Tag Archives: china

Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 19th November 2023 - 9:15 am

China and USA

The Sino-American goalposts have changed. Two years ago, the Chinese economy was booming and the US was struggling to emerge from a damaging coronavirus pandemic.

But as Presidents Biden and XI met in San Francisco this week the American economy was booming at 4.7 percent. The Chinese economy was reeling from a burst property bubble and government crackdowns have led to a flight of foreign capital.

When the Chinese star was in the ascendant so were the sabre-rattling “Wolf Warriors”. But the changed circumstances has led to the dismissal of bellicose foreign minister Qin Gang and last month Xi replaced Defense Minister General Li Shangu who was under US sanctions for overseeing the sale of weapons to Russia.

Beijing cannot afford poor relations with Washington at the moment. And Washington – with the problems of Ukraine, Gaza and forthcoming presidential elections, doesn’t want to have to worry about China. All of which could explain why the leaders of the world’s most powerful countries managed a cordial meeting in San Francisco this week.

But will it hold and can they build on it? The question is still hanging. A week before the meeting US and Chinese diplomats held a meeting to discuss each other’s nuclear arsenals. It was the first such a meeting and a good sign.

Climate change is clearly a topic to build on. It is difficult for the two biggest economies to dispute the importance of saving the planet. There are differences on how to handle fossil fuels but agreement on methane gas emissions.

A big topic in the US is opioid abuse, in particular fentanyl. A sizeable chunk of the drug is produced in Chinese laboratories and shipped to America. Last year fentanyl was responsible for 75,000 American deaths. The two leaders agreed to discuss the issue further Xi stressed that the easiest way to stop the problem would be for Americans to stop buying the drug.

Touchiest topic is Taiwan. On that Biden-Xi agreed to disagree. But they did agree to resume communications between each other’s military establishments. These were suspended after the visit to Taiwan of US Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Both sides that it was vital for the opposing militaries to talk to one another to avoid accidents. As Xi put it: “Conflict and confrontation has unbearable consequences for both sides.”

Taiwan

The potential spanner in the Sino-American diplomatic thaw is January’s presidential and parliamentary elections in Taiwan.

At the moment the Democratic People’s Party (DPP) controls both the presidency and the parliament and opinion polls show them way ahead to stay in power.

This is not good news for either Washington or Beijing. This is because the DPP is moving Taiwan to declare itself an independent sovereign nation. This is opposed by Beijing because Taiwan would then be able to offer itself as a multi-party capitalist democratic alternative to the one-party autocracy on the mainland.

The US administration would be unhappy because an independent Taiwan would undermine its policy of “strategic ambiguity” which allows it bestow de jure diplomatic recognition on communist China while enjoying de facto relations with Taiwan.

The problem is an old one. It dates back to 1949 when the Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan and claimed to represent all of China from the offshore island. Until 1979 successive American administrations agreed with him.

The unilateral independence route is not a foregone conclusion. The Kuomintang Party (KMT) is committed to watering down the independence demands and improving relations with Beijing. This week the party announced it was joining forces with the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) to fight the elections. The outcome could have far-reaching consequences.

Turkey and Germany

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 12th November 2023 - 12:00 pm

Anti-semitism

Anti–Semitism is rocketing worldwide. In London, the Metropolitan Police, reported that that incidents of anti-Semitism increased 1,350 percent since October 7. Similar figures are emerging from the US, France, Germany, the Netherlands….

This is because the Israeli government has become a symbol violent oppression and far-right intolerance based on religion.

And the sad fact is, too many people conflate Judaism with Israel. They fail to recognise that there are a sizeable number of Jews in Israel who do not support Netanyahu and there is an even larger number of Jews outside Israel who do not support his Likud-led coalition.

However, a large number of people instead wrongly believe that the actions of the Netanyahu government are a mirror reflection of the views of worldwide Jewry. This is partly because Israel was created as a homeland for Jews and all Jews have the right to citizenship in Israel.

In a way the global wave of anti-Semitism is in the interests of Netanyahu. It reinforces the view of Jews as victims and allows him to claim that he is fighting for all Jews. Otherwise, why would people be attacking innocent Jews outside Israel?

It is complicated and sad. For many years – while successive Israeli governments struggled to establish the Jewish state against the odds – the link between Israel and Judaism worked in favour of world Jewry. Now that Israel is seen by many as oppressive and undemocratic it works against then.

West Bank

Spare a thought for the West Bank. In fact, focus on it, because if you fail to do so, it may well erupt into an even more violent conflagration then what we are seeing in Gaza.

The West Bank, unlike Gaza, is not under the control of Hamas. It is nominally controlled by the Palestinian Authority which in turn is controlled by the remnants of the PLO. In reality, however, security on the West Bank is in the hands of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) which means Israel controls the West Bank.

Eighty-two percent of the West Bank’s residents are Palestinians. The remainder are Jews. They are illegal because since 1967 the international community has refused to recognise Israeli sovereignty over the territory and branded most of the Jewish settlements as illegal.

There are an estimated 600,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Most of them are Orthodox Jews who claim the land as part of God’s contract with the Jews.

As the number of Illegal settlers have increased so have demands that the West Bank (Judea and Samaria of the Old Testament) be formally annexed. To help matters along, some settlers have taken to attacking Palestinian settlements, driving them out of their homes and, in some cases, murdering them.

Some members of the current Israeli cabinet are, in fact, illegal West Bank settlers. One of them, Itamar Ben-Gvir, is responsible for security issues. He has been seen in recent weeks handing out guns to settlers on the West Bank.

Since 7 October the settlers have increased their attacks on West Bank Palestinians partly because they see an opportunity and partly to pre-empt retribution by West Bank Palestinians in support for their countrymen trapped in Gaza. According to the UN, nearly 200 Palestinians have been killed in settler attacks since 7 October. The UN adds that the Israeli army has done nothing to stop the attacks.

There is little that West Bank Palestinians can do in response. There have been demonstrations in Ramallah, Hebron or Nablus, but security is tightly controlled by the Palestinian Authority working in conjunction with the Israeli military. For the moment they have a lid on the security situation. But then, they thought they had a lid on Gaza.

USA Republican Party

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Yue He Parkinson

Don’t take freedom for granted

By Yue He Parkinson | Fri 6th October 2023 - 10:03 am

I attended the fringe meeting titled “Is International Liberalism dying? Persuading the world that the future is liberal” in the Autumn conference. One panel member expressed a sentence like this: “The reason the Global South countries are not cooperative with the West is so-called Liberal Imperialism.”

Coming from one of Global South countries – China – 19 years ago, I knew different answers, which could be the more realistic ones, yet have rarely been noticed by the West. Thanks to Rachel Smith’s encouragement, I raised my hand up for the first time in this conference, and got the attention of host Christine Jardine MP, to ask: “I am a British Chinese. I took 18 years to learn what freedom is after I moved here in 2004. The West has taken freedom for granted, my question is – Do the South counties who don’t know much about freedom have rights to pursue global fairness? ”

There were a few of the audience who gave me applause, yet stopped immediately, because of no more echoes.  My question didn’t get well received from the panels, the one who answered my question said: “Your question is not what we are talking about.” Yet from what I have seen, her attitude was exactly the problem – Western have taken democracy and freedom for granted.

When I studied International Relations at the University of Bristol, there are two major theories – Realism and Liberalism. The latter is based on the principle of individual liberalism in our party,  and was the leading theory representing then global positive cooperation atmosphere, economic globalization. I didn’t know Lib Dems then and thought Brits were all liberals. I corrected myself this year as I finally realized Labour and Tory both borrowed the idea of liberalism from the Lib Dems. We are the true liberals.

I am a different liberal though. I remember the first year I was in the UK;  a few Brits asked me a question: ‘’Why doesn’t China have democracy?’’. The attitude was like ‘”how come you don’t have such a easy political system?”. I spent my first 30 years in China before I immigrated to the UK. I have always known how impossible it is to have freedom in China. Sometimes people asked: ‘’Why don’t your people fight?’’. I was speechless, at that time I was equipped with a 1.0 generation (1.0 G) of immigrants’ mindset (Mainland Chinese mindset, I set Brits’ mindset as 2.0 G), had never been educated about civil society, never known what human rights are truly about,  let alone known about campaign action, all of which took me about 20 years to learn, until today.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Not So Evergrande

By Tom Arms | Sat 30th September 2023 - 7:55 am

Uncertainty – political and economic – is the buzzword doing the rounds as the world faces the imminent collapse of Chinese property giant Evergrande.

And the market – in fact everyone – hates uncertainty.

No one knows how the secretive Communist Party leader Xi Jinping will react. Will he take the view that Evergrande is too big to fail or too big to save?

What will be the reaction of the millions of Chinese who are set to lose the money they gave to Evergrande and Country Garden (the other Chinese property company on the brink of collapse) for unfinished homes?

Will the problem of Chinese homelessness, high youth unemployment (currently running at 21.3 percent) and slow recovery from Covid create social unrest? And if it does, past performance indicates that Xi would respond with increased repression.

Can the ruling Chinese Communist Party escape the political consequences of its high-growth policies by shifting blame onto the shoulders of the companies’ management?

Evergrande’s debts total $300 billion. Country Garden’s liabilities are estimated at another $100 billion. Between them they directly employ more than 250,000 workers. Indirectly, millions of jobs will be impacted in industries servicing the property market.

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Yue He Parkinson

Given the Chinese spy issues, should I, a Chinese immigrant, pursue a political career in the UK?

By Yue He Parkinson | Thu 28th September 2023 - 10:58 am

After the release of the news last week of Conservative candidates dropped after the MI5 warned they could be Chinese spies, I paused my application to be a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (PPC).

I was shocked and scared. If the political atmosphere is moving to the extreme right wing, I could be a victim for two reasons: my Chinese-immigrant background, and the definition of a spy – the line between influencing British Chinese policy and freedom of speech is getting blurred.

Since I have started to speak the truth about what happened in China from 2022, I have made a really hard decision – not to go back to China to visit my mother, who survived a stroke in 2018, because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is catching foreign spies (which can be defined as “any excuse”). I worried I would disappear in a Chinese airport without any charges, which is normal in China. Now I need to worry if I am safe in the UK. Is the UK still a free land?

Before the Golden Era of UK-SINO relations finished, getting involved in British politics before 2019 was taken as a positive sign for Chinese immigrants who were born and educated in China. Three were encouraged and chosen by the Tory party to stand in the general elections in 2015, 2017 or 2019. Yet now, it’s extremely hard for any Chinese immigrant, not only to become a party member, but also to stand in a local election; furthermore, to be a PPC – a legal position to stand in the general election.

As far as I know, I am the only person from China who is seeking a PPC position. There are three reasons why I am doing this:

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 24th September 2023 - 9:51 am

Ukraine

Ukraine has approximately 30 days before the autumn/winter rains bring their counter-offensive to a muddy halt.

To date they appear to have broken through the first line of a three-line Russian defense in an area around Bakhmut and Zaporizhzhia. There is an outside possibility they can achieve a major breach, but that is highly unlikely.

There is more depressing news for Ukrainian troops. For a start the bromance between Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un will keep the Russian troops supplied with artillery shells to help keep the advancing Ukrainians at bay.

Then there are problems with Poland. Up until this week the Poles have been a driving force behind EU and NATO support for Ukraine. But Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki – with one eye on the farming vote and next month’s general election – has stopped military supplies to Ukraine because Ukrainian grain is driving down Polish wheat prices.

Poland has the support of Slovakia and Hungary and wants EU-wide restrictions on the import of Ukrainian grain. The Ukrainians, of course, are exporting their grain to EU countries because the Russian blockade makes it impossible for them to ship it to their usual customers in the Middle East and Africa.

The next problem is signs that US support is waning. This week Volodomyr Zelensky turned up in Washington to assure American lawmakers that Ukraine is slowly but surely winning. President Biden responded with a $325 million military aid package. Zelensky also has the support of the leadership in both the Senate and House of Representatives. But a group of far-right Republican Trump supporters are threatening to block a financial package which includes an extra $24 billion in aid to Ukraine.

And then, finally, there is the fact that Trump has pledged to stop military aid to Ukraine if he is elected in 2024.

France

It has taken seven years, but it looks as if the investigation of France’s right-wing leader Marine Le Pen may end up in court.

She and 23 members of Her Rassemblement National – including her father Jean-Marine Le Pen – are accused of misuse of EU funds. They allegedly used a total of about $620,000 of money which was meant to be spent on EU administration to fund party activities.

The accusation comes from the Paris Prosecutor’s office and still has to be confirmed by the prosecuting judges. But it seems highly likely that that is a formality.

If she is found guilty, Marine Le Pen faces the possibility of a $1 million fine, 10 years in jail, and a 10-year ban on holding public office. Her conviction would have a major impact on the French and European political landscape.

According to the Paris Prosecutor, Ms Le Pen spent $45,000 of EU funds to pay her personal bodyguard. On another occasion she is alleged to have diverted EU funds to pay for a meeting to discuss party activities and hung an EU flag outside the meeting room. When the meeting started she told party members “take that s**t down.”

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George Cunningham

The UK needs to be a lot smarter to challenge the rise of authoritarian regimes

By George Cunningham | Thu 21st September 2023 - 6:08 pm

Chinese President Xi told President Putin at their summit in Moscow this year: “Right now, there are changes, the likes of which we have not seen for 100 years. And we are the ones driving these changes together”.

Repressive regimes – such as China’s under the CCP, Russia, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and others – are linking up. Democracies around the world are being subverted. War is raging in Ukraine. China and Russia are in cahoots together, in particular enlisting many developing countries from the Global South to their cause through their disinformation and misinformation campaigns.

That’s why the FCC has agreed that I propose an amendment to the F23 pre-manifesto motion on behalf of the Federal International Relations Committee (FIRC) which calls for the UK to have a comprehensive strategy to challenge regimes such as that led by the CCP in China. My article in the latest Liberator gives the full background.

I also support FIRC’s emergency motion on China to be selected at the ballot for debate at autumn conference.  

Back in 2019, the European Commission was already calling China a “systemic rival”. This summer, President Xi’s intentions became even clearer when he boycotted the G20 summit, which unites major developed and developing economies, in favour of posing as the leader of the beginnings of an alternative world economic system at the BRICS summit as well as lobbying the Global South at the G77+China summit of 135 developing countries.

China’s new Global Development, Security and Civilisation Initiatives say that China’s development model shorn of human rights is more suitable for developing countries, that Western military alliances are a threat to world peace and that criticising the CCP is a racist assault on the Chinese people.

As many authoritarian governments grow wealthier, and the West’s clout weakens, an urgent new approach is needed if the post-Western global order for human rights and the rule of law is to remain centre-stage.

What Must We Do?

This party believes that the UK must always stand on the side of democracy, human rights, international law and multilateralism.

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David Chalmers

China – national security threat?

By David Chalmers | Thu 21st September 2023 - 4:48 pm

I first visited Hong Kong in the summer of 1989, a few weeks after the massacre in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.  At the time the people of Hong Kong feared for their future, whilst the rest of the world considered how to deal with a regime prepared to shoot its own people to remain in power.  Over the next decades I would come to work and live in China, receiving the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in 2002 for developing the Economist’s business in China.   Whilst recognising that we were dealing with an autocratic state and rightly concerned at its human rights record, we considered that by engaging with China – and in my case helping Chinese businesses align their commercial practices with those of the West – we were helping to create a new partner in the global world order.

However, since Xi Jinping’s ascent to power over a decade ago, things have gone backwards. Instead of a partner China is increasingly setting itself up as an adversary to the West, set on undermining the liberal world order.  Within our own liberal family, some condemn our engagement back then with China – arguing that we should have foreseen what was coming.  On a recent trip to Berlin, I met up with an old friend who at one time ran the business operations of Siemens in China.    I asked him for his thoughts on whether we had got it so wrong back then.    He defended our actions, but with our knowledge now of China’s recent behaviour, we cannot carry on with business as normal.  Germany that has invested 10 times more in China than the UK and therefore has much more to lose, is having to face some tough decisions.

In recent years we have seen the Chinese Communist Party CCP prepared to resort to ever more extreme measures to maintain its grip on power.   In its repressive treatment of the Uighurs in Xinjiang – classed by many as genocide – to its crushing of Hong Kong’s civil liberties, to the oppression of civil society in mainland China itself – it has become ever more autocratic.  In today’s Hong Kong commemorating the victims of Tiananmen Square in public – a major public event up until only a few years ago – will now land you in jail.  People are afraid to criticise the government even in the privacy of their own homes. The CCP has clamped down on activities within China itself that it feels unable to control.  Shanghai Pride – an amazing weeklong celebration attracting thousands of LGBT people from across China – was closed down last year.  It’s main organiser having to flee the country or face arrest.  A similar fate has brought thousands of Hong Kongers to live in the UK.

And in our battle with Putin’s Russia which is primarily aimed at stopping the spread of liberal democracy, where Ukraine is the front line – China has aligned itself with Russia.  We should be under no illusion that should Russia succeed in its plan, that the invasion of Taiwan will be next on China’s agenda.

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Robert Harrison

Was your car made using slave labour?

By Robert Harrison | Mon 18th September 2023 - 12:27 pm

Last week European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyden, announced a probe into China’s electric vehicle industry which apparently have benefitted from massive state subsidies. But it’s not only such subsidies that should worry us – production in the Chinese car industry ignores human rights and climate change, and the European car industry is complicit.

The global shift in manufacturing from Europe and North America to Asia has been well-documented. As factories have closed in the UK and the EU, the same companies have built up their manufacturing capability in China as well as trained and created a network of …

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Yue He Parkinson

The more isolated the CCP is, the fewer human rights Chinese people have

By Yue He Parkinson | Thu 31st August 2023 - 3:44 pm

We liberals have promoted internationalism, yet recently we are in a dilemma – how to cope with China? If we isolate the China government their people are going to suffer from their government and our China policies.

The West is gradually finding a realistic way to cope with China. Not only is China’s help  needed in areas such as climate change and economic instability, but also Chinese people’s human rights will be protected by the non-isolation of China from the West. Their human rights have rapidly gone down to nearly zero: they can only follow the CCP’s orders, but no rights to speak truth, to complain, no way to escape when the economy is going downhill.

I was born, educated, and worked in China before I studied in University of Bristol in 2004. It took me about 20 years to understand democracy, human rights and freedom which are absent in China. My life in two countries told me one truth: British and Chinese society share nearly nothing in common, the conversations between the two counties are very much like Chicken-Duck talk (Chinese slang, means no way to understand each other).

I keep in close touch with my Chinese friends every day. I have watched their life getting worse and worse since Covid-19, but it’s impossible to get my observations published in Western media who require evidence and data.

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Caron Lindsay

Vince Cable: The net zero consensus is over

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 30th August 2023 - 9:50 am

How do you save the planet when we no longer agree on key measures to save the planet? These questions are posed by Vince Cable in his latest column for Comment Central. As Vince often does, he poses questions that some Liberal Democrats will find difficult, particularly in relation to North Sea Oil licences and relations with China.

Consensus between the parties is key to making long term plans to save the planet, he argues.

He sets out how far the Conservatives have fallen on climate change:

It was Margaret Thatcher who originally embraced the global warming issue and wider environmental stewardship and who demonstrated by championing the Montreal Protocol on the Ozone Layer the force of British leadership. David Cameron (initially) and Boris Johnson continued this tradition. The resigning Environment Minister, Zac Goldsmith, has told us, however, that this Prime Minister is simply uninterested. Or hostile. Or cynically preparing for what I call the CAT strategy in the coming election: climate; asylum; and transgender; a culture war campaign.

He outlines a series of uncomfortable trade-offs that he says we must be prepared to make to get to Net Zero.

One of those trade-offs is cost. Nothing fuels populist anger more than regressive levies on environmental bads. For families whose sole practical, means of transport is an old banger, environmental taxes are resented, no matter the impact on the planet or local air quality. Politicians may choose to press ahead but they cannot ignore the negative side effects. In practice, the trade-offs are more complex. The environmental levy paid on fuel bills to provide support for new renewables was criticised for increasing energy bills but has helped to drive down the cost of offshore wind to a point that it is now consistently cheaper than gas.

He says that nuclear must also be part of the package:

Indeed, hostility to this impeccably zero carbon and energy secure domestic source has been led by the same green campaigners who oppose fossil fuel use. What we need is a portfolio of different, low carbon and secure sources including new renewables, nuclear and carbon capture.

This will cheer those within the party who are challenging our longstanding anti nuclear energy policy. Last year a motion to include nuclear power as part of an energy security package was put to Scottish Conference and referred back.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Enemy of my enemy

By Tom Arms | Sat 19th August 2023 - 10:57 am

The well-worn phrase “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” has ancient roots.  It dates back 7,000 years to the Sanskrit literature of India’s Vedas. The Romans and the Koran adapted it to their political needs.

In Modern times it has been repeatedly applied. Possibly the most famous examples are Churchill and Stalin, and Mao and Nixon.

This weekend President Joe Biden will use the well-worn diplomatic axiom to try and persuade the leaders of South Korea and Japan that they should bury deep-rooted historical animosities to unite against the common enemies China, North Korea and Russia.

All three leaders will gather at Camp David on the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains. They are expected to issue a communique agreeing to closer economic ties, intelligence sharing, a Tokyo-Seoul-Washington crisis hotline, a first ever joint statement of principles and trilateral military exercises.

What they will NOT do is agree to a formal treaty. Neither will Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida formally apologise for Japanese atrocities committed before and during World War two.

There are lots of good and obvious reasons for Japan and South Korea to be friends. Both of them are threatened by China and North Korea and, to a lesser extent Russia. From the US point of view there are 85,000 American troops costing an estimated $15 billion. Washington desperately wants Seoul and Tokyo to shoulder more of the burden.

The South Koreans and Japanese have the means to assume a bigger role but until recently have lacked the will. Japan is the world’s third largest economy and fourth largest military establishment. Fast-growing South Korea is not far behind, ranking 13th in the world GDP list and sixth on the size of its defense establishment.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 25th June 2023 - 12:15 pm

United States

Did Secretary of State Antony Blinken and President Joe Biden talk this week? On the surface it would seem they did not.

Blinken spent a constructive few days in Beijing repairing Sino-American relations, at least to the stage where the two sides were talking to each other even if they were failing to agree on very much.

Then, almost as soon as Blinken steps off the plane, his boss calls China’s President Xi Jinping a dictator. The Chinese foreign ministry immediately responded by attacking Biden’s comments as “blatant political provocation.”

The American president is well known for his foreign policy gaffes and when they occur the State Department jumps in to pour oil on troubled waters and restore diplomatic calm. Not this time.

The State Department spokesman said the following day: “We will continue to responsibly manage this relationship and maintain open lines of communications with the PRC. But that, of course, does not mean we will not be blunt about our differences.”

He added: “We have been very clear about the areas in which we disagree, including clear differences about the merits and demerits about democracies versus autocracies.”

It would appear that Blinken and Biden are playing a good cop, bad copy routine. This is partly for domestic consumption. US administrations aim for a bipartisan foreign policy, but that is difficult to achieve in the current polarised climate with China the whipping boy of the Republicans and an increasing number of Democrats.

Africa and Russia

Africa went to Moscow this week. It also went to Kyiv, but the most important and interesting leg of the trip was to Russia to meet with President Vladimir Putin.

Of course, it wasn’t all of Africa. It was the heads of government of Egypt, South Africa, Congo, Comoros and South Africa. The delegation was led by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa who has come under attack for refusing to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and allowing Vladimir Putin to visit South Africa in August despite a warrant for his arrest issued by the International Criminal Court.

The African leaders called the trip a “Peace Mission” and justified their involvement by the fact that their continent suffered a 30 million tonnes of grain shortfall in 2022 because of the war in Ukraine. They issued a ten-point plan which called for guaranteed grain supplies, an exchange of prisoners of war and the return of all children to their country of origin.

In Kyiv that had to run for air raid shelters during a missile attack and were told by President Zelensky that there could be no peace without Russian withdrawal.

In Moscow, President Putin told them that the grain deal could be cancelled altogether; that the “special military operation” would drag on and that the thousands of Ukrainian children taken to Russia were moved to protect them. In short, there was no joy for the Africans in either capital.

Back in South Africa, the trip has been branded a poorly conceived and badly executed effort to repair Ramaphosa’s tarnished image. The South Africans were especially humiliated when the plane carrying Ramaphosa, his advisers, journalists and 15 containers of weapons, was stopped at Warsaw Airport because it did not have the correct paperwork. The plane had to return to South Africa and start all over again.

Ukraine

Meanwhile, the Ukrainians are planning their own diplomatic offensive to back up their military counter-offensive.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 11th June 2023 - 9:38 am

Ukraine

The Ukrainian counter-offensive has begun. It has coincided with the at least partial collapse of the Nova Kakhovka Dam which has literally muddied the waters.

Ukraine’s generals are continuing to wrap their military plans in a dense fog of war. For weeks artillery barrages, drone strikes and the occasional incursive attack have been softening up the roughly 600-mile Russian defensive line. Then the attack started Tuesday with the war’s first night attacks on Wednesday and Thursday.

Given the length of the frontline, Russian troops are inevitably spread thinly. But at the same time they are well dug in. Moscow’s ground forces may be lacking but, according to the Royal United Services Institute, their army’s engineers are world class. They have constructed several lines of defense involving minefields, trenches, mini-fortresses and “dragon’s teeth” tank traps.

Ukraine’s main thrust appears to be aimed at the politically strategic town of Bakhmut and in the Zaporizhia Region. Detailed reports are being withheld but President Biden declared he was “optimistic” and Volodomyr Zelensky said he was in hourly contact with his generals.

There have been some reports that Ukrainian troops advanced a mile into the area around Bakhmut and a slightly greater distance near Zaporizhia. In the case of the latter, however, the Russians are believed to have beaten the Ukrainians back and regained most of the ground lost. It is too soon to declare any successes or failures by either side.

It is believed that the Ukrainian objective is to drive a 20-mile-wide corridor to either Melitopol or Mariupol on the Sea of Azov. This would sever the land bridge connecting Russia to the bulk of its forces in Crimea and, it is hoped at the very least, force Putin to the negotiating table.

According to Western experts, the apparent sabotage of the Nova Kakhovka Dam should be seen in the context of the Russian defensive effort. A sort of literal opposite of a scorched earth policy.

The road across the dam was one of the main intact links across the Dnieper River from Ukraine to the Russian-occupied eastern region. And the flooding downstream has tied up the Ukrainian military in rescuing thousands. It has also left 2,250 square miles of Ukrainian agricultural without vital irrigation water; poisoned drinking water with spilled sewage, oil and chemicals; and renewed fears about the safety of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant whose reactors were cooled by water from the reservoir created by the dam.

At the same time, however, the Russians have to deal with the problems of flooding on the eastern bank of the Dnieper. On top of that, the strategic Crimean Peninsula is almost completely dependent for drinking water on a canal which starts just north of the dam. This canal is running dry as reservoir levels drop.

Britain and China

Britain will host an AI summit – without China. This is one of the outcomes of this week’s Washington visit by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. The exclusion and containment of China was one of the underlying themes that ran through the Biden-Sunak White House talks.

But first Artificial Intelligence. The summit will be held in London sometime in the autumn. It will involve all Western countries. Its purpose will be to establish international regulatory ground rules.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 28th May 2023 - 9:58 am

Ukraine

The ultimate Pyrrhic victory is the best way to describe the Russian capture of Bakhmut. The town has minimal strategic victory. It has cost 20,000-plus Russian lives and 50,000 casualties. Tens of thousands of artillery shells, missiles and drones have been expended. The siege has tied up Russian forces for months and left Putin’s army of a pile of rubble.

While the Russians have been throwing themselves against the Bakhmut brick wall, the Ukrainians have been taking delivery of hundreds of state-of-the-art tanks, training on F-16s, building up their drone arsenal and gathering forces for their counter offensive.

Exactly where that counter offensive will be aimed remains a top secret. A hint might be in this week’s cross-border raid on a military base in the Russian provide on Beogorod which is more or less right in the middle of Russian-Ukrainian border

The Ukrainians are not supposed to attack targets on Russian soil. This would seriously worry their Western backers who do not want to widen or escalate the conflict. So Volodomyr Zelensky’s government have denied any involvement in the attack.

In this denial they are helped by two Ukrainian paramilitary groups – Freedom of Russia and the Russian Volunteer Corps—who have both claimed credit for the operation. Both these groups say they have filled their ranks with Russians living in Eastern Ukraine and defectors from the Russian army. The declared aim of both is the overthrow of Vladimir Putin as well as an independent Ukraine.

In the shadowy world of paramilitaries it is difficult to separate fact from fiction, especially as both groups are based in the Russian-occupied Donbas Region. But Freedom of Russia is believed to be the largest of the two group with 1,000 armed men. They are also believed to surreptitiously receive training and weapons from the Ukrainian military, but operate independently.

The Russian Volunteer Corps has virtually no links with the government in Kyiv. This is because they and their leader Denis Nitikin are far-right White Supremacists who want to overthrow Zelensky as well as Putin because the Ukrainian leader is Jewish. They are Russian ultra-nationalists who want Moscow to concentrate on protecting ethnic Russians inside Russia’s existing borders.

Russia and China

The Sino-Soviet love fest continued this week with a meeting between the prime ministers of the two countries.

At the end of the two days of talks Moscow’s Mikhail Mishustin declared that due to “sensational pressure” from the West, Sino-Russian cooperation had reached an “unprecedented high.”

During his talks with Chinese counterpart Li Qiang, The Russian prime minister signed a series of agreements to bolster trade in services, agriculture and sporting links.  But conspicuous by its absence was a Chinese commitment to provide Russia with military support for its invasion of Ukraine.

Chinese President Xi Jinping believes that China is locked in an irreversible ideological battle with the West and that Russia is an essential partner if it has any chance of success. He and Vladimir Putin are as one as regards the strategic goal. But they differ on tactics.

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What Xi Jinping is planning on Taiwan

By Christopher | Fri 28th April 2023 - 5:50 pm

The former Moscow correspondent for NBC Ian Williams wrote an article in The Spectator dated 22nd March, describing what happened when Xi Jinping said goodbye to Vladimir Putin when their summit ended in the Kremlin last month. Xi suddenly turned to Putin and said, which seemed unscripted, “Change is coming that hasn’t happened in 100 years, and we are driving this change together”. Then “The two men clasped hands, smiling. ‘I agree,’ Putin said, briefly bringing up his free hand to hold Xi’s arm. The Chinese leader then added, ‘Please take care, dear friend'”.

What is the “change” that Xi was speaking about? In the last decade, the state media of China has presented the idea of “the East rises, the West declines” to the people, saying that China will become the greatest global power in the foreseeable future. Then the rules of the world will be changed – It was the West who set the rules in the last century, but eventually, the East will become the one to decide. Therefore, Xi was telling Putin: we will overturn those rules together.

That’s why I disagree with US State Secretary Antony Blinken when he said China and Russia are in “a marriage of convenience”, I believe Xi and Putin are soulmates who share the same ideology. The new evidence is the words from the Chinese Ambassador to France Lu Shaye in LCI interview. He reveals Xi’s true thoughts: if the previous Soviet states have no effective status in international law, Putin is righteous to reclaim all those countries. Xi will fully support Putin in doing so; in return, Putin must back Xi to achieve his historical mission, the “reunification” with Taiwan.

US President Biden told the media that he believes there is no imminent threat of a Taiwan invasion after he met with Xi Jinping last November. Reports said Xi promised Biden that China would not take any military action during Biden’s first presidency. Can Xi be trusted? Well, technically, yes, Xi needs time to prepare to strike. We need to know that the failure of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine does not make Xi hesitate but to refine his war plan on Taiwan to justify himself to become the Fuhrer of China.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 16th April 2023 - 9:22 am

France

It is a case of mixed messages coming out of Paris. On the one hand, we have President Emmanuel Macron telling homeward bound journalists that Taiwan should not be a European concern and that France (and Europe by extension) should not let its China policy be determined by American “extremists”.

On the other hand, while Macron was speaking after his state visit to China, the French frigate Prairial was steaming through the Taiwan Straits while the Chinese Communist Party was flexing its muscles with an encirclement exercise of the island.

France,  is unique as the only European nation with substantial holdings in the Indo-Pacific region. It has seven territories with 7000 troops protecting a total population of 1.65 million. Ninety percent of France’s exclusive economic zone is in the region.

China is a clear threat to French interests. That is why the French navy regularly conducts exercises with its American equivalent and military equipment sold to Taiwan in the 1990s is still maintained by French technicians.

But Macron wants a bigger slice of the growing Chinese pie. This is why 53 business executives accompanied the president on his state visit. He also does see France as a counter balance to America—allied with but independent of the super power, a foreign policy that France has pursued in varying degrees since the days of Charles deGaulle.

In short, the French are doing what they do best: Juggling a dozen diplomatic balls at the same time.

USA

1.25 million Americans have top secret clearance. They include contractors as well as military personnel, civil servants and politicians. Therefore it is not surprising that one of them was a low-level 21-year-old right-wing, racist, gun enthusiast who decided to be Mr Big to his friends by posting secrets on an internet gaming site.

Jack Texeira, who worked in the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, will have the rest of his life to regret his vanity.

So will millions in Ukraine and elsewhere in the world. Texeira’s leak disclosed CIA assessments of the Ukraine military on the eve of their counter offensive against Russian forces in the Donbas. It revealed which brigades are the best equipped and trained. It exposed both weaknesses and strengths which the Russians can now exploit.

Texeira also released a CIA assessment of the political machinations within the Kremlin. There were probably few surprises for Moscow, but knowing that the CIA knew something enables the FSB (Russian intelligence) to track the information back to its source and thus endangers American agents in Russia.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Africa

By Tom Arms | Sat 15th April 2023 - 10:19 am

It is big. It has deserts, jungles and rolling veldt. It is wracked with disease, poverty, tribal divisions, civil wars, political instability and corruption. Millions are trying to escape it.

It is Africa. It is the future. Or at least its natural resources are.

The US Geological Survey has identified 34 key minerals that a 21st century developed country needs. Twenty-nine of them are in Africa.

In the case of one of them – cobalt – 70 percent of the world’s known resources is in the war-wracked Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Africa’s potential, and the West’s growing dependence on its resources is the major reason for a string of recent high-profile American visits to the continent. Vice President Kamala Harris has just returned from a three-nation tour. She was preceded in the recent past by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas- Greenfield. In December, the Biden Administration hosted an Africa Summit in Washington for the continent’s political and business leaders.

But the America’s African initiative could be too little too late. Twenty years ago the US was Africa’s biggest trading partner followed by Britain, France and Germany. Today the West’s trading figures with Africa are dwarfed by China.

And with trade comes political influence and access to the minerals needed for computers and batteries for a green, prosperous and secure future.

The West is big with aid. The US leads the pack. Last year it gave African countries a staggering $6.2 billion in humanitarian aid – twenty percent of all the aid received. European countries and institutions combined provided about half of the continent’s aid. China was not even in the top ten.

Beijing is not big on aid. It is ginormous on win/win investment and trade. Chinese investments in Africa are currently estimated to be worth $2 trillion and are generating $200 billion a year in trade. There are an estimated 20,000 Chinese technicians and managers nursing Beijing’s investments which are primarily in infrastructure projects such as ports, airports, roads and railways.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 9th April 2023 - 10:17 am

USA

America’s looking glass politics dominated the news agenda again this week. Donald Trump is not a perp. He is a victim. And he is exploiting his victimhood to the maximum political advantage.

The ex-president has re-galvanised his base with classic hyperbolic claims about Democratic witch hunts. The sad thing is that in the case of this week’s indictment – the first of a past or present American president – he may actually be right.

The office of District Attorney for South Manhattan is an elected one, and Alvin Bragg won the vote on the back of a promise to bring Donald Trump to trial and convict him. Lady Justice is portrayed blindfolded with her sword and balancing scales. She is not elected.

The law is meant to be based on precedent.  No man (or woman) should be protected by their political position but neither should their political position be the determining factor in their innocence or guilt.

Of course, Donald Trump, is more than prepared to play both sides of the legal coin. His 2016 campaign rallies were marked by the endless chant/rant of “Lock her up” related to Hillary Clinton’s use of private emails for government use. The demand was dropped as soon as Trump entered the White House.

Possibly the saddest aspect of Trump’s indictment is that DA Bragg’s case is the weakest against the ex-president. Secret documents at Mar-a-Lago, the January 6 riots and attempts to fix the Georgia election returns all look more promising. Legal eagles believe he can beat the rap on the Stormy Daniels case – if only on one of several technicalities. If Trump is acquitted then he could use that acquittal to fight off other legal challenges and ride the victimhood express all the way to the Republican Party nomination and possibly beyond.

China

Diplomats say interesting things sometimes. Fu Cong, Beijing’s ambassador to the EU was certainly in expansive and interesting mode when he spoke to the New York Times on the eve of the Macron/von de Leyen state visit to China.

At the top of President Emmanuel Macron’s agenda in Beijing was Ukraine. In fact, his feet had barely touched Chinese soil when he was telling Xi Jinping: “I am counting on you to bring Russia to its senses.”

France, America and the rest of the West are terrified that the Xi/Putin “friendship without limits” will eventually lead to Chinese weaponry supporting Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Ambassador Fu, however, dismissed the “limitless” phrase as “rhetoric.” He also pointed out that Beijing has refused to recognise the 2014 annexation of Crimea or the more recent Russian land grabs in the Donbas.

All of the above is true. It is also encouraging that a senior Chinese diplomat has gone on record to try and balance the debate. But friendship with Russia and Putin remains at or near the centre of Xi’s world strategy. To put it bluntly, Xi sees Russia as key to his plan of eroding the Western-oriented world order and replacing it with one that is more autocracy-friendly.

The Chinese president hinted at his big picture plan in his opening remarks to Macron’s visit when he said that China and France have the responsibility to transcend their differences “as the world undergoes proposed historical changes.”

To realise this plan, Xi wants to drive a wedge between European and American policymakers. To do this he is dangling the financial incentive of improved Sino-European trade links. That is why EU Commission President Ursula von de Leyen and an accompanying herd of French businessmen have been tacked onto Macron’s state visit.

The question remains whether the fine words that come out of the Macron/von de Leyen visit will be mere “rhetoric.”

Finland

Russia’s border with NATO is now 800-miles longer. Finland has ended decades of neutrality and joined the Western Alliance. Simultaneously it has changed its government.

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Merlene Emerson

In conversation with the founder of LibDem Friends of Taiwan, Jonathan Philip Bird

By Merlene Emerson | Wed 5th April 2023 - 9:23 am

Jonathan (JPB) talks with Merlene Emerson of the Chinese Liberal Democrats (CLD)

CLD: Please tell us a bit about yourself and how you developed your interest in Taiwan?

JPB: I joined the Liberal Democrats in 2004. I would have been a member of an Alliance party from 1983/84 but I was brought up as a Jehovah’s Witness, and the group forbids political involvement. I have been an active member of my branch since then, running as a ward candidate a number of times.

As well as Taiwan I am passionate about Europe being a core member of the cross-party campaign Cardiff for Europe since 2016.

I lived in Taiwan in 2009 and 2010. I found the political situation of the island fascinating. I discovered the Liberal English language newspaper Taipei Times, in a newsagent. Since my time there I have been a daily reader of the Taiwanese press, and kept up with developments, there.

The year of 2015 saw both ends of my political interest overlap. The historic victory of our Liberal International sister the Democratic Progress Party victory in Legislative assembly and Presidential elections. That contrasted so strongly with the trauma of May 2015 here. I contacted Tim Farron as Liberal Democrat leader and suggested he send a letter to Tsi Win as a fellow liberal. He did so and
I believe it is important that those who champion democracy should support each other.

CLD: What are your observations of the political future of Taiwan?

JPB: Unfortunately, the status quo is not an alternative allowed by the CCP. In 2008 the People’s Assembly passed the “Anti Succession act” it caused consternation in Taiwan and extended the post TianAnMen Square European Union ban on arms exports. Not only did it threaten war on Taiwan should it declare independence or redefine its constitution as the Republic of Taiwan etc.. but also, commands the Bejing regime to continually assess the rate of progress to unite with China. If that progress is considered to have stalled, then to use force to “reunify” China.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Asian Stew

By Tom Arms | Fri 31st March 2023 - 7:18 pm

The current president of Taiwan is in America. Her immediate predecessor is in China. Meanwhile Beijing and Washington are slipping deeper into a dangerous stew of suspicion, enmity and mutual recriminations.

The visit to America by President Tsai Ing-wen is unofficial. It has to be to mute Chinese objections. But even unofficial visits by the Taiwanese raise the ire of Beijing and in this case the protests will be louder than usual because on April 5th President Tsai flies to California to meet Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and other Republican leaders.

President Tsai and her Democratic Progressive Party are not flavour of the decade in Beijing. They lean towards a separate and independent Taiwan, although President Tsai is careful to avoid an explicit policy. She has cautiously declared: “Taiwan is already an independent state, thus rendering a formal declaration of independence is unnecessary.”

President Ma Ying-jeou was Taiwanese president from 2008 to 20016. He and his Kuomintang party lean towards a rapprochement with Beijing. Ma is currently on a 12-day unofficial visit to Mainland China. The first such visit by a past or present president of Taiwan. Like Tsai, he hedges his bets on relations with Beijing. In his first inaugural address he pledged: “No reunification, no independence, and no war.” He might have added: no commitments in any direction.

It was during Ma’s administration that shipping and other transport links with the mainland were re-established as well as a family reunification plan and a number of commercial ties. Some of those ties have been suspended by the Chinese Communist Party during Tsai’s administration.

Elections are scheduled in Taiwan in January and relations with the mainland are likely to dominate debates.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 26th March 2023 - 10:31 am

UK

The appearance of ex-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson before the House of Commons Privileges Committee has echoes of the fate of Charles the First and James the Second.

Each of the above cases helped to establish the supremacy of parliament over the monarchy, or the executive.

The modern-day British Prime Minister straddles both institutions. They must be a member of parliament and command the support of a majority of the House of Commons. But at the same time they are officially appointed by the monarch to represent them in parliament. They are accountable to both institutions, but as the 1689 Bill of Rights makes clear, more accountable to parliament which is “supreme.”

But if parliament is expected to do its job properly, it must be able to rely on the information that is provided by the executive branch (i.e. government ministers, including the prime minister). For that reason it is vital that ministers – especially the prime minister – do not intentionally or recklessly mislead or lie to the House of Commons or House of Lords.

To do so, completely undermines the principle of the supremacy of parliament and rocks the foundations of the British constitution. That is why Boris Johnson is in deep political hot water. It is not that he broke Covid rules. It is that he appears to have lied to parliament about it.

Charles I lost his head for challenging the supremacy of parliament and James II was forced to abdicate and fled to France. Boris Johnson is unlikely to suffer either fate. The worst that could happen to him is be suspended from parliament which is the 21st century equivalent of decapitation.

Such a move could easily split the Conservative Party. Boris has a strong personal following and Conservatives and despite the current ascendancy of the extreme right, they are divided between anti-European libertarian ideologues and one-nation tax-cutting businessmen.

France

State visits are a big deal. They require months, sometimes years, of careful protocol-driven planning. That is why the last minute cancellation of a state visit is an even bigger deal.

Next week King Charles III was scheduled to make his first ever state visit. It was to be to France to restore the Entente Cordiale to its pre-Brexit cordiality. On Friday it was announced that the visit had been postponed

For a change, the dramatic shift in protocol had nothing to do with Britain’s post-Brexit positions on Northern Ireland, fishing, immigration, Australian submarines or a thousand other potential Anglo-French flashpoints. It had everything to do with violent demonstrations sweeping across France in the wake of President Emmanuel Macron’s decreed legislation to increase the French retirement age from 62 to 64.

The result of the presidential decree has been a wave of violence and strikes across France. Rubbish is piling up in the streets of Paris. The entrance to Bordeaux Town Hall was set alight. 903 fires were started in the capital on Thursday, 400 people were arrested and police used tear gas against the demonstrators.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Shifting playing field

By Tom Arms | Sat 18th March 2023 - 8:55 am

The diplomatic playing field has shifted this week. The cause is China’s successful brokering of the resumption of diplomatic relations between Middle East arch-enemies and regional super powers Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Of course, the fact that new embassies will appear in Riyadh and Tehran does not mean that all will now be sweetness and light. Deep-seated differences remain between the founts of Sunni Islam and the world’s Shi-ites. But there is no doubt that jaw jaw is better than the undeclared war that has existed in the Gulf region for decades.

The biggest regional winner is Saudi Arabia. Iran has been sniping away at the kingdom’s oil and communications infrastructure and backing Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The eight-year Yemeni civil war has cost an estimated 300,000 lives; badly tarnished Saudi Arabia’s international reputation and drained the treasury. If diplomatic communications can shift the Iranian position on Yemen then it will enable Crown Prince to focus more on his economic plans as well as improving his platform on the world stage.

A definite loser in the current shift is Israel. Jerusalem’s implacable enemy is Iran. The Iranians support Hezbollah and Hamas and are on the cusp of developing a nuclear weapon which they say would be an existential threat to their existence.  Maintaining tensions between Arabs and Persians was a key element in Jerusalem’s divide and conquer diplomacy in the Persian Gulf.

The biggest loser, however, is the US. The biggest winner is China.  From 1945 to 1990 there were two super powers who competed for dominance on the world stage—America and the Soviet Union. Since the end of the Cold War the United States has been the go-to nation for any government seeking support in a diplomatic struggle.

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Merlene Emerson

For International Women’s Day: an interview with Yue He Parkinson

By Merlene Emerson | Wed 8th March 2023 - 10:12 am

On International Women’s Day, Chinese Lib Dems’ Merlene Emerson interviewed our newest member, Ms Yue He Parkinson, about why she is interested in UK and China politics and her decision to join the party.

ME: Yue, could you tell us a bit about yourself, your background, education and career?  When did you settle in the UK?

Yue: I was born, educated and worked in Canton, China, and moved to the UK in 2004 to study International Relations at the University of Bristol, and awarded an MSc. Since then, I have settled down in Portishead, Bristol with my family of 4. I am now working as a bilingual writer and author, and was invited by the BBC World Service to comment on Chinese politics in Dec 2022.  

ME:  What made you decide to go into politics yourself, first as a journalist writing about UK and China relations and now by joining a political party?

Yue: I have always been interested with politics, I studied politics at the University of Bristol, I have interviewed politicians, studied British history, and analysed politics and UK-Sino relations for over 8 years. It took me about 20 years to understand British politics and society, say democracy, freedom, equality, fairness, etc, as the politics and society in China ARE ABSOLUTELY DIFFERENT FROM British politics and society EXCEPT in the areas of trade, business and science where both share certain common languages. I now feel confident to get more involved in British politics. Also my two girls are over 10 now, so I am free to devote myself to my own interests.

ME:  Did you consider joining any of the other major parties before joining the Liberal Democrats?   What attracted you to the party?

Yue: Yes, I knew the Chinese organizations in the three parties from 2015 when I covered Chinese in British politics for BBC Chinese. For the majority of mainland Chinese immigrants, the only party that can get their attention must be the Conservatives, not only are they in power, but it is also the only party mainland Chinese immigrants are able to understand and accept.  British society is kinder and fairer as compared to Chinese society, where you are reliant on yourself, and no one will help you unless you have money or power. It is an extremely hard and cruel social environment, no freedom of speech, no right to strike, etc. That’s why I have always said that the British don’t know how lucky they are.

Liberal Democrats embrace beliefs which I find are the best in the UK. It’s in the middle way, not that conservative, not that labour either.

ME:  I like that, describing the Lib Dems as in the middle way (very Chinese).  What are your political ambitions, if any?  Would you consider standing as a candidate in local or general elections yourself?

Yue: I don’t think I am that ambitious as I have long way to catch up with the front line of British politics. Yet I am keen to stand as a candidate in local and general elections. I came from China where the focus is on people’s duties and responsibilities, with few rights, opposite to British society where there’s a higher degree of emphasis on human rights. The middle way – balanced with rights and duties are the best for the community – has been a dream to achieve, although I understand that often only extreme politics, right or left, can win most voters over.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: A Chinese peace

By Tom Arms | Sat 4th March 2023 - 8:55 am

The Chinese Ukrainian peace kite is unlikely to remain aloft for long for several reasons:

  • Neither the Russians nor the Ukrainians are prepared – yet – to throw in the towel.
  • Vladimir Putin cannot afford failure.
  • Neither Ukraine nor its NATO backers can afford failure.
  • A Chinese brokered peace is unacceptable to the US because it increases Beijing’s position in the world at Washington’s expense.

However, both Volodomyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin will meet President Xiping, foreign minister Wang Yi and any other Chinese emissaries. Zelensky needs to be seen to be willing to talk to keep Beijing from supplying Putin with weapons and Putin must do the same to secure the weapons.

In one sense, the Chinese are the ideal peace brokers. Putin is the aggressor. He is the one who must be persuaded to stand down. The Chinese are the only ones with sufficient leverage over the Russian leader. The Turks have tried and failed. So have the Israelis. The US and its allies have ruled themselves out by supplying weapons to Ukraine.

In the best diplomatic traditions, Beijing’s 12-point proposal manages to annoy both sides in the conflict while at the same time projecting lofty aspirations with the minimum of detail.

The proposal calls for respecting sovereignty. Russia has clearly breached Ukraine’s sovereignty. Abandon the Cold War mentality. This is a state of mind for which both Russia and NATO could be blamed. Protect civilians and POWs. Great, and remember Bucha, Kharkhiv, Mariupol and Kherson. Resolve the humanitarian crisis, which has created 6.8 million Ukrainian refugees. Promote post-war reconstruction which so far is estimated to cost Ukraine $1 trillion. Stop threatening to use nuclear weapons; a threat which only Putin has used. And end unilateral sanctions which means sanctions not approved by the UN and would undermine Western sanctions against China.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 26th February 2023 - 8:56 am

China

China has marked the first anniversary of the Ukraine War with a pair of unsurprising foreign policy papers. The first one concentrates on the Ukraine War and proposes a well-trod and contradictory solution: Russia respects Ukrainian national sovereignty. Everyone respects Russia’s security aspirations and nobody imposes sanctions against anyone.

The second paper is more about calls for a new world order. Again, no real surprises. China is trying to re-write the international rule book by playing to the interests of the developing world in Africa, Asia and South America.

The second paper is important but China’s position on Ukraine is of more immediate interests and whether Beijing likes it or not, the two issues are clearly linked. The outcome of the Ukraine War will influence which way the global South jumps: If Ukraine wins then American influence grows. If Russia stomps Ukraine then it is a victory for Beijing as well as Moscow.

But back to China’s Ukraine paper which was preceded by foreign minister Wang Yi’s tour of Europe and participation in the Munich Security Conference. The goal of the trip was to drive a wedge between the US and its NATO allies. He failed.

Hanging over Wang’s trip was the claim by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg that China is on the cusp of supplying weaponry to Vladimir Putin. Wang Yi denied this to EU foreign affairs commissioner Josep Borrell. But at the same time, Chinese diplomats, are letting it be known that the option is on the table. And if the US pushes them too far they will use it.

START

START has stopped. To be more precise it has been suspended by Vladimir Putin. This means that the last of the US-Russian strategic arms agreements has crumbled. These treaties were key building blocks in the diplomatic structure that ended the Cold War and continues to govern East-West relations.

So what is START? Well, for a start, it is an acronym for Strategic Arms Reduction Talks. Its full name is actually New START and it replaces START One which expired in 2009 as well as START Two and three which never got off the ground and the Treaty of Moscow (aka SORT).

What does (or did) START do? It cut by 10 percent the number of strategic missile launchers of Russia and the US and set up a system of on-site inspections to verify that both sides were sticking to the agreement. The total number of launch platforms, which includes submarines, missile siloes and heavy bombers is limited to 1,550 each. It does not reduce the number of nuclear warheads they can hold, just the delivery systems. But then warheads are pretty useless if a country does not have the means to deliver them.

The START talks are the successor negotiations to the SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation) talks which started with the 1972 ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) Treaty and limited the increase in the size of the super powers’ nuclear arsenals. At the height of the Cold War the Soviet Union had an estimated 40,000 nuclear warheads and the US 30,000.

President George W. Bush started unravelling the strategic arms structure in 2001 when he withdrew from the ABM Treaty over Russian objections. START was a major foreign policy victory for the Obama Administration but in 2019 Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump withdrew from the INF Treaty which limited the deployment of Intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe.

New START was last treaty standing. It was due to expire in 2021, but was extended for another five years. However, the Russians have been in breach of the agreement since March 2020. That is the last time Americans were allowed to inspect Russian facilities. The initial excuse for refusing access was the pandemic. That was superseded by the Ukraine War, which, of course, is the reason for the current suspension and, as most diplomats know, there are few things more permanent than the temporary.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Happy Birthday

By Tom Arms | Sat 25th February 2023 - 9:38 am

Fans of our foreign editor, Tom Arms, will be delighted to hear that he has started a weekly podcast, Transatlantic Riff.

Happy Birthday Ukraine, the Russian people, Europe, America and all the rest of the world.

The Ukraine War is one year old. An estimated 300,000 lives have been lost so far – and that is only the soldiers.

More than 5.2 million refugees have fled the fighting, mainly women and children who have left fathers, sons and husbands behind. Those who remain in Ukraine live in daily fear of Russian missile attacks. Many are without water, electricity or heating.

The ripple effects of the Ukraine War have encompassed the world. A trillion dollars’ worth of damage has been inflicted on Ukraine and the war has so far cost Europe and America an estimated $215 billion and this is only the beginning.

The Ukraine War has closed key gas and oil pipelines from Russia to Europe and forced Europeans to seek alternative supplies from America and Middle East. This in turn has pushed energy prices to crisis levels.

Inflation has been fuelled by energy problems and food shortages as Ukraine, Russia and Belarus are major suppliers of grain, sunflower oil and fertilisers.

The war has also produced tectonic diplomatic shifts. It has united Ukrainians and provided them with a clear national identity reinforced by a charismatic leader. Yes, Putin is right when he says Ukraine’s history is closely linked with that of Russia. But its future is not.

The war has also re-united Europe and NATO. For years America has complained about low levels of European defense spending, especially in Germany. Donald Trump even threatened to withdraw from the alliance. That has ended. Europeans are spending more and sending aid to Ukraine. The EU financial aid is actually $5 billion more than America’s $45 billion. But America’s total commitment of humanitarian, financial and military -dwarves the contributions of all the other countries combined.

Putin claims that his invasion is a reaction to NATO enlargement. If so, the war has become a self-fulfilling prophecy as Sweden and Finland have reversed their long-standing commitments to neutrality to apply for NATO membership and Ukraine is now a de facto member of the Western Alliance, but still outside the ultimate protection of Article Five.

Vladimir Putin’s repeated threats – veiled and unveiled – to use nuclear weapons has also revived the fear of a nuclear war. As has his announcement this week that he is suspending Russia’s in arms reduction talk, formally ending inspections of nuclear weapons sites and increasing Moscow’s nuclear arsenal.

On the ground, both sides are literally dug in with trenches crisscrossing in a general north-south gash across the Eastern part of Ukraine. Russia is believed to be on the verge of throwing another 200,000 conscripts against the Ukrainian frontline. The Ukrainian, for their part are hoping that poorly-led Russian troops will exhaust themselves against their defensive wall and fall to a Ukrainian counter offensive in the spring.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sat 11th February 2023 - 10:05 am

While a Chinese balloon floated through American skies President Joe Biden stepped up to the podium to deliver his annual State of the Union Address to a joint session of Congress.

The events were notable for two reasons: They exposed an irrational Yellow Peril fear that more than matches the Red Scare of Cold War years and pointed to a possible new era of American isolationism.

Conspicuous by its absence from Biden’s address to the Joint Session of Congress was any mention of foreign policy. With war raging in Ukraine, Turkey and Syria devastated by earthquakes, South America in political turmoil and China expanding, spying and rattling sabres over Taiwan. one would have thought Biden would have focused more on the world situation.

Instead he spoke about domestic concerns. Biden’s success in creating jobs; protecting American industry and controlling inflation. With at least one eye focused on next year’s elections, he is stealing Republican clothes by shifting to a more isolationist stand.

In this respect, the president appears to be following rather than leading US public opinion. The latest polls show a significant drop in American support for the war in Ukraine. China, however, is a different matter. The Chinese spy/weather balloon (probably a bit of both) did secure a passing reference in the president’s speech; probably because of the hysteria it generated among the American public. The fact is that countries spy on each other. The US spies on China. China spies on the US. Russia spies on….

Most of the spying is unseen. Intelligence operatives skulking in the corridors of power or satellites in space. The balloon, however, could be seen as it floated from Alaska, over missile silos in Montana and North Dakota and then finally to the Atlantic where it was shot down by US fighter planes.

The much discussed Asian Pivot was this week back in the news. For a start, American troops are returning in big numbers to the Philippines. The reason? The threat of China and the need to maintain international access to the South China Sea and protect Taiwan.

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Posted in Europe / International | Also tagged , , , , and | 8 Comments
Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Shrinking China

By Tom Arms | Sat 21st January 2023 - 10:36 am

China is shrinking. India is growing. Sometime this year the sub-continental nation will usurp China as the most populous country on earth.

This and a number of other ineluctable facts will have a profound impact on China, India, Asia and the rest of the world.

Every economy needs workers to produce goods and services.  The more workers – especially relatively cheap ones – the faster a country’s GDP grows.

There are other factors at play. China’s pensioner population is rapidly growing. The proportion of retirees has expanded from 37.12 percent in 2010 to 44.14 percent in 2020 which means fewer workers and .greater social care costs. India, by comparison has an average age of 29.

Then there is covid. Xi Jinping’s decision to end his zero covid policy has let loose the deadly virus at the same time as hundreds of millions are travelling for Chinese New Year. To make matters worse most of the travellers are young people going from covid-infected cities to visit vulnerable elderly relatives in the less affected rural areas.

According to the University of Beijing, 900 million Chinese have been infected with the covid virus. The exact fatality figure is a government-protected secret. But it is known that healthcare services have been stretched beyond breaking point.

The pandemic has forced the closure of many Chinese production facilities and this year growth is expected to be only 3.2 percent. This is higher than the US, EU and the world average, but China starts from a lower base and the Chinese Communist Party’s hold on power is built on ever-improving living standards. The World Bank is predicting 6.9 percent economic growth in rival India.

Beijing’s mounting domestic problems – short and long-term – will force the Chinese Communist Party to focus its attention on internal issues. These means fewer foreign adventures and an effort to stabilise relations with the US, Europe, Japan and elsewhere. A recent visit by German Chancellor Olof Scholz was seen as a big win for the EU and other visits are planned by French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

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Posted in Op-eds | 6 Comments
George Cunningham

President Xi’s Grand Zero-COVID Reversal: What are the Risks? 

By George Cunningham | Sat 31st December 2022 - 4:45 pm

President Xi has announced he will be opening China’s borders to travel by Chinese citizens  from Sunday 8th January,  a fortnight before the start of the 15-day celebration of the Chinese New Year which sees hundreds of millions of Chinese go on holiday inside and outside China to visit family and friends. 

Whilst this is normally a time of celebration, the number of COVID cases in China is rocketing into the hundreds of millions as well. The failure and then sudden reversal of Xi’s zero-COVID policy is a disaster for Chinese citizens. Their plight does not only deserve our fullest attention but any support we can give. 

The answer clearly is to fix the problem at home. However, Xi has turned down German Chancellor Scholz’s offer of our more effective mRNA COVID vaccines whilst not having concentrated on a comprehensive vaccination programme, even with China’s own less-potent vaccines. The cruel illogic of dictatorship is revealed once more, prestige and political survival counting more than life. 

Instead, Xi is putting at risk the health of the rest of the world, the second time COVID is being exported globally after the Chinese Communist Party initially suppressed information on COVID for a month when it appeared in Wuhan in 2019, allowing for its spread.

What should we do? Do the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe feel our citizens are protected enough with our own vaccines to open up to our Chinese visitors? Even if we could be, Xi’s folly is putting at risk those populations such as in Africa and Asia who have not been vaccinated to the same degree as in developed countries.  

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 7 Comments
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