View from America

                                                               By M.R. Josse GAITHERSBURG, MD: Though mid-term U.S. elections are more than a year away – not to mention that the next presidential contest is more than three years down the road – domestic American politics is increasingly exhibiting early, tell-tale signs of their variegated impact. One example is next month’s gubernatorial election in Virginia between Republican Glenn Youngkin and Democrat Terry McAuliffe which political sages tell us is more important than ever as a national barometer. As CNN analyst Stephen Collinson explains: “A Democratic defeat in what has become a reliably blue state over the past decade would be impossible to ignore and would cause political headaches for Democrats that reach beyond the Biden presidency.” Among manifold examples of the impact of future battles of the ballot on the body politic is President Joe Biden’s rejection of former president Donald Trump’s attempts to block documents  from the House committee investigating in 6 January 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by his supporters, citing the gravity of the assault on democracy. It is also reflected in former vice-president Mike Pence loyalists’ open disclosure that he is likely to run for president in 2024 – especially if Trump does not. In the meantime, Pence’s potential candidature serves as a stark test of whether there can be a political life after Trump for a Republican like Pence. READING THE TEA LEAVES That said, for some time now, public focus has pivoted towards an altogether different direction: to Taiwan and China. There, the prime interest or concern is whether the United States and China – the two ‘biggies’ on the international stage – are slowly but surely sliding into an armed conflict over Taiwan. Last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping promised to achieve “unification” with Taiwan after a number of Chinese military jets conducted drills close to the island, escalating the tension between the two sides, as reported by the Washington Post. “Compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait should stand on the right side of history and join hands to achieve China’s complete unification…The historic mission of achieving the complete unification of our country must be realized,” Xi declared.

Chinese aircraft in Taiwan's airspace.

Speaking on 11 October, at a parade and military ceremony marking Taiwan National Day, President Tsai Ing-wen, vowed: “The island will continue to develop and invest in its defensive capabilities to ensure that nobody can force Taiwan to take the path that China has laid out for us” – a path, she said, that “offers neither a free and democratic way of life for Taiwan, nor sovereignty for our 23 million people.” Analysts have noted, however, that Beijing’s military air drills near Taiwan stopped short of the island’s air-space and, as the Post has reported, “may primarily be a way for China to boost nationalism at home while signaling resolve, but the dramatic scale of the sorties is itself dangerous and piles pressure on Taiwan’s air force, as well as U.S. efforts to strengthen the island’s defenses.” Besides, as Post reporting has it, “by flying around the southern tip of Taiwan to the southeast coast, the Chinese air force is also demonstrating an ability to attack from the east, requiring adjustments to the island’s defenses,” quoting Ling-Yu Lin, an assistant professor of Asia-Pacific affairs at National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan. Taiwan Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng was quoted as saying that tensions across the Taiwan Strait were at their most serious in more than 40 years. He went on to predict: “By 2025, China will bring the cost and attrition to its lowest. It has the capacity now, but will not start a war easily, having to take many other things into consideration.” Notably, in recent days, China has reiterated calls for the United States to cut off ties with Taiwan, in a cautious response to a report in the Wall Street Journal, quoting U.S. officials, that U.S. marines have been stationed in Taiwan for more than a year to strengthen its defenses. So, what is the U.S.’s official position vis-à-vis Taiwan?  To recall: the United States, as most countries, does not recognize Taiwan as an independent nation. It adheres to the one-China policy, which states that there is only one China and acknowledges the Chinese point of view that Taiwan is part of it. Washington however points out, from time to time, that it has acknowledged Beijing’s position claiming Taiwan, without taking sides in the dispute! Yet, in recent years – coinciding roughly with China’s steady rise as a redoubtable economic and military power in the Asia-Pacific – Washington has made moves to further bolster its support for Taiwan as a bulwark against Beijing. Its support for Taiwan has been amply reflected in its continuing arms sale to Taipei even while promoting calls for a greater role for the island in global affairs. Significantly, though, the United States has refused to declare whether it would send its military to defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack, under a policy known as ‘strategic ambiguity’. Washington has however shored up its support for such transparent anti-China initiatives as the three-way defense pact, known as AUKUS, in which the United States and the United Kingdom will share nuclear submarine technology with Australia. Incidentally, as the Post has it, recent joint exercises between British and U.S. strike groups alongside Japanese defensive forces have also drawn Beijing’s ire. Last month, in the U.S. capital, President Biden hosted the first in-person summit of leaders of the Quad security partnership comprising, apart from the United States, Japan, India and Australia. Just weeks later, in yet another anti-China gambit, the CIA announced it is creating a new center focused exclusively “on gathering intelligence on China and countering its espionage against the United States”, as reported 8 October by the Post. OTHER VOICES, CLUES There are a few other non-official American viewpoints on the central theme of this column that could do with some airing. They include those articulated by Gen. H.R. MacMaster (retd.), a former National Security Adviser, on Fareed Zakaria’s popular world affairs TV show. MacMaster speculated that Beijing’s escalation of tension with Taiwan was linked to Xi’s ardent desire to bring about China’s ‘national rejuvenation’ drawing inspiration, among other stimuli, from the 30th anniversary of the collapse of the erstwhile Soviet Union and the forthcoming 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. Furthermore, he advanced the theory that Xi may believe that, because of a host of varied and conjoined domestic political pressures and problems in the United States, the latter is currently perceived to be in a relatively ‘weak’ position, thereby providing China a rare window of opportunity to forcibly attempt to unify Taiwan. Lamenting that the United States has for too long underfunded her defense budget, he claimed that “since 1995, China’s defense budget has increased by 400 percent.” Zakaria, for his part, disclosed that the Pentagon has conducted multiple war-gaming exercises with China, over Taiwan, and “lost each one.” He reminded his audience that China is “huge” and “right there” in Taiwan’s periphery - unlike the United States. He advanced the view that, in order to reverse what seems to be an inexorable slide towards a U.S.-China shooting war, there ought to be better crises management efforts, such as that which existed between Washington and Moscow during the Cold War and, in any case, better communications. I would like, at this juncture, to offer some seminal thoughts of Henry Kissinger - former U.S. Secretary of State and former National Security Adviser - who negotiated with the late Chinese Premier Zhou En-lai, on Taiwan, among other subjects, prior to the dramatic breakthrough in America-China relations in the early 1970s. I now quote excerpts from a Dawn newspaper publication, dated 1 May 2021, entitled: ‘U.S.-China tensions carry seeds of war’. They are based on a Kissinger’s lecture at the McCain Institute’s Sedona Forum on global issues. Kissinger emphasized that U.S.-China tensions threaten to engulf the entire world and could lead to an Armageddon-like clash between the two military and technology giants. He averred that the mix of economic, military and technology strengths of the two superpowers carried more risk than the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Strains with China are “the problem for America, the biggest problem for the world. Because if we can’t solve that, then the risk is that all over the world a kind of cold war will develop between China and the United States.” While nuclear weapons were already large enough to damage the entire globe during the Cold War, he reminded, advances in nuclear technology and artificial intelligence – where China and the United States are the leaders – have multiplied the doomsday threat. “For the first time in human history, humanity has the capacity to extinguish itself in a finite period of time,” Kissinger warned. “We have developed the technology of a power that is beyond what anybody imagined even 70 years ago. And now, to the nuclear issue, is added the high tech issue, which is the field of artificial intelligence, which, in its essence, is based on the fact that man becomes a partner of machines and that machines can develop their own judgment,” he observed. “So, in a military conflict between high-tech powers, it’s of colossal significance.” Kissinger recommended that “U.S. policy towards China must take a two-pronged approach: standing firm on U.S. principles to demand China’s respect, while maintaining a constant dialogue and finding areas of cooperation. I’m not saying that diplomacy will always lead to beneficial results.” Coming, now, to Biden’s relevant recent moves and utterances on the subject: last week, he told reporters outside the White House that he had spoken with Xi about Taiwan and agreed to abide by the Taiwan agreement. As the Post reminds, since the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1979, the United States has “acknowledged” – but not recognized – China’s position that Taiwan is part of China, while maintaining unofficial relations and military support with Taipei, under the Taiwan Relations Act. That delicate position is build, however, on an expectation that Taiwan’s future will be determined peacefully, an assumption that has been shaken in recent years by Chinese saber-rattling, as per the American view. At this point, the most reassuring development is that Biden and Xi have agreed to hold a virtual summit before the end of the year, something that Chinese state media described as an intention to get relations back on track. For everyone’s sake, let’s hope that they will be successful in drawing back from the icy slopes of the yawing precipice that lie ahead. NEPALI GAIJATRA Though this year’s traditional ‘gaijtra’ is over, Nepal’s never-ending political ‘gaijatra’ is alive and well.

Nepali billionaire Binod Chaudhary appears in the Washington Post with the Pandora Papers coverage.

That can be asserted from a bunch of developments on the home front. That includes the disclosure - in the Washington Post, in the context of the Pandora Papers - that “Binod Chaudhary set up a company abroad to get around Nepal’s laws against investing outside national borders.” That aside, one is informed that Prime Minister Deuba finally composed his cabinet of 25 members a fulsome 88 days after his assumption of high office! That jollity apart, it was rib-tickling to be informed that the Chief Justice Cholendra Shumshere Rana’s reported ‘nominee’ Gajendra Hamal – appointed Minister of Industry, Commerce and Supplies – is a non-MP and relative. As per reporting in this very weekly, this appointment was a ‘reward’ for favoring Deuba in his recent ‘political battle’ with K.P. Oli for the office of PM! What was enlightening if off-putting was to be informed – again, via this weekly – that the appointment had the tacit approval of all the chief political honchos of the day. And that’s not enough. Days later, one learnt that Hamal, as requested by Deuba, rendered his resignation. Must be a record, methinks: perhaps someone should send it to the Guiness Book of Records. The latest is that the CJ has reportedly forwarded his ‘samdi’s’ name as nominee for the high-profile assignment as ambassador to India. When will this ‘gaijatra’ end?