8 April 2012 (AFP)—Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi met Sunday with Karen ethnic minority rebels in her first significant foray into politics since her election to public office a week earlier.

There are ways to reduce the threat to stability that an emerging superpower poses

7 Apr 2012 | from the print edition Economist

NO MATTER how often China has emphasised the idea of a peaceful rise, the pace and nature of its military modernisation inevitably cause alarm. As America and the big European powers reduce their defence spending, China looks likely to maintain the past decade’s increases of about 12% a year. Even though its defence budget is less than a quarter the size of America’s today, China’s generals are ambitious. The country is on course to become the world’s largest military spender in just 20 years or so (see article).

Much of its effort is aimed at deterring America from intervening in a future crisis over Taiwan. China is investing heavily in “asymmetric capabilities” designed to blunt America’s once-overwhelming capacity to project power in the region. This “anti-access/area denial” approach includes thousands of accurate land-based ballistic and cruise missiles, modern jets with anti-ship missiles, a fleet of submarines (both conventionally and nuclear-powered), long-range radars and surveillance satellites, and cyber and space weapons intended to “blind” American forces. Most talked about is a new ballistic missile said to be able to put a manoeuvrable warhead onto the deck of an aircraft-carrier 2,700km (1,700 miles) out at sea.

China says all this is defensive, but its tactical doctrines emphasise striking first if it must. Accordingly, China aims to be able to launch disabling attacks on American bases in the western Pacific and push America’s carrier groups beyond what it calls the “first island chain”, sealing off the Yellow Sea, South China Sea and East China Sea inside an arc running from the Aleutians in the north to Borneo in the south. Were Taiwan to attempt formal secession from the mainland, China could launch a series of pre-emptive strikes to delay American intervention and raise its cost prohibitively.

This has already had an effect on China’s neighbours, who fear that it will draw them into its sphere of influence. Japan, South Korea, India and even Australia are quietly spending more on defence, especially on their navies. Barack Obama’s new “pivot” towards Asia includes a clear signal that America will still guarantee its allies’ security. This week a contingent of 200 US marines arrived in Darwin, while India took formal charge of a nuclear submarine, leased from Russia.

En garde

The prospect of an Asian arms race is genuinely frightening, but prudent concern about China’s build-up must not lapse into hysteria. For the moment at least, China is far less formidable than hawks on both sides claim. Its armed forces have had no real combat experience for more than 30 years, whereas America’s have been fighting, and learning, constantly. The capacity of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) for complex joint operations in a hostile environment is untested. China’s formidable missile and submarine forces would pose a threat to American carrier groups near its coast, but not farther out to sea for some time at least. Blue-water operations for China’s navy are limited to anti-piracy patrolling in the Indian Ocean and the rescue of Chinese workers from war-torn Libya. Two or three small aircraft-carriers may soon be deployed, but learning to use them will take many years. Nobody knows if the “carrier-killer” missile can be made to work.

As for China’s longer-term intentions, the West should acknowledge that it is hardly unnatural for a rising power to aspire to have armed forces that reflect its growing economic clout. China consistently devotes a bit over 2% of GDP to defence—about the same as Britain and France and half of what America spends. That share may fall if Chinese growth slows or the government faces demands for more social spending. China might well use force to stop Taiwan from formally seceding. Yet, apart from claims over the virtually uninhabited Spratly and Paracel Islands, China is not expansionist: it already has its empire. Its policy of non-interference in the affairs of other states constrains what it can do itself.

The trouble is that China’s intentions are so unpredictable. On the one hand China is increasingly willing to engage with global institutions. Unlike the old Soviet Union, it has a stake in the liberal world economic order, and no interest in exporting a competing ideology. The Communist Party’s legitimacy depends on being able to honour its promise of prosperity. A cold war with the West would undermine that. On the other hand, China engages with the rest of the world on its own terms, suspicious of institutions it believes are run to serve Western interests. And its assertiveness, particularly in maritime territorial disputes, has grown with its might. The dangers of military miscalculation are too high for comfort.

How to avoid accidents

It is in China’s interests to build confidence with its neighbours, reduce mutual strategic distrust with America and demonstrate its willingness to abide by global norms. A good start would be to submit territorial disputes over islands in the East and South China Seas to international arbitration. Another step would be to strengthen promising regional bodies such as the East Asian Summit and ASEAN Plus Three. Above all, Chinese generals should talk far more with American ones. At present, despite much Pentagon prompting, contacts between the two armed forces are limited, tightly controlled by the PLA and ritually frozen by politicians whenever they want to “punish” America—usually because of a tiff over Taiwan.

America’s response should mix military strength with diplomatic subtlety. It must retain the ability to project force in Asia: to do otherwise would feed Chinese hawks’ belief that America is a declining power which can be shouldered aside. But it can do more to counter China’s paranoia. To his credit, Mr Obama has sought to lower tensions over Taiwan and made it clear that he does not want to contain China (far less encircle it as Chinese nationalists fear). America must resist the temptation to make every security issue a test of China’s good faith. There are bound to be disagreements between the superpowers; and if China cannot pursue its own interests within the liberal world order, it will become more awkward and potentially belligerent. That is when things could get nasty.

BEIJING (Reuters) – A Tibetan monk in western China died after setting himself ablaze in protest against the government, marking the 15th self-immolation in the country’s restive mountainous region since March, an exiled Tibetan spokesman said on Monday.

Sonam Wangyal, a Tibetan Buddhist monk, set himself on fire in front of a police station in Darlag county in Qinghai province on Sunday to protest against the lack of religious freedom, Thubten Samphel, a spokesman for the Central Tibetan Administration, said in an emailed statement.

China’s official Xinhua news agency confirmed the death.

Radio Free Asia said in an earlier report the monk, aged in his 40s, drank kerosene, doused his body in the fuel, and then set himself on fire while calling for the return of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

He died at the scene and his body was taken away by police, the report said, citing unidentified sources there.

The act of deadly defiance by the high-ranking monk — called a “Living Buddha”, according to China’s official Xinhua news agency — followed two other self-immolations near the Kirti Monastery in an ethnically Tibetan part of China’s Sichuan province on Friday.

At least eight of the 15 Tibetans who have self-immolated in the past 10 months — most of whom were Buddhist monks and nuns — are believed to have died.

The spokesman for the exiled Tibetan government in Dharamsala in India said thousands had protested on Sunday in the area of Qinghai province that borders the official Tibet region, demanding that authorities return the body.

“Due to his position as a local spiritual leader, approximately 2,000 local Tibetans are said to have held a candlelight vigil urging the local police authorities to release his body. The local police averted further tension by agreeing to do so,” spokesman Thubten Samphel said.

Xinhua said the body of the latest monk to have died, whose name it spelled as Nyage Sonamdrugyu, was returned to relatives.

Calls to officials in Darlag county, called Dari in Mandarin Chinese, went unanswered on Monday.

For the Chinese government, the self-immolations are a small but destabilising challenge to its regional policies, which it says have lifted Tibetans out of poverty and servitude.

China has ruled since Communist troops marched into Tibet in 1950 and says Tibetans are free to practise their Buddhist faith. There are also many ethnic Tibetans who live in provinces neighbouring the official Tibetan region.

Senior officials in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region vowed to boost stability in Tibet as well as “patriotic legal education” among Buddhist monks and nuns after the self-immolations, Xinhua reported separately on Sunday.

China’s Foreign Ministry has branded the self-immolators ”terrorists” and has said the Dalai Lama, whom it condemns as a supporter of violent separatism, should take the blame for the “immoral” burnings.

In March 2008, deadly riots against the Chinese presence spread across the Tibet Autonomous Region and Tibetan regions ahead of the Beijing Olympics, triggering sometimes deadly confrontations with troops and police.

The Dalai Lama has not condemned or condoned the burnings but said the desperate conditions Tibetans face under Beijing’s rigid controls in what amounted to “cultural genocide” have led to the spate of self-immolations.

He denies advocating violence and separatism and insists he wants only real autonomy for his homeland.

By Zhao Shengnan
China Daily/Asia News Network
Monday, Jan 09, 2012

BEIJING - Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin on Sunday urged Asian countries to discard their “cold war mentality” when handling sensitive regional issues, saying that “exclusive security partnerships” fall short in terms of coping with the current complex regional situation.

His words came in the wake of China’s occasionally tense relations with its neighbors in Asia last year, which were further complicated by Washington’s strategic shift in the Asia-Pacific region.

Asia is generally stable and peaceful, yet thorny issues such as maritime and energy security still remain.

“To address emerging problems, relevant sides have to firstly strengthen mutual trust in this diverse and complex region,” he said.

After many years of efforts, a complex, multi-level security structure has been established and plays a constructive role in the Asia-Pacific region.

This includes the Six-Party Talks, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) regional forums, Liu said in an interview with Xinhua News Agency.

All the existing mechanisms should fully exploit their advantages, be complementary and promote each other, since “in the short-term, it is hardly possible to forge a pan-Asia-Pacific region security mechanism which tops all these mechanisms”, Liu said.

The regional security mechanism should be based on mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality and coordination, he said.

As China’s diplomat in charge of Asian affairs, Liu’s remarks indicate China’s stance toward its Asian neighbors.

Although China has enhanced mutual trust with its neighbors and put forward constructive suggestions for pragmatic cooperation, its relations with its Asian nations were tested by some long-standing issues last year.

In 2011, China experienced increased pressure regarding the South China Sea, where Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Vietnam hold competing claims.

China has been active in resolving regional issues and endeavored to cooperate with other Asian countries to create a regional environment featuring peace, stability, equality, mutual trust and cooperation, Liu said.

Relevant countries should put aside disputes and pursue common development before the disputes are resolved. Forces outside the region should not intervene in South China Sea disputes, he said.

“This is also the consensus of relevant countries,” he said.

The uneven situation in the Asia-Pacific region made it difficult to establish a pan-Asia-Pacific region security mechanism, but members of different mechanisms often cooperated to address issues, said Zhang Tuosheng, a researcher at the China Foundation for International and Strategic Studies.

“All sides should share emergency management mechanisms to avoid any escalation in the region, and I believe, closer economic ties will eventually improve relations between countries that have territorial disputes,” he added.

Trade between China and other Asian countries reached $965.2 billion in first 11 months of 2011, up 21 per cent year-on-year.

China is currently ASEAN’s largest trading partner, while ASEAN is China’s third-largest trading partner. Bilateral trade between China and ASEAN totaled $328.9 billion (S$1,250 billion_ in first 11 months of 2011.

In July 2011, China and ASEAN adopted an agreement on the guidelines of implementing the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), starting substantial cooperation under the DOC framework.

China also signed an agreement with Vietnam on the basic principles guiding the settlement of existing maritime issues between the two countries.

“This all proves that China and ASEAN have the resolve, wisdom and capability to jointly maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea,” Liu said.

He reaffirmed that the South China Sea is an important international transportation channel, whose safety and freedom of navigation are never affected by disputes.

PHNOM PENH, Dec. 8 (Xinhua) — The visit of the Secretary General of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee (CPVCC) Nguyen Phu Trong to Cambodia was “a historic milestone and actively contributing to boost traditional friendship relations, solidarity and cooperation between the two neighbors to a new high- level”, said a Joint Statement Thursday released after the conclusion of Trong’s visit in Cambodia.

It added that during the visit, both sides expressed satisfaction about good neighboring relations, traditional friendship and concrete cooperation on all fields between the two countries and pledged to continue maintaining and promoting the good ties to mutual next generations.

The two neighbors agreed to increase meetings between both sides’ leaders to deepen the ties.

During the visit, Cambodia and Vietnam had also vowed to double the two-way trades to 5 billion U.S. dollars in the next five years and promised to encourage respective country’s investors to invest in one another, especially to invest at the border areas.

The two sides also reaffirmed their policy of not allowing any hostile force to use the territory of one country to threaten security of the other country and agreed to increase cooperation to ensure political security and coordinated in fighting trans- national crimes, illegal immigration, as well as in searching, unearthing and repatriating remains of Vietnamese soldiers who died in Cambodia.

They also agreed to expand cooperation on science, technique, education, culture, health, tourism, sports, environment protection, and natural disasters.

Trong made a 3-day visit to Cambodia from Dec. 6-8 at the invitation of Cambodia’s King Norodom Sihamoni. During the visit, he had met with King Norodom Sihamoni, former King Norodom Sihanouk, and former Queen Norodom Monineath at the Royal Palace.

He also met with Chairman of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) and President of the Senate Chea Sim, acting- President of the National Assembly Nguon Nhel, and CPP’s Vice Chairman and Prime Minister Hun Sen as well as Vietnamese community in Cambodia.

6 December 2011 by Gleb Bryanski and Alexei Anishchuk, Reuters

Russia's Dictator Vladimir Put-in meets with regional leaders of public offices

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin responded to an election setback and protests by promising on Tuesday to reshuffle the government next year but his spokesman warned the opposition that any unsanctioned rallies would be stopped.

Under pressure after his party won only a slim majority in parliament on Sunday and the opposition staged its biggest protest in Moscow for years, Putin said the government had to do more to respect the people’s demands for modernization.

“There will be a significant renewal of personnel in the government,” he told members of his United Russia party.

It was a first overt sign of concern in the upper echelons of power over the election, which loosened United Russia’s grip on the State Duma lower house and signaled growing weariness with Putin’s 12-year rule, economic problems and corruption.

But he promised no immediate changes — the reshuffle would be after a March 4 presidential election he is expected to win — and his spokesman Dmitry Peskov made clear police would prevent protesters staging rallies without official permission.

“Those who hold sanctioned demonstrations should not have their rights limited in any way — and that is what we are observing now,” Peskov said.

But he added: “The actions of those who hold unsanctioned demonstrations must be stopped in the appropriate way.”

Witnesses said up to 5,000 people joined Monday’s protest to complain against alleged electoral fraud and demand an end to Putin’s rule.

They planned a new rally to press their demands on Tuesday evening, despite the lack of permission from the authorities and a heavy police presence in the capital.

About 300 people were detained in Monday’s demonstration and police issued a statement on Tuesday saying they would not permit any “provocations” — a clear warning to the protesters.

A Moscow court sentenced Ilya Yashin, one of the organizers on Monday’s rally, to 15 days in detention but he told reporters: “Of course we will continue protesting.”

“This is no doubt a political decision aimed at intimidating me and my colleagues. We are not going to stop our struggle,” he said, adding that his verdict could “arouse even bigger discontent among the people.”

WARNING OF ARAB-SPRING STYLE REVOLT

United Russia is set to have 238 of the 450 seats in the State Duma, 77 fewer than the 315 seats it won in 2007.

This has little practical impact because United Russia can even muster the two-thirds majority needed for constitutional changes if it forges alliances with other parties.

But the vote points to a change of mood in Russia after years of domination by the former KGB spy and his party, which no longer has quite such an air of invulnerability.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reiterated U.S. suggestions that the election was neither free nor fair after the opposition complained that vote-rigging had inflated support for United Russia.

European monitors also said the election had been slanted in United Russia’s favor. U.S. Republican Senator John McCain went further, warning on Twitter: “Dear Vlad, The Arab Spring is coming to a neighborhood near you.”

Many Russian political experts have dismissed suggestions that Putin could face an uprising in a country which has little tradition of major street protests, despite the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, and dissent has often been crushed.

But Putin’s popularity ratings, although still high, have fallen this year and he upset many Russians by saying he planned to swap jobs with President Dmitry Medvedev after the March presidential election, opening the way for him rule until 2024.

5 December 2011 by jim Heintz,AP

MOSCOW — Several thousand protesters took to the streets Monday night and accused Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s party of rigging this weekend’s parliamentary election in which it won the largest share of the seats.

It was perhaps the biggest opposition rally in years and ended with police detaining about 300 activists. A group of several hundred marched toward the Central Elections Commission near the Kremlin, but were stopped by riot police and taken away in buses.

Hillary Clinton opined, Dictator Put-in stole election

Estimates of the number of protesters ranged from 5,000 to 10,000. They chanted “Russia without Putin” and accused his United Russia party of stealing votes.

In St. Petersburg, police detained about 120 protesters.

United Russia won about 50 percent of Sunday’s vote, a result that opposition politicians and election monitors said was inflated because of ballot-box stuffing and other vote fraud. It was a significant drop from the last election, when the party took 64 percent.

Pragmatically, the loss of seats in the State Duma appears to mean little because two of the three other parties winning seats have been reliable supporters of government legislation.

Nevertheless, it was a substantial symbolic blow to a party that had become virtually indistinguishable from the state itself.

The result has also energized the opposition and poses a humbling challenge to Putin, the country’s dominant figure, in his drive to return to the presidency.

Putin, who became prime minister in 2008 because of presidential term limits, will run for a third term in March, and some opposition leaders saw the parliamentary election as a game-changer for what had been presumed to be his easy stroll back to the Kremlin.

More than 400 Communist Party supporters also gathered Monday to express their indignation over the election, which some called the dirtiest in modern Russian history. The Communists finished second with about 20 percent of the vote.

“Even compared to the 2007 elections, violations by the authorities and the government bodies that actually control the work of all election organizations at all levels, from local to central, were so obvious and so brazen,” said Yevgeny Dorovin, a member of the party’s central committee.

Putin appeared subdued and glum even as he insisted at a Cabinet meeting Monday that the result “gives United Russia the possibility to work calmly and smoothly.”

Although the sharp decline for United Russia could lead Putin and the party to try to portray the election as genuinely democratic, the wide reports of violations have undermined that attempt at spin.

Boris Nemtsov, a prominent figure among Russia’s beleaguered liberal opposition, declared that the vote spelled the end of Putin’s “honeymoon” with the nation and predicted that his rule will soon “collapse like a house of cards.”

“He needs to hold an honest presidential election and allow opposition candidates to register for the race, if he doesn’t want to be booed from Kamchatka to Kaliningrad,” Nemtsov said on Ekho Moskvy radio.

Many Russians have come to despise United Russia, seeing it as the engine of endemic corruption. The balloting showed voters that they have power despite what election monitors called a dishonest count.

“Yesterday, it was proven by these voters that not everything was fixed, that the result really matters,” said Tiny Kox of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly, part of an international election observer mission.

Other analysts suggested the vote was a wake-up call to Putin that he had lost touch with the country. In the early period of his presidency, Putin’s appeal came largely from his man-of-the-people image: candid, decisive and without ostentatious tastes.

He seemed to lose some of the common touch, appearing in well-staged but increasingly preposterous heroic photo opportunities – hunting a whale with a crossbow, fishing while bare-chested, and purportedly discovering ancient Greek artifacts while scuba diving. And Russians grew angry at his apparent disregard – and even encouragement – of the country’s corruption and massive income gap.

“People want Putin to go back to what he was in his first term – decisive, dynamic, tough on oligarchs and sensitive to the agenda formed by society,” said Sergei Markov, a prominent United Russia Duma member.

The vote “was a normal reaction of the population to the worsening social situation,” former Kremlin-connected political analyst Gleb Pavlovsky was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

Only seven parties were allowed to field candidates for parliament this year, while the most vocal opposition groups were barred from the race. International monitors said the election administration lacked independence, most media were biased and state authorities interfered unduly at different levels.

“To me, this election was like a game in which only some players are allowed to compete,” said Heidi Tagliavini, the head of the observer mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Of the 150 polling stations where the counting was observed, “34 were assessed to be very bad,” Tagliavini said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Washington has “serious concerns” about the elections.

“Russian voters deserve a full investigation of all credible reports of electoral fraud and manipulation, and we hope in particular that the Russian authorities will take action” on reports that come forward, Clinton said.

Other than the Communist Party, the socialist Just Russia and the Liberal Democratic Party led by mercurial nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky are also expected to increase their representation in the Duma; both have generally voted with United Russia, and the Communists pose only token opposition.

Two liberal parties were in the running, but neither got the 7 percent of the national vote needed to win seats. Nemtsov’s People’s Freedom Party, one of the most prominent liberal parties, was denied participation for alleged violations in the required 45,000 signatures the party had submitted with its registration application.

About 60 percent of Russia’s 110 million registered voters cast ballots, down from 64 percent four years ago.

Social media were flooded with messages reporting violations. Many people reported seeing buses deliver groups of people to polling stations, with some of the buses carrying young men who looked like football fans, who often are associated with violent nationalism.

Russia’s only independent election monitoring group, Golos, which is funded by U.S. and European grants, has come under heavy official pressure in the past week. Golos’ website was incapacitated Sunday by hackers, and its director Lilya Shibanova and her deputy had their cellphone numbers, email and social media accounts hacked.