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Review of World Affairs

By Shashi P.B.B. Malla

Australia Abandons Balancing between U.S. & China

 

For more than 20 years, Australia successfully maintained cordial relations with both the United States and China. It was lucrative for trade and maintained peaceful regional relations. In one fell swoop, the entire political calculus changed with the announcement of the new security pact with the United States and the United Kingdom – “AUKUS” – which will see Australia eventually field nuclear-powered submarines.

Under the agreement, the three countries will hold meetings to coordinate on cyber issues, advance technologies and defence to help them better meet modern-day security challenges.

Above all, the US and UK will help Australia build and maintain nuclear-powered attack submarines, a major boost for national security. Under the AUKUS agreement, Australia will become the seventh country in the world to operate nuclear submarines, together with the US, the UK, China, Russia, France and India.

Australia has unnecessarily antagonized China for the foreseeable future, the country’s largest trading partner, while at the same time making itself completely reliant on the US for protection should tension escalate in the Asia-Pacific greater region (CNN/Ben Westcott, Sep. 18). This could be the case in the simmering tensions in the South China Sea, the Taiwan Straits and the East China Sea.

Ms. Yun Jiang, a researcher at the Australian National University in Canberra said the deal was the “final nail in the coffin” of Australia’s relationship with China, effectively eliminating any chance for rapprochement, at least in the short term.

India Deepens Quad Engagement

Australia is not alone in moving closer to the U.S. Other members of the security arrangement known as the “Quad”, Japan and India, are also working closely with the Biden administration to balance the rise of China.

The Quad held its first in-person meeting in Washington last Friday, amidst the fallout from the controversial new global security pact AUKUS.

Leaders from both these forums avoided mentioning China directly, but there is no doubt that China is the elephant in the room. Cooperation efforts are definitely designed to counter China’s influence in the Asia-Pacific region – from Suez to the East China Sea.

China always weighs heavily on Indian leaders when they meet their fellow Quad colleagues. India is the only country in the group that shares a border with China – and that border is bitterly disputed at several points. Only last year, the border troops from the two nations were involved in a deadly clash in the Ladakh/Kashmir section.

Moreover, India’s humiliating defeat by China in the autumn 1962 border war still rankles in the collective Indian memory. China is also very close to Pakistan, India’s arch-enemy. Both countries claim the state of Jammu & Kashmir in its entirety, parts of which are in the possession of India, Pakistan and China.

India’s political class and the national security establishment are in favour of more Quad engagement since India is enormously weak militarily vis-à-vis China. There is now a great ideological divide between the two Asian giants – it can even be said that there is the Huntington “clash of civilizations”.

This will have repercussions for the non-aligned movement in general, and the power constellation in South Asia. Nepal must now tread even more carefully and completely abandon the Oli-like amateur game of tilting to one side while in office and to the other while in opposition. The supremacy of the “equidistance” doctrine is now firmly established.

India has been a keen participant in multilateral forums in recent years – including some in which China is also a member. It stands to gain from the existence of both AUKUS and the Quad (BBC, Sep. 24).

German Federal Elections

Germany heads into a period of unpredictability after a tight election saw both main parties claim the right to lead Europe’s largest state [83 million people and largest territory] and biggest economy [the world’s fourth largest].

Germany’s chancellor hopefuls held their last campaign events around the country on Saturday ahead of Sunday’s vote. The race was close until the very end on who was to lead the country into the post-Merkel era was far from decided.

Laschet, who was expected to lead his centre-right Union block to its worst result ever.

Ms. Annalena Baerbock, the Greens leading candidate last call in Duesseldorf, the capital of Laschet’s home state of North Rhine-Westphalia, was: “Everything hinges on this election. Do we just keep on with the status quo, or do we filly achieve a new breakthrough? Do we renew this country and get the best out of it?”

In his last major rally for the SPD on Friday, Scholz travelled to the cathedral city of Cologne. He had exuded increasing confidence as his and his party’s electoral fortunes made a dramatic turnaround. Initially counted out of the race and vastly underestimated, the SPD found itself ahead by a few percentage points at the close of the race.

In the fractured political landscape of the post-Merkel era, the most likely outcome will be a three-way alliance, ending the post-war tradition of two-party coalition governments. Both the SPD and the CDU/CSU have made clear that they do not want a repetition of the current left-right “grand coalition”.

Merkel Appealed for ‘Stability’

Merkel’s centre-right CDU/CSU bloc received 24.1 % percent, the worst showing in its seven decades history – after Germany was re-constituted after WW II.

Outgoing German chancellor Angela Merkel made a last-ditch effort on Saturday for Armin Laschet, chairman of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the beleaguered conservative’s bloc’s [CDU plus the Bavarian sister party Christian Social Union/CSU] choice for chancellor.

But it was too little, too late. Already during the election campaign, it became apparent that she and the other grandees of the CDU had backed the wrong horse.

Preliminary results indicate that the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) had won the largest share of the vote at 25.7 % percent.

Scholz and Laschet will be looking to the Greens and the liberal, pro-business FDP party to make up the numbers needed for a parliamentary majority. The Greens have more affinity for the SPD, and the FDP gravitate more to the CDU/CSU.

Baerbock had called the vote on Sunday a “climate election” and at least some of Green’s climate policies are likely to be adopted in the next government’s agenda.

Speaking alongside Laschet at an event in the western city of Aachen, Merkel sought to portray her would-be successor as a “bridge-builder who will get people on board.” For good measure, she added: “To keep Germany stable, Armin Laschet must become chancellor, and the CDU and CSU must be the strongest force.”

The centre-left Social Democrat’s (SPD) chancellor candidate, Olaf Scholz, stuck close to home on Saturday, holding a small “dialogue” event in his constituency in Potsdam, just outside Berlin.

The chancellor candidates made their final stops in a campaign that can be truly termed ‘historical’. Never before had the outcome been so uncertain. Polls showed a statistical dead heat between the two parties [groups] that have shared power for three of Angela Merkel’s four terms at the helm of affairs. There was a sense of urgency in the air. But the outcome was anybody’s guess (DW/Deutsche Welle, Sep. 25).

The country’s political stability and Merkel’s steady leadership would continue in a caretaker capacity until a new government is constituted. Both Laschet, 60, and Scholz, 63, have promised to have a new government in place before Christmas.

The SPD’s chancellor candidate, Finance Minister and Vice-Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and Armin Laschet [CDU chair and governor of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s largest state] from Merkel’s conservatives have each claimed a mandate to govern, setting off a scramble for potential coalition partners. Scholz has the better cards and was also favoured overwhelmingly by public opinion.

For the first time, Scholz said forming a governing coalition with the Green Party would be his “favourite” outcome for the election. He added that his cabinet would maintain gender parity – a first in German politics.

Preliminary Election Results

SPD                         25.7 % percent

CDU/CSU               24.1

Greens                   14.8

FDP                        11.5

AfD                        10.3

Left                        4.9

Others                    8.7

 

Distribution of Seats in the Bundestag

SPD                                         206 Seats/Members

CDU/CSU                               196

Greens                                   118

FDP                                         92

AfD                                         83

Left                                         39

Other                                      1

Total Seats:                          735

Absolute Majority:              368

[Source: DW/Deutsche Welle, Sep. 27]

These are not the final, official results and the distribution of parliamentary seats is also preliminary. The Left did not reach the 5 % percent mark but won three direct mandates, and will, therefore, be represented in the new Bundestag.

Thus, what could emerge would either be a SPD-FDP-Greens coalition [Traffic light constellation: red-yellow-green] or CDU/CSU-Greens-FDP partnership [ Jamaica combine: black, green, yellow].

U.S. President Joe Biden has already given his imprimatur to Scholz’ SPD by calling it a ‘solid party’. This was his first step in bridge-building to repair the strained relations with Germany, the key country in Europe even after Merkel’s departure.

The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com