China emerges from health crisis to fast-track 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/2020-03-23/China-emerges-from-health-crisis-to-fast-track-economic-growth-P6b5c6SJ6E/index.html

After there was no locally transmitted case of Covid-19 for a third consecutive day in China, it is a time not to unwind but to man up and revive the second largest economy of the world that has been hammered by the deadly germ known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

Chinese government already stepped up its efforts to support jobs by fast-tracking targeted tax and fee cuts for the firms, reimbursing more unemployment insurance premiums to domestic companies that save jobs and subsidizing small organizations to hire college graduates on contract for longer than a year.

The ambitious fiscal measures coupled with slashing the operational costs and resumption of activities at key firms and projects – especially in manufacturing, construction, logistics, and public services – would resolve the critical understaffing issue and hold the key to give a stimulus to the country’s economy.

Local governments actions – to help top 9,138 manufacturers recruit 370,000 workers and arrange chartered trains, buses and flights to bring more than 4.1 million migrant workers back to work – would surely ease labor shortages and more importantly, lubricate the Chinese economic wheel to whirl at a rapid pace and reduce the people’s financial stress.

About 100 million migrant workers have so far come back to work after being staved off by the Covid-19 for more than two and a half months. The arrival of nearly 80% of the returnees to their hometown, ahead of the Spring Festival, is the reflection that echoed production is resuming and gaining momentum in the country.

Since the economic reforms, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) – estimated at over 38 million in 2019 – have been one of the major driving forces to the China’s national economy. Beijing’s special focus on small businesses, which would save these businesses up to 500 billion yuan through June – should bolster them and assist their government to streamline the state’s economy.

These far-reaching and production-friendly policies will considerably alleviate the pecuniary burdens on the manufacturing companies and would help to hack the unemployment rate that cruised to 6.2% in February. However, it shouldn’t be ignored that amid health crisis phase, Beijing still managed to create 1.08 million new urban jobs in the first two months of 2020.

While the global financial behemoths such as BlackRock and JPMorgan are ramping up their investments in China’s financial hub of Shanghai, the return of international basketball players including Jeremy Lin from the US is also the rising trust on Chinese well-fought victory against the Covid-19.

Other than a few US mouthpieces who characterized that the coronavirus outbreak had stoked an intense blow to the country’s economy, Chinese effort to snuff out the pandemic and blunt the Covid-19 largely drew applause from the top global health and economic regulator, the World Health Organization (WHO) and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

On Friday, the WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom again clapped Chinese success to controlling the outbreak in the hardest-hit Wuhan that was the proof the disease was not insurmountable. His urge – to tow inspiration from China’s fight against coronavirus that “provides hope for the rest of the world that even the most serious situation can be turned around” – should obliterate any leftover doubts about Beijing’s overriding control over disease.

Showing concerns on the serious global economic implications of the pandemic, the IMF officials lauded Beijing on March 20 stating China’s experience shows “the right policies make a difference in fighting the disease and mitigating its impacts.” Though they also cautioned about some risks but their comments “reassuring signs of economic normalization” in the country was a rich belief on Chinese quick monetary actions.

Right from the onset of the 2020 following a sudden outbreak, China had to make a hard choice either to deploy its resources in protecting the health, life and economic survival of the people or prevent the economy from a hard landing. The government rightly prioritized the former without ignoring the latter through an innovative mix of planned tactics to support vulnerable households and smaller firms by waiving social security fees, utility bills and channeling credit via fintechs.

The nonpareil and novel blend of state’s social and economic measures – through arrangement of subsidized credit to scale up the production of healthcare equipment and other critical activities – China not only neutralized the dire Covid-19 challenge but also shielded its economy from significant disruption.

As the disease is almost wiped out from the country, the massive Beijing-built healthcare production structure isn’t standing idly by instead unleashes a silver lining for its economy. The more wired China capability in manufacturing medical diagnostic apparatus and accessories including masks and other personal protective goods can be redirected to meet growing domestic and international market demand that is encountering a famine of diagnostic items.

From now onwards, China will be more prepared to confront any potential danger of the epidemic emergence with a futuristic approach. As the Covid-19 jolts the Europe and North America and threatens to infiltrate in the other regions, Beijing is playing an assertive role as well in guarding the world from pandemic by extending its expertise and providing medical supplies to the struggling government.

So, a strong China is in the interest of world since it always called on social and economic cooperation to settle differences and resolve disputes. By clobbering the Covid-19 and taking sweeping fiscal measures at home, Beijing has laid the foundation for its own and global economic revival and showed the way how a country can emerge from crisis and get back on the path of development through a resolute will and robust risk management.

Is incompetence behind Trump’s anti-China rhetoric?

By: Azhar Azam

*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared in "Fort Russ News (FRN)":
https://www.fort-russ.com/2020/03/is-incompetence-behind-trumps-anti-china-rhetoric-covid-19-in-perspective/

Global impact of Covid-19 is expanding from human to economic and labor crisis and if the world did not respond with urgent, large-scale and coordinated measures of protecting workers, stimulating economy and supporting jobs and incomes – up to 25 million people could be unemployed that can trigger up to $3.4 trillion of income losses to workers.

The study by the International Labor Organization (ILO) also estimated that this strain on income resulting from the decline in economic activity will push the workers close to below the poverty line and could increase the working poverty by up to 35 million around the world in 2020 as compared to original estimate of 14 million.

Given that that the global financial crisis of 2008-09 elevated the worldwide unemployment by 22 million, the latest ILO projection portrays a ghastly global economic outlook which could spur the universal joblessness by more than 13% to 213 million in “high” scenario. The three low, mid and high situations were assessed on the basis of decline in GDP by 2%, 4% and 8%.

UN agency’s “mid” scenario present a whitish look about high-income countries where 7.4 million people are anticipated to be unemployed out of a total of 13 million. It sounds alarm for the rich nations, such as the US, which would be exposed to the risk of a significant GDP drop in the aftereffects of coronavirus pandemic.

With the coronavirus already beleaguered and laid the country in an undeclared lockdown, the suspension of manufacturing and production activities accompanied by flattened consumption of goods and services, inside and outside the US, would put a squeeze on its economy and speed up the employment seepage from the national job tally.

At a time when the US President Donald Trump should overlook all the discords, at least provisionally, and develop cooperation and engagements with all the nations, especially with China, due to its hands-on experiences in fighting and flooring the coronavirus – Alas, he has moved exactly on the opposite side and ratcheted up criticism on Beijing using a racist tone.

Since the signing of phase-one trade deal, Trump has been pretending to be a responsible, soft-spoken and placatory leader though was relying on his top aides to nitpick China on economic, trade, political and most recently on coronavirus issue. But the unusual public façade of being a serene and placid US president couldn’t last long and he bounced back into his original instinct quickly.

The very same guy, who until last week was praising China for shouldering international fight against Covid-19 by sharing critical information and taking impressive measures to control the spread of virus, suddenly hit the roof and started to blame Beijing for the pandemic. For him, “Chinese virus” isn’t a corrosive or racist term because coronavirus came from China and against which he is leading America’s war.

Other than Trump himself, perhaps everyone agrees that his repeated comments are racist and provocative. Scot Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, slammed his remarks stating “use of this term can’t but be interpreted as xenophobic and tinged with racist overtones.” His rash attitude is now inciting the countrymen to use xenophobic slurs and physically abuse the Asian-Americans.

As the experts, global media outlets and even the public health officials in the White House have avoided practicing such discriminatory behavior – ILO projection about significant economic slowdown and job losses in high-income countries gives an idea why Trump has become so consistent in using the racist expression.

It is not just the UN agency that foresaw a slump in the global economy, predominantly in the rich economies. While the Goldman Sachs last week forecasted that the Covid-19 would drive the US economy into recession through the first half of 2020, Moody’s Analytics too expected the havoc in American economy over the disease prevalence.

David Wilcox, a top economist and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics said earlier this week that an economic downturn due to the coronavirus would put an abrupt end to the longest-running expansion in the US history. He further noted that if it were like an average recession, it would translate into roughly 6% unemployment from existing 3.5% and wipe out 3.5 million jobs from American market.

Behaving the way he is, Trump is played his part “sincerely” in making the jobs disappear from the US. During China’s battle with the coronavirus, he and his aides didn’t take the threat seriously rather “relished” the proceeding alongside attempting to deal a blow to China’s economy by making efforts to steal its manufacturing jobs, investment and exports.

Trump thought that his travel restrictions should be enough to keep the coronavirus outside the border of the US. After his sole gadget to prevent Covid-19 entrance flopped pathetically, he ought to come up and take the responsibility of his languor in responding the challenge that has destroyed small businesses and millions of daily wagers for a longer period.

Meanwhile, the life is returning to normalcy in China which is quite vexing for the Trump administration that hoped Beijing to collapse economically but in the end, has endangered the US economy and jobs by driving it en route for a disaster and is now shrouding its incompetence in anti-China rhetoric.

Trump is failing at defeating the 'invisible enemy'

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/2020-03-19/Trump-is-failing-at-defeating-the-invisible-enemy--OYTKY3F1Ze/index.html

Despite the spike in the number of coronavirus patients within the United States and its intrusion into the entire 50 states, the US President Donald Trump lends no time to take care of millions of Americans but clings days on rediscovering the disease’s country of origin or determining the nationality of Covid-19 by tagging it a “Chinese virus.”

Though he defends his repeated use of the phrase as a comeback to Chinese foreign spokesperson comments about probable US soldier’s involvement in the virus introduction – the racist tones and viral bigotry of his aides calling coronavirus “Wuhan virus” and “the Kung-Flu” tells of a cover up tactic to cloak the US administration’s real gaffes..

Snippy change in Trump’s behavior toward Beijing only emanated after his failure to preempt the lethal fallouts of the coronavirus in the US. Indeed since the onset of the Covid-19 crisis, his role has been lethargic and lacked the vital gravity needed to engulf a disease that is racing across the world, overwhelming healthcare systems and upending societies.

US president initially claimed that the coronavirus was “totally under control” and “to be down to close to zero” in the country. Just over a week earlier, he quoted the Surgeon General “The risk is low to the average America”, boasted of creating over 350,000 jobs and largely relied on the divisive travel ban measures on China and Europe including the UK.

Efforts by the White House officials to link the coronavirus outbreak with China are deliberate in a bid to stoke tensions with Beijing and distract the focus of the ordinary Americans from their blunders. In such an attempt, Trump misled the nation stating in his unusual Oval Office address that his early intense travel restrictions, which the European Union failed to take, prevented the Covid-19 to prevail in the US.

He made outlandish declaration knowing that the World Health Organization (WHO) had warned that such gauges are not usually effective in precluding the importation of epidemic cases but may have significant economic and social impact. So, the only major step Trump took was expected to do more harm than the good for Americans and the US economy and it did.

Chaotic president’s dramatic announcement to constrict most travel from Europe roiled the airports into mess, tanked the stock market and stunned the lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic. The move infuriated the public health experts inside and outside of the US who slammed the decision, underscoring that the tack can theoretically just delay the spread of disease and could work strategically only if combined with the containment measures.

Trump, therefore, is only to blame himself for “Airlines and other” industries which he thought was affected by the “Chinese virus.” It is the result of his hawkish advisors that the country’s biggest airlines called on Washington for more than $50 billion in aid to endure the financial losses – which in fact suffered less from the pandemic and more from his slapdash decisions.

After a prolonged reticence over the prevalence of the illness and playing down the threat of the coronavirus in the US, Trump has finally realized that the Covid-19 “is a pandemic” and he always knew “this is a real.” However, in forcing him to understand the sensitivity of the situation and respond, the disease has infected more than 5,700 Americans and killed 100 of those.

In the grim nationwide circumstances, the US needs to implement lockdown and quarantine methods to safeguard the life and health of Americans. But following China, about whom the US congressmen and media have been overly clamorous until recently, would be extremely embarrassing for the Trump administration.

Though the US National Security Council on Monday denied the reports that there is going to be a “national lockdown” and the country was about to put in a mandatory two-week quarantine, Trump’s advice to the US citizens not to travel, stay home for the most part and “enjoy their living room” was none else than a suggestion to the people to voluntarily keep themselves in lockdown and quarantine.

While his guidance implicitly backed Chinese measures to control the spread of the coronavirus, Trump’s information on the disease and way of tackling the Covid-19 is steadily losing the trust of his compatriots who believe that their federal government was not taking sufficient steps to combat the public health crisis.

A NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll released on Tuesday showed that 70% of the Americans in March were concerned or very concerned about the increase of coronavirus in their community. An overwhelming majority of 60% wasn’t very much or not at all satisfied with the information they heard about coronavirus from the President Trump.

Instead of preparing the nation from the rising threats of coronavirus and taking effective preventive measures, the White House officials wasted several weeks in criticizing China or looking at the ways to count on its health crisis. Now with the dangers roaming on his skull, Trump now acknowledges “We have an invisible enemy” that “is a bad one,” “a very bad one.”

Role Of Chinese Civilian-Military Cooperation To Fight Covid-19 Outbreak

By: Azhar Azam

*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared in "Fort Russ News (FRN)":
https://www.fort-russ.com/2020/03/role-of-chinese-civilian-military-cooperation-to-fight-covid-19-outbreak/

Defending the territorial integrity from the invasion of foreign enemies, rounding up terrorists, ensuring peace and stability in the country and performing non-military activities such as humanitarian and disaster relief operations during earthquakes and floods are some of the primary duties of armed personnel the world over.

Though outside of national defense, people’s protection and other doled out functions – they are also responsible for human resource management, legal affairs, computer technology, cybersecurity, medical care and development, maintenance and upgradation of their defense equipment – their role in extending healthcare support to country’s citizens has steadily increased.

After coronavirus outbreak in China, folks around the world witnessed a committed and determined effort by Chinese military to back its government’s drive in effectively combatting and handling an entirely unknown nemesis that was more silent, stealthy and secretive than the conventional adversaries and cutting-edge military weapons.

While all the Chinese institutions prioritized the prevention and control of the Covid-19 to safeguard life and health of people – Chinese President and Chairman of Central Military Commission (CMC) Xi Jingping himself led the charge on the pneumonia and chaired numerous meetings, carried out inspection visits to the virus-hit area, deployed all resources and directed military to assist local authorities in boxing the epidemic.

CMC and People’s Liberation Army (PLA), China’s national army, didn’t disappoint the boss and hopes of ordinary Chinese by resolutely implementing his instructions and taking several initiatives including establishment of joint prevention and control mechanism, indulging in dedicated research, formation of joint logistics support units and deployments to pneumonia-struck regions.

Once President Xi passed out order to deploy PLA doctors and paramedics to the affected cities – Chinese military straightaway began to airlift its military medical staff, with quite a few having applied experience of tackling SARS and Ebola, to the epicenter of Covid-19, Wuhan, as the spiraling viral outbreak threatened to spread across China.

Since January 24, the eve of Chinese Lunar New Year, armed forces sent more than 4,000 medical professionals to assist the fight against Covid-19 in Wuhan in addition to 63 designated military hospitals that provided about 3,000 beds and over 10,000 medical professionals to treat thousands of coronavirus-infected patients.

The affirmative response from Chinese armed forces through deployment of its proactive medical team combined with government’s omnipresent measures including construction of a makeshift Huoshenshan Hospital in just 10 days – was an estimable and inspirational paragon of a groovy and idyllic civilian-military cooperation.

By quickly assuming control of the medical facility immediately, PLA further demonstrated that it was as alarmed and steadfast with the life and health of the Chinese people as it is for the protection of China’s sovereignty. It was an unrecorded declaration that will surely boost people’s confidence in people’s military and their loyalist sentiments toward the country.

Various online comments by Chinese – Cheer up, China! I believe we can curb the epidemic”, “Salute to workers working around the clock” and “It feels like seeing the sunshine through the dark clouds” – expressed that the Covid-19 had failed dreadfully in shaking the trust of Chinese people on their benevolent government and caring army.

PLA role in battling out the infectious diseases isn’t confined to Covid-19 alone. In the midst of rising prevalence and growing cases of such severe illnesses, Chinese military has historically backed its incumbent government to repel the deadly viruses such as SARS, influenza A (H1N1), avian influenza H5N1 and H7N9 and Ebola hemorrhagic fever.

After SARS epidemic, which infected over 8,000 people and killed 774 in 28 countries, was over in 2004 – Chinese government and military attached great importance on the prevention and control of infectious disease and formulated a series of legal mechanisms through 2009 to intensify efforts in building a robust public health system and restrict the spread of epidemic situations.

It was owing to the one-off civilian-military collaborative emergency response that following Ebola epidemic outbreaks in West Africa – China, in 2014, was able to become the first to lend the assistance to the region by sending about 1,200 military-civilian medical and health experts to carry out laboratory tests, make diagnosis, provide treatment and health training and build a biological safety laboratory for the affected countries.

The distinctive fusion worked again in February 2016 when five cases of Zika virus infection, which were imported from Venezuela, emerged in Guangdong and PLA Academy of Military Medical Sciences was successful in determining the gene sequel of the first Zika virus through civilian-military partnership.

Chinese military, therefore, has not only buoyed a strong support for its government to prevent and control the expansion of infectious diseases in the past underlying the principles of unified command, resource sharing and close cooperation – it is again aiding its national administration to push back the latest phenomenon of Covid-19.

As Xi repeatedly called on the military research institutions to step up multidisciplinary scientific research on source of infection, transmission and pathogenesis to help produce more targeted and practical guidelines for Covid-19 prevention and control – the reports that PLA top epidemiologist-led team’s breakthrough achievement in developing Covid-19 vaccine are encouraging.

Hoping these sweats to stroke a jubilation triumph for the mankind – by any means, China’s unprecedented specimen of forging irreplaceable civilian-military teamwork sets the tone for the global world as how diverse domestic institutions can mold themselves into an integrated organizational structure to minimize the risks to human health, upheld social stability and subscribe to the economic development and national reconstruction.

Social disharmony stokes risks to Indian economy

By: Azhar Azam

*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared in "The Express Tribune" https://tribune.com.pk/story/2178237/6-disharmony-risk-indian-economy/ and "Fort Russ News (FRN)" https://www.fort-russ.com/2020/03/social-disharmony-stokes-risks-to-indian-economy/:

In 2014, the ruling Indian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) intoned the slogan “One India, Great India” and won election by disseminating its manifesto that pledged to stabilize economy, control inflation, revive labor-intensive manufacturing sector, purge corruption, create jobs, end violence against women, deliver better public service to neo-middle class and raise spending on education to 6% of GDP.

Though until before 2019 election, Modi government completely or partially fulfilled some of its promises as well as failed to meet a few of those – it was still likely to gain a comfortable majority in the Indian parliament through its BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

So, its shift from laying emphasis on socio-economic development to frictional issues – such as revocation of Article 370 in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), enactment of Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) to fast-track the naturalization of selective religious minorities and construction of Ram Mandir (Temple) – was increasingly oblivious, rash and unruly.

Indian governing party unequivocally was influenced by the ultra-nationalist Hindutva agenda of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that seeks control in national policies, teaches Hindu scriptures as historical facts in BJP-won states, scuttles unsought legislation and browbeats government to be protectionist about multinational companies’ entrance in the country.

Falling hostage of the country’s largest political party to RSS ideology was replicated in the conflagration of “one-sided and well-planned” riots in northeast Delhi that so far killed more than 50 people, injured over 200 and forced to flee thousands. The fear of RSS hardcore doctrine has infiltrated so much that it even prevented the Speaker Om Birla to allow a debate in the Indian parliament.

While the violence, which originally stemmed from anti-CAA and pro-CAA clashes, seems to remodel into a program after BJP reprehensibly lost Delhi state election – the continuance of raising the incendiary “Shoot the Traitors” slogan in the rally of Union Home Minister Amit Shah is setting a dangerous trend that could be caustic for Indian internal stability, people security and for the country’s plunging economy.

After BJP hostile campaign followed by its divisive moves of striping the autonomy of J&K and Ladakh after cleaning up the rivals in national election –Rajiv Kumar, the vice chairman of state’s policy think tank NITI Aayog, warned government about “unprecedented (Indian economic situation) in the last 70 years” citing 5.8% GDP growth and called for extraordinary steps to tackle the slowdown.

The dramatic reversal in one of the key members of Modi’s economic team came within months of Reserve Bank of India governor Shaktikanta Das’ claim that argued the country would be the fastest growing economy, clocking a growth of 7.2% in 2019-2020 despite global economic risks and financial market and crude price volatility.

It further stalked former chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian’s conclusion in his June 2019 paper that found country’s real GDP was overestimated by 2.5% at about 7% between 2011-12 and 2016-17 and reckoned it to be hovering around 4.5%. In his another co-authored December 2019 research, he dubbed the current crisis as “India’s Great Slowdown” where the economy was heading to the intensive care unit.

Kumar’s caveat about looming threats to Indian economy and Subramanian’s revelation over GDP hyperbole stood irrefutable once the global ratings agency Moody’s, in November 2019, downgraded New Delhi’s sovereign rating from stable to negative – pointing out the economic slowdown, financial stress among rural households, weak job creation and liquidity crunch in non-banking financial sector.

Moody’s latest prognoses are even nerve-wracking. In less than a month last week, the agency revised its baseline growth projection for India from 5.4% to 5.3% in 2020 after initial expected downfall from 6.6% to 5.4%. Last month, it said that Indian economic revival will likely to be “shallow” as its economy had decelerated rapidly over the last two years with real GDP grew by a meager 4.5% in the third quarter of 2019.

Taking into consideration that the Indian per capita GDP needs to grow at least 9% a year to reach the half of the level of the US in 15 years – at current pace, it would take no less than 30 years for New Delhi to achieve that. It would thus be stark challenge for India to turn the tide amid forthcoming global economic crisis and growing domestic violence.

Violence in the last week of February that was a week of many firsts – where India, for the first time at the arrival of a US president, saw communal violence in its independent history and for the first time in recent memory , schools and mosques were burnt; ambulances were denied access to the grievously injured and journalists were beaten up, booed and heckled – could propel nationwide riots and further exacerbate Indian chilling economic situation.

Former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is also skeptical of the economic ruin and worsening communal tensions that are being stoked and fanned by religious and political intolerant sections of the society and could rupture the soul of India and pull down its “global standing as an economic and democratic power in the world.”

After winning election, Modi claimed to have met his objective “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas” (development for all) and assured to win “Sabka Vishwas” (trust of everyone) this time. About 10 months of becoming the prime minister, people in India are seeing it otherwise – “Sabka Vinash” (destruction of all). In all, BJP would have regained the power but in due course, Indian economy and people have lost to RSS Hindu-nationalist ideology.

The ongoing social disharmony and the self-inflicted economic extinction, if not handled and tamed through a harmonized politically negotiated dialogue, could make India’s economic resurgence more distant that has already slid the country into a majoritarian state where the tyranny of numbers are in full display.

Why Biden won and can Sanders make a comeback?

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/2020-03-07/Why-Biden-won-and-can-Sanders-make-a-comeback--OFmndRPiSc/index.html

Democratic Party’s swamped contest for the US presidential candidature, akin to the WWE crowded Royal Rumble event that aims to toss the rivals over the top rope, markedly became a two-man race on Super Tuesday after a renascent Joe Biden scored some stunning and terrific victories in Texas, Minnesota and Massachusetts and pulled off 10 out of the 14 states up for grab, capping the rival Bernie Sanders’ dream run at the launching pad.

Vermont Senator Sanders dashed into the Election Day with sky-high expectations for the presidential nominee to be finalized at the Democratic convention in July as compared to Biden whose political history and hitherto dreary electoral campaign never appeared to transpire into a sort of a rampage on Super Tuesday.

Biden’s belated turnaround, after running a dead campaign as recently as of last week, not only coxed former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to drop out and drove him to support the veteran US politician; his stunning show also intimidated Sanders’ status as a Democratic frontrunner.

Late-deciding voters, the one consistent trend across the United States that traditionally led American voters to make up their minds in the last few days, were the key for Biden’s remarkable win. By bagging at least 40% votes of late deciders in nine of the ten states analyzed, Biden recounted that time belonged to him.

While the bemused voters filled Biden’s ballot box drastically to claim him wins in Minnesota, Tennessee, Maine, Massachusetts, Texas, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Virginia – his strong American African vote base additionally helped him to take control in Alabama, Arkansas and strengthen his position in some of other states.

The late change of minds struck Sanders spicily and he was able to protect only his home town Vermont out of 10 probed states along with Colorado, California and Utah from the electorates’ madcap blitz. Biden nine, seven and one point wins in Minnesota, Massachusetts and Maine respectively dealt blows to Sanders’ up to 80% favorability in the three primaries.

On Wednesday, Sanders claimed Biden was winning black votes “by running his ties” with the former US President Barrack Obama. Earlier he blasted his rival for pursuing “same old politics” and pledged to wage a war on the corporate and political establishments and sought to bring in “working class people” into his “unprecedented, grassroots, multigenerational (and) multiracial movement” to defeat Trump.

Though Sanders points at 60 billionaires for funding Biden’s campaign, his remarks are grossly believed to be “racially clumsy at best and outright ignorant at worst” and insulting for the African Americans that have never been a part of the “elite” or “establishment” instead they have played a bigger role in capsizing the establishment in pursuit of their civil rights and quality.

Sanders’ rhetoric toward black voters is stemmed from their overriding support for Biden that gave him a surprise victory on Super Tuesday. For many black voters, Biden is the grandest option and an impeccable candidate with the right experience who would appeal to the wider cross-section of Democrats and has got the ability to take on Donald Trump in a bare-knuckle political battle for the US President.

Biden’s dominant performance with black voters in South Carolina on February 29 was reverberated in nearby North Carolina and Virginia on Super Tuesday and fueled his victories across the South where exit polls found that Biden won 62% of the black votes and another 33% of them in other states. Grabbing these votes was crucial since in each of the last five contested Democratic primaries – whoever grabbed black voters, has gone on to clinch the nomination.

As either of the two Democratic presidential candidates needs at least 1,991 pledged delegates to secure a nomination and to challenge the President Trump – it is not all over for Sanders yet and he is determined to make a strong comeback by producing an invincible spree like he earlier did in Nevada and in other states.

Sanders performed impressively in Colorado and would hope to cut Biden’s lead in California where about 3.3 million ballots remain uncounted over state’s absentee-voting program that allows people to cast ballots through mail. But since it might take weeks the authorities to announce final results, Sanders will have to wait and see if his biggest bet would allow him to catch Biden if not surpass him.

Nevertheless, harking back to 2016 Democratic presidential primary contest, Sanders had only succeeded to reduce Hillary Clinton’s 13-point lead in California, the largest trove in the US with 415 delegates, to seven points without any change in the topline after the final precinct total were declared. So, it would be something paranormal if he manages to square off Biden who is currently overall leads Sanders 627-551.

Much depends on how Sanders performs in Michigan, Washington and Missouri on March 10; in Florida, Illinois, Ohio and Arizona on March 17 and in Georgia on March 24. If Sanders yearns to roll out a sandy pitch for Biden in the post-Super Tuesday leg of race for an ultimate showdown with Trump on November 3, he would need to tone down his grandiloquence toward Democratic establishment that is coalescing behind Biden.

With the last female candidate and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren also pulled the plug on her campaign after being squeezed in between Biden and Sanders, the duel has effectively modeled into a two white-men rivalry. And if Sanders failed to do well in the next rounds, the 2020 Democratic Party’s presidential and caucuses contest would be over beforehand.

The world needs China to fully get back to work

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/2020-03-06/The-world-needs-China-to-get-fully-back-to-work-ODeK8bPOM0/index.html

Coronavirus epidemic, which killed more than 3,000 people, infected over 90,000 and reached 64 countries of the world, mostly in China’s city of Wuhan, is being hit hard by the Chinese authorities that is gradually taking a predominant control on the flu-like virus. Other than Hubei, the mortality rate of the virus is mostly below 1% with some seven provinces and regions had not reported a single patient.

The closure news of the first of the 16 specially built hospitals – following a sharp fall in the new cases in Chinese Hubei province and its capital Wuhan, the one at the center of the disease – established that China was finally winning its well-fought battle against Covid-19. Bold decision was taken after the hospital discharged its last recovered patients.

As China takes a dig at the pneumonia outbreak, there has been a widespread criticism, especially in the United States, about Chinese violation of the human rights through the implementation of mandatory 14-day quarantine, roadblocks, checkpoints and some lockdown gauges wrought as “cordon sanitaire.”

But with the confirmation from the World Health Organization (WHO) and even by US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that people can catch infection from others – the vilification lost its legitimacy and proved that China, through such preventive measures protected health, lives and human rights of other millions of people who were at the risk of falling victim to the disease.

Denigration lacked the wit with also because the restrictions are of course temporary and will be lifted once normalcy prevails in the country. In addition, the curbs should worry China more than the outsiders since the coronavirus has suspended its economic activities and disrupted the routine life of ordinary Chinese people.

In actual fact, China isn’t the only country that quarantined people to prevent the outbreak to inflate. During 2003 SARS outbreak, Canada too practiced “community quarantine” that successfully reduced transmission of the disease to one-third. The US, Taiwan and Singapore had also used to isolate or quarantine the people at homes and hospitals with suspected or probable SARS.

After Ebola went out of control in 2014, West African nations agreed to impose a cross-border isolation zone, “cordon sanitaire”, after WHO warned the outbreak could cause “catastrophic” loss of life and serve economic disruption if it continued to spread. CDC again found that the separation of sick persons and comprehensive contact tracing were the essential components of Ebola response in Liberia.

The claims of gaining effective control on the epidemic by China are backed with the authorization of international health organization. In its report, the WHO suggested the world to follow China’s lead where upon detection of a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown etiology in Wuhan, it launched the national emergency response.

Explaining the declining Covid-19 cases in China, WHO assistant director and veteran epidemiologist Bruce Aylward subbed the western denunciation saying that the measures China took to fight the outbreak were all common to prevent the spread of disease. He also came down on the lockdowns – to decry human rights violations – and revealed that only people in Wuhan and two or three other cities were confined and lauded Chinese efforts to protect its country and rest of the world.

The comments coincide with agency’s Chief Tedros Adhanom remarks that almost eight times as many cases were reported outside China as inside in the previous 24 hours. So as of now, the world needs China more, over its rigorous knowledge and experience of combatting Covid-19, than Beijing would look toward global nations to force back the epidemic.

It is bluntly clear that China had no intentions to limit the human rights of its people; indeed it shielded humans themselves from fatal consequences of illness. That is why, hopes for restoration of routine life and economic activities are ascending in the country as China witnesses a declining trend in new virus cases.

On Tuesday, Apple’s supplier Foxconn announced to resume the normal production in China by the end of March. While more than half of its workers had already restarted work in the country, the decision by the world #1 contract manufacturer, to start the full-fledge manufacturing in China, was an unprecedented belief in Chinese government to knockout the virus and revive its economy.

China acknowledges that the coronavirus outbreak had a “negative impact” on its economy. Nevertheless, Beijing is committed to bounce back with the assurance of revitalizing the economy and achieving its economic and social goals for 2020. Over the years, China has faced several such outbursts that threatened it economy and culture.

This time again, China asserts to emerge successfully on the back of its stronger resilience, enormous domestic consumption, world’s biggest market and solid foundation of economic and trade structure. In the past, China has recurrently demonstrated that it can do wonders after being hit down and there is no reason it can’t do it once more.

As China has its system primed for rapid detection and quick response and its 30 other provinces managed not just to avoid but to reverse the outbreak, it is about time that the people of China should oust the fear and come up with a stronger will to put China and the world on the path of development again.

Challenges loom as Afghan peace process enters critical phase

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/2020-03-03/Challenges-loom-as-Afghan-peace-process-enters-critical-phase-OyqMlCWymQ/index.html and was republished by "China Daily" https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202003/03/WS5e5f0703a31012821727c222.html

During a luncheon attended by UN Security Council (UNSC) representatives in January 2018, the US President Donald Trump spurned any possibility of talks with Afghan Taliban, screeching its deadly attacks in Afghanistan. But the “long time” he sought for initiation of peace talks lived short as top US diplomat Alice Wells secretly met Afghan insurgent group on July 23 in Doha.

Washington had originally coveted to sit on the sidelines of “Afghan-led, Afghan-owned” peace negotiations but Taliban’s sheer knockback, to hold direct talks with Afghan government and before a definite US commitment to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, forced it to change track and first involve itself in discussions with it.

So, the deal between Taliban and the US is fundamentally a gateway to an all-inclusive intra-Afghan dialogue, which was covertly started at a hotel in Qatar and outlasted two American commanders in chiefs and has lately reached at a defining moment as the two sides signed a milestone agreement in a five-star resort on February 29.

Saturday’s signing of the concord would, however, would pave the way for meaningful and substantive dialogue between Afghan political parties and Taliban that indeed would be the key to a peaceful and stable Afghanistan and will eventually decide the fate of the people and war-riven country.

By promising to cut down its troop level initially and within 14 months completely, the US emphatically capitulated to Afghan insurgents’ heartland precondition to vamoose from Afghanistan and plausibly autographed a testimonial that would elevate the tally of the graves in the “Graveyard of Empires.”

Though US stance across the countries fluctuates quickly but its perspective about Taliban has specific chameleonic characteristics. While number of the group members is on the US Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) list, it never been a terrorist outfit for White House.

Jason Blazakis, who served as Director of the State Department’s Counterterrorism Finance and Designations Office from 2008 to 2018, put it this way –“It really makes for a lot of confusion.” A US official previously defended “They (Taliban) do carry out tactics that are akin to terrorism” but they had a “different classification” since they were different from al-Qaeda, which targeted American interests around the globe.

But his revelation that the US does not pay ransom or give concessions to a terrorist organization expressed all. The labeling of Taliban as a terrorist group would have towed the world’s biggest economic and military power into an embarrassing situation once it had initiated peace negotiations with it.

The jumbled American statements about Taliban also emphasized that from Bush to Trump, all the successive US administrations knew that they are not going to overwhelm Afghan militants or conquer Afghanistan by force and at some day, they will be required to pursue a political dialogue with them and flee Kabul.

Commander of US Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A) General Austin Miller’s last year’s disclosure of dialing up pressure on Taliban to “shape the political environment” and chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staffs General Mark Milley’s recent remarks “The only possible way to end the war in Afghanistan is through a negotiated political settlement” – were the military endorsement of American submission in conflict-ridden country.

It was very interesting that the United States would solicit the very UNSC to “remove members of Taliban from the sanctions list” which it had approached about 20 years earlier to ratify its invasion of Afghanistan, topple a government that provided safe-havens to Al-Qaeda terrorists and turned down any prospects of consultations with.

With UNSC likely to extend its backing in the wake of peace prevalence in the battle-hit country, it is otherwise pretty shocking how the US frequently incurred major diplomatic shifts toward Taliban through its course of bumpy and grainy Afghan war and engineered international peace and security institution for its consistently patchy objectives.

One must not neglect that any deal between Taliban and the US does not necessarily mean that Afghanistan will lean into peace and stability or it would turn into a utopian state immediately. The real bug lies in intra-Afghan dialogue that was the initial goal and for which the about two-year of hectic process is wielded.

In case the peace process derails, Afghanistan could steer into a deeper pandemonium and once it does, no one would be in a position to bring back the country from state of anarchism due to its history of being a notorious country to govern and existence of plethora of tribes, which are equally hostile to each other as they are to the foreign interlopers.

While Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani rejected an all-important clause of US-Taliban deal, the swap of up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners in exchange for 1,000 Afghan security personnel detainees, and his differences with Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah expands from presidential elections to formation of negotiation team – the road to peace is threatening to halt.

Release of thousands of fighters was one of crucial Taliban demands along with complete extraction of US forces from Afghanistan. It is also the vital pretext that allowed Taliban leadership to overcome the hardliner elements in the unit. Now Ghani’s denial could stir up the disciplinarians in armed faction to trumpet their opposition to peace talks and split up further divisions with Taliban ranks.

As Pakistan, a key facilitator of Taliban-US talks, on Sunday warned the international community and the US to be cautious of “spoilers” that aren’t pleased with the deal and can coin hiccups in restoration of peace in Afghanistan – the peace process is threatening to chunk before it enters into a critical phase in a few days.

If not addressed and settled right away – Afghan government’s renunciation of freeing Taliban fighters, divisions in the Afghan political parties and the prowlers of Afghan peace process could disrupt global peace efforts that would be disastrous for Afghanistan, the US and region.

Delhi Violence warns of Indian polarization on communal lines

By: Azhar Azam

*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared in "Fort Russ News (FRN)":
https://www.fort-russ.com/2020/03/delhi-violence-warns-of-indian-polarization-on-communal-lines/

Shaheen Bagh, in the neighborhood of Indian capital New Delhi, has been the epicenter of protests by mostly women, with some of them toddlers in their tows. They were expressing their gripes over the discriminatory Indian Citizenship Amendment ACT (CAA), which fast-tracks naturalization for some religious minorities excluding Muslims.

Violence sparked in the northeast of Delhi after ruling Hindu-nationalist BJP leader Kapil Mishra, who recently lost in state election, urged people “to prevent another Shaheen Bagh” in Jaffrabad, Delhi. He latter tweeted a three-day ultimatum to the city police to clear the vicinity from sit-ins or he along with his supporters would do it himself following the departure of the visiting US President Donald Trump.

As the protests were peaceful and there was no incidence of mobs on the rampage, burning of homes, schools and mosques or stone pelting before that – how the city quickly dribbled into the chaos was shocking. The worst riots in decades didn’t erupt abruptly; there was a gradual buildup that shook Delhi into a warzone.

Mishra, during the state election campaign, had made a number of communal remarks such as “Pakistan has already entered Shaheen Bagh and small pockets of Pakistan are being created in Delhi” and also equated the local assembly polls with “India versus Pakistan contest”. His comment irked the Election Commission that asked him to remove the thread.

It is due to his rabble-rousing attitude toward the religious minorities that many Indians, including Hindus, believe that he and his followers have hewed a dangerous ambience in the country and all of them should be jailed. Former district MLA isn’t the only BJP leader who incited riots; he was accompanied by the party’s Delhi wing.

Days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi obliquely indicted only Muslims for protesting against CAA, the BJP Delhi unit in December published a cartoon on Instagram showing that its political rival and state’s chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and a bearded-man in a stereotype Muslim dress were setting a bus on fire while a lady was trapped inside.

A month afterward, it shared a controversial meme from its micro-blogging twitter handle that stirred communal sadism. The two pictures of a burning bus and Kejriwal with a skull cap on alongside a Muslim MLA, titled Art and Artist, was a veiled linkage to accuse the students of Jamia Millia Islamia for December’s violence even though that wasn’t resulted in detention of a single of them by police.

The preordained connection among these episodes – and BJP MLA Parvesh Verma’s public threat before state elections to demolish “only mosques” on government land despite the dismissal of his claims by Minorities Commission – unequivocally had communal overtones and a premeditated plan to orchestrate Hindu-Muslim riots in Delhi.

Smoldering communal sentiments finally broke out a few days earlier and has so far killed 42 people and injured more than 200 in a deadliest violence in decades. The transfer of a high court judge Justice S. Muralidhar, who grilled police and linked the recent unrests with 1984 Sikh Massacre when over 3,000 people associated with Sikhism were killed in Delhi, inferred that the ongoing violence was designed by hard-line Hindu nationalists to avenge its defeat in state election.

Though Muslims were violent too, but it was largely Hindu mobs that rioted with impunity as the police stood in silence. They vandalized shops and homes of Muslims, attacked mosques, and stopped journalists from reporting and inquired their religion. Brutally beaten up and injured Muslims were forced to recite the Indian national anthem.

A series of shaking events would essentially brutalize Modi administration’s efforts to improve its moral standing in the world after lionizing Trump’s first trip to India. Lately, he called for “peace and harmony” but with communal violence keeps on jolting Delhi, the collateral damage to his party’s image is uncontrollable.

Before leaving, Trump too tried to eclipse BJP divisive moves by promoting Modi’s rise from humble background to Prime Minister of India and appreciating his efforts to ensure religious freedom in India. But US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USIFR) contravened him and expressed “grave concerns” on government and police failure to intervene and protect the citizens.

Amid worsening peace conditions in the rocked city, the US twin-pretense – of condoning and condemning hardcore BJP government and law enforcement agencies’ deliberate hatemongering and riot-fueling actions – was a bemoaning hoax to pervert the facts about rising threats to Indian secularism.

Big media is still presenting the riots as “clashed between ant-CAA and pro-CAA protestors.” If the mobs were infatuated from their backing or denial for the Act, why the supporters of BJP gathered with saffron flags (a Hinduism symbol) and chanted religious and incendiary slogans like “Shoot the traitors”, “Hail Lord Ram”, “Hail the Shiva” and “only who talk of Hindu wellbeing will rule this country.”

The mantras explicitly insinuate that the extremist Hindutwa ideology of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) – which describes itself “firmly rooted in genuine nationalism” and decries any governmental move to bridge differences between religions with “erosion of nation’s integrity in the name of secularism” and “endless appeasement” – has made the Indian ruling party a hostage.

RSS contends that the 21st century will be dominated by Hindutwa and is now working with its auxiliary extensions to pursue an aggressive approach through “Cultural Politics.” This new phenomenon, if not neutralized by the Indian government and people, would spread increased fear and insecurity among the country’s minorities and eventually could polarize India on communal lines.

Summing up the war of titans in 2019

By: Azhar Azam

*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared in "The Express Tribune":
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2167382/6-summing-war-titans-2019/

At the start of 2019, nearly each and every official in Washington have thought – to be more precise – hoped that Beijing would not be able to withstand high economic growth rate and the fall down of second-largest economy of the world was just a matter of few months’ time over the throbbing US tariffs on Chinese goods.

In order to morph its instinct into reality, the US renewed its efforts to pose a rising China a threat to the world only to ensure its global supremacy. Throughout the year, America strove to gang up its regional allies to diversify its rancorous economic, political, diplomatic, trade, technology and military campaigns against China.

With trade war simmering in the background, the US launched a worldwide push against Chinese technology behemoth Huawei, labeled Beijing a currency manipulator, passed the controversial Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Bill, intensified its drive to encumber China’s growing defense capabilities that eroded “America’s military advantages” and panned Communist Party of China (CPC) for being “truly hostile to the United States.”

But as we entered into 2020, Beijing has demonstrated incredible dexterity to cope with its economic slowdown, domestic crisis, international trade and technology disputes and effectively repelled Washington-led crusade equipped with the arsenal of striking tariffs, fanning conflicts and imposing sanctions on the country’s tech giants.

Amid the tensed internal and external economic environment, China managed to pull a surprising GDP growth rate in 2019. Though the growth had slumped a touch, yet it was still at a notch of above 6% – attributable to its targeted reforms including the new Foreign Investment Law to be enacted from January 1 and would provide the foreign businesses the greater market access, guarantee intellectual property (IP) rights, proscribe forced technology transfer and allow level-playing field to domestic and international companies.

The structural changes have paid off well as about 95% of the Chinese were expected to be pulled out of poverty in 2019. Since some 10 million Chinese were lifted from extreme poverty in the ongoing year and nearly 12 million new jobs were also created in the first 10 months of 2019, China would virtually form a “Xiaokang” or moderately prosperous society in 2020. Latest data symbolized that China not only endured the downward pressure on its economy but was also moving forward with even stronger fortitude and belief.

Trump administration has largely relied on trade war to miff Chinese economic growth. But with the New Year started off with the signing of the “phase one” deal between Beijing and Washington – CPC has successfully bested the US-elicited damage, aimed at unsettling China’s and the global economic and trade system.

US technology war on Chinese firms is in tatters too and indeed has bolstered the competences and productivity of the native tech companies. Despite American restrictions, Huawei’s sale of 200 million of smartphones by October and 24.4% revenue growth in the first three quarters of 2019 was self-explanatory to the unbelievable depth in the Chinese technological advancement.

Huawei is building in confidence as well. After development of its indigenous softwares and components, it is marching ahead to replace Google apps such as mail, messaging, maps and payments with its Huawei Mobile Services (HMS). In a year of mass 5G adoption few days later, Huawei is set to transform China into the largest market of next-generation network by shipping 100 million 5G smartphones in domestic market.

On diplomatic front, the US continued to hoodwink the world in wake of the pretended China’s debt trap, regional domination and military buildup. Beijing sensibly offset Washington diplomatic assault and hosted Belt and Road Forum (BRF) and China International Import Expo (CIIE) to promote high quality cooperation with BRI countries and raise its imports from world respectively. Chinese President Xi Jingping also visited seven countries to improve Beijing’s standing in the international world.

China deactivated the US fabricated agenda about Beijing’s seeking strategic and military control in Asia-Pacific region. It orchestrated dialogue for a better Asia intended for mutual learning and growth for a shared future, conducted joint military drills with the regional countries and promoted the innovative concepts of mutual economic cooperation through RCEP and BRICS forums.

Xi, in fact, had intuited the looming threats to Beijing in the coming months at the beginning of 2019 and therefore warned the Chinese officials of “black swan” and “grey rhino” events, the unpredictable crisis or highly probable, high impact neglected problems.

His doubts soon materialized after riots wobbled Hong Kong in June on relatively a less consequential legislative issue to allow the transfer of fugitives among China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Accordingly, the city’s GDP was tanked to -1.3% for 2019, the first ever annual decline since 2009 and would result in plunged per capita income, slashed business turnover, moderated tourist arrival of the residents, and consequently loss of employments to the residents.

Recalling that Washington has given hype to nearly every single event in Beijing during 2019 over a hope to sneak into the unity of Chinese government and people and infringe its domestic affairs, the Chinese overseers should be highly vigilant of the US disruptive tactics including redeployment of American troops from Afghanistan to Indo-Pacific.

President Xi’s advice to his fellow statesmen, to take all precautionary measures that could jeopardize China’s stability and reform, is as real as it was one year before. Via such organically coordinated, disciplined and tidy nationwide efforts, China can surely again overcome the daunting challenges to its economy, technology and sovereignty in 2020.

Is Another Cold War Imminent?

By: Azhar Azam

*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "One World":
http://oneworld.press/?module=articles&action=view&id=1340

For the past few weeks, Donald Trump has weirdly been convivial and ductile toward China. The reason is quite obvious – the phase one trade deal – which would wheel up the exports of American goods and services to the Mainland significantly in the coming years.

Lately, the US president described Washington’s affairs with Beijing “perhaps the best relationship we have ever had with China, including with President Xi” – boasting that the landmark agreement will defend the American workers, protect its intellectual property, bring billions into the treasury and open new markets for the US products.

But his genial and well-bred tone vis-à-vis China is yet to be echoed by or kindle a pervasive change in the posture of other US top officials as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently warned the state governors to be careful of China in their business deals lashed out at Chinese communist party and President Xi Jinping for their repression, unfair competition, predatory economic practices and aggressive military stance.

Incongruent remarks by the US president and one of his closest aides unequivocally specify that the Trump administration had lately overhauled its China strategy and decided to peddle a renewed politically-angled approach over Beijing ahead of a fierce American presidential campaign.

Trump’s double-bladed policy overtly centers on filching trade advantages from Beijing by drumming a mannerism and at the same time, distillates on the implementation of the vital US national security objective to dismantle American strategic competitor by putting forward his top advisors upfront.

It sounds as if he has the conviction that the twofold China-idea would assist him in gaining a significant political mileage before the election canvassing gets into wild phase and with both perspectives at his disposal, he could be able to manipulate American voters including public, farmers and businessmen who maintain pro- or anti-China sentiments.

Unlike prior presidential campaign when he roasted China in almost his every speech, Trump would ostensibly be pretty tongue-tied on Beijing as far as it continued to fulfill its purchase commitments. In the meantime, Pompeo will assume the lead role and spearhead his political rhetoric on China.

While Trump has groomed himself in realpolitik and repeatedly bragged about his friendly relationship with Xi, Pompeo’s haphazard criticism on Xi and Chinese communist party as well as the revelation the US had started to focus China heavily after the cold war ended – implied the resurrection of late-1970s and early-1980s brawl between the US and former Soviet Union.

Pompeo’s cavalier reproach again established that Washington was engaged in an ideological feud with Beijing soon after the fallout of USSR and has since been trying to haul China into a cold war fray by seeking reforms in Chinese political system and declaring the ruling communist party as a predominant threat to its foreign policy objectives.

Recalling that in the cold war with USSR, the US had a strategic ally in the form of Pakistan that contemplated Russian invasion of Afghanistan a profound risk to its national security as well as discovered Afghan Mujaheddin to fight its Sputnik-era battle with Soviet Union – Washington’s goals about walling China are idealistic and overambitious.

About 31 years after the windup of cold war, the US lacks the wit that time has changed and the days of its global dominance are over. It is no more an era of 1970s or 1980s when America was thought to be sole military and technological power in the world and could have swayed the smaller and weaker nations to succumb to its directives.

In addition, the US China-strategy is destined to breakdown since unlike Soviet Union; Beijing has strictly confined itself in protecting its sovereignty and is firmly following its policy of non-interference in other countries. Pakistan, on the other hand, has repeatedly cautioned the US that it will not become a part of any greater game in the region and given its deep ties and economic and military reliance, China is indeed out of question.

Although Taliban-US peace agreement obliges the insurgent group not to allow Afghan land for terrorist activities in other lands, Washington could still be wanting Taliban to provide support to the militants in Chinese province of Xinjiang. Detecting the threat, Beijing has already improved its ties with the Afghan armed group.

The US has looked at India and some Southeast Asian countries to confront China but all of them truly lack the capability to challenge Beijing and also because of their growing economic interests. All at once, Beijing has patched up its deteriorating relations with some of the neighboring countries.

Chinese diplomatic and political reconciliation with the regional countries and influential armed groups is perhaps frustrating for the US and it might be the reason why it has delayed the announcement of its peace treaty with Taliban and the commencement of intra-Afghan dialogue that is critical for a peaceful and stable Afghanistan.

In short, though Trump may gain politically through his placatory eloquence toward China to pocket some trade benefits but the task of confining the US near-peer competitor, by dragging it into a cold war, is emphatically too distant.