Category: Jonathan Power

China and the US compete at sea

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By Jonathan Power

Beijing, April 1st 2014

Both Russia and China feel themselves under threat from the US – and their people are clearly behind their governments on this.

Not without reason. Nato has pushed itself up to Russia’s borders. China feels encircled by US naval deployments armed with nuclear weapons in the East China and South China seas together with the US’s wide network of defence relationships with China’s neighbours. If it came to war the US could incinerate many Chinese cities before China realized it was under attack and could launch its own modest armoury of nuclear missiles.

China may be a capitalist state now but many of its views are still hostage to old time Marxist views which leads many to think that the West seeks to exploit the rest of the world. This leads them to conclude that as China rises the US will feel compelled to resist- ironically a conclusion which many conservative Western analysts share.

The balance of power is beginning to shift in China’s favour. It has been able to redeploy forces, once in the north aimed at Russia, to other parts of China. It is increasing its defence budget rapidly, albeit from a low base. However, it spends only 2% of its national income on defence as against the US’s 4.7% and its spending is only one fifth of America’s.Read More »

Putin and his Crimea speech

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By Jonathan Power

March 25th 2014

President Vladimir Putin’s speech to both houses of the Russian parliament last week got bad notices. Anne Applebaum, the experienced Russian-watcher, wrote in her column in the Washington Post that it was “an imperial rant” and went on to say that “Nato should moves its forces from Germany to the alliance’s eastern borders”. Most Western governments also gave their own misleading interpretations of Putin’s speech.

In this column I’m not going to defend Putin up and down the hill. I profoundly reject the way the absorption of Crimea into Russia was carried out. One can’t mount a referendum on an issue as important as this with two weeks’ notice – the Scots have been discussing their planned referendum, set for later this year, for years.

Moreover, this referendum only had two questions: whether the voters wanted to go back to Russia or whether they wanted increased autonomy. It didn’t ask if voters wanted to remain part of Ukraine.Read More »

Is human rights observance in China evolving?

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By Jonathan Power
Dateline: Beijing.
Date: March 18th 2014.

In 1913, following the overthrow of the last emperor, citizens walked, pedalled or rickshawed to the polling stations- although opium smokers, Buddhists and policemen were forbidden from voting. In the annals of the 2,500 years of Chinese civilization it is the one and only time the Chinese have voted in a national election.

Under Mao Zedong, the communist leader who overthrew this Nationalist government, any pretence of voting was given short shrift. Politics was outlawed and would-be dissidents severely punished. Only at the top level of Chinese politics – in the ruling politburo – were votes taken. Indeed, on some occasions, Mao was outvoted.

But once he was dead some of the leadership of the communist party did want to see a loosening up. There was what Bao Tong, personal aide of deposed Communist Party chief, Zhao Ziyang, called a “freedom faction”. For example, in 1995 politburo member, Tian Jiyun, called for direct elections for government officials. Politburo standing committee (the top organ of the party) member, Li Ruihuan, called for partial media privatization. There were others.

Deng Xiaoping, an outcast under Mao, who became the dominant leader shortly after Mao’s death, warned in 1980 of the dangers of “bureaucracy, over-concentration of power, patriarchal methods, life tenure in leading posts and various privileges”. Voting, albeit very tightly controlled, was introduced within the party. Read More »

Iran nuclear negotiations almost in the bag

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By Jonathan Power

It was the Americans, back in the time of the deposed Shah, who encouraged Iran to develop a nuclear bomb-making capacity. Now it is the Americans, along with the Europeans, who are desperately trying to undo their folly.

They are nearer the goal than they think- or, rather, let on. Perhaps they are playing their cards too close to their chest? Is this what is necessary for the Administration to position itself to assuage Congressional opinion?

As long as both Iran and the US make sure, as the saying goes, they don’t “miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity” they should get home and dry well before the end of the six months allowed to complete final negotiations.

A word on the Iranian side: The Supreme Leader, Ayotallah Ali Khameini, who is ultimately the deciding figure, has long ago made his position clear. He has said on more than one occasion, indeed has issued a fatwa to this effect, that to possess nuclear weapons goes against God. Iran is a highly religious nation and these words of his cannot be taken lightly. He cannot put them on one side, even if the Americans prove difficult. Moreover, we have the statements of US intelligence of 2007 and repeated twice since that Iran has abandoned its nuclear weapons program.

If all this be true why don’t the delegates go home and put their feet up? Read More »

Ukraine’s umbilical cord to Russia

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By Jonathan Power
February 25, 2014

Thank heavens for the Sochi Olympics. Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was committed to ensuring they showed Russia in its best light – and they did. Who would have wanted to take the world’s eyes off that to back a president in Ukraine who, to Putin’s annoyance, had made too many bad moves?

This must be a principle explanation for Putin’s public silence on the events in Ukraine.

Added to that, the fact is that Ukraine is not the Georgia of 2008 when Russia invaded, fearful that Georgia was planning to join Nato which, if it happened, would have been a major contribution to the military encirclement of Russia. Ukrainian public opinion, by and large, does not want their country to join Nato.

Ukrainians, both Ukrainian and Russian speaking, have an umbilical cord that ties them to Russia. There is the powerful influence of the Orthodox Church which is the inheritor of the Church of Constantinople which in turn is the true descendent of the original Rome-based Church. The headquarters of the Church was moved to Constantinople by the Roman emperor, Constantine, the first emperor to embrace Christianity. This is the reason Moscow is often referred to as the “Third Rome”. The path to Moscow led through Kiev and this is why the Orthodox in both these religious nations are likely to be intertwined as far as anyone can see ahead.

Besides that, right through the communist era, Moscow was the Mecca for every scientist wanting to do advanced research, for every aspiring ballet dancer, opera singer, writer, academic, surgeon, engineer and a host of politicians, including Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev. The Ukrainian Crimea has long been the main base for Russia’s navy.Read More »

How to win the Indian election

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By Jonathan Power

The drum beats are already sounding for the soon-to-be-held general election in the world’s largest democracy, India- the country that shows China how it should be done.

There is a sense in the country that the ruling Congress Party and the influential Gandhi/Nehru core of it is on its way out after 10 years of a government that has hit the high points and the lows. To my mind, if the inexperienced Rahul Gandhi steps back from offering his own candidacy for prime minister and his mother, Sonia Gandhi, president of the party, pushes to the fore the very clever finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, Congress is still in with a chance.

If not, the BNP candidate, Narendra Modi, looks like romping home, despite the cloud hanging over him as chief minister of the state of Gujarat at the time of Hindu-Moslem riots in 2002 when, it is said, he didn’t use his authority to halt the rampaging Hindus who slaughtered Muslims. The Supreme Court later absolved him and now the US has lifted its refusal to give him an American visa. Many say he now has a clear run.Read More »

Terrorists with nuclear weapons?

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By Jonathan Power

US aviation authorities banned the carrying of toothpaste on planes heading to the Sochi Winter Olympics for fear they might contain a deadly explosive. Apparently such is the creativity of the modern terrorist.

Other departments of the US government rather more seriously worry about the transfer of nuclear materials to a terrorist group fit for an improvised “dirty bomb” (where explosives are wrapped with radiological materials) capable of bringing panic to a city, although it would only destroy not more than a block. Some go further and fear a small nuclear bomb could be smuggled in.Read More »

Learning the lesson of Libya

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By Jonathan Power

On Saturday Libya beat Ghana to win the African Nations Football Championship. A return to normalcy? To win a team must have a first class pitch and a non-stressed out team. Does this indicate that Libya, two and a half years after the fall of dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, is getting back on its feet?

Alas, the football win is out of the ordinary in Libyan life, made by a team that has found a way to the top by hard practice and severe self-discipline. The rest of Libya is not like that. Its government is wobbly, self-appointed militias still rule in many parts and the rule of law is ignored as often as it’s obeyed. An increasing number of its people yearn for the peace and order of the dictatorial Gaddafi regime where the economy grew, life was improving and even human rights were being more respected.

Inspired by the Arab Spring in neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt, Libyans, so the accepted Western narrative went, rose up in non-violent protests. Gaddafi responded by ordering the protesters to be shot and ordered his troops to fire indiscriminately into residential areas. The protesters turned violent and the civil war began.

In truth, many of the protesters from day one used arms and the government at first responded with only rubber bullets and water cannons. Western television reported that Gaddafi’s forces had used live ammunition, showing a video of this. The BBC the next day, almost alone among news organisations, admitted it had made a reporting mistake. The video had been “uploaded more than a year ago”.

Nonetheless the situation quickly deteriorated and those that chose non-violence were pushed aside. The rebel militias faced the troops head on. The rebels called for the outside world to intervene.Read More »

Who understands Ukraine?

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By Jonathan Power

The Western press doesn’t understand Ukraine. That is clear after weeks of reporting the demonstrations. We are given the absolutely minimal background on the history and culture of Ukraine. This is like when writing about the sea to only write about the waves and not the fishes and rocks beneath.

Until relatively recently the national consciousness of Ukrainians rarely surfaced. In the mid-19th century, when it was almost a totally peasant society, they were either subjects of Russia or Austria – and quiet ones. Only gradually did a sense of being Ukrainian develop. Even as part of the Soviet Union nationalists were a small minority. Their best and brightest went to Moscow to study, write, sing, dance or work in government. This is Read More »

Challenging China

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By Jonathan Power

The West, the US especially, has got itself into a fretful mood over the rise of China. Quite unnecessarily so. The Chinese growth rate is slowing. As a BBC commentator said today, reviewing this week’s government-issued statistics, China never will hit double digit growth again. Glitzy Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu and their like, where growth is still well over 10% a year, make up only a part of China’s economy.

Much of the country has an income per head more akin to Ecuador. Read More »