Kosovo Independence and the Russian Reaction

February 20, 2008

By George Friedman - www.stratfor.com.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Sunday. The United States and many, but not all, European countries recognized it. The Serbian government did not impose an economic blockade on — or take any military action against — Kosovo, although it declared the Albanian leadership of Kosovo traitors to Serbia. The Russians vehemently repeated their objection to an independent Kosovo but did not take any overt action. An informal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was announced last week; it will take place in Moscow on Feb. 21. With Kosovo’s declaration, a river was crossed. We will now see whether that river was the Rubicon.

Kosovo’s independence declaration is an important event for two main reasons. First, it potentially creates a precedent that could lead to redrawn borders in Europe and around the world. Second, it puts the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany in the position of challenging what Russia has defined as a fundamental national interest — and this at a time when the Russians have been seeking to assert their power and authority. Taken together, each of these makes this a geopolitically significant event.

Begin with the precedent. Kosovo historically has been part of Serbia; indeed, Serbs consider it the cradle of their country. Over the course of the 20th century, it has become predominantly Albanian and Muslim (though the Albanian version of Islam is about as secular as one can get). The Serbian Orthodox Christian community has become a minority. During the 1990s, Serbia — then the heart of the now-defunct Yugoslavia — carried out a program of repression against the Albanians. Whether the repression rose to the level of genocide has been debated. In any case, the United States and other members of NATO conducted an air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999 until the Yugoslavians capitulated, allowing the entry of NATO troops into the province of Kosovo. Since then, Kosovo, for all practical purposes, has been a protectorate of a consortium of NATO countries but has formally remained a province of Serbia. After the Kosovo war, wartime Yugoslavian leader Slobodan Milosevic died in The Hague in the course of his trial for war crimes; a new leadership took over; and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia itself ultimately dissolved, giving way to a new Republic of Serbia.

The United Nations did not sanction the war in Kosovo. Russian opposition in the U.N. Security Council prevented any U.N. diplomatic cover for the Western military action. Following the war — in a similar process to what happened with regard to Iraq — the Security Council authorized the administration of Kosovo by the occupying powers, but it never clearly authorized independence for Kosovo. The powers administering Kosovo included the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany and other European states, organized as the Kosovo Force (KFOR).

While the logic of the situation pointed toward an independent Kosovo, the mechanism envisioned for the province’s independence was a negotiated agreement with Serbia. The general view was that the new government and personalities in Belgrade would be far more interested in the benefits of EU membership than they would be in retaining control of Kosovo. Over nearly a decade, the expectation therefore was that the Serbian government would accede to an independent Kosovo in exchange for being put on a course for EU membership. As frequently happens — and amazes people for reasons we have never understood — nationalism trumped economic interests. The majority of Serbs never accepted secession. The United States and the Europeans, therefore, decided to create an independent Kosovo without Serbian acquiescence. The military and ethnic reality thus was converted into a political reality.

Those recognizing Kosovo’s independence have gone out of their way specifically to argue that this decision in no way constitutes a precedent. They argue that the Serbian oppression of the late 1990s, which necessitated intervention by outside military forces to protect the Kosovars, made returning Kosovo to Serbian rule impossible. The argument therefore goes that Kosovo’s independence must be viewed as an idiosyncratic event related to the behavior of the Serbs, not as a model for the future.

Other European countries, including Spain, Romania, Slovakia and Cyprus, have expressly rejected this reasoning. So have Russia and China. Each of these countries has a specific, well-defined area dominated by a specific ethnic minority group. In these countries and others like them, these ethnic groups have demanded, are demanding or potentially will demand autonomy, secession or integration with a neighboring country. Such ethnic groups could claim, and have claimed, oppression by the majority group. And each country facing this scenario fears that if Kosovo can be taken from Serbia, a precedent for secession will be created.

The Spanish have Basque separatists. Romania and Slovakia each contain large numbers of Hungarians concentrated in certain areas. The Cypriots — backed by the Greeks — are worried that the Turkish region of Cyprus, which already is under a separate government, might proclaim formal independence. The Chinese are concerned about potential separatist movements in Muslim Xinjiang and, above all, fear potential Taiwanese independence. And the Russians are concerned about independence movements in Chechnya and elsewhere. All of these countries see the Kosovo decision as setting a precedent, and they therefore oppose it.

Europe is a case in point. Prior to World War II, Europe’s borders constantly remained in violent flux. One of the principles of a stable Europe has been the inviolability of borders from outside interference, as well as the principle that borders cannot be redefined except with mutual agreement. This principle repeatedly was reinforced by international consensus, most notably at Yalta in 1945 and Helsinki in 1973.

Thus, the Czech Republic and Slovakia could agree to separate, and the Soviet Union could dissolve itself into its component republics, but the Germans cannot demand the return of Silesia from Poland; outsiders cannot demand a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland; and the Russians cannot be forced to give up Chechnya. The principle that outside powers can’t redefine boundaries, and that secessionist movements can’t create new nations unilaterally, has been a pillar of European stability.

The critics of Kosovo’s independence believe that larger powers can’t redraw the boundaries of smaller ones without recourse to the United Nations. They view the claim that Yugoslavia’s crimes in Kosovo justify doing so as unreasonable; Yugoslavia has dissolved, and the Serbian state is run by different people. The Russians view the major European powers and the Americans as arrogating rights that international law does not grant them, and they see the West as setting itself up as judge and jury without right of appeal.

This debate is not trivial. But there is a more immediate geopolitical issue that we have discussed before: the Russian response. The Russians have turned Kosovo into a significant issue. Moscow has objected to Kosovo’s independence on all of the diplomatic and legal grounds discussed. But behind that is a significant challenge to Russia’s strategic position. Russia wants to be seen as a great power and the dominant power in the former Soviet Union (FSU). Serbia is a Russian ally. Russia is trying to convince countries in the FSU, such as Ukraine, that looking to the West for help is futile because Russian power can block Western power. It wants to make the Russian return to great power status seem irresistible.

The decision to recognize Kosovo’s independence in the face of Russian opposition undermines Russian credibility. That is doubly the case because Russia can make a credible argument that the Western decision flies in the face of international law — and certainly of the conventions that have governed Europe for decades. Moscow also is asking for something that would not be difficult for the Americans and Europeans to give. The resources being devoted to Kosovo are not going to decline dramatically because of independence. Putting off independence until the last possible moment — which is to say forever, considering the utter inability of Kosovo to care for itself — thus certainly would have been something the West could have done with little effort.

But it didn’t. The reason for this is unclear. It does not appear that anyone was intent on challenging the Russians. The Kosovo situation was embedded in a process in which the endgame was going to be independence, and all of the military force and the bureaucratic inertia of the European Union was committed to this process. Russian displeasure was noted, but in the end, it was not taken seriously. This was simply because no one believed the Russians could or would do anything about Kosovar independence beyond issuing impotent protestations. Simply put, the nations that decided to recognize Kosovo were aware of Russian objections but viewed Moscow as they did in 1999: a weak power whose wishes are heard but discarded as irrelevant. Serbia was an ally of Russia. Russia intervened diplomatically on its behalf. Russia was ignored.

If Russia simply walks away from this, its growing reputation as a great power will be badly hurt in the one arena that matters to Moscow the most: the FSU. A Europe that dismisses Russian power is one that has little compunction about working with the Americans to whittle away at Russian power in Russia’s own backyard. Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko — who, in many ways, is more anti-Western than Russian President Vladimir Putin and is highly critical of Putin as well — has said it is too late to “sing songs” about Kosovo. He maintains that the time to stop the partition of Kosovo was in 1999, in effect arguing that Putin’s attempts to stop it were ineffective because it was a lost cause. Translation: Putin and Russia are not the powers they pretend to be.

That is not something that Putin in particular can easily tolerate. Russian grand strategy calls for Russia to base its economy on the export of primary commodities. To succeed at this, Russia must align its production and exports with those of other FSU countries. For reasons of both national security and economics, being the regional hegemon in the FSU is crucial to Russia’s strategy and to Putin’s personal credibility. He is giving up the presidency on the assumption that his personal power will remain intact. That assumption is based on his effectiveness and decisiveness. The way he deals with the West — and the way the West deals with him — is a measure of his personal power. Being completely disregarded by the West will cost him. He needs to react.

The Russians are therefore hosting an “informal” CIS summit in Moscow on Friday. This is not the first such summit, by any means, and one was supposed to be held before this but was postponed. On Feb. 11, however, after it became clear that Kosovo would declare independence, the decision to hold the summit was announced. If Putin has a response to the West on Kosovo, it should reveal itself at the summit.

There are three basic strategies the Russians can pursue. One is to try to create a coalition of CIS countries to aid Serbia. This is complex in that Serbia may have no appetite for this move, and the other CIS countries may not even symbolically want to play.

The second option is opening the wider issue of altering borders. This could be aimed at sticking it to the Europeans by backing Serbian secessionist efforts in bifurcated Bosnia-Herzegovina. It also could involve announcing Russia’s plans to annex Russian-friendly separatist regions on its borders — most notably the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and perhaps even eastern Ukraine and the Crimea. (Annexation would be preferred over recognizing independence, since it would reduce the chances of Russia’s own separatist regions agitating for secession.) Russia thus would argue that Kosovo’s independence opens the door for Russia to shift its borders, too. That would make the summit exciting, particularly with regard to the Georgians, who are allied with the United States and at odds with Russia on Abkhazia and other issues.

The third option involves creating problems for the West elsewhere. An Iranian delegation will be attending the summit as “observers.” That creates the option for Russia to signal to Washington that the price it will pay for Kosovo will be extracted elsewhere. Apart from increased Russian support for Iran — which would complicate matters in Iraq for Washington — there are issues concerning Azerbaijan, which is sandwiched between Russia and Iran. In the course of discussions with Iranians, the Russians could create problems for Azerbaijan. The Russians also could increase pressure on the Baltic states, which recognized Kosovo and whose NATO membership is a challenge to the Russians. During the Cold War, the Russians were masters of linkage. They responded not where they were weak but where the West was weak. There are many venues for that.

What is the hardest to believe — but is, of course, possible — is that Putin simply will allow the Kosovo issue to pass. He clearly knew this was coming. He maintained vocal opposition to it beforehand and reiterated his opposition afterward. The more he talks and the less he does, the weaker he appears to be. He personally can’t afford that, and neither can Russia. He had opportunities to cut his losses before Kosovo’s independence was declared. He didn’t. That means either he has blundered badly or he has something on his mind. Our experience with Putin is that the latter is more likely, and this suddenly called summit may be where we see his plans play out.

Read More..

Indonesia - China to Resume Defense Ties

By The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Indonesia and China have agreed to work together on military training and military vehicle production, a move in line with the two countries' 2007 agreement on defense cooperation.
After welcoming Chinese Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan on Wednesday, Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono told reporters both countries would conduct joint military training and exercises for their defense forces.
"We will also create a strategic partnership in joint financing and defense industry, which will concentrate on producing military vehicles, aircraft and vessel carriers," said Juwono, who visited Beijing last November to sign the Memorandum of Understanding on bilateral defense cooperations.
He said the finance and national development ministers of both countries would discuss the amount of investment needed for the defense industry, in which local military carrier producers PT Dirgantara Indonesia and shipbuilder PT PAL would be involved.
Juwono has repeatedly said his ministry will focus more on procuring new military equipment from local manufacturers while seeking products not available domestically from foreign partners under mutual agreements.
He said both countries would also establish a committee to strengthen the defense ties between them.
The bilateral cooperation between Indonesia and China entered a new phase under the reign of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono after the resumption of diplomatic ties between the two countries in 1990.
In 1967, Indonesia's diplomatic relations with China were suspended in the aftermath of a failed coup d'etat in 1965 to oust the then president Sukarno. The then-army major general Soeharto, who undertook to control the aftermath and later rose to power replacing Sukarno, blamed the upheaval on the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), which had flourished well during Sukarno's reign.
Soeharto's government accused communism-based China of being engaged with PKI in the turmoil which was believed to have caused the death of more than a million civilians.
Twenty three years later, the two countries resumed their formal diplomatic ties after an exchange of visits by Chinese premier Li Peng to Jakarta in August 1990 and by Soeharto to Beijing in November the same year.
President Yudhoyono visited his Chinese counterpart, President Hu Jintao, in Beijing in 2005 to sign a strategic partnership, which included the agreement to strengthen the defense cooperation between both countries.
Indonesia was the first country in Southeast Asia to enter into such a strategic partnership with China.
Minister Cao said Wednesday the military in both countries had played a significant role in assisting the economic advancement and a cooperation agreement would allow them to share their experiences in that field.
"In the future, we hope to conduct high level visits more frequently to strengthen the defense relationship between both countries," he said during his first visit to Indonesia.
Minister Cao is scheduled to leave the country on Sunday after a five-day visit. (lln)

Read More..

Indonesia to be Harvard lab for peace-building studies

www.chinaview.cn 2007-11-10 14:54:41

JAKARTA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia's success in ending conflicts and creating peace has led Harvard University to propose using this country as a laboratory for its study into peace processes, local press said Saturday.

The Harvard Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research plans to work with Paramadina University (UPM) in Jakartato develop studies looking at past and ongoing peace processes in Indonesia.

"Indonesia is a fascinating country to study," program director Claude Bruderlein was quoted by local newspaper The Jakarta Post as saying.

"Lessons learned here are very telling, very informative."

Paramadina Rector Anis Baswedan said peace is now taking root in places once plagued by bloody conflicts, such as Ambon, Aceh and the Central Sulawesi district of Poso.

"There are lessons here that could be useful to the peace processes in other countries," he said.

Bruderlein said the UN had cited studies of peace processes in African countries, the Middle East, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

"Yet, our research finds that Indonesia has been one of the most successful countries in peace-building endeavors."

The Harvard program has been primarily active in the Middle East, particularly in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Bruderlein said there is a need for professionals in peace-building activities to exchange notes and experiences, which would allow them to develop a methodology and standards as well as vocabularies. "There is very little literature on peace-building at the moment," he said.

Indonesia makes an ideal laboratory for peace-building studies because it offers simultaneous examples of all three phases as the nation tries to integrate security, justice and development, he said. 　

Read More..

The Re-emergence of an Australian Nuclear Weapons Option? Implications for Indonesia and the Asia Pacific

By Richard Tanter

The question of whether or not Australia should acquire or develop nuclear weapons has been off the policy agenda for many years. From the 1950s onward the Democratic Labor Party argued the case publicly, though to no great policy effect. Yet, as a number of detailed studies by historians and comparative analysts of nuclear proliferation pathways have clearly established, successive Liberal-Country party coalition governments in the 1950s to the early 1970s were committed to either acquire or develop a nuclear weapon.[1] Public advocacy was always restrained, but in the crucial period from the late 1950s and early 1960s a strong coalition of bureaucratic and military interests, including the civilian nuclear establishment, pressed the issue behind closed doors. While this bureaucratic coalition was largely opposed by other parts of the bureaucracy, in particular the Treasury and the Department of External Affairs, for more than a decade, it was successful in determining Australian policy in secret. The most recent studies of this largely intra-bureaucratic policy struggle have emphasized the extent to which this movement down the proliferation pathway was in fact motivated less by rational threat assessment and more by a combination of institutional self-interest and a surprisingly potent nationalist sense of identity and fantasy within those institutional complexes.[2]

The Whitlam government and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) put an end to two decades of Australian nuclear weapons planning. However residues of that secret history remain evident today. One manifestation is the F-111 fighter bombers, soon to be retired from the Royal Australian Air Force, which were ordered in the expectation that they would be available to deliver nuclear bombs on urban targets in Indonesia. It is hardly surprising that another residue of this covert policy is the memory of Australian nuclear planning held by members of the Indonesian political and military elite.

Since then, public advocacy of Australian nuclear weapons acquisition has been limited to the further fringes of the right of Australian politics.[3] There have been no reports of a revival of nuclear advocacy within either the bureaucracy or the nuclear establishment.[4] On the contrary, Australia has, until recently, been a very strong supporter of the NPT regime, especially following the influence of the very large anti-uranium and nuclear disarmament movements of the 1970s and the 1980s. The Hawke and Keating Labor governments, especially under the Foreign Affairs stewardship of Gareth Evans, ultimately responded to these potent civil society movements by establishing substantial Australian bureaucratic capacity to press arms control and disarmament policies robustly in a number of global policy forums.[5] The creative high point of that government reflection of massive civil society rejection of nuclear weapons was the establishment by Keating and Evans of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons in November 1995.[6] The incoming Howard government ignored the Commission’s recommendations. Yet by outlining a practical pathway for the implementation of a nuclear abolitionist position in what was correctly seen as the unique circumstances following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Canberra Commission paved the way both politically and analytically for the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission chaired by Hans Blix, which reported in 2006.[7] Two notable members of the Blix Commission, for Australian concerns, were the architect of the Canberra Commission, Gareth Evans, and the national security advisor to former Indonesian president B.J.Habibie.

The first public crack in Australian political elite repudiation of nuclear weapons since the Canberra Commission, if not the signing of the NPT itself, has come from a surprising source. Martine Letts, a former advisor to Gareth Evans and formerly a disarmament policy specialist in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, opened a recent discussion of “Creative and uncomfortable policy choices ahead” for a Rudd Labor government. In a pre-election essay for the Lowy Institute for International Affairs, Letts suggests that [a]n incoming Australian government will need to assess the changed global nuclear environment and develop strategic policy options to protect and project our interests. Some of these options may be controversial and unpopular.[8]


Nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism and the global demand for nuclear energy (“a significant, if partial, solution to the global problems of climate change”) make up a quite new and threatening context, Letts argued, within which a Rudd government should conduct a full review of Australian nuclear policy. “Australian nuclear policy was shaped by the strategic circumstances of the 1970s”. Accordingly, Letts suggested, such a post-election review of nuclear policy should include examination of “our own decisions on the role nuclear weapons will play for the future security of Australia.”

After a brief, apparently tough-minded tour of the bleak nuclear proliferation policy horizon, Letts concluded with a call for a Rudd government to consider the circumstances under which an Australian government should revive the nuclear weapons option:

A thorough nuclear policy review should also consider which strategic circumstances might lead to Australia’s revisiting the nuclear weapons option. As extreme as this may sound, failure to sustain and strengthen our current non-proliferation regime may force us to consider such an option. In the current strategic circumstances, no government could leave such an eventuality entirely out of mind.

This surprising conclusion from a disarmament specialist appears to derive from deep pessimism about the NPT regime - a regime “too rigid and inflexible to deal with today’s strategic realities”, perhaps able to be “modernised” by creating by creating a new category of Protocol states for India, Pakistan and Israel”.

As a former Australian Deputy Permanent Representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna Letts is pessimistic about the ability of the official global disarmament and non-proliferation machinery to halt the gathering rush to nuclear possession, and inevitable nuclear next use.[9] This tough-minded pessimism leads Letts to posit an implicit worst case scenario for an arms controller: if proliferation cannot be stopped, what then? It would appear that for Letts, an ethic of responsible policy advice, in the context of a hard-headed assessment of the real world, leads her to the unpalatable recognition that there are some circumstances in which Australia should acquire nuclear weapons. After all, there is no point in recommending a review of such circumstances if one believes that they could never exist.

There are a number of difficulties with Letts’ position. The first is that this recommendation is not a matter of hypothetical speculation in an ivory tower. This is realist – if not realistic – policy advice to a government-in-waiting, and Letts expects to be heard. In a policy world where the source of the policy recommendation – a former ambassador and senior government disarmament specialist – matters as much as the content of the recommendation itself – Letts’ claim is that there are foreseeable and proximate strategic conditions under which she would feel obliged to recommend that a Rudd government begin the process of acquiring nuclear weapons. As her closing words put it, “In the current strategic circumstances, no government could leave such an eventuality entirely out of mind.”

The second limitation is that Letts’ approach to a Rudd government nuclear non-proliferation policy is at odds with that of the Labor Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, Robert McClelland. In a speech to the United Nations Association of Australia and the Medical Association for the Prevention of War (MAPW) earlier this year McClelland agued that a Rudd Labor government should and would go well beyond the conventional arms control agenda to embrace the agenda of practical steps towards ultimate nuclear abolition recommended by the Canberra Commission, the Blix Commission and the Middle Powers Initiative launched in October 2005 by the Article VI Forum.[10] That forum aims to identify the legal, political and technical requirements for the elimination of nuclear weapons…" and to undertake "informational and preparatory work on the development and implementation of the legal political and technical elements and the exploration of ways to start negotiations on disarmament steps leading to a nuclear weapons convention or a framework of instruments for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

This is, argued McClelland, "precisely the sort of agenda that an Australian government working as a responsible middle power could and should progress”. In an era where even state-centred realist policy analysis recognizes the importance of soft power, the Canberra Commission, and a genuine, even-handed approach to both arms control and disarmament become palpable resources for a government seeking to contribute to the de-escalating of nuclear proliferation pressures. Such initiatives also create the possibility of re-building policy links with regional allies like Malaysia and Indonesia, which have been stretched more than is usually recognised by the virulence of Australia’s support for US policy in Iraq and Afghanistan.

McClelland’s brief analysis of the nuclear landscape differs from Letts’ by focussing on a realistic assessment of the risks of nuclear next use in a strategic picture where nuclear deterrence theory is increasingly implausible. His reading of the US institutional landscape is clearer, stressing the attempts by a gathering body of former US nuclear hawks to press the case for the military inutility – to say nothing of their inherent genocidal qualities - of nuclear weapons on both Republican and Democrat candidates.[11] Whoever wins the November 24 election will be dealing with a different environment in Washington, in the aftermath of the strategic failures of the Bush administration.

The third issue with Letts’ analysis is its partiality and incompleteness. Nuclear power is to be promoted to help with global warming. Australia should take back nuclear waste, “for which Australian geological structures are highly suited”. Uranium should be exported to India. Iran and North Korea should be prevented from moving further down the nuclear pathway, but India, Pakistan and Israel given a ticket of leave. This is as much obeisance to alliance maintenance, virtually identical to Bush administration policy and its Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), as “a careful cost benefit analysis”.

As with much tough-minded, "let’s face facts”, realism, the full context of such decision-making is ignored. The consequences of such blatant, if commonplace, application of double-standards on regional thinking about proliferation does not enter into the calculations. Since for Japan the most important barrier to nuclear proliferation, should the US door be opened (as seems very possible[12]), is the opprobrium it would draw on itself in leaving the NPT, such collusion in the erosion of the NPT in the name of saving it by an Australian government would seem almost wanton.

But the most serious consequence of Letts’ re-admission of the nuclear option to the Australian policy agenda must surely be registered amongst opinion leaders – and opinion makers - in the country with which Australia has the most to lose in the long run: Indonesia. In the light of Australia's almost two decades of secret pursuit of nuclear weapons until 1972, and the understandable residual Indonesian suspicion about Australia's real nuclear intentions, it would be hard to imagine a policy recommendation with greater risk of contributing to the strategic circumstances it seeks to avoid.

Realism is not synonymous with tough-mindedness, though as Australian foreign policy becomes more militarised, this may be less evident. In much the same way as recent Howard government statements of security policy[13] Letts’ would-be realist rationale for the reluctant opening of the door to Australian nuclear weapons is the product of an incomplete and one sided – and hence inadequately realist - assessment of the indeed frightening drift to nuclear next use.

Australian nuclear policy does indeed need to be reviewed. But such reconsideration of our current policy failures needs to be genuinely and comprehensively realist, informed by abiding commitments to the avoidance of nuclear next-use, and eschewing any suggestion that if our half-hearted arms control measures do not bear fruit, then Australia too will take the genocidal option, and once again and try to join the nuclear club.

This article was posted at the Australian Policy Forum on October 29, 2007 and at Japan Focus on November 5, 2007.

Richard Tanter is Senior Research Associate at Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability and Director of the Nautilus Institute at RMIT. A Japan Focus associate, he has written widely on Japanese security policy, including 'With Eyes Wide Shut: Japan, Heisei Militarization and the Bush Doctrine' in Melvin Gurtov and Peter Van Ness (eds.), Confronting the Bush Doctrine: Critical Views from the Asia-Pacific. He is co-editor with Gerry Van Klinken and Desmond Ball of Masters of Terror: Indonesia's Military and Violence in East Timor.

Read More..

The Turnaround in Sino-Indian Relations

Tarique Niazi

Many observers have recently argued that the newly forged Indo-U.S. alliance will work against its “intended aims of Chinese encirclement.” [1] Although India denies its part in any attempt at “Chinese containment” to the publicly acknowledged satisfaction of China, [2] the theory nevertheless persists. China’s response to the Indo-U.S. alliance is, however, quite creative. Instead of reacting with alarm, Beijing has gone on a charm offensive to draw New Delhi into a triangular entente among China, India and Russia. India, which has languished under foreign subjugation for centuries, has a visceral aversion to strategic alliances with world powers. Since its independence in 1947, it has followed what could be described as the “Third Way” in world diplomacy, which manifested itself in the birth of the Non-aligned Movement (NAM) in the 1950s. China is now building bridges to India based in part on the latter’s instinctive wariness of foreign influences, which is evident in India’s homegrown opposition to its nuclear deal with the U.S.

Most surprisingly, India has been warmly receptive to Chinese overtures to form a triangulation of regional entente. Since President Bush’s landmark visit to New Delhi in March 2006, which laid the foundation for exceptional cooperation between Washington and New Delhi in civilian uses of nuclear technology, India has received the highest-level visits by the Chinese President Hu Jintao in November 2006 and the Russian President Vladimir Putin in January 2007. If anything, these exchanges demonstrate that the Indo-U.S. alliance has brought China, India and Russia ever closer. As a co-architect of this entente, China has embarked on a threefold strategy to bring India into its fold. First, it is reordering its relationship with Pakistan that has long been seen in India as its counterbalance. Second, it is deepening economic ties and speedily resolving the lingering border disputes with India. Third, it is developing, with Russia in the lead, a triangulation of strategic alliance among the three nations to build a “multipolar world,” that is to check U.S. hegemonic impulses.[3] As will be spelled out below, Indians are appreciatively responsive to the Chinese threefold strategy.

Reordering Sino-Pakistani Relations

China’s relations with South Asia have long been frozen in the rivalry between India and Pakistan. With the turn of the millennium, however, Beijing has initiated a thaw. It has since warmed towards India, while at the same time maintaining its special relationship with Pakistan. Observers believe that Chinese President Hu Jintao is now taking Sino-Indian amity to the next level. His visit to India and Pakistan on November 21-26, 2006 epitomized the future shape of Sino-Indian relations, signaling a marked shift in Beijing’s long-held view of New Delhi as a potential rival. The first sign of Beijing’s changing vision became apparent when Hu chose India over Pakistan for his first stop during his week-long visit to South Asia. This was a stunning reversal in the 45-year-old tradition of Chinese leaders who have been making Pakistan their first destination on their official trips to South Asia. Also, the change in Hu’s itinerary helped defuse the sense of offense among Indians at the fact that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s 10-day visit to the region in April 2005 took him first to Islamabad rather than New Delhi. Having swapped Islamabad for New Delhi, Hu recognized India’s place in the sun. This symbolic move heartened India’s nationalist elites, who often decry Beijing’s tilt towards Islamabad.

Beyond symbols, Hu took substantial steps to straddle the chasm between India and Pakistan and thus fashion a new approach to South Asia that is consistent with what he described as “the changing global scenario” and “the situation in the region.” [4] Three such steps that signal a shift, especially, in the Chinese approach to India stand out. First, Hu assured New Delhi that Beijing would not stand in the way if the former made a go at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) seat. Many Indians resent China’s putative obstructionist role to spoil their country’s prospects for a place on the UNSC. Yet just as many Indians attribute Beijing’s resistance to their country’s bid to India’s alliance with Japan, rather than to the Indian bid itself. [5] Hu’s renewed assurances of support for India’s future bid will infuse Indians of all stripes with new hope for their country’s entrée into the UNSC.

Second, during his stay in New Delhi and Islamabad, Hu carefully kept the K-word off his agenda. This was the first time in the past 45 years that a Chinese leader distanced himself from his country’s enduring pro-Pakistan position on the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), which continues to be contested between India and Pakistan. Indians certainly took heart at the omission of Kashmir from Hu’s statements and speeches. Hu, instead, offered to help broker peace in the region. A negotiated settlement of the Kashmir dispute will greatly unburden Beijing of the need for “balancing acts” – between India and Pakistan – while facilitating its diplomacy in the region.

Third, Hu did not sign a long-predicted nuclear cooperation deal with Pakistan, an omission that was evidently aimed at calming New Delhi, which has long been wary of such cooperation. China and Pakistan will, however, continue to cooperate in nuclear power production as per past agreements, which also permit the construction of the second nuclear power plant at Chashma in western Pakistan. Yet Pakistan will not receive the 6 additional power plants that it hoped for from China any time soon. [6] China’s self-imposed moratorium on further expansion of nuclear cooperation with Pakistan also went down well in Washington, calming its proliferation concerns.

The political Economy of Sino-Indian Relations

In particular, Hu celebrated the growing economic ties between China and India, whose two-way trade of $24bn in 2007 has already reached the current volume of Indo-U.S. trade. [7] It is now projected to grow to $40bn by 2010. [8] This dramatic growth in economic cooperation is helping ease the border tensions between Beijing and New Delhi as well. As of 2005, the bulk of Sino-Indian trade was conducted through maritime shipping, since overland trade was suspended in 1962 after the outbreak of hostilities between the two. The two nations have now agreed to reopen the Himalayan crossing after 44 years of closing, to begin overland trade. [9] This will further boost their bilateral trade.

As well, ever-expanding economic ties are likely to ease the lingering Sino-Indian border disputes. There are already visible signs that Indians are willing to exchange their claimed territory of Aksai Chin, which remains under Chinese occupation, for Beijing’s recognition of Arunachal Pradesh as Indian Territory. For its part, China is ready to concede almost all of Arunachal Pradesh to India -- except for the Tawang area [10] near the border with Tibet. The Chinese believe that the Sino-Indian border dispute is a legacy of “the western colonial powers,” [11] which was “imposed on the Chinese and Indian peoples when they were not masters in their own homes.” [12] China, however, cannot let go of Aksai Chin that is the only land link between its two turbulent western regions of Tibet and Xinjiang.

Having grasped the importance of Aksai Chin to China, India’s founding leader and the architect of Sino-Indian alliance in the 1950s, Jawaharlal Nehru, was inclined to “perpetually lease” it to China. [13] Since the ceasefire that followed the Sino-Indian border war of 1962, Beijing has repeatedly offered New Delhi a similar solution to the dispute. In addition, Indians are emboldened by the erstwhile Chinese recognition of Indian sovereignty over Sikkim, to which Beijing has long laid territorial claims. In his April 2005 visit to India, Chinese Premier Wen provided the Indian Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh with cartographic evidence showing Sikkim as part of India. [14]

Emerging Triangulation of Regional Entente

With growing economic ties and subsiding political disagreements, China is also moving fast to draw India into a regional web of security relations with the lead support of Russia, which is at the forefront of such efforts to forge a triangular alliance among the three nations. Russian President Vladimir Putin takes credit for instituting trilateral dialogue among China, India and Russia, [15] which is shaping a new geopolitical reality in the region. As part of the trilateral dialogue, the three nations’ foreign ministers held their first meeting in May 2005 in Russia. On February 14, 2007, they met in New Delhi for their first formal trilateral dialogue. Earlier, in July 2006, the three-way summit of the leaders of China, India, and Russia was held in St. Petersburg, where China and India were invited as observers to an annual G-8 meeting that Russia hosted.

During his recent visit to India on Jan. 25-26 this year as the guest of honor on India’s Republic Day, Putin discussed what he described as trilateral cooperation with Indian Prime Minister Singh. It is worth noting that Prime Minister Singh went beyond the call of protocol to receive President Putin at airport. [16] Later, Putin standing shoulder to shoulder with Singh told a news conference in New Delhi, “We want to resolve regional problems in a way acceptable to all sides. We therefore think that there are good prospects for working together in a trilateral format.” [17] Indians who have long been beholden to Russia seem to embrace Putin’s trilateral initiative, while remaining skeptical about the Indo-U.S. alliance. “Russia has seen India as a key to Asian stability for the past 50 years, some four decades before George W Bush’s team reached that conclusion,” [18] K. Subrahmanyam, India’s foremost observer of strategic affairs, noted with a tinge of sarcasm. In a realist mode, he advised the Indian government: “In a balance of power world, India has to learn to deal simultaneously with all major powers to enhance its own national interest.” [19]

The emerging triangulation has, however, internal dynamics as well. Internally, all three nations have been facing the triple menace of what Chinese describe as “extremism, separatism, and terrorism” (EST). China’s sore points are the Buddhist autonomous region of Tibet and the Muslim-majority autonomous region of Xinjiang; India has its trouble spots in Jammu and Kashmir and the Maoists-dominated Northeast (the latter is a cluster of several states); and Russia has its nemesis in Chechen separatists in the north. Although all three nations acknowledge, in varying degrees, the presence of domestic discontent behind their separatist challenges, they openly blame external powers for the flare-up. These internal and external dynamics are conflating into a tripartite regional entente.

To promote military cooperation in the battle against EST, India and China, China and Russia, and Russia and India have already conducted joint military exercises. These exercises, however, have been overshadowed by the “Malabar 07-2” in the Bay of Bengal in which Australia, India, Japan, Singapore and the U.S. participated with 20,000 military personnel and 25 ships. The stated aim of the joint naval exercises is to counter terrorism and piracy, which are threatening the Strait of Malacca, an 805-km-long strip of sea between Malaysia and Sumatra, through which 60% of the world’s energy is shipped. Yet anticipating China’s reaction to “Malabar 07-2,” India publicly rejected suggestions that China is “the focus of the war games,” and that India intends to “set up a new security alliance.” [20] India’s assurance was backed up by its planned first-ever joint army exercises with China itself, which are slated for October this year. The Sino-Indian drills are also aimed at counterterrorism. They were planned after a landmark visit to China by the Indian army chief Gen. J.J. Singh to China in May this year. Later, Indian Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh met with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Germany, where the two traveled to attend the G-8 meeting this year and further assured him: “Our government and people, regardless of their political affiliations, want the strongest relationship with China.” [21] India plans joint military exercises with Moscow as well.

To institutionalize long-term cooperation between China, India and Russia, India was brought into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which, among other things, seeks to neutralize the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) advance into the region. [22] China and Russia seem to be ready to accept India as a voting member of the SCO, which will be an upgrade on India’s current status as an observer. The SCO will eventually culminate in formal trilateral alliance that would bind China, India, and Russia into a regional and global entente. [23] This triangulation seeks to guarantee India’s due place in the South Asian region and to prevent it from engaging in security alliances with external powers. Yet China and India both agreed to “play their respective roles in the region and beyond, while remaining sensitive to each other’s concerns and aspirations.” [24]

To further boost their security relationship, China also signed a civilian nuclear cooperation deal with India in November last year. It is pertinent to note that Beijing’s reluctance to offer Islamabad such a deal was partly attributed to the latter’s close alliance with NATO nations, whose tens of thousands of troops are fighting Taliban insurgents in China’s neighborhood in Afghanistan. [25] The state-run Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency gushingly billed the Sino-Indian nuclear agreement as “a major advance,” in which “China and India agreed to promote cooperation in nuclear energy consistent with their international commitments.” [26] To caution potential proliferators and to display their credentials as responsible nuclear power states, both further reiterated that “international civilian (nuclear) cooperation” should be conducted in keeping with “the global non-proliferation principles.” [27]

Although Sino-Indian nuclear cooperation is not of the same magnitude as the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal that will yield a $100-billion-deal for the U.S. nuclear industry, it will help India through the hurdles at the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) for such key supplies as nuclear fuel. China and Russia sit on the NSG as members. The Chinese offer of nuclear cooperation with India was taken in step with Chinese acceptance, however reluctant, of the landmark Indo-U.S. nuclear deal. The Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee took upon himself to break the news that “China has endorsed the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal.” [28] In reciprocity, Mukherjee said, “India would not object if China signed a similar nuclear deal with Pakistan.” [28] In the same vein, Russia has offered to sell India 4 light water nuclear reactors and an arsenal worth $10bn. [29] Indians affectionately spell out PUTIN as “planes, uranium, tanks, infrastructure, and nuclear power.” [30]

Indian Response to Chinese Overtures

Indians are receptive to Chinese overtures, especially Hu’s deft diplomacy at reaching across the schism between India and China’s protagonist Pakistan. Indians, however, remain deeply divided over the China question. Its current government led by the Indian National Congress and motley regional parties seems open to reaching a broad accommodation with Beijing while pursuing cooperation with the U.S. The Congress’s predecessor, the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP), which subscribes to an ultranationalist ideology of Hindutva, however, took a harder line on the future shape of Sino-Indian relations. Soon after India conducted nuclear tests in 1998, the BJP Minister for Defense identified China as “India’s Number One problem.” Shortly after his intemperate statement, however, the pragmatic BJP showed the Minister to the door.

Sumit Ganguly condenses the diversity of Indian public opinion on “the rise of China” and Sino-Indian relations into three groups, “…there are those who appease and muddle through, those who advocate strategic engagement, and those who take a confrontational approach.” [31] He puts the Indian National Congress and the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in the first category, the Hindu nationalist BJP in the second, and an amorphous minority, whom he describes as “the lunatic fringe,” in the third. [32] Ganguly, however, overstates the Indian National Congress’s “appeasement” of China. The Congress, which has vigorously pursued Indian interests in befriending China in the 1950s and yet fighting it in the sixties, can hardly be described as “China’s appeaser.”

Historically, the Congress was born of Indian nationalism, and as such it has pursued independent foreign policy without allying itself with any of the power blocs. It is for this reason that Congress and its allies in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition government diverge from the U.S. in their vision of global security. It was due to this divergent vision that India politely declined to be involved in policing Iraq and Afghanistan. Similarly, President Bush’s vision of the “axis of evil” was not automatically transferred on to India, which continues to have an estimated $40 billion worth of oil and gas interests in Iran and with which it is in talks for the construction of an additional $10bn gas pipeline, despite U.S. objections. India’s huge investments in Iran, combined with its desire to be assertively independent in its diplomacy, were the reason that India, which sits at the 35-member board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was reluctant to report Iran to the UN Security Council for the latter’s nuclear program. The U.S. had to lobby it so hard that the very landmark Indo-U.S. nuclear deal was threatened to be shelved indefinitely. India finally voted with the U.S., but only after China and Russia led the path.

India also has a vibrant peace movement and the growing Indian Left which is pressing for deeper Sino-Indian relations. Praful Bidwai, long an advocate of Sino-Indian amity, is the latter-day Gandhi of the Indian peace movement. Many realists such as Kuldip Nayar, one of the elder statesmen of the Indian National Congress, often oppose the Indian Left on Sino-Indian relations. Nayar, however, has recently advised the Indian government against totally allying with the U.S. “It suits us (India) to keep America guessing whether we would ever be a counter force to check China,” he wrote in a syndicated op-ed piece. [33] At the same time, he argued that the Indo-U.S. alliance has instrumental value for India to squeeze a better deal from China on the Sino-Indian border dispute: “Not that America’s friendship is crucial to us, but our equation with it will help us get a better offer on the border (dispute) from China.” [34]

Conclusion

The Indo-US alliance is unlikely to break India apart from China, let alone set the two on a collision course. If anything, it seems to have nudged Beijing and New Delhi ever closer. India’s growing economic ties with China, marked by a trade surplus of tens of billions of dollars, will further deepen their diplomatic relations. Unlike Sino-Japanese history of colonialism, China and India are unencumbered of such a baggage. That is why they do not share a past of antagonisms to poison their present. Even the 1962 war and the Chinese security relationship with Pakistan, which long embittered Sino-Indian relations, are a far cry from the legacy of colonial relations that continue to mark Sino-Japanese relations and stir visceral emotions in both nations. Yet in significant ways, China’s economic diplomacy appears to overtaken political disagreements with Japan, of which it is now the world’s largest trading partner. The underlying assumption of Chinese emergent diplomacy is that economics trumps politics as China’s experiences with ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Japan, Taiwan, and the U.S. amply demonstrate. China has modeled its relations with India on the same economic logic of its regional and global diplomacy. To address its political disagreements with India, China is going a step further by calling for a swap of “land for peace with India.” While the issues are not yet fully resolved, this is evident in its conceding of Sikkim and almost all of Arunachal Pradesh to India.

Above all, China is creating entente in South Asia to recognize India’s dominant position in the region. Its changed stance on Kashmir, scaled-down nuclear cooperation with Pakistan, and shelving of Islamabad’s request for an upgrade on its observer status on the SCO are substantial steps towards Chinese recognition of India’s looming presence in South Asia. Russia, which has become the nucleus of the emerging triangulation of strategic cooperation -- between China, India and Russia -- is further helping along Sino-Indian relations. Russia’s central role in the trilateral dialogue has already helped calm strategic competition between China and India.

This calm is evident from China’s measured reaction to India’s nuclear tests in May 1998 and its subsequent landmark nuclear deal with the U.S. China and India, in fact, are so sure of their future relations that they have struck a nuclear deal of their own. Furthermore, China has pledged to drop its opposition to India’s bid for the UNSC. For its part, India has pledged to further deepen its relations with China and make “irreversible” the positive progress it has already achieved in forging such relations. [35] To calm mutual suspicions, Hu expressed his country’s appreciation of Indian Prime Minister Singh’s statement in 2005 “that India would not be part of any containment strategy against China.” [36] This statement, however, has to be tested against the emerging shape of Indo-U.S. relations and their impact on the triangular relationship between China, India and Russia.

Russia seems to keep pushing Sino-Indian relations in the direction of mutual amity. It commands India’s utmost confidence that is rooted in the Indo-Russian longest and friendliest history of military and nuclear cooperation. Their past relations have further enriched with Moscow’s growing economic fortune from its energy resources. As a result, contemporary Russia, after a long time, is expanding its economic reach into India. In turn, India is eying Russia’s foreign exchange reserves of $1trillion, one of the world’s largest funds, for developing its decayed infrastructure. In the like vein, India needs to be shouldered by China and Japan for its due place on the proposed East Asian Community (EAC) to further boost its economy.

Indo-Japanese relations are already robust. Japan anticipates that its relations with India will surpass “Japan-US and Japan-China relations” in 10 years. [37] Despite this inter-state bonhomie, Indo-Japanese relations came under greater strain due to the Indo-U.S. nuclear pact. Japan, which is an ardent advocate of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, is hard pressed to swallow the transfer of nuclear technology to a country that is neither a signatory to the NPT (Non Proliferation Treaty), nor is willing to bring all its nuclear facilities under the IAEA’s (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspections. China, on the other hand, appears to have given India a free pass on all such concerns by endorsing the Indo-U.S. nuclear pact and striking a nuclear deal of its own.

Yet India seeks deeper relations with the U.S. to help modernize its economy, strengthen its military, and make needed advances in science and technology. The Indo-U.S. nuclear deal addresses all these concerns. Above all, India needs the U.S. to step onto the world stage as an emerging world power. To achieve this end, India will heed Subrahmanyam’s advice “to learn to deal simultaneously with all major powers to enhance its own national interest.” [38] India will do so even if it has to play off competitive tensions between China and the U.S. to its advantage as described by an Indian statesman, Kuldip Nayar: “It suits (India) to keep America guessing whether we would ever be a counter force to check China…. Not that America’s friendship is crucial to us, but our equation with it will help us get a better offer on the border (dispute) from China.” [39] Chinese and Indians have come to recognize this reality by agreeing that they both will “play their respective roles in the region and beyond, while remaining sensitive to each other’s concerns and aspirations.” [40]

Tarique Niazi is an Environmental Sociologist at the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire: (niazit@uwec.edu). He thanks Mark Selden for his extensive comments and extremely helpful suggestions on the early drafts of this paper. Tarique Niazi wrote this article for Japan Focus. Posted on October 9,2007.

Read More..