Europe is fed up with longtime US bullying

By: Azhar Azam

History tells America is an incredibly fatal and reliably opportunistic ally that "has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests." In May 2018, President of European Council Donald Tusk had to rail against the U.S. "capricious assertiveness" on issues including Iran, Gaza, tariffs and North Korea. "With friends like that (America), who needs enemies?"

The U.S. hits allies harder than its adversaries. Once a major non-NATO ally, Pakistan couldn't wipe the bitter memories of 480 U.S. drone strikes, the only time a country was attacked by its ally, killing more than 70,000 people and incurring economic losses of $150 billion. It's a warning for Australia that says the so-called AUKUS boosts its defense and regional security but in effect is ceding at-least some sovereignty to the U.S. and the UK.

America's lunatic frenemy policy toward its allies has once again pressed France to call out the U.S. and other two alliance states for "duplicity, contempt and lies" and stabbing in the back after the defense pact thwarted a $40 billion Canberra-Paris deal, signed in 2016 to build conventional submarines.

In 2015, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker blew the whistle for creation of a European Union (EU) army. However, the British government and politicians rejected his proposal, stating there was "no prospect" of such a formation and it would be detrimental to interests of the UK, NATO and the U.S. Still, France and Germany in 2018 cogitated for "a real, true European army" as Europeans couldn't trust the U.S. to defend them and times to rely on others had passed.

America's devious withdrawal from Afghanistan is again pushing the EU to "catalyze" its own permanent military force after Union's calls, to delay retreat from Kabul airport for safe evacuation of Europeans, fell on deaf ears in Washington. The changing perception is Europe backs the French President Emmanuel Macron's firm position that NATO was "brain dead" over waning commitment from its lead guarantor, the U.S.

One of the defining factors behind EU pursuit of autonomous defense has been the relentless criticism from the U.S. over burden-sharing costs. Washington's reproach can be traced back to 1953 when then-U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles shocked his NATO allies by threatening to take up an "agonizing reappraisal" if it didn't contribute to the U.S. cold war policy.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump's full-throttled and parochial opposition to America's NATO allies – accusing Germany for being "captivated to Russia" and hammering France and other European countries over defense spending or trade deals – is only amongst many reasons for rupturing the transatlantic alliance.

Indeed, Washington has been downgrading Europe's strategic interests for 30 years since the end of the Cold War in wake of sharing the defense burden. The U.S. further restricted European access to America's U.S. market and technology, used International Traffic Arms Regulations to obstruct European competition in third-country markets and aggressively lobbied against EU efforts to develop an indigenous defense industrial and technology base.

A persistent trend of three decades where unvaryingly helped the U.S. to dominate international arms market at expense of the EU; never-ending obsessive tendency in the White House limited bloc's ability to raise its defense share, allowed Trump to bust the cracks in the relationship wide open and emboldened the U.S. President Joe Biden to reveal the painful truth about America's interests in the outdated NATO.

The head-scratching moment, thanks to the latest U.S.betrayal to the EU key member France, unclothed Washington's inner despair toward Brussels. This core driver of the U.S.' Europe policy received a poignant rebuke from the top EU leadership who put a punctuation mark on Biden's "America is back" and the U.S. "loyalty and transparency" and demanded an explanation.

Biden ditched NATO allies in Europe not just for he was disappointed with Brussels investment deal with Beijing or perception about France for being "too soft" on China. The U.S. disenchantment dates back to decades when Paris searched for Gaullist streak of complete independence and is sharpening with bloc's recent wish for strategic autonomy and greater global role, reluctance to circumvent confrontation in the Indo-Pacific and approach to see Beijing a cooperative and negotiating partner.

The "very belligerent" tripartite alliance of "English speaking countries" against China is designed to advance the U.S. unilateral interests and imperil peace and economy of the Indo-Pacific. Washington's all-or-nothing proposition is entirely different from Brussels that actively seeks cooperation with its economic and strategic partner, Beijing. Fed up with the U.S. bully of the Union, the EU is trying to draw its own map of trade and investment relationship and intending to pursue multifaceted engagement with the world's second-largest economy.

*This is my opinion piece that originally appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)": 

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-09-24/Europe-is-fed-up-with-longtime-U-S-bullying-13OFhlrlti8/index.html

Why do efforts to disintegrate China-Africa relationship fare badly?

Azhar Azam

Every year, China hosts around 1,000 African professionals, including journalists and 80,000 students – double the size of those who travel to the U.S., making it the top training and education destination for Africa. Second only to France, the East Asian country has launched 62 language and cultural centers (Confucius Institutes) on the continent.

Besides overtaking the British Council, Germany's Goethe Institute and the American Centers, China displaced the U.S. as Africa's largest trade partner in 2009, with the bilateral trade hitting as high as $200 billion in 2020.

Over the last decade, Beijing played a central role in financing and became the largest financer of infrastructure in Africa, covering 6,000 kilometers of railways and highways, 20 ports, 80 large-scale power facilities, 130 medical institutions, 45 stadiums and 170 schools.

A number of studies have rebuffed claims about China's alleged predatory lending practices, neocolonialism, pillage of natural resources, land grabs and import of Chinese workers for construction projects. The independent investigations further found Chinese firms were hiring up to 90 percent local workforce and "really" investing and developing African infrastructure.

It is often contended that bilateral trade benefits China more than Africa. The latest trade data debunked this assertion, showing that Chinese imports from its all-season ally had risen by 46.3 percent in the first seven months of the year. Over the last 20 years, flow of Chinese investments in Africa has also surged by more than 25 percent on a yearly-average basis, hitting $2.1 billion for the period.

Still, Beijing's approach to create new bonds of affinity with Africa and African people continues to vex the observers. They view China's unreserved engagement in Africa as an effort to build "soft power," secure financial interests, gain a strategic sphere of influence and galvanize support on multilateral forums.

Even though China-Africa Peace and Security Forum extended commitment to common, comprehensive, collaborative and sustainable security, the initiative to shape Africa's peacekeeping capacity, strengthen defense and military cooperation and channel funds through the United Nations Peace and Development Trust Fund are irrationally linked with gaining a strong foothold in the continent.

The bloody conflicts in many parts of Africa, such as Lake Chad Basin, Mozambique's Cabo Delgado, Gulf of Guiana, Somalia and Ethiopian Tigray, threaten to impede economic growth. Beijing's security inputs have assisted the region to achieve peace and security objectives to advance a sustainable socioeconomic development.

For African nations, China's development model to push growth and alleviate poverty offers a definitive version for modernization and transformation of regional economies. The unique mix of transparent, accountable and rules-based cooperation serves the core interests of the continent and the people.

Beijing is neither part of any global competition to dominate Africa nor does it want to capture the continent. What fascinates African states is China's inspirational development, whose experience the world's second largest economy has been more than willing to share, to drive Africa to forge its own economic path.

The growing Chinese influence stokes fears in the U.S. for being sidelined by China on the continent. Washington tried best to contaminate the minds of African governments about Chinese technological companies. However, most of them haven't succumbed to the U.S. bullying as at least 266 Chinese technology initiatives are underway across the region.

Africa seeks to harness digital technologies and innovation to transform societies and economies to promote regional integration, speed up economic growth, stimulate job creation and break the digital divide for socioeconomic development.

China's commitment to foster digital collaboration, ranging from 5G to data centers, smart cities and skills and education programs, is deliberately advertised as a threat to Africa's security and sovereignty.

Such narratives are totally baseless and ridiculously speculative. Indeed, these endeavors are intended at shifting attention from the U.S. and many so-called democratic countries that spy on their own citizens and deliver high-end surveillance technology, spyware and other censorship applications around the world.

China stepped in to fill the technology developmental gap in Africa, especially after Western retreat in investment ventures. For example, Huawei has built around 50 percent and 70 percent of Africa's 3G and 5G infrastructure. This provision of data centers, created by the leader in next-generation technology, would additionally help Africa to meet high data center facilities' demand.

Realizing Chinese potential in digital connectivity and anticipating its economy to reach the frontier in science and technology by 2049, experts opine Africa must determine ways to tap into the educational, technological, healthcare and sustainable gains in China.

International leaders and organizations have been blasting rich nations for vaccine hoarding and dispassion to provide enough jabs to developing countries. The gluttony of wealthy states, forcing the global COVAX initiative to announce slashing vaccine deliveries to Africa by about 150 million doses, holds Africa in the "chokehold" and widens rich-poor divide by hampering Africa economic recovery.

At this tipping point, China by mid-July had donated or exported vaccines to about 40 African countries, more than double than what Beijing committed in February.

The operationalization of manufacturing facility in Egypt for Chinese vaccine production, hailed by the World Health Organization as a good example of international cooperation that contributes to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and another one in Morocco, would help slow the spread of virus and strengthen Africa's ability to tackle pandemic-related economic challenges.

China's affair de coeur with Africa stems from regional nations' fervent wish to learn from Beijing and develop their physical and technological infrastructure, boost economic growth and pull millions from extreme poverty. Chinese cultural, education, financing, health, investment, security and technology cooperation is empowering the continent to emerge as an important political and economic bloc in the world.

So, efforts to disintegrate the iron-clad relationship or schemes to rival Beijing have fared badly so far and would meet the same fate in future as well.

*This is my opinion piece that originally appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)": 

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-09-20/Why-do-efforts-to-disintegrate-China-Africa-relationship-fare-badly--13Gn54JQ8qA/index.html

US power to wage wars is ruining countries and its economy

By: Azhar Azam

Just seven days after 9/11 attacks, the U.S. Congress gave an open-ended authority to the U.S. president for use of military force against Afghanistan and nations he "determines" planned, harbored and perpetrated the attacks.

Barbara Lee, the only U.S. lawmaker to oppose the Afghanistan war and sweeping authority, had asked her fellow legislators to take some time off and think over the heavy repercussions of the U.S. action. In response, the Californian Democrat was compared with pacifist Jeanette Rankin, who voted against the two world wars.

Her stance was vindicated when U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced the end of "major combat" operations in Afghanistan and American forces invaded Iraq in 2003. The sudden switch to Baghdad alarmed Americans and pressed returning veterans to question the U.S. president' unlimited powers to wage wars anywhere, exposing the U.S. imperial hubris that inveigles it to interfere in other countries and transgress their right to freedom.

Despite being labeled as a "terrorist, traitor and clueless liberal," Lee continued to fight against the war, lobby the Congress members to repeal the unjust power and bring troops home. Bernie Sanders, having earlier voted for the controversial legislation and later becoming one of the most vocal critics of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, backed Lee's view to practice restraint.

Now Lee is heralded as an "ignored oracle" for foreseeing an endless war in Afghanistan. She urged "caution" for there was no military solution, yet the 60-word resolution gave a "blank check" to any U.S. president to use force all over the world and pushed the country's post-9/11 war spending or obligations to $6.4 trillion by fiscal year 2020.

All of the U.S. wars were almost entirely funded by borrowing. Even as the Costs of War project didn't account for many other expenses, such as macroeconomic costs to America's economy, opportunity costs of not investing war dollars in alternative sectors and future interest on war borrowing – these wars had widened the U.S. budget deficit and raised national debt and consumer interest rates.

The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in late 2001 to topple the Taliban and defeat Al-Qaeda. Unlike the Afghan war, the U.S. invasion of Iraq was complained about by many U.S. military officials over the diversion of resources and strategic thinking from Kabul to Baghdad. By 2009, lack of demonstrable progress in the prolonged nature of the Afghan conflict coupled with mounting casualties and financial costs further weakened "popular support" of the mission in the NATO nations.

Only the U.S. war in Afghanistan has left thousands Americans and Afghans dead and siphoned $300 million a day from the U.S. economy. After 20 years, Washington has nothing to show its nation on military achievements in Afghanistan and U.S. President Joe Biden is boasting about evacuations of more than 120,000 people and decamp from Kabul as an "extraordinary success."

Washington's belief "our security and prosperity depend on the security and prosperity of others" has long been a catchphrase for many to defeat the Taliban. As Biden deployed the U.S. troops on a "mission of mercy" to Afghanistan, hundreds of thousands of Afghan wondered where the U.S. commitment to reconstruct the U.S.-devastated country was.

The U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has an answer to this emerging issue. In its most recent report, the leading U.S. oversight authority lashed out at the American administrations, saying they consistently struggled to develop and implement a coherent reconstruction strategy and described the U.S. reconstruction effort in Afghanistan as "20 one-year reconstruction efforts" rather than "one 20-year effort."

It painted a lousy picture of America's endeavor over the two decades during which the U.S. officials often underestimated the time and resources needed to rebuild Afghanistan and wasted billions of dollars by building mostly unsustainable institutions and infrastructure projects.

A total of more than $133 billion was spent by the U.S. to build a secure and economically stable Afghanistan. Taking into account the inflation, it's argued that the money Washington incurred on Afghan reconstruction exceeded the value it spent on rebuilding the entire Western Europe through the Marshal Fund after World War II.

The U.S. indeed never envisioned reconstructing Afghanistan if the goal really was not to rebuild and leave behind a resilient nation. While most of the reconstruction outlay went to fund, train and equip the Afghan military, Washington's unholy practice, "use the bad guys to get the badder" by bribing them with wads of dollars, fostered corruption and wounded up nearly 40 percent in the pockets of corrupt officials, warlords and criminals.

America's catastrophic mistakes didn't contribute to Afghan reconstruction or help ease the economic anxieties of ordinary Afghans. For Americans, the U.S. post-9/11 wars have put up an elevated mountain of borrowed money as total war-related appropriations and spending outstrips the $8-trillion mark that would wring the U.S. economy through the next three decades other than intensifying the macroeconomic effects.

Fatefully, direct deaths from post-9/11 attacks and violence in major U.S. war zones (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen) have to date killed around 1 million people. Out of more than 387,000 civilian killings, more than 70,000 noncombatant deaths came from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The U.S. has abandoned Afghanistan but it is still conducting "counterterrorism" operations across 85 countries through a vast "military empire" overseas, comprising hundreds of military bases. Washington may be determined to end the "forever wars," but it can't run away from the responsibility of exterminating hundreds of thousands of civilians and what it owes to their aggrieved families.

Over the years, American presidents have relentlessly abused their unfettered power to initiate wars for intruding into and ravaging independent states the world over in furtherance of the so-called "freedom" operations.

Washington must put an end to its blood-thirsty macho obsession by conceding this extraterritorial, limitless authority that has smashed Afghanistan, Iraq and many other countries and would continue to overwhelm the U.S. economy for at-least next three decades.

*This is my opinion piece that originally appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)": 

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-09-06/U-S-s-power-to-wage-wars-is-ruining-countries-and-its-economy-13jk7y04Zji/index.html

'Great power competition' risks Indo-Pacific security and prosperity

By: Azhar Azam

Section 1202 of the U.S. National Defense Authorization Authority for FY2018, incorporating Change 3 on August 19 to extend the expiry of Directive-type Memorandum for another year, authorized U.S. special operations forces at some of the least-known missions to provide support (training, funding and equipment) to foreign forces, private armies, groups and individuals supporting or facilitating irregular warfare operations.

As part of the undeclared warfare, it was inserted in a strategic shift from counterterrorism to "great power competition." With roughly 40 percent of almost 5,000 special operations forces deployed in 62 countries, the amendment could be used for clandestine activities such as island building in the South China Sea (SCS) or back proxies in eastern Ukraine.

The radical change in U.S. approach has serious implications for the global peace and stability, witnessing threats of burgeoning terrorism. The recent terrorist attack on the U.S.-controlled facility at Kabul airport, killing at least 183 people including 13 American troops, presses Washington not to shy away from looming dangers of extremist renaissance and work together with the international community to curb militancy.

Untouched by fatal consequences of jeopardizing international security as global terrorists regroup and try to make a strong comeback, some top U.S. military officials are giving rabble-rousing statements by playing up the wild transformation of the concept against near-peer competitors, China and Russia in the Asia Pacific or ranging from the Baltic states and Scandinavia south to Ukraine and the Black Sea region.

The U.S. President Joe Biden himself reasons his country's military withdrawal from Afghanistan as one of the factors to "focus on shoring up America's core strengths to meet the strategic competition with China and other countries that is really going to determine – determine our future."

What's happening in Kabul is a shock to the U.S. strategic shift, recounting terrorists – rather than growing Chinese economic, diplomatic, military and technological power – as the biggest challenge to the world.

On one side, Washington doesn't want a conflict with China and on the other, the U.S. is committing frequent violations of Chinese territorial integrity in the SCS and encouraging Asian Pacific countries provoke Beijing. The cantankerous nature of U.S. duplicitous policy describes its hostility toward other nations and casts doubts on Biden's promise to develop "over-the-horizon" counterterrorism capability to neutralize real threats to his nation.

America is all at sea on scaling down the counterterrorism campaign to step up "great power competition" as a national security priority. Former U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who in January 2018 argued latter, not former, was the primary focus of the U.S. national security, had parted ways after disagreements with Donald Trump on troops withdrawal from Afghanistan and Syria.

All these U.S. efforts aim to free up resources by ending overseas contingency operations to prepare for a "rising China and resurgent Russia." Former deputy assistant secretary of defense and lead writer of the National Defense Strategy Elbridge Colby in January 2019 recommended Congress remove Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) penalties and barriers for partners such as India, Vietnam and Indonesia to counter the most significant U.S. strategic challenge, Beijing.

In an attempt to disintegrate the relationship between China and Vietnam, the U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris offered Hanoi the possible provision of a third U.S. Coast Guard high-endurance cutter to bolster Vietnamese capacity to contribute to "maritime security" in the SCS.

Vietnam has already agreed to handle maritime disputes with China through consensus for a peaceful and stable region. Anticipating the U.S. intent to stir tensions in the SCS, the country's Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh before holding talks with Harris, poured cold water on the U.S. ambitions by appreciating traditional neighborliness and comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership with Beijing and opposing politicization of either pandemic or the origins-tracing.

Singapore was the other nation Harris tried to bully during her trip to Southeast Asia. After Singaporean Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan ahead of her arrival sought China and the U.S. to build up trust and said his country won't become "one or the other's stalking horse to advance negative agendas," the island-city's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong put a damper on Washington's unhealthy pattern of fueling regional disturbance by questioning U.S. reliability in the fallout of Afghanistan.

Harris boasted partnerships in Singapore, in Southeast Asia and throughout the Indo-Pacific were a "top (U.S.) priority" to reassure the region Washington hadn't forgotten it. But the raft of announcements she made to Singapore and Vietnam was either initiated by the Trump administration or had been just a "piecemeal."

Washington's irresponsible withdrawal from Kabul to reassert its leadership in the Asia Pacific and acts to mount pressure on regional states to choose a side in "great power competition" is a pressing issue for the nations across the expanse.

A whole new set of challenges and the deflated appeal for military confrontation culminates in the endorsement of China's vision of peaceful coexistence and a deep sense of the U.S. betrayal in the Asia Pacific. The failure of America's aggressive policy has triggered the mainstream U.S. media to absurdly accuse China for supplying weapons and logistic support to the Taliban in the aftermath of 9/11.

This as well as other grotesque projection, China is an "existential threat" to the U.S., can't gain traction since Beijing has always called for non-interference in each other's territories and stressed on a unified and transnational response on terrorism. As a matter of fact, Beijing in the U.S. war on terror had suffered losses from September 11 attacks, according to none other than the U.S. Department of State itself.

Regional and international peace is however being threatened by the U.S. incursions in the SCS. Talks between China and the U.S. to mitigate risks and accidental conflict in the region are good though may not be good enough to prevent Washington from making the Asia Pacific the heart of its "great power competition."

Still if the U.S. can somehow manage to come out of its egomaniacal thoughts and sincerely engage Beijing, there are the prospects to calm tensions and improve regional security for building a secure and economically prosperous region, to which China invariably is resolute about and Washington has just lately committed.

*This is my opinion piece that originally appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)": 

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-09-01/-Great-power-competition-risks-Indo-Pacific-security-and-prosperity-13cNUARX1PG/index.html