Category: Jonathan Power

China wants Taiwan

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By Jonathan Power

November 10th 2015

President Xi Jinping of China has poked us in the eye again. What you see is what you get. In the case of his meeting last Saturday with Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan’s president and leader of the Kuomintang Party, it tells the world that if it plays its hand quietly, even gently, China, if it is shrewd, can in the end win re-unification.

The leaders of the two parties, the communists and the Kuomintang, the Republican claimants for power, hadn’t met since 1945 during aborted peace negotiations. A while later the Kuomintang, facing defeat from Mao Zedong’s communist army, fled the mainland to Taiwan.

Beijing has over a thousand rockets aimed at Taiwan. The US supplies arms aplenty to Taiwan – some of which, provocatively, need American cooperation and participation to be fired. Despite that China cis capable of overwhelming the island’s defences.

But in reality both sides need each other. Read More »

US and China clash at sea

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By Jonathan Power

The US has done a daring and – some would say – dangerous thing. Towards the end of last month it sent a destroyer to sail within 12 nautical miles of two man-made islands claimed by China in the South China Sea. China was outraged. The Blogosphere went wild with nationalist denunciations of American attempts to encircle their country. The press wasn’t much quieter.

It’s all about control of the seas, not about who owns the islands, but it is laced with a good deal of bad behaviour on both sides. As with Taiwan China reaches into the past – as President Xi Jinping did recently – to justify a present day claim. In fact the past is a little murky. Besides, it has been overtaken by the UN Law of the Sea, of which China is a member. This makes clear that China has no right to forbid foreign warships’ passage within 12 miles of an artificial island. Nevertheless, China is right to point out that the Law of the Sea is neutral on claims that existed before it came into effect.

The Law of the Sea also makes clear that artificial islands – which some now are – do not give China control of the surrounding seas. Read More »

Israel’s apartheid state

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By Jonathan Power

October 27th 2015.

Albert Einstein once said that “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result”. That’s how it seems to be with President Obama sending his Secretary of State, John Kerry, to attempt to resurrect the talks about talks between Israel and Palestine.

No one knows if the renewed unrest among young Palestinians who are confronting Israel again with stones and knives – and in return bullets are fired to quell the protests – is going to lead to a third Intifada. The signs are not propitious. If not today then certainly tomorrow. Israel is running an apartheid state which, as was South Africa’s, has a termination date built in.

What has happened to Obama’s pledge seven months ago to “re-evaluate” US policy on Israel? At the UN the US as usual digs in its heels when Israel is admonished.

France has suggested that the UN Security Council adopt a resolution that would outline the basic parameters of a just political settlement. The proposal would contain a deadline for agreement. If broken by Israel the rest of the world would be encouraged to pressure it with a tight economic boycott. This is the best idea suggested for a long time. Europe alone, Israel’s biggest trade partner, could bring Israel to its knees.

Failing success in changing Israeli minds a one-state solution is surely inevitable. The present partial de facto one will become a sort of de jure one.

At present the leadership of Palestine is pursuing a makeshift policy that circumvents the status quo. The Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, has said that Palestine has plans to join 63 international organisations and conventions. This it is now able to do,Read More »

Good economic news amid the gloom

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By Jonathan Power

Monday’s news was that China’s annual growth rate has dropped below the red line of 7%. It is 6.9% and probably falling.

These figures were published shortly after the IMF said that sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing “solid growth”. Last week the World Bank released its new average annual growth estimates for black Africa. It was 4.5% last year but this year it is going up to 4.6% and by 2017 it will be 5.1%. This is less than the 5.3% before the great recession (precipitated by American banks), but considering all its recent knocks, not least China buying less raw materials, Africa is holding up pretty well.

In fact what we used to call the “Third World” is a mixed bag of good and bad news. Which would you like to read about first?

More bad news? Here it is:

Emerging markets for the sixth consecutive year face falling growth rates. Currencies have hit 15-year lows. Stocks, once soaring ahead of developed countries, have been flat for the last 6 years. Private sector debt has been increasing fast. The outflow of funds has accelerated and in the last year was over one trillion US dollars. Stock market and currency turbulence have raised questions about where China is going. The late president of France, Charles de Gaulle, once quipped about Brazil, “Brazil has a great future, and always will”. Maybe he should have said that about China.

In Brazil a big corruption scandal, including allegations that the government has illegally manipulated its fiscal accounts, has helped stall the economy.

In India, despite many campaign promises, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not succeeded in opening the economic spigot. In fact the present day rise in growth owes itself largely to measures put in place by the previous government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

In Indonesia, the economy Read More »

Regime change in Saudi Arabia?

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By Jonathan Power

October 13th 2015

Is Saudi Arabia a house built on sand? If so are the sands shifting? Even Hillary Clinton, the candidate for US president, until recently a staunch ally of the House of Saud, has publicly criticized the appalling human rights record of Saudi Arabia. Mrs. Clinton also made the point that over the years it wasn’t just rich Saudi individuals who had sent donations to Islamist militant fighting groups it was also the government itself.

Moreover, Saudi Arabia’s current military intervention in Yemen appears to have led to thousands of unnecessary civilian deaths, and done with a motivation that seems questionable – that its rival, Iran, is supporting the Houthi rebels.

There has been outrage in Britain when The Guardian reported recently how leaked documents reveal that the UK conducted secret vote-trading deals with Saudi Arabia to ensure both states were elected to the UN Human Rights Council.

In the time of the last Labour government Prime Minister Tony Blair used his office to halt a Serious Fraud Squad investigation into bribes paid to high-ranking Saudis to smooth the sale of British fighter jets. The reason given was that a prosecution would harm the UK’s security interests. Saudi Arabia is Britain’s largest arms market by far.

In the US it has not been forgotten that in the hours after 9/11 when all US aircraft were grounded there was a significant exception – a group of top Saudis were given permission to use their own plane to fly home, even though there was already evidence emerging that the majority of the 9/11 culprits were Saudi. The Bush family, in particular its two presidents, has long had more than friendly relations – one might call them intimate – with the Saudi royal family.

How long do we have to wait for regime change in Saudi Arabia? Read More »

The ugly American?

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By Jonathan Power

October 6, 2015

American foreign policy makers often wonder aloud why it is that much of the world has such an anti-American reflex. Why the “Ugly American”? Graham Greene would never have written a novel entitled the “Ugly Russian” or even the “Ugly German”. It is not just Iran that considers the US as the “Great Satan”. Remember that day at the UN General Assembly when the late Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, accused President George W. Bush of belching sulphureous fumes, and most of the chamber chuckled.

When the Russian government denies that they switched their publicly announced mission of deploying planes to Syria to fight ISIS and have instead concentrated on bombing the redoubts of groups engaged in the civil war against the government of President Bashar al-Assad a majority of the world’s governments seemingly accepts the denial, despite the contrary evidence.

When the US bombs a hospital in Afghanistan killing many staff members of “Doctors Without Borders” this confirms the opinion of those who are always convinced that America does things like this on purpose after careful planning and will do it again as soon as the opportunity offers itself.

There are two reasons, I think, for the image of the Ugly American. The first is America’s standing as the world’s number one economic and military power. The second is the CIA, the notorious Central Intelligence Agency. The British have their MI6 and its special agent, the glamorous James Bond. But the CIA only has its reputation as the master of the black arts of corruption, torture and assassination.

Tragically for America its bad reputation is largely deserved. Read More »

Pluses and minuses of Obama’s foreign policy

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By Jonathan Power

So Putin on Monday met Obama. They are going to cooperate against ISIS, the world’s worst problem. President Vladimir Putin says we should not be surprised to see Russian jets working cooperatively – even coordinating – with the US on missile attacks.

Even with both powers working in tandem it will be uphill work. ISIS has attracted over 30,000 foreign fighters, according to a UN Security Council report. At least 2,000 from Russia and ex-Soviet territories are in their number. (In contrast to Russia the US is more threatened by domestic, non-Muslim, terrorists than Muslim extremists.)

Will rapprochement over Syria and ISIS wind the clock back to the benign US-Russia relationship that was begun with President Barack Obama’s early “re-set” which led to, among other things, a significant agreement on reducing nuclear arms?Read More »

The Pope’s challenge to white America.

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By Jonathan Power

September 22nd 2015.

The pope will cause waves in America during his visit this week. Invited to speak before Congress by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, he’ll arrive right at the time that the Republican candidates for president are touting ideas that are anathema to Pope Francis.

He detests the cruder aspects of capitalism and the consumer life style so rife in America. The culture of Wall Street and its banks, in particular their performance in precipitating the crash of 2007 and their rush to avoid culpability, he finds distasteful.

Nor has he much time for those who turn their back on the needs of the poor, the unemployed, the discriminated against, those unnecessarily imprisoned or the migrant.

Nor will American political leaders find him giving any support for the kind of wars fought by the US since 9/11. The Republicans will find him way to the left, except on the issue of abortion.

The Pope is unlikely to rattle through the statistics but I’m sure he knows what the facts are.

The US now ranks lowest among affluent nations in how it spreads its wealth. It has the worst poverty, the lowest life expectancy, the highest rate of infant mortality and the shortest (or non-existent) maternity leave among the world’s richest 21 nations.

It is nearly the worst in its mental health provisions, the degree of child poverty and its numbers of obese.Read More »

Making peace arrive in Ukraine – bring in the UN

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By Jonathan Power

September 15th 2015.

On the last day of last month right wing demonstrators, mostly from neo-fascist movements, hurled themselves against the police in Kiev’s Maidan square, the same place where in February 2014 a more heterogeneous group of demonstrators effectively ousted President Viktor Yanokovych. A grenade was thrown and three people died and 120 were hospitalized, mostly policemen.

In an address to the nation President Poroshenko blamed the clashes on nationalistic forces, calling their actions “a stab in the back”. Finally the Western powers raised a voice of condemnation, although over the last year they have made little criticism of the rightist militias and parties.

That is perhaps because it would interfere with their narrative – that the demonstrators that overthrew Yanukovych were of a liberal, democratic hue. The overwhelming majority were. But the ignored fact is that the people who led the crowd and fired the bullets when the demonstrations turned ugly were these very same rightists.

Some of the leaders of the neo-Nazi organisations, especially Svoboda, went on to be appointed to senior positions in government and parliament.

The BBC’s Ukraine correspondent, David Stern, reported on September 1st: “The explosion in Maidan comes weeks after another armed incident involving volunteer militia with ties to the extreme right – a shoot out between members of the so-called Right Sector and the local police in south-western Ukraine. Although the militias have been nominally integrated into government structures, many wonder how much control Kiev actually exercises.”

The main gripe of the protestors is that Read More »

Guatemala, country of evil

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By Jonathan Power

September 8th 2015.

Guatemala on Sunday held a reasonably honest presidential election.

But it is probably not the end of the brutal saga of the country- 36 years of continuous murder, mayhem, abductions, disappearances, rapes and genocide that have kept on rolling, chapter after chapter. Labour leaders, villagers and peasants, students and churchmen, journalists and human rights activists have been killed by death squads. This is a Harry Potter saga with bullets.

Few countries have suffered as much as Guatemala. More people were killed in the 36 years of civil war than in all of the rest Latin America put together, more than in the civil wars in Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Peru and the bloody coup d’etats in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil.

A UN investigation in Guatemala reported that far more guerrillas had died than government forces, by a factor of 9. The Commission estimated that the number of persons killed or disappeared “as a result of fratricidal confrontation” reached a total of 200,000. The State, it concluded, “deliberately magnified the military threat of the insurgency. The vast majority of the victims were not combatants, but civilians. A quarter of all victims were women”.

Most of the weaponry and political support for the government came from the US. When Congress cut off military aid in the 1980s President Ronald Reagan asked Israel to take over. During the most intense period of the civil war, Guatemalan soldiers dropped into Indian villages on Israeli-made Arava Transports and did their killing with Uzi rifles.

As Stephen Kinzer, a former New York Times journalist and author of a seminal book on the United Fruit Company, wrote last week, “Guatemala was horrifically brutalized by Spanish conquerors. It became a nation dominated by rich landowners who continued oppressing the Indian majority. Early in the 20th century the Boston-based United Fruit Company became the country’s most powerful force. Read More »