Why Joseph Nye’s Advice To US Policymakers On China Is Relevant – OpEd

 March 25, 2023  Eurasia Review  0 Comments

By Ambassador Kazi Anwarul Masud

US Should Avoid Demonizing China

Harvard luminary Joseph Nye Jr would like the USA to adopt a policy of avoiding “demonizing each other and realize that the relationship is not like the Cold War. There is much more economic, social, and ecological interdependence between the US and China than ever existed between the US and the Soviet Union. Instead, policy-makers should see the relationship as a ‘cooperative rivalry’ or ’competitive coexistence’ with equal attention to both parts of the description”. 

Xi Jinping’s Inexperience In Dealing With Superpowers

The problem facing global insecurity is mainly due to the inexperience of Xi-Jinping in dealing with superpowers following the Second World War. Absent were Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev who had the foresight to propose advancing comprehensive proposals dealing with strategic offensive and defensive weapons. The agreement seemed at hand for reductions of at least 50 percent in strategic offensive arms.

When Reagan proposed a subsequent elimination of all strategic ballistic missiles, Gorbachev counter-proposed eliminating all strategic nuclear weapons. Reagan then said he would be prepared to eliminate all nuclear weapons—and Gorbachev promptly agreed.

Contrarily there is Xi Jinping, who after the recently held CCP meeting where he appears to have surpassed Mao Tse Tung electing himself President for life. 

“Cold warriors lived most obviously in the United States and the Soviet Union, but because the Cold War enveloped the world its warriors were everywhere. They included the Presidents of the USA from Harry S. Truman to George H. W. Bush, and their secretaries of state, among them John Foster Dulles, Dean Rusk, and Henry Kissinger. Many other U.S. government officials were cold warriors: appointees such as George F. Kennan, Paul Nitze, and Jeanne Kirkpatrick, and elected representatives including senators William Knowland, Joseph McCarthy, and Hubert H. Humphrey. There were members of the intelligence community (J. Edgar Hoover, Edward G. Lansdale, William Colby), prominent journalists who interpreted the Cold War to the American people (Walter Lippmann, James Reston), and theologians, among them Billy Graham, who saw the Cold War as a moral challenge to Americans. In the Soviet Union a commitment to the Cold War was necessary for the leaders who followed Joseph Stalin after 1953, from Nikita Khrushchev to Konstantin Chernenko. The ideologue Andrei Zhdanov was a cold warrior of the first magnitude. Soviet diplomats carried out their superiors’ orders but contributed as well their own mite to the conflict; among them were the longtime foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the ambassador to the United States Andrei Gromyko. Lavrenti Beria, head of Stalin’s secret police, maintained a bloodstained vigil against all forms of Cold War heterodoxy.” ( Andrew J Rotter-May 21 2018). 

Many pages of history have gone by. 

Change From Mao To Xi Jinping

Mao’s China is no longer the China of Xi Jinping. Yet basically both Mao and Xi Jinping have very little value for human lives. During Mao’s fight to establish Communism in China millions of people died of hunger and fighting. These facts were brought to the notice of Mao Tse Tung but his responses were that the deaths were inevitable under such circumstances.

Xi Jinping is not callous about human deaths as his response to covid-19 has shown despite his utmost efforts to contain news from spreading out. He succeeded to control the panic within China because of Orwellian tactics employed within the geographical area of China.

Poverty Discussion At Davos Conference

Contrarily the Davos meeting held recently is equally obnoxious because the attendees who have gone to the best schools and have no connection with the poor speak on poverty and how to remove this curse from the face of the earth.

Hamilton Nolan (The Guardian-Australian Edition) has written in a recent article “The utility of any actually worthwhile networking or communication or information-sharing that occurs in the halls of Davos pales in comparison to the inferno of disgust that its existence stokes among millions of angry, mistreated, locked out people around the world who will never set foot inside its security cordon. If nothing else, the attendees of Davos should shut it down out of pure self-interest. They’re making everyone mad.”

He added “ The only useful thing that happens at Davos each year is the release of Oxfam’s report on economic inequality, a document that always drives home exactly why Davos is a monstrosity. This year, Oxfam found that the richest 1% of people had pocketed two-thirds of all the wealth created in the past two years”. 

Poverty And Bangladesh

In this milieu where do countries like Bangladesh fit in?

We have neither the muscle nor the wealth. Bangladesh has to steer its way between India and China. President Joe Biden has already declared China as the foremost enemy of the USA and having lost unipolarity that the US had been enjoying since 1954 and is busy repairing the damage wrought by President Donald Trump and building a bridge of freedom loving countries of the world particularly the European Union countries (Germany may be the odd man out despite its support to Ukraine). As mentioned earlier US Presidents from Reagan to Joe Biden have consistently followed a an anti-China policy 

 

Dutch envoy Adriaan Pauw enters Münster around 1646 for the peace negotiations. Credit: Westphalian State Museum of Art and Cultural History, Münster, Wikipedia Commons

The Treaty Of Westphalia In Modern Context – OpEd

 March 10, 2023  Eurasia Review  0 Comments

By Ambassador Kazi Anwarul Masud

Significance Of The Treaty Of Westphalia

For many years Germany became the principal theatre of European diplomacy and war, and consequently, the development of German national unity was delayed. But the Treaty of Westphalia pronounced the dissolution of the old order in the empire and it facilitated the growth of new powers in its component parts, especially Austria, Bavaria, and Brandenburg.

The treaty was recognized as a fundamental law of the German constitution and formed the basis of all subsequent treaties until the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. (Adam Augustyn – Britannica ).

To understand the significance of the Treaty of Westphalia, one must first understand the history of the Protestant Reformation. A Protestant is someone who “protests” against the theology of the Catholic Church. Martin Luther, a German theological, objected to the theology and practices of the Catholic Church and founded his own branch of Christianity, known today as Lutheranism. The Holy Roman Empire should not be confused with the Roman Empire. “The Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire.”

The Holy Roman Empire controlled much of Europe between 800 AD and 1806 AD. Most of the people who lived in the empire were ethnic Germans, but there were other groups as well, including Czechs, Slovaks, and Italians. While the empire was ruled over by an emperor, local princes had enormous power over their individual regions. This was a factor in both the Thirty Years’ War and the Treaty of Westphalia. Many of the princes of the Holy Roman Empire were sympathetic toward Luther’s philosophy.

Martin Luther’s Revolution

Since the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was Catholic, Luther’s religious revolution was a major problem in the empire. The division between Catholics and Protestants was not limited to the princes of the empire.

Cormac Shine writes in History Today the source of this enduring myth can be traced to an influential article by Leo Gross, described by one critic as ‘the Homer of the Westphalia myth’, which was published in the American Journal of International Law in 1948. Writing on the tercentenary of the Peace, soon after the founding of the United Nations, the Austrian-born legal scholar described 1648 as ‘the majestic portal which leads from the old into the new world’ and ‘the starting point for the development of international law’.

This is still the dominant image of Westphalia: a major turning point between the medieval and the modern, the birth certificate of the international legal order. Political and legal theorists generally adopt wholesale the views promoted by Gross, while historians have done little to dispel this myth.

Even today, when scholars regularly invoke the need for a ‘post-Westphalian’ order or wonder what lies ‘beyond Westphalia’, they implicitly take Westphalian sovereignty as their natural starting point. For when one considers the content and context of the treaties of Westphalia, it is clear that they did not radically alter the nature of sovereignty, nor did the Peace invent a new international system. The idea that Westphalia paved the way for an international system of sovereign states relies on the argument that the treaties dismantled the twin supreme authorities of the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire. The Peace of Westphalia officially gave imperial princely states the power to sign treaties. 

Overlapping sovereignties were as much a fact of life and a source of conflict after 1648 as they had been before.  Westphalia still figures so prominently in the history of international law and politics. 

Westphalia In Present Day Context

An answer is perhaps the ahistorical nature of those two disciplines. Westphalia is detached from its context and assigned great importance because it suits the narrative of existing international law and international relations.  So 1648 marks the first stepping stone on a path that leaps neatly from there to 1815, 1919, and 1945 to the present day.

By cutting out events before this date and painting Westphalia as the birthplace of the sovereign states system, the historiography of international law and politics is narrowed to make the formation of the existing settlement seem inevitable. Any alternatives outside the realm of sovereign states are discounted. It would be difficult to page forward without reference to Adolf Hitler who triggered the devastation of the Second World War, Joseph Stalin, and the cold war. 

Vladimir Putin’s Red Line

The most recent warning by Russia’s Vladimir Putin to the Western Bloc not to cross the red line that Russia would consider a threat to its security. Putin had asked the Western bloc to ensure that Ukraine should remain neutral or in other words should not be a part of NATO or European Union countries. US President Joe Biden totally disregarded Putin’s urging and continued to arm Ukraine with sophisticated arms though it is fully understood that the US would not be putting her soldiers on Ukrainian soil.  

Meanwhile, Russia the latest development in the words of Dimitry Medvedev, Russia’s former President rings the bell of nuclear threat should the West continue its policy of ignoring Russia.   It is difficult to fathom the seriousness of the threat as at the same time one also hears the bells of Russian proposals of peace talks with the West.

It is possible that Russia may agree with the territory she has regained in Ukraine and be assured of her position as a superpower. It would be foolhardy for Zelensky or the Western powers to seek a military defeat for Russia in Ukraine. Putin must be allowed to satisfy the Russian people of a victory( of sorts) and the West should start its process of easing sanctions against Russia. 

Taiwan Complication

An added complication is the position of China in the Ukraine issue. The problem is a possible miscalculation by Xi Jinping that the US pre-occupation with Ukraine opens for him the door for an adventure in Taiwan. Xi Jinping had repeatedly stated that Taiwan is an integral part of mainland China and China is determined to bring the breakaway region within its fold.

China has the advantage of a distance, with Taiwan being just about 100 miles from its east mainland. In the case of the US its nearest base in Japan is much further away. Besides the Taiwan army is determined to foil any attempt by China to cross the strait and in the process would lose hundreds of amphibian ships making any cost-benefit analysis against China.

Additionally, the US is committed to defending Taiwan giving the US the advantage over Xi-Jinping’s inexperience in dealing with superpowers that the post-Second World War US-Soviet Union had. Defense analyst Ian Easton, whose 2017 book, “The Chinese Invasion Threat,” imagines what war might look like based on leaked Chinese military documents, suggests that somewhere between 1 to 2 million combat troops would have to cross the strait if Taiwan’s defenses were at full strength. (If China already had Taiwan on the back foot by instigating a coup or assassinating its president, a smaller force might be feasible.)

A Chinese landing on Taiwan would “be the most complex operation in modern military history,” said Michael Beckley, a professor at Tufts University and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who studies U.S.-China competition. (Joshua Keating, Jan. 13, 2023). Finally, it all comes down to a modern version of Thucydides’ Trap with complications inherent in modern diplomacy. The world is not prepared for the extinction of mankind. So a solution has and will be found. 

Westphalia in the Modern Context

By Kazi Anwarul Masud

Issue:  Net Edition    | Date : 14 Mar , 2023

Significance of the Treaty of Westphalia

For many years Germany became the principal theatre of European diplomacy and war, and consequently,the development of German national unity was delayed. But the Treaty of Westphalia pronounced the dissolution of the old order in the empire andit facilitated the growth of new powers in its component parts, especially Austria, Bavaria, and Brandenburg. The treaty was recognized as a fundamental law of the German constitution and formed the basis of all subsequent treaties until the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.( Adam Augustyn-Britannica ).To understand the significance of the Treaty of Westphalia, one must first understand the history of the Protestant Reformation. A Protestant is someone who “protests” against the theology of the Catholic Church. Martin Luther, a German theological, objected to the theology and practices of the Catholic Church and founded his own branch of Christianity, known today as Lutheranism. The Holy Roman Empire should not be confused with the Roman Empire. “The Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire.” The Holy Roman Empire controlled much of Europe between 800 AD and 1806 AD. Most of the people who lived in the empire were ethnic Germans, but there were other groups as well, including Czechs, Slovaks, and Italians.While the empire was ruled over by an emperor, local princes had enormous power over their individual regions. This was a factor in both the Thirty Years’ War and the Treaty of Westphalia. Many of the princes of the Holy Roman Empire were sympathetic toward Luther’s philosophy.

Martin Luther’s Revolution

Since the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was Catholic, Luther’s religious revolution was a major problem in the empire. The division between Catholics and Protestants was not limited to the princes of the empire. Cormac Shine writes in History Todaythe source of this enduring myth can be traced to an influential article by Leo Gross, described by one critic as ‘the Homer of the Westphalia myth’, which was published in the American Journal of International Law in 1948. Writing on the tercentenary of the Peace, soon after the founding of the United Nations, the Austrian-born legal scholar described 1648 as ‘the majestic portal which leads from the old into the new world’ and ‘the starting point for the development of international law’. This is still the dominant image of Westphalia: a major turning point between the medieval and the modern, the birth certificate of the international legal order. Political and legal theorists generally adopt wholesale the views promoted by Gross, while historians have done little to dispel this myth.Even today, when scholars regularly invoke the need for a ‘post-Westphalian’ order or wonder what lies ‘beyond Westphalia’, they implicitly take Westphalian sovereignty as their natural starting point. For when oneconsiders the content and context of the treaties of Westphalia, it is clear that they did not radically alter the nature of sovereignty, nor did the Peace invent a new international system.The idea that Westphalia paved the way for an international system of sovereign states relies on the argument that the treaties dismantled the twin supreme authorities of the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire. The Peace of Westphalia officially gave imperial princely states the power to sign treaties. Overlapping sovereignties were as much a fact of life and a source of conflict after 1648 as they had been before. Westphalia still figures so prominently in the history of international law and politics.

Westphalia in Present-Day Context

Ananswer is perhaps the ahistorical nature of those two disciplines. Westphalia is detached from its context and assigned great importance because it suits the narrative of existing international law and international relations.  So 1648 marks the first stepping stone on a path that leaps neatly from there to 1815, 1919, and 1945 to the present day. By cutting out events before this date and painting Westphalia as the birthplace of the sovereign states system, the historiography of international law and politics is narrowed to make the formation of the existing settlement seem inevitable. Any alternatives outside the realm of sovereign states are discounted. It would be difficult to page forward without reference to Adolf Hitler who triggered the devastation of the Second World War, Joseph Stalin,and the cold war.

Vladimir Putin’s Red Line

The most recent warningby Russia’s Vladimir Putin to the Western Bloc not to cross the red line that Russia would consider a threat to its security. Putin had asked the Western bloc to ensure that Ukraine should remain neutral or in other words should not be a part of NATO or European Union countries. US President Joe Biden totally disregarded Putin’s urging and continued to arm Ukraine with sophisticated arms though it is fully understood that the US would not be putting her soldiers on Ukrainian soil. Meanwhile, Russia the latest development in the words of Dimitry Medvedev, Russia’s former Presidentrings the bell of nuclear threatshould the West continue its policy of ignoring Russia.It is difficult to fathom the seriousness of the threat as at the same time one also hears the bells of Russian proposals of peace talks with the West. It is possible that Russia may agree with the territory she has regained in Ukraine and be assured of her position as a superpower. It would be foolhardy for Zelensky or the Western powers to seek a military defeat for Russia in Ukraine. Putin must be allowed to satisfy the Russian people of a victory( of sorts) and the West should start its process of easing sanctions against Russia.

Taiwan Complication

An added complication is the position of China in the Ukraine issue. The problem is a possible miscalculation by Xi Jinping that the US pre-occupationwith Ukraine opens for him the door for an adventure in Taiwan. Xi Jinping had repeatedly stated that Taiwan is an integral part of mainland China and China is determined to bring the breakaway region within its fold. China has the advantage of a distance 2103 kilometers (1307 miles). In the case of the US its nearest base in Japan is much further away. Besides the Taiwan army is determined to foil any attempt by China to cross the strait and in the process would lose hundreds of amphibian ships making any cost-benefit analysis against China. Additionally, the US is committed to defending Taiwangiving the US the advantage over Xi Jinping’s inexperience in dealing with superpowersthat the post-Second World War US-Soviet Union had. Defense analyst Ian Easton, whose 2017 book, “The Chinese Invasion Threat,” imagines what war might look like based on leaked Chinese military documents, suggests that somewhere between 1 to 2 million combat troops would have to cross the strait if Taiwan’s defenses were at full strength. (If China already had Taiwan on the back foot by instigating a coup or assassinating its president, a smaller force might be feasible.) A Chinese landing on Taiwan would “be the most complex operation in modern military history,” said Michael Beckley, a professor at Tufts University and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who studies US-China competition. ( Joshua Keating-Jan 13 2023). Finally, it all comes down to a modern version of Thucydides’Trap with complications inherent in modern diplomacy. The world is not prepared for the extinction of mankind. So a solution has and will be found.

 

 

Is A Nuclear Catastrophe Possible? – OpEd

 March 3, 2023  Eurasia Review  0 Comments

By Ambassador Kazi Anwarul Masud

SINO-RUSSIAN ALIGNMENT

Sino-Russian alignment appears to bring the world to possible catastrophe not seen or felt after the Second World War II. With all its faults Yalta Conference agreed to a division of power structure between the West and the Soviet Union. The agreement was faulty but assured the world of a rule-based division of power. The West had to agree to Joseph Stalin’s demand to a division of Europe in which Soviet suzerainty would prevail.

Yet both the West and the Soviet Union were acutely aware of slipping away from a path that could open the nuclear war and the end of mankind.  After Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear catastrophe Japan was forced to surrender and a new Japan emerged with the support of the US. The Western political and in recent time military support to Japan has been due to the emergence of China as an aspiring super power. China wants its seat at the table that it had lost to the British many years back when England used to rule the waves. 

OPIUM WARS

Kalliszcz Epanski wrote about the opium wars between the British and the Chinese about the opium wars that brought the Qing dynasty of China to its knees. For well over a thousand years, he wrote, China had been the eastern endpoint of the Silk Road, and the source of fabulous luxury items. European joint-stock trading companies, such as the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company (VOC), were eager to elbow their way in on this ancient exchange system. 

European consumers were crazy for Chinese silks, porcelain, and tea, but China wanted nothing to do with any European manufactured goods.  However, early in the 19th century, the British East India Company hit upon a second form of payment  yet acceptable to the Chinese traders: opium from British India. This opium, primarily produced in Bengal, was stronger than the type traditionally used in Chinese medicine; in addition, Chinese users began to smoke the opium rather than eating the resin, which produced a more powerful high. By some estimates, as many as 90% of the young males along China’s east coast were addicted to smoking opium by the 1830s.

TREATY OF NANKING

 In August 1842 the British and the Chinese concluded the Treaty of Nanking. In 1858 China was forced to sign the Treaty of Tiensin. For the Qing Dynasty, the Second Opium War marked the beginning of a slow descent into oblivion that ended with the abdication of Emperor Puyi in 1911.  It has been difficult for the Chinese to forget the humiliation at the hands of then European powers. It is no surprise for Xi-Jinping’s ambition, however unrealistic it can be under the present circumstances, more so due to his lack of experience in dealing with the lessons learnt from the US and then Soviet Union, that Xi-Jinping would aspire to be treated as a super power.

Paging to current affairs one could refer to the article Evans Osnos in his article sliding towards A NEW COLD WAR he cites Nikki Haley, a Republican contender for the Presidency in 2024, signaling her backing for something close to regime change, and that “Communist China will end up on the ash heap of history.” China on the other hand cast the uproar as a sign of America’s decline. Its most senior diplomat, Wang Yi, described the balloon shoot-down as “borderline hysterical, and an utter misuse of military force.” 

NEW COLD WAR

Evans Osnos adds that not since the Berlin Wall fell has the world been cleaved so deeply by the kind of conflict that John F. Kennedy called a “long, twilight struggle” over the shape of its future. In broad terms, it is a schism between the realms of democracy and autocracy, pitting the U.S. and its allies against Russia and its dominant partner, China. Excepting the poor countries of South Asia and Africa who have swallowed 

CHINESE BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE

Chinese Belt and Road Initiative because these countries cannot afford the cost of infrastructural developments, some with reservations of UN vote on Russian invasion is taken as an example, who swallowed hook, line and sinker, may be staring at a possible Sri Lankan scenario in near or distant future.

A reinvigorated NATO, at its summit, to which leaders of Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand were invited, voiced unprecedented concern about China’s ambitions. Meanwhile, the Biden Administration has strengthened military ties with Australia, Japan, and India who has territorial dispute with China and plans to expand military activities in the Philippines, to bolster its ability to defend Taiwan. But the war has also delineated the limits of U.S. influence. Despite Russia’s brutality in Ukraine, it has maintained, or reinforced, ties with a host of nations. India, which is working with the U.S. to counter China, nevertheless relies heavily on weapons and oil from Russia, and has quintupled trade with it. 

WARNING TO THE WEST BY CONDOLEEZA RICE

Former United States Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice warned Republicans eyeing a run for president in 2024 of the dangers of appeasing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s conquest of Ukraine arguing that history has left stark examples of what happens when imperial aggression is left unchecked. Rice continues to urge the US to recognize that the Chinese-Russian relationship is perhaps more strategic than many in the US had thought, that it really is a relationship that is aimed at the heart of US power in the world. 

CRITICISM OF JOHN MEARSHEIMER

Critics have pointed fingers at John Mearsheimer for the wrong US policy towards Russia arguing that the West has failed to understand Russia’s security concerns and has provoked unnecessary conflict with Moscow. He has also criticized the West’s efforts to isolate Russia economically and diplomatically, arguing that such policies are counterproductive and are unlikely to change Russian behavior. He has argued that the United States should engage with Russia in a more constructive way, acknowledging Russia’s legitimate security concerns and seeking to find common ground on issues such as arms control and counterterrorism. Should one also take seriously the recent utterings of former Russian president, prime minister, and current Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev’s threats to the West that the continued supply of arms to Ukraine will lead to atomic Armageddon? Added is Vladimir Putin’s withdrawal from the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty – potentially triggering a revamped arms race.  Putin added that “If the United States conducts tests, then we will. No one should have dangerous illusions that global strategic parity can be destroyed,” .

JOSEPH NYE ADVICE TO THE WESTERN BLOC

 Harvard luminary Joseph Nye  Jr’s article in Project Syndicate illuminates that  even if Xi was the predictable product of a Leninist party system, there remains a question about timing. Modernization theory – and South Korea and Taiwan’s real-world experience – suggests that when per capita income approaches $10,000, a middle class will emerge, and autocracy becomes harder to maintain, compared to the poor peasant society that came before. But how long does this process take? While Marx argued that it took time, Lenin was more impatient, and believed that historical developments could be accelerated by a vanguard exercising control over society. 

CHINA TODAY 

Despite Xi’s talk of Marxism-Leninism, it is clearly Lenin who is prevailing over Marx in today’s China. Did the engagement strategy’s mistake lie in expecting meaningful change within two decades, rather than a half-century or more? It is worth remembering that when it comes to generations of CPC leadership, Xi is only the fifth. And as the China expert Orville Schell argues, it is “patronizing to assume that Chinese citizens will prove content to gain wealth and power alone without those aspects of life that other societies commonly consider fundamental to being human.” Unfortunately, policymakers are always under time pressure and must formulate strategic objectives for the here and now. The question for the years ahead is whether Joe Biden can implement his policies in ways that do not foreclose the possibility of more benign future scenarios, even while recognizing that they are distant.