in the 1990s were only tenuously
democratic; optimists wrongly dismissed early indications of weak liberal
democratic institutions as but bumps on the road to full democratization.
Eastward across Eurasia, liberal ordering became increasingly patchwork. Some
states, such as China, managed to effectively access the benefits of the liberal
economic order without accepting the requirements of political liberalism.

Liberal institutions cannot stem the rising illiberal tide.

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Many analysts in those years promised that market expansion would produce
robust middle classes that would in turn demand political liberalization. They
argued that the development of a global civil society—underpinned by human
rights, the rule of law, and environmental nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs)—would help cultivate and mobilize pro-democracy forces, especially in
the post-Soviet space. The Internet, widely imagined as an unstoppable force for
freedom, would do its part to spread the irresistible appeal of both liberal
economic principles and liberal political freedoms.

One could still make a case for optimism even after 2005, the last year that had a
net increase in global democracy, according to the pro-democracy advocacy
group Freedom House. But in retrospect, it seems hopelessly naive.

In 2001, only a few months before China formally entered the World Trade
Organization, the September 11 attacks drove the United States to embark on
the global war on terrorism. The Bush administration adopted or expanded a host
of illiberal practices, including the torture of ―unlawful combatants‖ through
―enhanced interrogation‖ techniques and via ―extraordinary renditions‖ to third-
party governments, and embraced a militarized version of democracy promotion.
The invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the accompanying doctrine of preemption
further strained relations between the United States and European allies such as
France and Germany. The upheavals of the ―color revolutions‖—liberal uprisings
in post-Soviet countries (in Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine in 2004)—and the Arab
Spring, which flared in 2010, further underscored the threat posed by agents of
the liberal order, such as international institutions, Western NGOs, and social
media. Authoritarian and illiberal regimes increasingly pursued strategies to
inoculate themselves from these transnational liberal threats.

The cumulative result of technological innovations, policy choices made by liberal

powers, and evolving authoritarian practices was ―asymmetric openness‖—the
strange reality that the contemporary liberal order works better for authoritarian
regimes than it does for liberal democracies. Authoritarian states can curtail the
effect on their populations of international civil society, multinational corporations,
economic flows, and even the Internet much more effectively than can liberal
democracies. Authoritarians can use the freedom of global flows—as afforded by
liberal policies, whether economic or political—to advance their own illiberal
influence. They do so while variously interdicting, excluding, and controlling

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cross-national flows of ideas, organizations, information, and money that might
threaten their hold on power.

THE AUTHORITARIAN ADVANTAGE

The openness of liberal countries—one of the core principles of such societies—
has become a liability. A fundamental problem confronting U.S. policymakers—
and one that is especially challenging to those whose assumptions were shaped
by governing during the 1990s and early years of this century, when the United
States exercised hegemony—is the adeptness with which illiberal states and
political movements exploit an open and interconnected global system.

Openness is not producing a more liberal global media and information

environment; authoritarians build barriers to Western media in their own
countries while using access to Western platforms to advance their own
agendas. For example, authoritarian states now enjoy expanded media access to
the democratic world. State-run global media outlets, such as China‘s CGTN and
Russia‘s RT, receive billions of dollars in government support and maintain a
plethora of foreign bureaus and correspondents, including in Western
democracies—even as authoritarian regimes increasingly exclude Western
media. China expelled BBC correspondents and banned the British network from
broadcasting in the country in 2021 for its coverage of abuses in Xinjiang.

Similarly, authoritarian-sponsored organizations and lobbying groups continue

their activities within open societies even as countries such as China and Russia
ban Western officials, academics, and think tankers. Contemporary autocrats are
image conscious. They use new technologies and social media platforms to
shape their global profiles and elevate their standing with both domestic and
international audiences. They routinely contract the services of public relations
firms in the West, which portray their clients as popular at home, emphasize their
geostrategic importance, and whitewash histories of repression and corruption.
Autocrats also attempt to influence policymakers in liberal democracies by
funding think tanks and sponsoring ―study tours‖ and other junkets. Reputation
management firms—retained by illiberal governments and oligarchs from
autocracies—carefully scan global media and threaten litigation to dissuade
negative coverage and deter investigations.

Digital technologies enable new instruments of domestic and transnational

repression. They have allowed the security services of both powerful countries
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(such as China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey) and weaker ones (such as
Belarus, Rwanda, and Tajikistan) to intensify campaigns to monitor, intimidate,
and silence political opponents in exile and activists in diaspora communities—
even those residing in countries normally considered safe havens, such as
Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. As a recent investigation
into the Israeli technology company NSO Group and its Pegasus spyware
highlighted, authoritarian governments engage in extensive digital surveillance of
dissidents and journalists from other countries, often with the aid of corporations
based in democratic states.

Western technology companies were once self-proclaimed champions of

openness. Now, many are capitulating to pressures from their host countries to
remove content and tools that could be used to facilitate mobilization against the
regime. Just prior to the parliamentary elections in Russia in September 2021,
the Kremlin convinced Apple and Google to remove an application developed by
supporters of the jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny that was designed to
help coordinate the opposition vote. Navalny accused the technology giants of
acting as the Kremlin‘s ―accomplices.‖

International institutions are also bending to the will of authoritarians. China

under the leadership of President Xi Jinping has aggressively sought to curtail
criticism of the country in UN human rights forums. According to the advocacy
group Human Rights Watch, Beijing has sought to ―neutralize the ability of that
system to hold any government accountable for serious human rights violations.‖
Authoritarian states have banded together in coalitions such as the Like-Minded
Group to oppose criticism of the human rights practices of individual countries,
privilege state sovereignty, and block the accreditation of NGOs and diminish
their role in authorized UN processes, such as the Universal Periodic Review.
China now leads four UN agencies and has pushed for its preferred leadership
candidates in others, including the World Health Organization. In September, the
World Bank Group canceled its influential ―Doing Business‖ annual study after an
external investigative report found that its leaders, for political reasons, had
applied ―undue pressure‖ on their staff to improve China‘s position in the 2018
ranking.

Not only can authoritarian states operate freely in the universalist institutions of
the liberal international order, but they are also constructing an ecosystem of
alternative ordering institutions from which they exclude or significantly curtail the
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influence of liberal democracies. By founding new regional economic and
security organizations, China and Russia can press home their regional agendas
via institutions that openly reject the dissemination of political liberal norms and
values, use those institutions to help organize illiberal blocs within more
venerable international organizations, and maintain exit options should liberal
ordering institutions become less welcoming to authoritarians.

THE ROT WITHIN

The threat to liberal democracies also comes from within. The liberal order is
anchored by two large federations: the United States and the European Union.
Both are also home to some of the most potent and potentially consequential
forces of illiberalism. These assume, broadly speaking, two forms: the illiberal
actions that liberal democratic governments themselves take in seeking to
counter perceived threats and the antidemocratic forces seen in illiberal political
movements, parties, and politicians.

Democratic governments have always grappled with tradeoffs between liberty

and security, and liberalism has always faced dilemmas about how far to tolerate
illiberal actors. The U.S. government condoned the subnational racial
authoritarianism of Jim Crow and racial segregation for the majority of the
twentieth century, with horrific consequences. U.S. national security policy after
9/11 contributed to the current crisis of the liberal order by, among other things,
promulgating the doctrine of preemptive war and militarizing democracy
promotion. The United States‘ embrace of speculative capitalism and its overly
financed economy made it the epicenter of the 2008 financial crisis. Most
recently, the global pandemic has normalized tighter border controls and more
restrictive immigration policies and undermined the legitimacy of protections for
refugees.

In order to push back against illiberal forces, most notably China, democratic
governments have adopted policies that cut against the openness that
characterizes the contemporary liberal order. Washington has used coercive
instruments to intervene in global markets in an attempt to preserve U.S. access
to and superiority in strategically important technologies. Security concerns
related to the potential large-scale Chinese surveillance of Western
telecommunications traffic, for example, led the Trump administration to place
substantial pressure on its allies to reject Chinese 5G technology. Even many

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U.S. politicians and foreign policy officials who are, unlike Trump, committed to
market liberalism generally consider this policy a success.

Liberalism risks undermining itself.

Genuine support for broad-based economic decoupling from China remains
limited, but the growing rivalry between Beijing and Washington has produced
other, albeit partial, moves away from market liberalism in the name of
competitiveness and strategic autonomy. Stuck in the reconciliation process at
the time of this writing, the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act is the first
significant bipartisan legislation in years to embrace national industrial policy. In
this respect, it represents a very limited reversal of the open liberalism, or
neoliberalism, of the post–Cold War period.

The neoliberal variant of market liberalism—the push, starting in the 1970s,

toward ever-greater deregulation, privatization, and capital mobility—eroded
social protections and increased inequality, including by dramatically refashioning
the tax code to benefit high-income earners and U.S. corporations. But instead of
reversing these policies, many U.S. politicians prefer to place the blame on
Chinese trade practices. Maintaining tariffs on Chinese goods appeals to populist
sentiments and benefits a limited number of workers in industries that compete
against Chinese imports, such as steel. But the harm it inflicts on export
industries and consumers is greater. So far, the tariffs do not seem to have
produced a new, better trading arrangement with China.

Efforts to grapple with homegrown antidemocratic forces also threaten to

undermine liberal norms and values. In the United States, liberals and
progressives have called for changes in procedural rules to prevent democratic
backsliding. They champion taking an aggressive stance against right-wing
militias and paramilitary organizations, stacking the Supreme Court with liberal
judges, and abandoning long-standing legislative practices, such as the filibuster.
When overtly illiberal regimes take these same measures, observers rightly
accuse them of undermining democracy.

The fact remains that liberal democracies do face very real threats from the rise
of reactionary populism, conservative authoritarianism, and other antidemocratic
movements. In the United States, one of the two major political parties remains
beholden to an authoritarian demagogue. Motivated by the ―Big Lie‖ (the
objectively false claim that Democrats stole the election from Trump through
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systematic voter fraud), the Republican Party is purging officials who stood in the
way of efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Republican voter-
suppression efforts are accelerating. Extreme gerrymandering has already made
some states—such as Maryland, North Carolina, and Wisconsin—de facto
legislative anocracies, or systems of governance that mix democratic and
autocratic features. If these trends continue, procedural changes may prove to be
the only way to prevent the unraveling of democracy in the United States.

CULTURE WARS AND POWER POLITICS

More broadly, liberalism risks undermining itself. At the heart of contemporary
political liberalism lies the belief that certain rights and values are universal—that
they exist regardless of differences among countries, cultures, or historical
backgrounds. The human rights treaty system embraces this understanding;
signatory states commit to protecting specific rights, such as due process, and to
refraining from particular violations of human rights, such as torture.

The expansion of liberal rights in recent decades, however, has fueled a growing
backlash. The Obama administration‘s effort to promote LGBTQ rights abroad,
usually through the State Department, sparked anger among conservatives in
countries as different as the Czech Republic and Uganda. The sprawl of
contemporary liberal values—from LGBTQ rights to gender equality to the rights
of migrants—invites pushback in both democratic and nondemocratic states. It
provides illiberal politicians with opportunities to isolate specific liberal values and
use them as wedge issues against their opponents.

Moscow, perhaps inadvertently, succeeded in casting itself as a beacon of

traditional values through a campaign to demonize LGBTQ rights as a stalking-
horse for child sexual abuse. There is nothing particularly novel about this kind of
strategy. What is notable is how it has become transnational and, in so doing,
has served as a basis for illiberal policies in other countries. Such wedge
strategies are also used to undermine support in the international community for
reformers by tying them to illiberal values. For example, Amnesty International
briefly revoked Navalny‘s ―prisoner of conscience‖ status following a Kremlin-
backed information campaign that highlighted xenophobic comments he had
made in the past about Central Asian migrants.

The point is not that the United States should retreat from making LGBTQ rights
part of its foreign policy or that Navalny‘s alarming views on Central Asian
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migrants are of no consequence. It is that in advancing liberal rights,
policymakers have to navigate significant tradeoffs, inconsistencies, and
contention.

This extends beyond matters of democracy promotion and civil rights. The Biden
administration has correctly declared corruption to be a national security risk. But
anticorruption measures will inspire blowback that also poses a national security
concern. Aggressive measures will threaten politically connected oligarchs in
Europe and elsewhere. Corrupt autocrats are likely to see a number of anti-
kleptocracy efforts, such as expanding diligence requirements for service
providers and prohibiting foreign officials from accepting bribes, as a serious
threat to their regimes and will rally their publics against these new forms of
―domestic interference.‖ Important steps for conserving liberalism, even
defensive ones, will generate pushback against the liberal order—and not just
from overseas. Anticorruption measures threaten a wide range of U.S. politicians,
businesspeople, and consultants. In recent years, and especially after the 2016
election, such measures have become another source of partisan polarization.

REACTIONARIES WITHOUT BORDERS

That polarization is not a discrete national phenomenon. U.S. reactionary
populism is a specific manifestation of a global trend. The international popularity
of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban among right-wing commentators,
ethnonationalist leaders, and conservative celebrities (particularly American
ones) highlights the transnational character of illiberal networks. Orban—whom
the Biden administration noticeably did not invite to the planned Summit for
Democracy in December—has emerged as a media darling of the American
right: a head of state who denounces the power of the philanthropist George
Soros, touts anti-immigration policies, and champions traditional values.

The Conservative Political Action Conference—a major forum of the American

right—plans to hold its 2022 annual meeting in Hungary. The Fox News host
Tucker Carlson—arguably the single most influential conservative media
personality in the United States—spent a week in Hungary in the summer of
2021 to interview Orban, praise his government, and tell his audience that
Hungary is a model democracy. Carlson echoed Orban‘s vision of a world in
deep cultural crisis, with the fate of Western civilization supposedly in the
balance; that perceived peril is the glue that unites the transnational right.

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The guardrails designed to ward off illiberalism have failed.

Orban consolidated power through tactics that were procedurally legal but, in
substance, undercut the rule of law. He stacked the courts with partisans and
pressured, captured, or shut down independent media. Orban‘s open assault on
academic freedom—including banning gender studies and evicting the Central
European University from Hungary—finds analogies in current right-wing efforts
in Republican-controlled states to ban the teaching of critical race theory and
target liberal and left-wing academics.

The guardrails designed to ward off illiberalism have failed. The political scientist
R. Daniel Kelemen, for example, points to how the EU, a supposed paragon of
liberal democratic norms, did essentially nothing to prevent authorities in
Hungary and Poland from incrementally weakening their democracies. The
European Parliament institutes regionwide party groupings that effectively shield
anti-EU parties, such as Hungary‘s Fidesz and Poland‘s Law and Justice party,
from sanction. The common European labor market allows political opponents
and disgruntled citizens to leave by simply relocating to other European
countries, weakening the battle against illiberal policies at home.

These dynamics are not, in fact, all that different from those at play in the U.S.
federal system: the courts shield antidemocratic practices such as extreme
gerrymandering and targeted voter suppression, and some Republican-controlled
states have enacted laws designed to let legislatures intervene in local election
oversight under the pretense of preventing fraud. Many of those Republican
officials who have become alarmed at the party‘s sharp authoritarian turn have
done little or nothing in response for fear of personal political repercussions or of
damaging the party‘s electoral prospects.

The elevation of Orban by American right-wing intellectuals and television hosts

is a high-profile illustration of how the dense interconnections that form the core
of the liberal order can facilitate the rise of antidemocratic movements. Another is
the membership of Eduardo Bolsonaro, one of the sons of Brazilian President
Jair Bolsonaro, in a nationalist group founded by the U.S. reactionary populist
Steve Bannon. Dark money from the United States underwrites illiberal parties
and movements abroad. At the same time, kleptocrats launder funds into U.S.
bank accounts, real estate, and even politics. This stokes populism in the United
States via its corrupting influence. Many oligarchs and kleptocrats see the
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patrimonial governing style of reactionary populists such as Trump as supportive
of their interests and so are happy to support them in any way they can. Russian
financing, often funneled through Kremlin-affiliated oligarchs, subsidizes right-
wing and culturally conservative organizations in Europe and North America with
the aim of undermining the liberal order.

As fissures widen in many ostensibly liberal democracies, a U.S. foreign policy

aimed at defending liberal democracy will require the Biden administration—or
any future Democratic administration—to take sides in the domestic politics of
allied, democratic, and semidemocratic countries. When the Obama
administration tried this approach, its efforts were haphazard and ineffectual. The
Biden administration has notably refrained, at least publicly, from leveraging
Trump-era security commitments to Poland to pressure the ruling Law and
Justice party on the country‘s democratic backsliding.

The Trump administration, on the other hand, openly endorsed illiberal right-wing
governments in Hungary and Poland; it is possible that Trump‘s efforts to support
Andrzej Duda in the 2020 Polish presidential election helped him eke out a win
over the more liberal Rafal Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw. Neither the
Trump administration nor the Trump-appointed ambassador to Hungary pressed
Orban to reverse his decision in 2018 to evict the Central European University—
established with money from George Soros—despite the fact that the university
represented the largest single U.S. investment in higher education in post–Cold
War Europe.

There is no question that a U.S. president who more openly and substantively
aligns with center-right, center-left, and liberal parties overseas will risk further
politicizing American foreign relations—most notably with respect to the broad
transatlantic agenda that still commands support from influential Republicans.
But as is the case with many of the dilemmas created by rising illiberalism, trying
to avoid further politicizing this or polarizing that means, in practice, handing a
substantial advantage to illiberal forces.

ECHOES OF HISTORY
For many, this peculiar moment in the international order augurs the coming of a
new cold war, driven by an intensifying rivalry between Beijing and Washington.
But a better, albeit still strained, historical analogy can be found in the ―Twenty
Years‘ Crisis‖—the fraught period between World War I and World War II when
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democracies faced multiple pressures, including the Great Depression,
reactionary conservatism, revolutionary socialism, and growing international
tensions.

Liberal democracies appeared rudderless, internally divided, and generally

incapable of rising to the challenge. They struggled to adapt to globalizing
technological forces, including new means of mass communication that illiberal
forces could use adroitly to their advantage. International migration stoked
nativism. Illiberal policies and ideas were on the global offensive, spreading
through old and new democracies alike. The late 1920s and early 1930s saw
democratic powers—France, the United Kingdom, and the United States—do
little to block the rise of fascism abroad or prevent the slide of fledgling
democracies into conservative authoritarianism.

To defend liberal democracy, Washington will need to pick sides in the domestic
politics of other countries.
The United States finds itself in a not entirely dissimilar position today.
Republicans spent the 2020 presidential campaign calling the Democratic Party
―communist‖ and associating their rivals with authoritarian capitalist China; right-
wing media claim that Beijing is implicated in many of their favorite bête noires,
including critical race theory. For their part, Democrats tied Republicans, and
especially Trump, to the far-right ideology of white nationalism and invoked the
specter of extremist militias and other domestic militant groups. U.S.
policymakers struggle to pursue a coherent and effective foreign policy in
defense of the liberal order for the simple reason that the American public is
fundamentally divided.

This historical parallel even provides some limited grounds for optimism. The
standard story holds that the vast spending program of the New Deal made
liberal democracy attractive again; President Franklin Roosevelt transformed the
United States into an ―arsenal of democracy.‖ The United States, together with its
allies, defeated Germany, Italy, and Japan on the land and the sea and in the
skies. This comprehensive defeat, as well as the ample publicity given to the
atrocities committed by the Axis powers, left fascism discredited and stigmatized.

Biden seems to favor this analogy. In his domestic policy, he has attempted his
own version of the New Deal through a combination of several significant
spending bills, including the American Rescue Plan, the Infrastructure Investment
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and Jobs Act, and one other infrastructure bill—which was in limbo at the time of
this writing. In his foreign policy, Biden wants to build a coalition of democracies
under U.S. leadership to meet the challenge of rising illiberalism and especially to
oppose Chinese and Russian efforts to reconstruct the international order along
more autocratic lines. The White House hopes that the meeting of leaders in
forums such as the Summit for Democracy will bolster this initiative.

ON WHOSE TERMS?
The odds, however, are not in the administration‘s favor. The United States
remains the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world, but China is
challenging the United States‘ influence over the international order—and will
continue to do so even if its dramatic rise tapers into stagnation. Washington is
reaping the costs of two decades of failures in the Middle East and Central Asia.
The United States burned through truly staggering sums of money in those failed
overseas entanglements, ultimately purchasing the breakdown of U.S. hegemony
in the Middle East and the total collapse of its nation-building project in
Afghanistan.

But the domestic front should be even more worrisome for the United States. The
two parties may muddle through and avoid tanking U.S. liberal democracy—no
small achievement considering Republican actions in the wake of the 2020
presidential election. There remains, however, the overwhelming crush of intense
political polarization, hyperpartisan scorched-earth tactics, and legislative
gridlock. These ills have generated a host of further problems. Both U.S. allies
and U.S. rivals are acutely aware that any agreement they make with the United
States may not outlive the sitting administration. The U.S. Senate cannot ratify
treaties for the foreseeable future, which limits Washington‘s ability to attempt
significant reforms of the international order, including exercising consistent
leadership on matters such as climate change.

After 30 years of worsening political polarization and dysfunction in the country,

the U.S. foreign policy establishment has failed to reckon with this reality. Some
acknowledge that promoting liberal democracy is now a less relevant priority than
preventing democratic backsliding. But such policy debates still do not address
the likelihood that the next administration will reverse any new policy, whether
the consequences of such a reversal would be better or worse than never
enacting a new policy in the first place, or how a new policy might be adjusted to
make it harder to undo.
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The United States cannot contemplate defeating its current authoritarian
challengers in a total war.

Rather than openly confronting this reliability problem, foreign policy analysts
float the idea, explicitly or implicitly, that a specific approach—to managing U.S.
relations with China, for instance, or to international trade—will be the one that
magically provides the basis for a new, bipartisan consensus. But this puts the
cart before the horse. If Americans could forge a broadly shared understanding
of international threats and an agreement about the purpose of U.S. foreign
policy, then there wouldn‘t be a serious domestic political crisis to solve in the
first place.

A daunting set of problems resides within the structure of the liberal order itself.
The current arrangement is too rife with tensions, too internally fragmented, and
too asymmetrically vulnerable. In order to survive, the liberal order will have to
change.

U.S. officials who sincerely wish to defend the liberal order will need to choose
sides, both domestically and in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. In doing so,
they will blur the distinction between liberal and illiberal practices. They will need
to break domestic norms, such as not modifying the size and jurisdiction of the
federal judiciary because of its ideological disposition. They will also need to
back away from post–Cold War norms, such as limiting favoritism toward political
factions in and among major democratic allies. And they will need to do so with
the clear understanding that these actions could backfire and provide rhetorical
cover for illiberal and antidemocratic practices at home and abroad.

On the economic front, both Democrats and Republicans seem willing to sacrifice
some amount of openness, but with very different ends in mind. Fortunately,
most of the steps required to conserve the liberal order—such as clamping down
on the flow of foreign kleptocratic money into the United States—would deal
significant blows to external illiberal forces, even if they‘re conceptualized as
domestic policies.

Grappling with domestic illiberal threats remains a thorny exercise. Of course, the
defense of liberal democracy has produced terrible excesses in the past,
including ugly repression and horrific violence. U.S. officials adopted decidedly
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illiberal policies during the Red Scare that followed World War I, when the
specter of Bolshevism loomed large. In trying to stem the rising right-wing
extremist tide today, the United States risks returning to those dark times. But the
alternative of inaction—Western liberalism‘s failure to beat back fascism in the
1930s—remains a dangerous prospect.

History is an imperfect guide. Fascism was defeated—at least for a time—on the
battlefields of World War II. Had Hitler been less interested in military conquest,
fascist states might be a perfectly normal part of the current global landscape.
The Soviet Union, for its part, collapsed because of a combination of the
inefficiencies of its command economy, nationalist pressures, and policy choices
that turned out very poorly.

The United States cannot really contemplate defeating its current authoritarian
challengers in a total war, as that would likely produce a catastrophic nuclear
exchange. Its most important authoritarian challenger, China, is a totally different
kind of polity than the Soviet Union was. China is wealthy and relatively dynamic,
and although it has its share of structural problems, it is not abundantly clear that
its shortcomings are any worse than those of the United States.

In short, neither of the historical routes to the ideological victory of liberalism

seems likely. This means that liberal democracies really do need to assume that
they will not retake the catbird seat of the international order anytime soon. And
so the question becomes not whether the liberal order will change but on whose
terms.

Source: Published in Foreign Affairs

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Will the World Recognise Taliban Rule? By
Kamran Yousaf
Last week, the UN Security Council passed a unanimous resolution allowing
humanitarian aid and other assistance for the people of Afghanistan. The US-
backed move was to find a way of reaching out to the people of Afghanistan
without violating the UNSC sanctions regime against the Afghan Taliban. The
resolution passed on Wednesday states that ―payment of funds, other financial
assets or economic resources, and the provision of goods and services
necessary to ensure the timely delivery of such assistance or to support such
activities are permitted‖. Such assistance supports ―basic human needs in
Afghanistan‖ and is ―not a violation‖ of sanctions imposed on entities linked to the
Taliban, it adds.

The US government separately also announced measures that would help

address the liquidity crunch facing the Afghan private banks. The move came
against the backdrop of desperate appeals by international aid agencies
including the UN to prevent humanitarian catastrophe. Martin Griffiths, the UN
relief chief, at a recently held extraordinary session of the OIC presented a grim
picture of the Afghan situation. As per the details, nearly 23 million Afghans are
facing food shortage, millions of children are at the risk of malnutrition and if
urgent help is not reached 97 per cent of the Afghan population could slip below
the poverty line by June next year.

Despite a whopping $2.3 trillion spent by the US and its allies in the last 20
years, Afghanistan‘s economy is on the verge of collapse. The US has withheld
$9.5 billion worth of Afghan central bank assets. The OIC foreign ministers in
their joint declaration urged the US to unfreeze those assets but the US is
reluctant to pay heed to such calls as one official claimed that the funds were
frozen because of ongoing court proceedings back in the US.

Nevertheless, the latest UNSC resolution would give some relief to the people of
Afghanistan. But Pakistan and other like-minded countries feel that providing aid
to Afghan citizens may be a short-term measure and in the long run steps have
to be taken to revive the Afghan economy. A senior Pakistani official dealing with
Afghanistan told me recently that more than the food shortage it was the lack of

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job opportunities and business activities that were causing problems to the
people of Afghanistan. The official said with the exit of the US from Afghanistan,
the entire financial and banking system there had collapsed.

But can the Afghan economy be revived without formally recognising the Taliban
government? It is clear that without recognition such a revival is not possible. But
the worry is that the Taliban government is not going to be recognised anytime
soon. It is difficult because there is no consensus even within the OIC member
states about the Taliban. It was because of this reason that during the recent OIC
foreign ministers‘ meeting in Islamabad, Acting Afghan Foreign Minister Amir
Muttaqi was seated in the last row. He was not given the podium during the
opening session though he was allowed to present his government‘s perspective
during the closed-door session. He was not even invited for a group photo of the
participating countries. ―There is no appetite for the recognition of the Taliban
government at this stage,‖ admitted Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi
after the daylong meeting of OIC foreign ministers.

According to officials, many OIC members were reluctant to legitimise Taliban

rule because of the pressure from the US. Such was the pressure that even the
Saudi Foreign Minister avoided a meeting with the Afghan acting foreign minister
on the sidelines of the conference. Unless the US takes the first move, no other
country including Pakistan would formally recognise the Taliban government. ―It
will be a long process. Even Pakistan is not going to recognise them soon. It‘s a
difficult proposition,‖ the official conceded.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 27th, 2021.

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Global Trends: Possible Impact in 2022 By
Talat Masood
As the year 2021 comes to a close it is important to look at the major global and
regional events and trends that will influence the politics and economy of the
world and how these would affect our lives in the coming years.

Covid-19 will be a major challenge especially for Europe, Russia, Latin America
and Africa. China, by adopting stern measures, is expected to keep its spread
under control. Although Pakistan has been able to largely restrict its spread by
the use of vaccines, the new strain of Omicron and resurgence remain a threat.
The remarkable achievement in the field of medicine was the speed at which
vaccines had been developed by major producers and distributed globally in less
than a year.

The world is still adjusting to the adverse fallout of the pandemic on the global
economy with strategic significance for the world order. The US and most
countries suffered economic decline and are now striving to revive it, although
the impact of the new variants on global health introduces another element of
uncertainty. One country whose economy continues to fare well despite the
pandemic is China. In 2020 and 2021 its economy grew by approximately 2.5%.
This was no mean achievement and according to experts would hasten its march
to be the world‘s largest economy by 2027. Economic success and political
stability have given China the confidence to take measures to consolidate its
internal power and extend its outer reach by being more geopolitically assertive.
These tendencies were reflected in its supply of medicines and vaccines and its
handling of the territorial dispute with India and in dealing with the integration of
Hong Kong with the mainland. The US and Western countries are taking several
economic and political measures to thwart China‘s rise that have implications for
countries like Pakistan.

The spread of Covid-19 as a pandemic is a stark reminder that nations need to

prepare themselves to deal with such extraordinary challenges. Unfortunately,
instead of cooperating in fighting the pandemic at the global level and
complementing each other‘s efforts, the US and China are competing
strategically that could lead to dividing the world in different spheres of influence.

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The alternate view is that in some ways competition brings in the best and allows
less developed nations to benefit from both.

Major powers, by delivering vaccines and medicines to developing countries,

have used the spread of pandemic to strategic advantage. Claiming superiority
within the hierarchy of vaccines in terms of quality is another area of competition
between major powers. The US and Western countries grade Chinese vaccines
inferior in its effectiveness but irrespective of their claim the Chinese through
better organisation and mass vaccinations have been the most successful in
combating the pandemic.

To prevent the ill effects of climate change, China and the US ought to be
cooperating closely, but on the contrary, the same instincts of competition govern
their policies. The race for having monopoly on raw materials that are essential
components for achieving a carbon-free economy such as batteries, magnets,
etcetera has already started. The very concept of inter-dependence for promoting
global economy has been replaced by severe competition and mutual sanctions.
Countries of the developing world are under pressure for choosing one or the
other major power which is reminiscent of the Cold War era. Many major
polluters like Brazil and other Latin American, South Asian and African countries
remain indifferent to this ominous challenge.

A comprehensive approach has to be adopted in dealing with traditional and non-

traditional threats. Nonetheless, as indications are the Sino-US competition
would intensify. Perhaps it would not be as serious and conflictual as the US-
Soviet Cold War but still create sharp divisions within the international system
and place countries like Pakistan in difficult position that aims at having a
strategic partnership with China and good relations with the US. Some of the
European countries like Germany and Italy, besides being part of the Western
camp, would like to maintain mutually beneficial economic and commercial
relations with China.

The outcome of the competition between China and the US will also depend on
the stability and intrinsic strength of their political and economic systems. No
doubt, China has made remarkable progress in promoting economic progress
and political stability. It claims to have practically wiped out poverty which is an
extraordinary achievement considering that their population of over a billion
people. But will China be able to continue with its upward march in the face of the
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hostile economic and political policies of the US? Is it that easy for the US to shift
its economic focus away from China? Which alternate markets are available to it
that have the capacity for mass production and at the same cost?

The progress in the scientific and technological field and the stability of the
political systems will ultimately determine whether the US will continue to
influence and dominate the world or in a decade or so China will be a serious
rival.

Russia and China presently are focused on the stability of nations at the regional
level. China‘s interest in the stability of Pakistan is for everyone to see. Along
with Russia and Central Asian states, it is working towards promoting peace in
Afghanistan. The spillover effect from an unstable Afghanistan seriously affects
the security and economy of neighbouring countries. It is disconcerting the way
the Taliban government is treating women and confirms that they haven‘t
changed from their medieval thinking. Their policies could encourage
retrogressive elements and groups within Pakistan and neighbouring countries.
More so it would give the US and Western countries good reason to withhold aid
and recognition at the official level.

No less important is the race to dominate the space. In this, the US and Russia
will remain in the lead but China is expected to fast catch up. It is making
progress with several space-related initiatives which the US and its allies find
disconcerting. There are clear signs that space would be another area of
competition between major powers.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 29th, 2021.

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