China and its Discontents

The China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC) is about to commence a copper mine at Mes Aynak, Afghanistan: 

This site is called Mes Aynak and is nothing short of awe-inspiring: a massive walled-in Buddhist city featuring massive temples, monasteries, and thousands of Buddhist statues that managed to survive looters and the Taliban. Holding a key position on the Silk Road, Mes Aynak was also an international hub for traders and pilgrims from all over Asia.

Hundreds of fragile manuscripts detailing daily life at the site are still yet to be excavated. Beneath the Buddhist dwellings is an even older yet-unearthed Bronze age site indicated by several recent archaeological findings.

Mes Aynak is set for destruction at the end of December 2012. All of the temples, monasteries, statues as well as the Bronze age material will all be destroyed by a Chinese government-owned company called China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC). Six villages and the mountain range will also be destroyed to create a massive open-pit style copper mine.

The $3 billion mining deal, signed in 2007, represents the largest foreign investment in Afghanistan’s history.

Source: Xinhua

Meanwhile, Zhou Yongkang, Politburo Standing Committee member, head of the Politics and Law Commission/law enforcement, and supposed erstwhile ally of Bo Xilai (tip: be highly skeptical of sensationalist news coming out of Taiwan or the Falun Gong) just made a surprise visit to Afghanistan. Is there a direct connection? Hard to say.

But the mining deal and Zhou Yongkang’s surprise visit is emblematic of a few things relevant to Chinese foreign policy in Central Asia, and the developing world in general. China’s interests in Afghanistan and the rest of Central Asia involve: co-opting corrupt, crony capitalist elites in neighboring authoritarian states so that Chinese state-owned corporations (and Chinese workers, protected by armed Chinese security guards) can extract resources; developing alternative supply chains to the Persian Gulf-Indian Ocean-Malacca Straits shipping route, especially by building oil pipelines from Kazakhstan into Xinjiang; and cooperating with said Central Asian states (especially through the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) to fight terrorism aimed at splitting Xinjiang from China. China’s interests in Africa and other parts of the developing world are similar, minus the fighting terrorism part.

In my mind, all of this very invasive economic activity calls into question the entire bedrock of Chinese foreign policy: non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs. Apparently, MCC’s actions have incited Afghani villagers near Anyak to partner with the Taliban to attack the mine and the archaeologists still working to preserve the Buddhist site. China, through its state-owned enterprises (SOEs), simultaneously lends military support to various odious regimes (including Sudan, Iran, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, obviously North Korea, and to some extent, although this is now changing, Burma), enriches the elites of those and other countries with vast resource extraction deals, and screws over locals by almost exclusively employing imported Chinese workers and spoiling the local environment. In return, the Chinese compensate in-country locals with a few infrastructure projects, worth far less in proportion to the benefit China accrues from such deals. China cannot hide behind any facade–China’s SOEs are implements of Chinese foreign policy.

The U.S. and other interested partners need to work more actively to call out not only China’s abusive actions in the developing world, but also this obvious contradiction in China’s foreign policy. China is particularly weak ideologically on this front, given that its policy of non-interference aims to thwart others who would interfere in China’s own internal affairs. Forcing China to explain its actions and apparent hypocrisy would:

1. Strengthen the U.S. case for Chinese participation in greater sanctions against Iran (which it apparently has not been successful at doing).
2. Reduce threats to U.S. interests and human rights generally through squeezing supply chains to China’s client states.
3. Improve the competitive advantage of U.S. corporations in bidding against Chinese SOEs. If U.S. corporations can present themselves as environmentally-friendly and ethically/socially-responsible in an environment where developing countries are pressured to value those things, then they can win contracts even when Chinese SOEs underbid them. This could possibly improve the U.S. domestic economy (unless most profits are held overseas).
4. Generally improve U.S. relations with the developing world, and set up a stark contrast between U.S. and Chinese actions in the minds of the Global South. U.S.-China relations are not necessarily zero-sum, but in Africa and elsewhere, every resources-for-infrastructure deal the Chinese sign is a deal not made by the U.S.. The Chinese, with the help of locally-based state-owned media such as Xinhua and CCTV, are telling one narrative to the populations of their trading partners. We can tell a different narrative, especially if our actions respect the environment, improve the local economy, and maintain local culture.
5. And possibly (however unlikely), push China to revise its stated foreign policy to align with its actual practices, which would remove the ideological pretense behind its arguments on a whole host of issues, including humanitarian interventions, territorial disputes, and U.S. policies in East Asia.

The U.S. should use the U.N. as an outlet and work with human rights and minerals-certification NGOs, but it must also speak to the American domestic audience. Mark Landler’s recent piece in the New York Times describes the Obama administration’s tougher stance on China, especially in regards to US-China trade and the Pivot to Asia. The Obama administration needs to add this issue to the growing list of arguments made in front of domestic audiences, because average Americans can also play a pivotal role in an influence campaign (and it would of course also improve President Obama’s reelection chances).

Even if China doesn’t revise its foreign policy wholesale (which again, is nigh impossible in the short term), the U.S. can advance its interests in credible and measurable ways. Not to call China out on its hypocrisy abroad would be a huge missed opportunity.

The United States news media’s coverage of the possibility of Israel or the U.S. targeting Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program is not really about Iran; it is about us. Just as Herbert Gans noted that Vietnam was primarily a domestic news story in the 60’s and 70’s, the Iranian nuclear threat is also. (Gans, 37) Most recent news coverage has devolved into a few dominant narratives, representing different political factions. Different media outlets either report on or explicitly represent the factions, and they generally make arguments that have very little to do with the substantive evidence for or against the existence of Iran’s nuclear capability; rather, the news follows election year trends, the possibility of war as it relates to the Jewish population in the United States, and criticism of the political actors involved.

The first narrative, representing the contingent of neoconservatives who pushed for war with Iraq in 2003, also supports not only a limited tactical strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, but even a large-scale war. This perspective mainly shows up as representing the policy positions of the GOP presidential candidates or as the author’s view in opinion pieces. And then there is the narrative told by the traditional news sources such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. Most major news organizations were embarrassed by the general failure to “get it right” on Iraq a decade ago, when they almost uncritically accepted the administration’s arguments that Saddam Hussein possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). This time around, mainstream news is slightly more cautious in tone, but it still rarely publishes explicitly foreign-centric stories or stories with a serious consideration of the evidence on both sides, for and against Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons. The mainstream media much prefers to focus on the domestic political situation. Finally, there is the more liberal coverage, which often focuses on politics or criticisms of the neoconservatives for being so blithe about war.

Before one can even approach these narratives, one thing is glaringly clear: the news does not focus on the fact that the U.S. Intelligence Community still stands by its 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) stating that Iran suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003, and that Iran continues to only enrich nuclear fuel, which could be used for a variety of peaceful purposes. This was reported on once in February by The New York Times, and scarcely appears in any of the related articles that I surveyed, either at the New York Times or at any other news organization. Much more common is the domestic political news story: “U.S. Backers of Israel Pressure Obama Over Policy on Iran.” This story is far more newsworthy. Why write about the intelligence community when you can report on Eric Cantor at the meeting of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC): “We must stop following mirages in the Middle East and start following through on this reality: our mission in the Middle East is to drive our stake in the sand with our values—to proclaim our values rather than apologize for them.” If the news chose to highlight Senate testimony by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper saying that Iran is not building the bomb, the media would kill the most profitable and long-lasting angle by which to view a possible war with Iran. Political squabbles can extend on forever. The story will never end—according to Paul Begala (writing in The Daily Beast), war with Iran is one of the GOP’s biggest strengths going into this election year.

One factor complicating Israel’s and the United States’ decision to strike is the two countries’ on-and-off-again relationship. And it has become “a complication” in this otherwise calculating story of whether to strike Iran precisely because the media has made it so. President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have notoriously not gotten along—it is mentioned in almost every newspaper article where the two are discussed in tandem. And they are supposed to disagree: President Obama comes from the center-left party in the United States while Netanyahu’s conservative Likud Party is partnered in a coalition government with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s nationalist and ultra-conservative Yisrael Beiteinu Party. But instead of focusing on the conflict between two governments based on legitimate policy differences, the media casts this as an acrimonious personal dispute between the two men. Why cast this as a story of, “If Mr. Obama trusted Mr. Netanyahu more, he might issue a more muscular statement of military threat to Iran…And if Mr. Netanyahu trusted Mr. Obama more, he would be less jumpy over every statement of caution emerging from Washington,” as so many stories do? Surely the entire diplomatic decision-making process does not rely solely on a pop-psychology assessment of the two.

And when the media cannot play up “Bibi” and Obama’s disagreements, they focus on how the President and every other mainstream politician must remain unswervingly loyal to the state of Israel. One might think that these are two contradictory narratives. But this oath of support to Israel is apparently the sole metric by which Jewish Americans decide who to vote for. Obama, even after clashing with Netanyahu over military action against Iran and even after denouncing the Israeli settlements in the West Bank, cannot completely rebuke Israel (when push came to shove, he did not even follow-through with support of a UN resolution officially rebuking Israel for the “illegal” settlements). For the Republican Party, “fealty” to Israel is a solemn vow. For the Democratic Party, “fealty” to Israel is (mostly) a solemn vow. At this past week’s AIPAC meeting, President Obama assured the attendees that he is behind Israel every step of the way: “So there should not be a shred of doubt by now — when the chips are down, I have Israel’s back.” In a blog post by Colum Lynch on ForeignPolicy.com, President Obama’s Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice is quoted as putting it in even more emotionally charged terms, relating her memories “as a 14 year-old tourist where she floated in the Dead Sea,” of a visit with then Senator Barack Obama where she touched the “charred long remnants of the rockets that Hamas continues to fire at the brave unyielding citizens of Sderot,” and of her favorite psalm, “’Hinei ma’tov u’ma-nayim, shevet ach-im gam ya-chad’ — or ‘how good it is and how pleasant when we sit together in brotherhood.’” Rice went even so far as to say: “Last October, when the Syrian regime’s ambassador, speaking in the Security Council, had the temerity — the chutzpah — to accuse the United States and Israel of being parties to genocide, I led our delegation in walking out.” (Ital added) How is this any different than when Obama delivers a sermon in a Black church speaking Ebonics? What is surprising about this whole episode is not just that Susan Rice quoted psalms in Hebrew that have an almost comically transparent political effect and chose to sprinkle in some Yiddish to play up the schtick—it is that the blogger, Lynch, not only thought to make a whole post revolve around that schtick but also to entitle it, “Has Susan Rice found her cojones moment?” And this happens in the media all the time. Do politicians say these things because they think the AIPAC attendees and the American Jewish population will simply accept it uncritically, that it won’t sound like pandering? And do journalists dutifully report these speeches because they don’t know any better? Or do they not want to make a fuss over a common political trope, so they pass it along with a nudge and a wink? Or did Lynch write that post because he actually supports these theatrics, and didn’t stop to think that his title might be misogynistic? It is hard to accept the last conclusion, but it is probably the most correct (perhaps a combination of the latter two).

But some in the media have commented on the absurdity of AIPAC and the reversal of Israel’s “client state” dynamic with the United States. Israel, after all, receives nearly three billion dollars annually in foreign aid from the United States. Why does the U.S. President, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, and politicians of all political stripes have to speak in emotional terms of their undying loyalty to the state of Israel, when it is in fact Israel that needs us more than we need them? In his blog at The Atlantic’s website, James Fallows noted (speaking of the President’s AIPAC speech), “I can’t think of another situation where an American president, speaking to an American audience on American soil, would find it necessary or dignified to plead his bona fides in a similar way.”

And in the latest issue of Washington Monthly, Paul Pillar makes the same meta-argument that this paper is making—that the rhetoric surrounding a possible war with Iran is not aligned with the evidence: “Strip away the bellicosity and political rhetoric, and what one finds is not rigorous analysis but a mixture of fear, fanciful speculation, and crude stereotyping…we find ourselves on the precipice of yet another such war—almost purely because the acceptable range of opinion on Iran has narrowed and ossified around the ‘sensible’ idea that all options must be pursued to prevent the country from acquiring nuclear weapons.”

The media is an intentional accomplice to political actors who want to sensationalize impending war with Iran. The media is interested in GOP conflict with the President over Israel and Iran because it is a better story, a more relatable story to the American public. The media cares about and politicians pander to the Jewish-American population because they are a substantial portion of their readership and electorate, respectively. But the media also forgets the essential truth behind any future war with Iran, as articulated by the President in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg: “[I]f people want to say about me that I have a profound preference for peace over war, that every time I order young men and women into a combat theater and then see the consequences on some of them, if they’re lucky enough to come back, that this weighs on me — I make no apologies for that. Because anybody who is sitting in my chair who isn’t mindful of the costs of war shouldn’t be here, because it’s serious business. These aren’t video games that we’re playing here.”

Meaning to get to this for a while.

How big is the rift between China and the US?

Administration officials speak of an alarming loss of trust and confidence between China and the United States over the past two years, forcing them to scale back hopes of working with the Chinese on major challenges like climate change, nuclear nonproliferation and a new global economic order.

And David Shambaugh calls China “an increasingly narrow-minded, self-interested, truculent, hyper-nationalist and powerful country.” Ouch.

You can see this especially in Obama’s latest trip to Asia and his support for elevating India to the Security Council. This article was published before the trip and the midterm elections, and I definitely feel like some of the fear-mongering associated with the election has tempered slightly in the past few weeks. For a while, Blue Dogs and Tea Partiers alike were really shredding our precious guanxi (if there is one Chinese word you should know, it should be guanxi, or relationship). But the political system has now let out some steam.

There’s not much more analysis I can add that isn’t already covered excellently in the article (see below), only to say that we should neither disparage China’s (and our) growing calcification nor try to take an even harder-line to our relationship. This is simply a natural, and predictable reaction by the American public (and in reaction to them, Congress) to rather distressing bilateral economic policy conducted by both countries over the past decade.

To round out, here’s an especially pertinent section of analysis:

Political factors at home have contributed to the administration’s tougher posture.With the economy sputtering and unemployment high, Beijing has become an all-purpose target. In this Congressional election season, candidates in at least 30 races are demonizing China as a threat to American jobs.

At a time of partisan paralysis in Congress, anger over China’s currency has been one of the few areas of bipartisan agreement, culminating in the House’s overwhelming vote in September to threaten China with tariffs on its exports if Beijing did not let its currency, the renminbi, appreciate.

The trouble is that China’s own domestic forces may cause it to dig in its heels. With the Communist Party embarking on a transfer of leadership from President Hu Jintao to his anointed successor, Xi Jinping, the leadership is wary of changes that could hobble China’s growth.

Enter Dan Maes, nutjob candidate for governor of Colorado:

“At first, I thought, ‘Gosh, public transportation, what’s wrong with that, and what’s wrong with people parking their cars and riding their bikes? And what’s wrong with incentives for green cars?’ But if you do your homework and research, you realize ICLEI is part of a greater strategy to rein in American cities under a United Nations treaty,” Maes said.

I’m not sure how that follows.