Trumpomania is riding the European nerves

By: Azhar Azam

China has stepped up its diplomatic efforts to put the Beijing-Brussels relationship back on track. In his speech at the Munich Security Conference, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the gathering of 180 leaders and defense chiefs that China will be a “force for stability” in the world and warned the West of making "historical mistake" under the aegis of de-risking, a coordinated transatlantic effort to prevent overreliance on China.

Tasked with the responsibility of mending the China-European Union (EU) ties, Wang visited Spain and announced to lift the ban on Spanish beef. Later on, he held discussions with the French President Emmanuel Macron and solicited his support to stabilize the Beijing-Brussels relationship. Trade remained France's key area of interest.

European leaders too are looking to engage China. While Wang's Spanish counterpart hailed his announcement as "extraordinarily positive" over its potential to calm angst of the farmers, protesting against and seeing the EU environment and other policies as a financial burden, Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez described China as “fundamental partner” in the fight against climate change and for global peace and stability.

Paris is Beijing's one of most important partners in the EU. France was the first major Western country that formally recognized China in 1964; a red carpet welcome during Macron's China visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping last year demonstrated France's role in countering the US. The trick worked as on his way back home, Macron sought the EU to reduce dependency on America, underscored his vision of strategic autonomy and questioned whether it was in the bloc's interest to fuel the Taiwan crisis.

Macron-Xi telephone conversation in November as Beijing faced a Paris-sponsored anti-subsidy investigation into Chinese electrical vehicles (though French officials insisted it was von der Leyen's call and didn't intend to hamstring the German auto industry)and Wang's commitment, ahead of his departure to Europe, China will continue to "expand the import of high quality products and services" attempted to curry favor with the French president on the China-EU relationship.

As two countries commemorate 60th anniversary of the establishment of the Sino-French diplomatic relations, celebration of 2024 as the Franco-Chinese Year of Cultural Tourism, an agreement to further strengthen cooperation on areas including climate change, clean energy and agriculture, consensus on contributing to peace and Xi's potential trip to France signal Paris' willingness to put a floor under the China-EU relations.

With Biden administration's protectionist measures such as the Inflation Reduction Act, designed to divert European investment to the Americas, serving the US own rather than shared interests – fear of Donald Trump's return to the White House is forcing the EU reconsider its approach toward China, a diplomatic win for Beijing that has long been urging Brussels to continue dialogue while maintaining differences.

During his recent trip to China, Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide raised the human rights issue yet also held talks with Wang on trade, climate change, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and how to strengthen the international institutions. Resumption of strategic dialogue between China and Switzerland and review of economic, financial and scientific cooperation further indicate the European countries are bracing for Trump by making diplomatic overtures to Beijing.

China is willing to work with the EU to promote steady progress in China-EU relations in 2024, Xi told Belgium Prime Minister Alexander De Croo who was on a state visit to Beijing in January. De Croo too hoped to start a “new era of Belgian-Chinese engagement” based on people-to-people ties, diplomatic partnerships and mutual prosperity, seeing the moment as a “timely opportunity” to engage Beijing in a tense geopolitical and economic environment and acknowledging that China and EU remain “important partners” in tackling many global challenges.

Factors such as greater trade restrictions, a trend set by the US and practiced freely by all, could sharply reduce the global economic output by 7% or about $7.4 trillion over the long term – reversing economic integration and undermining cooperation to protect against existing global challenges and new shocks – warned IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva last year.

As the UN trade body estimates the global trade in goods in 2023 may contract by 5% or almost $2 trillion over geopolitical trends, Georgieva’s prediction is within the realm of possibility. With the multilateral trading system threatening to collapse and the specter of a new cold war not going away, Trumpomania is riding the European nerves.

The US has been a dominant global economic and technology power; the irony is that China, after showing staggering economic growth rates for years, is now projected to have overtaken America in 53 out of 64 critical and emerging technologies. While the US-led international economic order since 1945 helped bring an unprecedented era of growth, China is predicted to be the top growth source for the world over the next five years.

Confronted by an avalanche of economic and security challenges, Brussels is anticipating its crises to aggravate once Trump comes back and drives it to despair. The European countries are adapting to this looming reality and have increased engagement with Beijing.

*My article (unedited) that first appeared in the Express Tribune:

ASEAN cautious of walking into the US trap

By: Azhar Azam

In a blistering press conference along with Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Melbourne during Australia-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) special summit, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim pushed back against criticism that has been levied on Malaysia and regional countries for giving “additional focus” to Beijing, calling it as a “China-phobia” in the West.

“We are (an) independent nation, we are fiercely independent. We do not want to be dictated by any force. So, once we remain to be an important friend to the United States or Europe and here in Australia, they should not preclude us from being friendly to one of our important neighbors, precisely China,” Anwar responded to a question that was seen as resistance to the US pressure in the world media.

His remarks – just days after the Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in his speech to the Australian Parliament attempted to undermine regional peace and prosperity by calling upon Canberra and others to join forces in the face of alleged threats to the rule of law, peace and stability – represented ASEAN policy of safeguarding and promoting regional peace, security and stability; peacefully resolve all disputes through dialogue and fostering economic growth.

Relations between Beijing and Manila have been relatively stable under the former Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte. But Marcos’ rabble-rousing stance and Manila’s provocative actions, military drills with America and Australia in the South China Sea (SCS), explicit intent to gang up alliances in support of the US-led efforts to stoke tensions in the strategic waterways threaten to challenge the long-established status quo that has helped to uphold peace and encouraged economic cooperation across Asia-Pacific.

Most ASEAN states want to maintain good relations with Beijing and Washington without taking sides; Manila under Marcos has become more assertive in the SCS at the behest of the US, which seeks to cement alliances in Asia-Pacific and needs its former colony to stem the rise of China let it be at the cost of ASEAN's peace and prosperity.

Marcos, on the other hand, is not only using Philippines' partnerships with the US and allies to expand Manila's influence in the SCS but he also has been endeavoring to divide the ASEAN. Last November, he approached Malaysia and Vietnam to craft a separate Code of Conduct (COC) in the SCS even as China and ASEAN in July had agreed on guidelines and leaders at the 43rd ASEAN Summit in September had welcomed the progress achieved on the COC negotiations, snubbing ASEAN chair Indonesia's President Jokowi Widodo advice at the 18th East Asia Summit to all to lower the tension, refrain from creating new conflicts and create space for dialogue.

The Philippines' effort would meet with ambivalence since it attempts to pull apart the ASEAN unity and also because most Southeast Asian countries have historically maintained a pacifist approach toward Beijing, stressing on a diplomatic solution to the territorial disputes and prioritizing economic growth through cooperation with the world’s second largest economy.

Addressing the Lowy Institute, Macros sought a “conducive environment” for the success of the COC negotiations, highlighting the so-called threats to Manila’s sovereignty. His Foreign Minister Enrique Manalo urged regional nations to stand firmly together in opposing actions that were inconsistent with international law.

While developing a consensus on the final document, as Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien said at the summit, may take some time due to complexity of the issues, China is willing to implement the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the SCS and accelerate the COC negotiations, striving to reach a regional norm that is in line with the international law and will bring durable peace in the region.

The Philippines, meanwhile, is moving in sync with the US jarring grand strategy by playing up the China threat. Since assuming office, Marcos has almost doubled the number of its bases accessible to the US forces with military exercises extending to joint air and sea patrols over the SCS and close to Taiwan. These actions as well as Manila’s plan to upgrade its SCS outposts in addition to provoking Beijing threaten ASEAN’s goal of ensuring regional peace and pushing its growth.

Once Albanese and Marcos witnessed the signing of a several memoranda of understanding on areas including defense and maritime, the Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced millions of dollars in funding for the bloc’s maritime security citing “unsafe conduct at sea and in the air” yet deliberately ignored Canberra-Manila sea and air maneuvers across the territory. This stirred controversy in the middle of the summit as former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating slammed the "mindless pro-American" approach, citing Malaysia's rejection of "buying" the US "hegemony" in the region.

For regional countries, maritime cooperative activity between the armed forces of Australia and the Philippines involving navy vessels and frigates and air and maritime surveillance aircraft could be alarming. Canberra is a member of the trilateral AUKUS (Australia-UK-US) military alliance, which Indonesia and Malaysia see as an effort to start a nuclear arms race in Southeast Asia and Asia-Pacific.

As Australia and the Philippines feature as major treaty allies in the US Indo-Pacific Strategy that aspires to “explore opportunities for the Quad to work with ASEAN” to trigger tensions in the region in the name of Free and Open Indo-Pacific and freedom of navigation, it naturally becomes a collective responsibility of all the countries in the region to increase engagement to protect the regional stability.

Southeast Asia, the world’s “economic dark horse,” has a vast economic potential especially with its vibrant and increasingly tech-savvy young population and a combined gross domestic product of $3.3 trillion as of 2021. Given several ASEAN states including Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam have acceded to the China-led community of a shared future and bilateral trade continues to demonstrate a robust growth, both Washington and allies are struggling to align the regional countries on the threat perception from China and ASEAN remains very careful of walking into the US trap.

*My article (unedited) that first appeared in the China Daily:

Pacific is rapidly sliding into the great power rivalry

By: Azhar Azam

Papua New Guinea (PNG), an impoverished Pacific island nation – which witnessed the killing of more than soldiers, mostly Japanese, during Japan’s invasion of the country during the New Guinea Campaign in the Second World War – has turned into an epicentrum of great power competition between China and the US as well as the most sought-after country for the world powers over its potential to house natural resources and minerals such as liquefied natural gas, nickel and copper.

“We are baffled,” told Winnie Kiap, a former PNG diplomat to the Economist last year, “It’s like watching two elephants (China and the US) playing on a patch of grass and we are that patch.” In the Second World War “we were in a war that had nothing to do with us. This is a repetition of that kind of thinking."

The tug of war for influence in the Pacific intensified after China stunned the US and Australia by signing a surprise security deal with the Solomon Islands, raising fear of the Chinese military presence close to Canberra and Guam, the US main military base in the region. But the Solomon Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare defended the compact citing internal instability and sought all partners to “respect the (island’s) sovereign interests,” ensuring it was guided by his foreign policy of “Friends to all and Enemies to none.”

In a bid to counter China's overtures in the Pacific, America after 30 years of absence announced to reopen its embassy in Honiara and the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken signed a defense and maritime agreement PNG in an apparent attempt to deter Port Moresby and other Pacific countries from establishing security ties with Beijing.

Here the PNG Prime Minister James Marape guarded himself against criticism from former Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and opposition leader Joseph Lelangan who accused him of putting “at the epicenter of a military storm" between China and the US and stressed PNG shouldn't be "blinded by the dollar sign or be coerced into signing (detrimental) deals." But the specter of a new cold war loomed large with Prime Minister of India (a Quad member state) Narenda Modi arriving in the region at the same time and Marape felicitating him as the "leader of the Global South."

But PNG soon found itself between a rock and a hard place once its Foreign Minister Justin Tkachenko said in January Port Moresby was in "early stages of negotiation" with Beijing on a potential security and policing deal and the US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Verma warned PNG of the "high cost" that would come with the Chinese commitment, urging PNG to turn down the compact.

PNG isn’t the only Pacific nation, China has offered assistance on policing. Beijing last year sent police experts and equipment to Vanuatu to maintain public order in the country after the signing an agreement with the Solomon Islands on “law enforcement and security matters.” Australia raised concerns about China’s policing role in the country even as Canberra too had its police deployed in the neighboring island.

Marape is keen to develop economic relations with China for other than a large economy, it is a key export market of Pacific countries' natural resources and a major source of incoming tourism. That's why, the PNG and others have to navigate a tough diplomatic line in the middle of risks of getting itself trapped in the China-US rivalry.

America's sharp retort forced Marape to open up a little about his foreign policy approach during his trip to Australia. Stating he couldn't not ignore huge commercial opportunities being offered to PNG by Beijing, the PNG prime minister said "We will not compromise our relations with China … We also believe that someone else's enemy is not my enemy." At the same, he attempted to calm the US and Australian concerns. "When I went to Beijing they steered clear of security conversations. They honored us in the economic space.”

The US has been seeing China’s engagement in the Pacific as an effort to “destabilize” the region; one wonders how would the Biden administration’s opaque deals that didn’t provide little details and budget – encompassing more than $7.1 billion for the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau under the Compacts of Free Association in exchange for basing rights for military and other activities – would bring stability to the region while intensifying strategic competition with China.

Australia in December signed security agreement with PNG to address its security needs and “support each other’s security and regional stability.” Like other deals with China and the US, details of this pact weren't published either. While Beijing’s compact invited “further regional contest,” how Canberra’s and America’s security treaties could trigger peace and harmony in the Pacific?

Another reason for the US profound interest in the Pacific is to prevent the regional states from cutting ties with Taiwan. Still, another of the Pacific island countries, Nauru, recently severed ties with Taiwan and switched its allegiance to China, leaving Taipei with a handful of allies as Tuvalu prepares to make such a diplomatic shift. Ironically, the US allies in the Pacific, providing a strategic buffer to America and allowing it to base missiles in Palau, are threatening to shift their diplomatic recognition to China for economic assistance if Washington fails to pass the proposed funding.

These security arrangements developments are rapidly culminating in militarization of the region, and shaping the Pacific into a theater of influence for international powers. The upshots of these phenomena will be highly consequential for the Pacific since they will exacerbate development and climate crises in a region that is exposed to disproportionate impacts of climate change coupled with rising sea levels, extreme weather events and coastal erosion. Hawkish US Congressmen and some Pacific nations' approach to exploit the US-China tensions is making these challenges and the regional peace situation even dire.

*My article (unedited) that first appeared in the Express Tribune