Defense contractors in US politics

By: Azhar Azam

*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared in "The Express Tribune":
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2124932/6-defence-contractors-us-politics/

Sale of top-100 global arms suppliers and services providing conglomerates rose by 4.8% to $420 billion in 2018, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) newest data showed on December 9. US firms sustained their lead and dominated the list, accounting for 59% or $246 billion of the worldwide defense market with an increase of 7.2% from last year.

For the first time since 2002, all the top five slots were held by companies based in the United States – Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and General Dynamic – which alone had a sweeping share of 35% valued at $148 billion of total top-100 arms sales in 2018.

Since these five largest arms suppliers are also the major defense contractors of the US Department of Defense (DOD), the data mirrored that American arms companies have been greatly profiting from their government’s policy to expand the US global political and military influence.

It is the same tenacious US strategy that has eternally driven all the American presidents to implement the Pentagon’s predetermined goal of drumming up country’s arms exports and aided the US arms suppliers’ shares to triple over the last five years and later on to outshine all the arms manufacturers worldwide.

Arms sale and defense trade are the key tools of the US foreign policy through which it thwarts the regional security the world over and supports its military industrial base, reduces the cost of arms procurement and secure jobs of 2.4 million Americans associated with deadly arms industry.

In addition, DOD’s subordinate organization responsible for international defense contracts – Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) – distinctly missions to “advance US national security and foreign policy interests” by strengthening the capabilities of foreign security forces.

Whether it was US-led NATO invasion in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya; Egyptian turmoil; Syrian Civilians’ carnage; Arab coalition blitz on Yemen; Israel-Palestinian conflict or Saudi-Iran conflict in Persian Gulf – irrespective of who wins or loses, the troika of US government, Pentagon and American arms manufacturers have been the definite victors.

America has been intensely pursuing its international offensive objectives of increasing its global footprint by military sales, in East and Southeast Asia particularly. From 2014 to 2016, Washington delivered $214.3 billion of arms to Asian nations out of total US defense exports of $462.7 billion.

Most of arms transfer deliveries in Asia, about 55% or $117.2 billion, were destined toward the countries in East or Southeast Asia: Indonesia ($77.9 billion); Korea ($19.1 billion); Philippine ($9.0 billion); and Singapore ($6.8 billion). A total of $77.4 billion of arms went to the Middle East and another $67.5 billion of weapons were sold to European countries.

While US winds down its global war on terror, it is deeply concentrating on Great Power Competition with China and Russia. The world’s largest arms exporter has meticulously petrified its East and Southeast Asian, European and Arab allies from the spurious Chinese, Russian and Iranian threats to increase its defense equipment sales.

The “unwarranted influence” wielded by the US “military industrial complex” was first warned by the US President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his farewell speech in 1961, which allowed the US arms producers to “install” their top management officials into the DOD to derive mammoth advantages.

In January 2017, Jim Mattis resigned from General Dynamics’ board of directors to take the charge of Pentagon’s head. After quitting the post, the retired Marine General rejoined the aerospace and defense organization in July. As the burgeoning control of US arms manufacturers helped Boeing to gain much from the appointment of its former Vice President Patrick Shanahan as defense secretary, Raytheon is likely to take advantage from its former lobbyist and current US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.

The role US defense equipment manufacturers in not confined to the Pentagon only. Every year, they pour millions of dollars on lobbying, political contributions and other sorts of infiltratory and peddling tactics to influence the US policies.

An oversight report by OpenTheBooks, also released on C-Span’s Washington Journal, found some stunning facts about American companies including arms producers. It bared that for every $1 invested in lobbying by firms such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics returned them $1,000 in federal contracts and grants.

Only in September 2018, Boeing and Lockheed Martin received $14 billion in US federal contracts. Likewise In a good year, Lockheed Martin receives up to $50 billion in government contracts, a sum larger than the operating budget of the US State Department.

Rising sway of the US arms suppliers in the country’s politics is becoming an open truth. The OpenSecrets data on US election cycle 2020 unearthed that the leading US arms companies contributed about $12 million to federal candidates, parties and outside groups by November 21. Despite his frequent votes against the defense bills, Senator Bernie Sanders out-collected Donald Trump by multiple times across the major DOD defense contractors' contributions except for Raytheon.

SIPRI and US arms sales figures, State Department’s pledge to label defense trade as a vital gizmo of US foreign policy, DSCA assertion to step up US national security and foreign policy interests by reinforcing allies’ forces and the political contributions and lobbying investments secret data explicitly speaks about defense contractors’ growing clout in American politics and policies.

Far-reaching US gains from "phase one" trade deal

By: Azhar Azam

*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)" https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-12-19/Far-reaching-U-S-gains-from-phase-one-trade-deal-MyjjmNoqkM/index.html and was republished by "China Daily" http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201912/20/WS5dfc39eaa310cf3e3557f818.html

At the back of nearly two years of diplomatic rhetoric, enacting retaliatory tariffs and tensed negotiations between the two largest economies of the world – last week, China and the United States finally agreed on a consensus text of the “phase one” economic and trade deal.

The agreement between the both sides on intellectual property rights, technology transfer, agriculture products, exchange rate and transparency, trade expansion, bilateral assessment and dispute settlements – based on the principle of “equality and mutual trust” – is far more important than the abrupt trade gains by either of the countries.

Right from the flare-up of the trade war by the US President Donald Trump, Washington has been consistently accusing Beijing for currency manipulation and forced technology transfer as well as showing reluctance to open up its market and being lenient on IP protection.

Through the maiden trade treaty, China benignly coped with all the US fundamental gripes although it had some deep concerns over American flimsy allegations. Beijing has also been mindful of the downward pressure on the global economy so it made intense efforts to chill the trade war with Washington and jointly step ahead to boost the confidence of global economies, stabilize financial markets and shape up a favorable environment for worldwide investments and trade activities.

China’s notion toward a trade truce in a bid to resurrect the global economic development impressed the US. On Saturday, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin endorsed Chinese viewpoint and stated that the trade deal between China and the US was “very good” for global economic growth.

Mnuchin comments “This deals with intellectual property, this deals with technology transfer, it deals with structural agricultural issues, financial services and opening up, currency understandings, as well as a commitment to purchase US agriculture and US goods” further enumerated that the “phase one” deal should be viewed in the bigger China-US economic and trade perspective.

China has surely pledged to ramp up its agriculture imports from the US and the move will certainly embolden the trade war-battered American farmers to increase their agriculture and food exports, comprising corn, meat, poultry and soybean, to China.

There is endemic debate going on the world over as how Beijing would be able to make big farm purchases from Washington, expressly soybean. The discussion should more exactly be focused on, is the US in a position to meet massive Chinese soybean domestic consumption – having conceded its top oilseed production slot to Brazil. Beijing was the largest soy buyer in the world with imports of more than 82 million tons of the oilseeds in the first eleven months of 2019.

Even before the “phase one” deal was formally announced, China indeed wanted to deescalate the trade war and it persuasively demonstrated the intent by raising its soybean imports from the US. And 13 times increase in Chinese imports of the American soy between September and November year-on-year is testament of its willingness to fulfill its US agriculture purchase commitments.

Agriculture trade data and China’s conformation to the key US demands about improved IP protection, opening up market, resilience on technology transfer and the measures on currency stabilization – showed Beijing’s gritty drive to wind down trade strains with Washington.

In exchange for a far-reaching trade deal with China, the Trump administration still maintained 25% tariffs on approximately $250 billion of Chinese goods and halved tariffs to only 7.5% on the other $120 billion of imports from China. As the US smaller tariff rollback would hardly endow any plausible push to Beijing’s exports to Washington or the global economy, the deal predominantly benefited the US.

New York-based leading global investment banking, securities and investment management company, Goldman Sachs, was disappointed with the US miniscule tariff reduction on the Chinese goods that forecasted it to be at least double than the actual 7.5%. “The reduction is only half as large as our baseline assumption,” said Goldman’s chief economist Jan Hatzius.

Hatzius’ reading of the China-US “phase one” covenant overtly spoke about the US inflexibility and Chinese clemency for reaching a trade deal and cued that the US steps were insufficient to refresh the bilateral trade relations and provide a fillip to the global economy.

Considering US the biggest economy of the world, the global markets would have expected a much rational American reaction to Chinese profounder spirit. If the US was seriously concerned about the global economy, the tariff reduction on Chinese goods should have greater than the analysts’ predictions.

The US needs to learn from China’s strategy to advance its economic development by promoting high-quality and competitive goods and services imports from all countries including America. It should therefore pursue to phase out additional tariffs on Chinese goods more bigheartedly to truly stimulate bilateral trade and global economy and financial stability.

'Vietnamization' in Afghanistan

By: Azhar Azam

*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)" https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-12-23/-Vietnamization-in-Afghanistan-METL4YuGnS/index.html

This year, the US war in Afghanistan entered in 19th year since it invaded the landlocked country in October 2001. Afghan war is currently the longest international military campaign in the American history, unseating the prior Vietnam War that lasted for more than17 years.

Nixon administration’s “Vietnamization” policy, which sought to end the US overseas armed engagement in Vietnam through “expand, equip and train” the South Vietnamese forces – is being tailed by Washington in Afghanistan by way of US Operation Freedom’s Sentinel (OFS) or NATO-led Resolute Support (RS) mission “to train, advise and assist” the Afghan security forces and institutions to shawl the offensive intent.

In December 2014, former US President Barrack Obama and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) announced the “completion” of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) or Afghanistan war and leaned into the non-combat OFS/RS operations.

Though OEF was capped five years ago – in a humongous blow to the US, the world’s prevalent military power continues to ensnare in the grief-stricken country and suffer heavy fatalities. During OFS/RS, the US troop casualties had reached 622 by December 16 including 82 deaths in the face of squandering about $1 trillion in Afghanistan.

Virtual collapse of the US to elude its military losses is pretty embarrassing for the globally dominant defense equipment exporter, notwithstanding it relocated its troops from a showdown with Afghan Taliban to relatively a placating role to lift Afghan forces’ warfare capabilities and focus on counter-terrorism operations against the remnants of al-Qaeda.

In the middle of Obama’s tenure, the US had unequivocally realized that Afghan war is invincible. National Security Council (NSC) staffer’s disclosure in 2014 “Your job was not to win, it was not to lose” typified that Washington had long succumbed to the Afghan insurgent group that was consolidating its foothold and preparing to expand the operations and influence all over Afghanistan.

NSC operative revelation and Taliban outstretched control in the battle-scarred country lobbed the US claim “to help secure and build-upon the hard-fought gains of the last 13 years” and alluded that it was shambolically in search of a restorative transit to flee Afghanistan while circumventing to be derided internationally over its military gaucherie.

As the US had covertly decided to leave Afghanistan in line with the “Vietnamization” strategy to withdraw the American forces and foreign troops within 60 days of signing the agreement with North Vietnam – Taliban divined the US plan.

Armed faction moved aggressively in many districts of the country and redoubled its terminal suicide attacks including the deadliest stretch in Kabul. On the other hand, the US was unlucky in a sense that it could not forsake Afghanistan, citing its national security concerns. The US, therefore was enmeshed in the republic.

Whereas the US President Donald Trump snapped off the peace talks with Taliban by his scorching tweets on September 8, accusing the militant group was trying “to build false leverage” and to “strength their bargaining position” through attacks – he turned his back on coalition's airstrikes to target the combatants across Afghanistan to tighten his grip on peace dialogue.

In July and August, the alliance’s aircraft released 613 and 753 weapons respectively – higher than many months from OFS launch in 2015 – to dial up military pressure on Taliban militias to “shape the political environment” and keep their interlocutors on the negotiation table. After the consultations were stalled in early September, some 948 weapons were dropped on Taliban – largest monthly total since RS mission was propelled.

So while Trump imputed Taliban for tapping armed attacks on Afghan and US forces as a bullying tactic to seek comparative influence on Afghan peace discussions – in actuality, both the sides wrought the assault ploys to overawe each other in the crucial exchanges.

But in this abysmal fray to dominate the rival, Afghan civilian casualties hit the roof and swelled to 4,009 including 954 killings in the third quarter of 2019 – an increase of 130% from last quarter and 60% more as compared to last year’s three-month period.

Since peace continues to become extinct in Afghanistan, it could readily be plumbed that the US widespread military, strategic, economic, social and political objectives in the God’s Acre of global superpowers would never decipher into existentialism and eventually head toward dead end.

Amid stark issues of rampant corruption, growing poppy fields, Afghan forces’ incompetence to protect their own country and shriller differences among the political parties – the US bilateral Afghanistan Compact and Geneva Mutual Accountability Framework (GMAF) to promote trade, stability, enhance capacity of the civilian institutions and improvement of justice system are blighted.

For years, several US administrations have overstated their visibly-invisible feats to cover up the defeat and massive defense spending in Afghanistan. Once the US sensed that it won't be able to dupe its nation over ghost triumphs for too long, it picked the Vietnam-like troop retraction strategy through a peace dialogue with Taliban.

The US has lately relinquished nearly all its Afghan-centered initiatives. At present, the fundamental US objective in Afghanistan is to “preventing any further attacks on the United States by terrorists enjoying terrorist haven or support in Afghanistan.” Thus resumption of talks in Doha had to commence as part of the US “Vietnamization” in Afghanistan.

However, it doesn't mean that the US will completely check out of Afghanistan. Washington seeks an intelligence-based military presence in Kabul to monitor adversaries and regional developments, certainly at a much lower cost than it is paying now.

So five years after the introduction of “Vietnamization” in Afghanistan, Trump’s last month surprise thanksgiving visit to Kabul was an assurance to the US troops that Taliban “want to do a ceasefire” and they were coming home soon.

Why former Pakistan military chief Musharraf's death penalty could spell trouble

By: Azhar Azam

*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)" https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-12-18/Why-Musharraf-s-death-penalty-could-spell-trouble-for-Pakistan-MvYRu6H8n6/index.html and was republished by "China Daily" http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201912/19/WS5dfae545a310cf3e3557f37f.html

On Tuesday, a three-member special court sentenced death penalty to Pakistan’s former Chief of Army Staff (COAS) and President General (retired) Pervez Musharraf. He has been on trial for high treason case over imposing state of emergency in 2007 that is considered an abrogation of the country’s constitution, embodying maximum punishment unless the act is indemnified by the parliament.

Ailing Musharraf outrightly rejected the charges. Days before the judgment, he characterized the treason case “baseless” and asserted “I have served my country for 10 years. I have fought for my country. This [treason] is the case in which I have not been heard and I have been victimized.”

Candidly from 2007 onward, the former military ruler was not destined to get ratification from the leading political parties, Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) or PMLN and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which had the majority in the parliament and were pithily opposing him.

Although PPP did not pursue the case against the ex-military ruler following it rose into the power during or after Musharraf’s tenure, ostensibly over the larger gains for its leaders from the infamous National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) – nevertheless it prevented to give Musharraf’s act a legislative cover.

Given that the clause 2A of the enforced Article 6 additionally restricts Pakistan top courts including High Courts and Supreme Court to validate the “act of high treason,” Musharraf was never going to get a relief on the basis of prevailing laws in the country.

In addition, since any constitutional amendment requires at least two-third majority, he would not able to get endorsement for his act in near future even if the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) wanted to do so over its small lead in the National Assembly and Senate.

Apart from the technically “political” case, there is no corruption or other tangible petition pending against the former army chief in the courts. In this background, Article 6 is perceived a political farce to victimize Musharraf in some circles of Pakistan while his fellow politicians were enjoying leading roles in all the political parties and government. Musharraf though can challenge the court decision in the higher courts.

In the utter puzzling turmoil, the spilt verdict (2-1) highlighted a revamped and brighter image of Pakistan’s institutions that were undergoing under increased international criticism for working under military pressure. The decision vehemently downplayed the western propaganda about army dominance in Pakistan and spelled out that the institutions in the country were strengthening with the passage of time.

Islamabad generally has been a vulnerable economy and a land of political brawls for many years. It is a blunt truth that if any institution, which has exceptionally served the grander strategic national and regional interests of the country, it has undisputedly been Pakistan armed forces.

With the tailor-made defense equipment support from its all-weather friend Beijing, the battle-hardened army not only cleansed Pakistan from the menace of terrorism, it also facilitated the critical peace talks between Washington and Afghan Taliban.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America, Pakistan strongly backed the US war on terror in Afghanistan. As a matter of fact, General Musharraf was Pakistan’s army chief and president when September 11 jolted the US. So under his control, Islamabad played a key role to the world’s campaign of ending the terrorism once for all.

Now with the death punishment of the former army chief, Pakistan could face some extensive strategic implications in the region. The global media, mainly the US broadcasting outlets, would certainly take the opportunity to pale the achievements of Pakistan armed forces by exploiting its role in the domestic politics.

It would additionally demoralize Pakistan army that has lost thousands of troops in war on terror and has long been assisting peace in the region. It must be excruciating for Pakistan military to be handed a capital decree to its former army chief over treachery and someone who led the country’s most-revered organization for about nine years.

Soon after the verdict, Pakistan army expressed great resentment over the court decision. In its press release, military’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said “(Decision) has been received with lot of pain and anguish by rank and file of Pakistan Armed Forces,” which denied the right of self-defense to its former head.

At a time when all the global powers including China, Russia and the United States are pursuing the path of political dialogue with Afghan Taliban and China and Pakistan are making collective efforts for ensuring peace and sustainable economic development in Afghanistan – the aggravations in the ranks of Pakistan army over its head’s capital punishment cannot be overlooked.

The growing antipathies could divert Pakistan armed forces concentration from peace and stability into the region to disproportionately occupy itself into domestic issues. And most importantly, this could be a break for the global subversive elements and bottled-up terrorists to re-launch their disruptive activities more actively in region and Pakistan that’s economy has just started to move ahead on the back of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

The US should fix its Afghanistan impasse rather than confine China

By: Azhar Azam

*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)" https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-12-14/The-U-S-should-fix-its-Afghanistan-impasse-rather-than-confine-China-MqekWP8VTq/index.html and was republished by "China Daily" http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201912/15/WS5df5965ba310cf3e3557e300.html

On Wednesday, the Democratic-dominated US House of Representatives passed a gargantuan $738 billion defense bill with a bipartisan support for the FY 2020 and sent the conference report on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to the Republican-controlled Senate where it is expected to pass within next seven days.

Defense bill passage whipped up the US President Donald Trump who urged Congress “don’t delay this anymore!” and stated he would “sign this historic defense legislation immediately,” which encompassed $71.5 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) including Operation Freedom’s Sentinel (OFS) in Afghanistan.

In FY2019, the ongoing OFS or war in Afghanistan was the most expensive US foreign operation that extracted $37.2 from the pockets of American taxpayers. It was also the largest US spending on its overseas military campaigns, accounting for 77% of total international operations’ spending. With some $579.4 billion spent on Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan, total Afghan war reached to $755.7 billion till March 2019. The US defense bill deliberately masked these stunning facts in the Act.

NDAA also sought several reports on China’s investments abroad; transportation, energy and technology projects; growing military capabilities; ending dependency on Chinese rare earth materials and the ambition to make the country a manufacturing power by 2025.

Obscuring the massive defense spending in Afghan war and underscoring Chinese development, the Act gave the impression that US was regretting the day it invaded Afghanistan and afterward grimly violated the sovereignty of several other countries around the globe.

More than 18 years of its offensives in Afghanistan, Washington is making the world to believe that molesting Kabul was its biggest mistake, which allowed Beijing to make a trouble-free progress in the fields of economy, technology and defense. By centering on China, the Act strove to modify its future plan of action.

But Washington flunks to apprehend that, with or without US impediments, Beijing’s growth was unstoppable over the meticulous implementation of its decades-old economic reforms and opening up. The advancement China made across the multiple sectors was never intended to compete any nation and just focused to expand its economic and technological growth, lift millions of people from extreme poverty and protect its national defense.

Being an important member of the United Nations, China unconditionally supported the US war on terror following 9/11 terrorist attacks. Once terror nudged the US, not only China strongly condemned the September 11 attacks and pledged to cooperate with the global community in fighting terrorism – tens of thousands of Chinese people also visited the US embassy in Beijing and offered flowers, cards, funeral wreaths and hand-written notes to show their solidarity with the American victims.

Likewise, when the Trump administration commenced the path of political dialogue with Afghan Taliban, Beijing again welcomed the Afghan peace process and stressed on an Afghan-owned and Afghan led peace solution for a durable and stable Afghanistan. China additionally exerted deep efforts to facilitate intra-Afghan dialogue.

Washington needs to carefully revisit its hostile attitude in Afghanistan that brought about the killing of 2,300 US troops and wounding another 20,590. The fatalities of American military have not stopped even after the former US President Barrack Obama announced in December 2014 to end the longest war in the American history.

In place of targeting or profligately containing China, the US should iron out the grievances of its armed personnel who are still not sure what they were doing in nearly two decades old Afghanistan war and are increasingly wary of US officials’ “rosy” pronouncements of winning the unwinnable war.

It is irrefutable fact that despite a number of troop casualties and massive spending of around $1 trillion by a number of trusted estimates, Afghanistan war continues to grip the United States and there are no signs of ending it anytime in near future. Yet, Washington covets to keep a soldierly footprint in Afghanistan.

“Afghanistan Papers” are a caveat to Washington. It evoked the US and its establishment to reconsider its aggressive policies and corrupt practices, which drove its hundreds of billions of dollars in Afghanistan to foster corruption and wire Kleptocracy, apart from bleeding the US economy.

Instead of resolving longstanding Afghan crisis, the Trump administration is eying to deter China’s growth from economy to defense. US president’s hardcore belief that his tariff barrage can quell and kink Beijing to Washington’s illegitimate and detrimental demands is terribly misdirected.

As Trump entered into the final year of his presidential tenure, Chinese economic data and the independent worldwide studies are demonstrative of the country’s increased pliability to absorb the US import tariffs in a prolonging trade war.

China abjures any moves, which might spark tensions between the two largest economies of the world. But if the US remains committed with its paranoid behavior to pursue the covert American agenda to hurt China on various fronts, Beijing could hit back at Washington with more burly countermeasures that would emphatically tumorous for the international peace efforts and global trade system.

As EU-US relations falter

By: Azhar Azam

*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared in "The Express Tribune":
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2115832/6-eu-us-relations-falter/

US President Donald Trump’s stubborn “America First” strategy not only mills him to slap tariffs on rival China’s goods, his invasive economic policy unequivocally targets the products of American allies – including Japan, South Korea, Mexico, European Union (EU) and others as well.

All the contrived Trump’s measures to drive each and every country down to his taxing tariff policy are yet to replicate any positive signals in the US economic statistics, which posted nine-month US trade deficit to notch up by $24.8 billion or 5.4% as compared to the previous year.

Downed exports and increased imports are not obligating the Trump administration to soften his hostile approach towards the entire world instead cajoles him to persist with a bitter US trade unilateralism and protectionism stance that is poised to wipe off $700 billion from the global economy by 2020.

Trump is now mulling over the options to launch a trade investigation against the (EU), another key American ally, to justify imposing huge tariffs on the bloc’s exports to the US. Earlier, he missed prior deadline of November 14 to follow through his threatened 25% tariffs on European cars and car parts.

The move came after Washington pushed Brussels to cut tariffs on American lobsters and chemicals but EU trade chief Cecilia Malmstrom rejected the US mini-deal bid, calling for a reciprocal American action for European exports. EU is additionally critical of Trump’s labeling of Europe a trade “foe”, resounding that he supports the Brexit and is the first ever American president who openly speaks “against a united Europe.”

US president’s trade war onto the EU and forthright intervention in the alliance’s sovereign affairs are gradually distancing it from some of the American key NATO allies. The bloc is now seeking China to work with EU beyond trade, on compatible issues like climate change, reforms in WTO, strengthening cooperation on international peace and security and promoting sustainable development.

Echoing for a combined effort in a recently concluded 3rd EU-China CEO and Former Senior Official’s Dialogue in Beijing, the European side also petitioned China to join hands in deepening their comprehensive strategic partnership, advance economic and trade ties and promote innovations.

In an age of trade unilateralism and protectionism – economic relations between China and EU continue to burgeon as bilateral trade between the two economies increased 3.1% to reach about $580 billion in the first ten months of 2019. The increased economic collaboration would surely help to tone down the impacts of itchy US trade war and to rebalance global economy.

The EU is China’s largest trading partner and China is EU’s second-largest. As Beijing has poured $318 billion of investments in EU during the last ten years, 45% more than that of the US – to develop bridges, seaports, airports, rail links, power stations, football clubs and financial companies in several European countries– both sides are also expected to sign a bilateral investment treaty next year.

In view of growing EU’s desire to reinforce its rapprochement with China, Beijing may extend its willingness to strongly implement the framed EU-China 2020 Strategic Agenda for Cooperation that lays many commonalities for a strengthened partnership between the two to work together for peace, prosperity and sustainable development and their commitment towards multilateralism.

In addition, EU strategizes to connect Europe and Asia with Chinese cooperation to improve the economic, social, fiscal, financial and environmental sustainability of Eurasian connectivity and interoperability, which providentially is also the vital part of Chinese Belt and Road Initiative.

While Washington is continuing to grill the EU across multiple fronts, Beijing could increase more workable economic, strategic, political and diplomatic engagements with Europe. China can broaden the scope of trade cooperation with EU to widen mutual goals such as challenging protectionism, promoting Eurasian connectivity, plugging multilateralism, furthering Sino-French “Beijing Call” to fight climate change and better protecting biodiversity and reinstating Iran nuclear deal.

As the officials from China, Russia, France, Germany and Britain will meet in Vienna on December 6 – Beijing possibly will step up efforts to restore the US-blasted Iran nuclear deal, which has plunged EU-Iran trade to plunge by nearly 75% to €3.9 billion during January to September.

Through partnership with its allies, Beijing may utilize the podium as well as other multilateral international forums to repel Washington’s crass campaign against the global world while EU could deepen its economic, political and strategic relations with China.

Strained Middle East zipping toward China as alternative to the US

By: Azhar Azam

*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)" https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-12-10/Strained-Middle-East-zipping-toward-China-as-alternative-to-the-U-S--MjcsJ8q8Ao/index.html and was republished by "China Military" http://eng.chinamil.com.cn/view/2019-12/11/content_9693859.htm, "PLA Daily" http://english.pladaily.com.cn/view/2019-12/11/content_9693859.htm and "Asia Pacific Daily" https://www.apdnews.com/Insightsi/975411.html

US interests in Middle East, especially in Arabian Peninsula, have tremendously truncated following its self-reliance in meeting its vast domestic energy needs that sliced its monthly crude oil imports from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in September to almost halve from last year.

Shale revolution greatly helped US to tersely cut its oil dependency on its largest crude supplier, Saudi Arabia. Over the past three years, Washington’s crude imports from Riyadh declined sharply from 1,209,000 barrels per day (bpd) in September 2016 to 458,000 bpd in September 2019.

So Arabia, once the sine qua non of US foreign policy, is now primarily a region that the US is eying at to inflate its arms sale. And thanks to the entrenched Mideast conflicts, the US continues to sell billions of dollars of armaments to the regional nations every year while retaining a tight control on some of the lethal military technologies.

Yet due to the US boastful attitude and scratchy clash-fueling policy, Gulf kingdoms are now rapidly zipping toward China as an alternative to US in the Middle East. Beijing generally maintains good relations with all the regional states and is better positioned to broker peace in conflict-shrouded zone.

China’s trademark recipe of resolving disputes through political and peaceful dialogue perfectly fits in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries’ foreign policy amid plunging international oil prices and their unceasingly wearying economies.

In middle of growing tensions in Mideast, Gulf economies are expected to shrink from 2% in 2018 to 0.7% in 2019 collectively. Over dwindling GDP growth, sustainable peace and economic stabilization will be the top insistence of GCC countries in place of large weapon acquisitions from Washington.

Arabian world has ostensibly realized that billions of dollars of defense spending and arms purchases from the US cannot warrant peace in Mideast and they eventually have to get along and offset disputes for a wider goal of regional security and economic growth, which incidentally are the fortes of Chinese expertise.

China is working proactively to promote peace in Middle East. On November 27 and 28, more than 200 delegates from China and Mideast gathered in Beijing to participate in the Middle East Security Forum to discuss security issues, challenges, threats and their two-pronged ties. Majority of the attendees slammed US unilateral and dominant policy in the region and urged to end the unfair local order that was stemmed from American intervention and undue pressures.

The participating Gulf officials acclaimed Chinese-conceived proposals – to stay committed for a political settlement, defending basic principles of fairness and justice, leveraging key role of the United Nations, and forging synergy in the region and international community – for the regional security issues.

Middle East propensity in the direction of China is momentous and infers deeper and far-fetched medium and long-term impacts on the regional politics. While it shows Gulf’s hulking trust deficit with the US, it also demonstrates that Arabian nations perceive themselves more aligned with Chinese foreign policy to mitigate differences through diplomatic channels.

Beijing is the second-largest economy and the world’s largest exporter of the goods but it has never bullied its allies or rivals with US-like trade tariffs and other intimidating moves to force down sovereign nations. China advocates the core principles of coexistence and multilateralism, promotes peace reconciliation and precludes imposing self-made international rules such as inflicting sanctions if someone does not adhere to its policies.

That’s why the recently concluded China-Saudi joint naval drills, Blue Sword 2019, did not aim to overawe anyone and focused to enhance mutual trust and friendly relations, exchange experiences and improve the training level of the two special naval forces.

While Washington overburdened the ailing Riyadh economy by deploying thousands of US troops at the expense of the Kingdom, Beijing stationed over 1,800 troops in Middle East as part of UN peacekeeping mission. Lucidly, the US is flaming conflicts in the region whereas China is trying to restore peace in the region under a global diplomatic body.

China iconic blueprint of economic and technological cooperation is an ideal solution for Middle East to buoy up their lurching economies. Being the world’s biggest oil market, China can enormously aid oil exports-reliant GCC nations to revert their economic downslide. Through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Beijing can additionally cater the transportation and infrastructure needs of the regional countries.

After China’s crude oil imports from Saudi Arabia zoomed to a new height to reach about 2 million bpd in October at a windy increase of 76% year-on-year, Beijing did not seek Riyadh to take reciprocal measures and boost its imports from China. In addition, China is extending its economic, e-commerce, financial technology, logistics and artificial intelligence cooperation with other Gulf States such as United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain.

As US is moving away from the Gulf oil markets, China has got an enormous potential to put forward a comprehensible and harmonized plan. Beijing maintains deep ties with Tehran and embraces strong economic relations with GCC states, so is in an ideal position to play an active role to facilitate regional peace and revive sopping economies, which would be heartily welcomed by the countries across the Middle East.

Latin America and Africa hail BRI-powered Chinese economic growth

By: Azhar Azam

*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)" https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-12-07/Latin-America-and-Africa-hail-BRI-powered-Chinese-economic-growth--Me1QbCBVcs/index.html and was republished by "China Daily" https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201912/09/WS5dedaae5a310cf3e3557cc4d.html

Publics across the world largely deliberate that China’s rise as a global economic superpower was an emboldening sign for the countries. Worldwide emerging markets, in particular, profoundly welcomed China’s economic growth and upheld an overwhelming positive view of Chinese economic stature, a latest Pew Research survey found.

Although few nations were wary of their governments’ growing economic reliance on China but they were equally fretful of US piercing influence in their domestic economies. Comparing their bilateral relations with the two biggest world economies, people mostly perceived China’s role more instrumental than the US.

The countries in Latin America – Brazil, Mexico and Argentina – vividly hailed China thriving economy, stepping aside their strong trade ties with the United States. That was somewhat unusual provided that the three sides had a bilateral trade of $61 billion, $518 billion and $11 billion respectively with America as compared to their total trade of about $260 billion with China in the first ten months of 2019.

Even though Mexico had a trade surplus of nearly $85 billion with the US for January to October, 50% of the United Mexican States’ poll participants did not dither to back Beijing’s economic growth as favorable against mere 22% who thought otherwise.

It was mainly for the reason that the US President Donald Trump recurrently ditched the American neighboring country on trade and immigration and therefore the public sentiments went against the US aggressive policies and pushed their support to radically tilt towards kindlier China.

A significant majority of Argentinians (and Brazilians also believed that Chinas’ economic and investment advancement was a good thing for them, even when measured with their opinions about the US.

The proclivity to disapprove US growth is likely to soar after Trump grilled the two countries over “massive currency devaluation” and afterwards he threatened to reimpose tariffs on their steel and aluminum exports to the US. The people from Argentina and Brazil could turn rickety about US scratchy economic policies and could shift their bigger empathies in the direction of China. Interestingly, neither Argentina nor Brazil was on the watchlist of the US Treasury Department for “unfair currency practices.”

Apparently, the US president rationalized exchange rate maneuvering to bash Argentina and Brazil regimes” however the real intent behind the loudmouthed move was the two countries’ growing reconciliation with China that enabled Brasilia and Buenos Aires to become largest soybean exporter and strike a soymeal deal with Beijing correspondingly.

Lately, the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s pragmatic and softer approach towards China greatly helped Brazil to embrace stronger economic relations with the largest Brazilian trade partner. At the recently concluded China International Import Expo (CIIE), the transaction volume of Brazilian businesses grew 3.6 times as compared to last year’s CIIE.

Bolsonaro’s pursuance of coherent and friendly strategy additionally raised its meat exports to Beijing and armor-plated China to become third-largest foreign investor in Brazil for the third quarter of 2019 with total investments of $874 million behind Japan ($1 billion) and the US ($915 million).

China and Latin America are steadily narrowing the elongated geographical distance to forge a closer economic and strategic partnership. In 2018, the bilateral trade between the two increased by 18.9% to 307.4 billion, one of the reasons why China has gained more confidence of the people in Latin America in recent years.

Latin America is the natural extension of the BRI. Through establishing an open platform of collaboration, Argentina can integrate its development strategy with BRI while the project is high compatible with Panama’s National Logistics Strategy as well. So, the Chinese-offered wider cooperation in the areas of agriculture, energy, infrastructure, mining and manufacturing could bring prosperity to a region that is expected to marginally grow by just 0.7% in Q4-2019.

The emerging markets of Africa – Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa – have been quickly cozying up to China too and the increasing numbers of the countries citizens’ positive views about Beijing strongly ratified their governments’ economic and infrastructure collaboration with China.

China has earned the trust of world’s second largest and second most-populace continent in the world by wielding deep efforts and pouring hundreds of billions of investments in its BRI projects in Africa to lift the poor regional economies and eradicate poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa, which is the home of more than half or 413 million of the global poor head-count.

Beijing has initiated $227 billion of projects in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and another $240 billion in Sub-Saharan Africa. Most of Chinese projects were in Sub-Saharan Africa were directed towards air construction and marine and water projects

As Beijing has diverted most of its financial resources for airport construction and marine and water projects (mostly port facilities) in Sub-Saharan Africa, BRI is poised to add thrust to the African trade, stimulate economy and alleviate poverty drastically. That is why African people’s responsiveness to China is expanding at a rapid clip.

A prior World Bank report noted that besides increasing foreign investments and reducing poverty, BRI projects has the potential to enhance the global trade between 1.7% and 6.2% and the global income by 0.7% to 2.9%. Being a keystone of BRI, African nations can greatly benefit from the lavish Chinese spending and utilize the developed linkages to attract further foreign investments and boost trade with all countries.

It is not just Latin America and Africa; the publics of emerging markets in Asia-Pacific and Middle East too do not feel any threat from China economic growth and alongside colossal recognition from Russia and Ukraine, the people across the Europe are gradually realizing that the Chinese progress is vital for their economies.

And indeed, the marvels of China’s insignia BRI such as infrastructure and social development, shared growth and people-to-people exchanges are truly transforming a renewed and more intelligent global community that comprehends the importance of win-win cooperation and multilateralism in all spheres, from trade to development.

Trump's 'xenophobia' against China, Chinese students and Huawei

By: Azhar Azam

*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)" https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-12-01/Trump-s-xenophobia-against-China-Chinese-students-and-Huawei-M3Z5yTYQSc/index.html and was republished by "China Daily" http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201912/01/WS5de3732ba310cf3e3557b2bd.html

Most of the US problems are not China’s fault; China is not going to collapse under its weight; China won’t become a Western-style democracy; and America needs to look into its mistakes and failures – said former US House Speaker Newt Gingrich in his recent book “Trump vs. China: Facing America’s Greatest Threat.”

Gingrich also stressed China is not responsible that 89% of Baltimore’s 8th grade students cannot pass their math exams or there was a dramatic increase in Chinese graduate students in science; China didn’t guide the US defense bureaucracy to create a “military industrial complex”; and there is every reason to believe that China has been catching up rapidly and could outpace America soon.

Trump’s supporter underscored that China is not the reason why old and entrenched US companies could not develop a global strategy for 5G over 11 years and extoled Chinese company Huawei for working hard to become world leader in wireless technology, by providing better services and most advanced equipment and thereby is poised to win global 5G race through Chinese spending of $8-10 billion since 2015.

The remarks did not come from an “authoritarian” or “totalitarian” Chinese official or “hawkish” state-owned media outlet, these are the comments made by harsh China critic who has accused that Beijing “routinely sign things then cheats”, alleged Communist Part of China (CPP) for lessening freedom and bolstering influence across the globe, labeled China’s economic policies “China’s con game”, and backed Hong Kong’s violent protestors in the recent past.

The dilemma evolves if China was not responsible for the US botches to match its bureaucratic, scholastic, military, economic and technological growth, as Gingrich described, why Trump administration and the US Congress is wailing at Beijing?

It appears as if from trade and technology to military and defense, the US has succumbed to China and is now pursuing to compete with it unfairly by redoubling its efforts to push Beijing back through blinkered moves including slapping tariffs, putting curbs on its tech giants and wreaking havoc in Chinese autonomous regions such as Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

The US is deeply threatened by the Chinese graduates studying in America as well, particularly in the areas of robotics, aviation and high-technology manufacturing. Last June, the US President even assured to enact limits on visas to Chinese students, citing them national security risk for the country over “intellectual property theft” by Beijing.

Although he vowed “to be very good to Chinese students” during an interaction with China Media Group (CMD) in White House on October 11, the Q1-2019 Chinese Ministry of Education’s data, showing a notable 13.5% rise in declined Chinese student visa applications from 3.2% in 2018, outrightly refuted the president’s claims.

Since the statistics further disclosed that nearly all visa rejections were made to Chinese students going on state-sponsored scholarships, the special treatment of Chinese STEM (Science, technology, engineering and math) graduates expounded American exasperation towards Chinese technology growth, which was bluntly replicated in its stringent regulatory measures on Huawei and other companies from Mainland.

But US seriously underrated Huawei’s strengthen. Before US government imposed restrictions on American companies on supply of components for Huawei products, Chinese tech giant preempted the forthcoming checks from Trump administration and was well-prepared with a backup plan in its quest to “stand on top of the world.”

Huawei and others immediately unveiled their most-advanced indigenously-built chips to end their reliance on American semiconductors. At IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin, Huawei presented the new Kirin 990 all-in-one artificial intelligence and 5G chip and later on the conglomerate started to sell the other Balong 711 4G chipsets to the third parties.

US obdurate curbs did not make any impact on Huawei revenues either that’s smartphone shipments hit 200 million units, two months earlier than it did in 2018. Just a week before, the electronics heavyweight jolted the global tech industry stating that it generated 24.4% more revenue of $86 billion as compared to previous year while its peer US competitor Apple saw a double decline in Q3-2019.

Six months after the US launched a tech war against China; Trump administration is scratching its head rather than regulating the largest manufacturer of the telecommunication equipment and second-largest mobile phone supplier worldwide.

US government is so topsy-turvy that one side its Commerce Department extended third 90-day reprieve to Huawei allowing American companies to do business with it and on the flipside, US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) barred its $8.5 billion a year Universal Service Fund (USF) to purchase equipment and services from Huawei and ZTE.

While the FCC action aimed at marginalizing the two Chinese companies from taking part in procurement process, Commerce Department’s third extension to Huawei implied that US was finding it increasingly problematic to find a better supplier, which could meet the cost and quality offered by Huawei and because American firms were expected to suffer loss of $14 billion on account of semiconductor chips and other components sales to Huawei.

Following its embarrassing failure to impede Huawei’s growth, Washington is taking yet another insular line to impede Huawei growth by raising the self-styled specter from Chinese firm in upcoming NATO meeting and is also reportedly weighing to influence foreign suppliers to cut off supplies to Huawei.

But US would never be able to dictate international supply chains that are not constrained to bow the American hegemonic behavior at the cost their national and business interests and also the current regulations do not permit any country the authority to block Huawei’s shipments from other than the US.

Reconvergence in the Middle East

By: Azhar Azam

*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared in "The Express Tribune":
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2107705/6-reconvergence-middle-east/

More than two months after the world’s largest oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia was blitzed and forced to close down – it is still quite blurred where the drones and cruise missiles were stemmed from and why the US Patriot flopped to protect the biggest strategic asset of one of its closest allies.

Immediate pick out for the shocking attacks had to be Iran and so it was as the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo singled out Tehran shortly after the flying objects sneaked through the rich American defense systems to hit Saudi Aramco oilfields.

Innately, the wearying Riyadh-Tehran bilateral relations were another veiled objective of the assaults. And with Iran and Saudi Arabia gruffly staring at each other, the foremost and cardinal goal was met with near-perfect accuracy.

But once the tempers chilled, the two sides seated in quarantine to decipher the recipient of the Tehran-Riyadh standoff. While Iran was screwed up with the crippling US sanctions driving its oil exports to zero and Saudi Arabia was exposed to the vulnerabilities in its US-shielded defense system, the findings must have ended up in that the attacks didn’t favor any of the regional stakeholders and the victor was somewhere thousands miles away from conflict zone.

It was the time to rethink plans, conceive new strategies and figure out of the box solutions. With regional entities onboard, earlier this month Iranian President Hassan Rouhani stretched out to six GCC countries and Iraq – inviting them to join his UNGA-proposed Hormuz Peace Endeavor (HOPE) initiative for the stability and security in the region.

Named after the Strait of Hormuz – the world’s most vital maritime oil trade route comprising 15 million barrels of oil per day – HOPE is furthered by Tehran as an important forum of dialogue and political negotiations among the nations based on no use of force, settling crisis peacefully, respect each other’s sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs of other countries.

Meanwhile, announcing the peace deal between Yemini President Abdul Rabbu Mansour Hadi and the secessionist Southern Transition Council (STC) – Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman described the “Riyadh Agreement” as an important step towards a political solution to end the four-year bloody war in Yemen.

Iranian last week’s promotion of its HOPE initiative coincided with bracing move by Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain to allow their teams to participate in Gulf Cup football tournament in Qatar alongside the visiting teams from Iraq, Kuwait, Oman and Yemen.

The handshake was a major shift in GCC countries’ foreign policy towards Qatar ever since Riyadh-led regional bloc imposed a blockade on Doha in June 2017. Rifts among the regional countries are likely to ease as the soccer-diplomacy could begin a new era of regional cooperation.

Since HOPE formulates to forge an agreement of non-aggression and non-interference among the regional states, GCC proclivity to Qatar signals a transformed regional approach to distance and disintegrate itself from the US hawkish Mideast strategy.

After reconvergence with GCC and being a key Iranian ally, Qatar can play a constructive role in brokering new Middle East peace plan. On the other hand, Rouhani’s letters to GCC state heads has already opined to spotlight regional peace and shape up multilateral bilateral ties, not letting the US to cause indifference between the neighbors.

The countries in the Persian Gulf have seemingly grasped that billions of dollars of defense spending and arms purchases from the US cannot guarantee peace in the region and they have to get along and tone down the differences for a durable regional security.

Therefore, strained by regional threats and plunging oil prices in the international market, Gulf countries are now looking to resolve the disputes such as Yemeni war and bilateral tensions through political and peaceful means to rejuvenate their economies.

US interests in the Mideast have tremendously reduced, especially following its self-reliance in meeting vast domestic energy needs. Gulf is now a largely a region where Washington is gazing at to expand its arms exports for which it seeks to fuel the conflicts.

But GCC economies, which are expected to shrink from 2% in 2018 to 0.7% in 2019 collectively, and Iranian economy also in ruins, would turn out to be a major hitch in the realization of the US regional objective to push frictions and boost its arms sale. So over weakened GDP growth, the stabilization of economy will be the top priority of the regional countries rather than large weapon acquisitions from Washington.

Hate-driven US strategy on CPEC won't divide China and Pakistan

By: Azhar Azam

*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)":
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-11-24/Hate-driven-U-S-strategy-on-CPEC-won-t-divide-China-and-Pakistan-LSyG8I3lDi/index.html

United States is desperately trying to somehow blow up China’s economic, political, strategic, trade and technology interests across the world. Internationally, it has reached out to its allies seeking support to impair Chinese regional and global interests.

In pursuit of its maligned campaign against China domestically, Washington has taken several hurtful measures against Beijing such as tariffs on Chinese goods and restrictions on it technology companies and additionally stepped up its labors to blame China by interfering in its internal Hong Kong affairs.

The latest US’ China-targeted move surfaced on Thursday after the US top diplomat for South Asia Alice Wells shockingly warned Pakistan that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) would push the country into deeper and steeper Chinese debt burden, nurture corruption and oust its jobs and profits to Beijing.

In her “unusually specific” speech, Wells augured that China’s CPEC and non-CPEC loans were “going to take a growing toll on the Pakistan economy” and even if the repayments were deferred, they would hangover Pakistan economic development potential and cramp Prime Minister Imran Khan’s reform agenda.

US knocked the wrong door this time to implement its hate-driven strategy. When it comes to China, Pakistan would be the last country in the world to even thinking about Beijing to blow its economy, overstretch nation’s debt and pinch native employments or revenues.

Relationship between China and Pakistan is not confined to CPEC only, which is only one though critical pedigree of greater Sino-Pak cooperation. Otherwise, the two countries are entwined in much wider and most focal areas of social, economic, trade, defense and strategic collaboration.

This unique, deep-rooted and peerless partnership between the two republics, modeled as iron brothers, is friction-free and shock-proof. In a tailored era where all the nations are pursuing their commercial and premeditated interests – the people, governments and armed forces of China and Pakistan set a new specimen of communal, administrative and military understanding based on mutual trust and concord.

Islamabad is a largely an import-based economy and since the South Asian country has struggled to increase its exports in the last five years, the ballooning current account and trade deficit has put immense pressure on its foreign exchange reserves so as the ability to repay foreign debts. CPEC, purely a transportation project, cannot be convoluted with Pakistan’s weakened liquidity position.

Out of 22 CPEC-related projects worth of $18.9 billion as of December 2018, more than $12 billion were investments in energy sector to ease its power shortage and only $5.9 billion were provided to Pakistan by China as loans over a period of five years on concessional rates to improve its infrastructure network.  While Pakistan’s foreign debt amounted to about $107 billion on 30-September 2019, the Chinese loans accounted for nearly 5.5% of the country’s total external debt.

Wells claim of CPEC repatriating Pakistani jobs and profits to China is forged as well. So far, only the CPEC energy projects had generated $250 million in tax revenues to Pakistan and provided 10,000 jobs to the nationals as well as adding 14.5% to the total energy output.

Ambassador Wells also accused that the lack of transparency can inflate costs of CPEC projects and foster corruption. She hypothetically attached transparency of the energy projects with corruption and presented no evidence whatsoever to back her allegations.

Amid a robust accountability campaign being run by the current Khan administration in Pakistan, which jailed the former president, prime ministers, and federal and provincial ministers, Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau (NAB) did not find a single evidence of corruption in CPEC and related projects.

As a matter of fact, the US meddled in Pakistani domestic issues and sovereignty by creating doubts on government’s nationwide anti-corruption drive and deliberately dragged Chinese state companies on “encourage(ing) corruption” to give hype to its motivated China-crusade.

Concluding the fifth CPEC media forum, organized jointly by Chinese embassy in Islamabad and Pakistan-China Institute, both sides blasted Wells’ remarks urging Islamabad to “ask Beijing tough questions on debt, accountability, fairness and transparency” and unanimously found that there was no corruption.

Pakistan is a sovereign country and Wells’ comments grossly violated international diplomatic standards and intervened in Pakistani domestic and foreign affairs by seeking Islamabad to question Beijing and politicking the project of economic and strategic significance.

China came to salvage Pakistan’s economy and defense after Washington had suspended its economic and military aid despite suffering from $150 billion of economic losses and 70,000 casualties due to US war on terror in Afghanistan.

On top of that, China and Pakistan maintain historical friendly relations and all efforts to spark differences between the two countries have repeatedly failed. So, the US must refrain setting Pakistan’s foreign policy objectives and cede trumpeting doubts about fate-changer CPEC project that is lone hope for the peace and prosperity of more than 200 million of Pakistanis.

The ‘great game’ in Syria

By: Azhar Azam

*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared in "The Express Tribune":
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2103457/6-great-game-syria/

Several regional and global players are involved in Syria to secure their national and strategic interests or to maintain the soi-disant “peace and stability” in the conflict-ridden country. Whatever are the motives behind foreign intrusions, the cost is paid – and paid heavily by the innocent civilians of the conflict-ridden country.

Since the civil war broke in March 2011, Syrian people have suffered from a grim and grisly array of violations including fatal torture, rape of men and women, forced marriage, internal displacement, relocation to contiguous countries and killing by barrel bombs, Scuds and chemical weapons.

Owing to the flagrant desecrations, which outstripped the ceiling of crimes against humanity, fell on deaf ears of international community that continues to remain muffled and a static spectator. This felonious kind of profound silence has exacerbated the humongous sufferings of millions of Syrian passive citizens.

Beneath the swarming bullets, missiles and fighter jets of government, opposition factions and international coalitions, seeking to compound their control and influence in the region – the civilian death toll in Syria has scaled up to 225,948 including 28,949 children and 28,011 women by September and there are no signs of stoppage anytime soon.

According to the data compiled by Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), the primary source of for the United Nations on all death toll-related statistics in Syria, the Syrian regime forces and Iranian militias were responsible for about 90% of civilian death toll. In its report in December 2018, the observatory group found that at least 560,000 people were killed in Syria including civilians and the parties fighting on Syrian soil.

Despite the reduction in violence in the war-trapped country in last one year, about 13.2 million people need health assistance, 2.1 million children are out of school and 33% are food insecure while 83% of the population is living below the poverty line besides 5.7 million refugees and 6.2 million internally displaced persons (IDPs).

After Erdogan and Putin, with ratification from al-Assad, struck a deal on pushing back Kurd forces in northern Syria and to establish a buffer zone – and Trump also somewhat wiped off his embarrassment stemmed from Erdogan-Putin deal and crowed about the US biggest success of killing the brazen Daesh leader Abu Bakkar al Baghdadi – there was one glimmer of hope for Syrians that the rival countries would proceed for the restoration of peace and initiate steps for the rehabilitation of IDPs and evacuees.

But with the US to keep 600 military men to secure Syrian oilfields, Russia deployed troops and attack helicopters at an expansive airbase in northern Syria formerly held by the US and Turkey keen interest on creating safe zone and to send Syrian refugees back home – Assad regime is very likely to strengthen its foothold but the civilians would be embroiled in more tougher peace-fading conditions.

In addition, having obtained the control Syria’s largest and deep-water Tartus port for 49 years – Russia has ensured to keep its presence in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Since it is the only Russian naval facility in the region, the port is of a vital strategic importance for the Kremlin.

Flashback to 1971, Assad’s father Hafiz al-Assad signed an agreement with former Soviet Union to use Tartus port in return for selling advanced weapons to Syria. By 1990, Damascus had stacked up a debt of $13.4 billion to Moscow and eventually agreed to concede its control on the port following Russia wrote-off three-fourth of the debt in 2005.



As the US President Donald Trump said in 2017 that the United States had “very little to do with Syria other than killing IS” and vindicated his decision of troop withdrawal in December 2018 after defeating Daesh in Syria, he is not prepared to meet his promise to culminate the US “endless wars” despite killing ISIS top leadership.

Although United States has repetitively reprimanded Assad’s serious human rights violations in Syria but it has been disinclined to involve directly into the crisis except for firing 59 Tomahawk missiles on Syrian air base in April 2017 over suspected use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime forces.

Iran strongly supported Assad regime since the violence epidemic began eight years ago and provided extensive military aid to Syrian government in the form of training, weapons and intelligence sharing. Tehran also deployed its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and militias to fight the rebel sections in Syria and shield Assad regime.

On September 23, the International Coalition against ISIS entered its sixth year. Since the onset, it has relied on providing support to specific armed factions to gain influence and achieve objectives. Therefore, after five years of its military campaign, irrespective of the fact that Daesh has been completely eliminated or not, the international coalition controls about 70% of the oil and gas reserves in Syria and nobody cares for the civilians.

Accordingly, millions of Syrian inhabitants are trapped in the middle of the scrimmage between Syrian government and the rebels as well as are entombed amid the rivalry of geopolitical and strategic regional and global players.

The “great game” is, therefore, crucifying and routing the Syrians ordinary citizens as they become increasingly the victims of “national interests” of their own administration and foreign interlopers and continue to suffer from massive casualties, rapes, displacements, rising poverty and loss of access to basic human needs such as food, education and medical care.

Hong Kong's High Court ruling on anti-mask law abets violence

By: Azhar Azam

*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)":
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-11-20/Hong-Kong-s-High-Court-ruling-on-anti-mask-law-abets-violence-LLHdddQwOk/index.html

Into the sixth consecutive month, the radical protestors in Chinese Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) have bushed the lives of peaceful citizens, assaulted policemen, vandalized public properties, put a man ablaze and killed a few.

The gadget that aided them the most, in conducting their violent activities, has undisputedly been the face mask. Rioters widely used this cover-up tool to hide their identities from police while committing acts of violence in the China’s autonomous region.

Following repeated petitions by the HKSAR residents, Chief Executive Carrie Lam finally enforced an “anti-mask law” on October 5 to “create a deterrent effect against masked, violent protestors and rioters.” Beijing had also voiced its support for mask prohibition, believing it was indispensible to fight and violent criminal acts and restore social order.

But in a recent grilling move, the HK court ruled that an emergency law revived by the government – to ban protestors from wearing the face masks – was “incompatible with the Basic Law” and overturned the legislation, which was constituted to ensure rule of law.

In addition, the nullification of anti-mask law effectively stemmed Lam administration to fulfill its fundamental administrative responsibility to protect people from violence and rioters and maintain peace and stability in its region.

The court divisive finding invited stern dissatisfaction from the Standing Committee of National People’s Congress, sole legislative body that can analyze whether or not the judgments and decisions were compatible with HKSAR’s Basic Law.

It is pertinent to note that China-UK joint declaration on Hong Kong explicitly spoke that the upkeep of public order in the city will be the responsibility of the HKSAR government; the court decision seriously lacks the substance to back its adjudication ruling and the concerns raised by the Chinese legislative body stands validated.

Where the controversial verdict would limit HK government ability to curb violence, it would provide a legal cover to the rioters to freely conduct their violent and vandalistic activities without disclosing their identity to the HK police. In a completely vague legal background, only the radicals would be stirred but and justice would increasingly fade.

The court’s decision that sent a wrong message to radical protestors also compromised the sovereignty and national security of the city as well as violated the Emergency Regulations Ordinance that empowers the chief executive to “make any regulations whatsoever” on the “occasions of emergency or public danger.”

Since the restoration of peace and end violence is the responsibility of HK government and the city’s police, the decree would help to fuel fanatical actions of rioters and spark increased violence. As a result, the police will be more exposed to petrol bombs and improvised weapons assaults and public avenues will also be much vulnerable to extremists’ activities.

Moreover, the court’s unnecessary involvement in administrative issues could be fatal for the safety and security of HK peaceful residents who have started to become the victims of the radicals and are being set on fire and killed through hard objects hurled by the masked rioters.

The horrific killing of 70-year old cleaner pressed Chinese President Xi Jingping to issue a stark warning to the violent protestors and to assert that the restoring peace and stopping violence was the most urgent task for Hong Kong. Xi also extended Chinese support for Lam administration and urged it to implement policies according to law and punish rioters.

Talking to CCTV, Chief Executive of Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) Ho Iat Seng said “Hong Kong has let people know what rioters are” and raised an important point that many protestors in Hong Kong stress too much on their rights and ignore their obligations.

Adding to Seng’s remarks, the region’s court has endorsed the violent acts of the radical protestors and in fact, boosted them to do whatever they want under the patronage of the judiciary. The rioters would certainly exploit the court’s decision as a justifiable source to expand disorder and take the law of the city in the hands.

If the protestors were peaceful, as they pretend to be, the anti-mask law should have been welcomed by them. But since the radicals were more inclined to trail turmoil in Hong Kong, they strappingly defied the legislation.

And unfortunately, the court also abetted violence by terminating the government’s move that was aimed at reducing riots and distinguish the offenders.