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The Case of Chen the Party Crasher: Normal Diplomacy Meets Crisis Management

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Traveling around the U.S. since I left the Foreign Service, I’ve been astonished by how little Americans  know about the rest of the world and how our representatives deal with it, which is to say, about diplomacy.  Sometimes, in despair about the deficiencies of U.S. education, I’ve found myself thinking, “No wonder Americans are so ready to go to war.  They’re barely aware of an alternative that saves money and lives.”  The Founders were savvier.  That’s why the Secretary of State ranks above the Secretary of War (now the Secretary of Defense) in the Cabinet hierarchy.

Wikileaks—does anyone even remember Wikileaks?—may have caused some harm and embarrassment (though much less than predicted), but the release of those classified documents should have proved to those who seldom have anything good to say about America’s diplomats that U.S. foreign service officers are excellent analysts and very good writers, too.

The Fly in the Ointment

In the past two weeks, even Americans who barely notice the headlines had another chance to observe how diplomacy works—and to watch two levels of diplomacy dramatically intersecting at that.  Just a few days before Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was due to arrive in China for the climax of an important bilateral dialogue a well-known Chinese human rights activist sought refuge in the U.S. embassy in Beijing.  If Chen Guangcheng were turned away, the Obama administration would be lambasted for abandoning America’s historic position of pressuring China to respect the civil liberties of its citizens.  If he were given refuge, China would protest and an important bilateral conference might go up in flames. 

And so a long-scheduled event collided with a totally out-of-the-blue crisis.   Diplomats need to be able to handle both, but they seldom have to do justice to both at the same time.  My impression is that the people at the U.S. embassy in Beijing did a pretty good, even impressive job of managing a difficult situation precipitated by an admirable, but impulsive, vacillating and conflicted petitioner.   

The Limits of Reform in China

Chen Guangcheng came to the world’s attention some years ago when he exposed corruption involving China’s one child policy.  Evidently he was never charged or tried for criminal activity, but vindictive, embarrassed local officials (no doubt with Beijing’s knowledge) had connived to solve their problem by building a very high wall around his house and keeping him under house arrest.  Chen escaped—an astonishing tale that has been well told elsewhere—and sought refuge in the American embassy, with the not-particularly-well-thought-out idea that he might be granted asylum in the U.S.   He himself might find refuge, but what would happen to his family and helpers if they were left behind, for instance?

When the U.S. opened its embassy doors to Chen, Chinese officialdom was furious.  During any big conference, the spotlight is on the backdrop as well as the stars.  Thanks to Chen, both China and the U.S. would be facing serious image problems instead of looking good at the conclusion of a successful event that was suddenly in danger of collapsing.

America's Asian Pivot

By Patricia H. Kushlis

At the Santa Fe World Affairs Forum’s symposium “Our World in Ferment” on April 17, China expert and Deputy Director of the Kissinger Institute for US-China Relations Douglas Spelman described the change in US policy direction in Asia over the past 18 months as more of a pivot towards Southeast Asia as opposed to one directed at the continent’s North where US attention has been fairly constant, and intense, for some time.

On the April 23 international news, a BBC correspondent reporting from the island of Palawan near where US and Filipino forces were engaged in Balikatan, the bilateral annual war game exercises held under the Mutual Defense Treaty, reported on the heating up of military tensions between China and the Philippines over who controls what in the South China Sea.  An aside: Palawan is an island where I once spent a week at a charming ecotourism resort a year after the US bases had been kicked out of the Philippines by one vote in the Philippine Senate.

Believe me, the reporter has a pretty cushy observation perch from which to observe military exercises as well as snorkel on the side.  

A Chinese Lake?  Maybe not

The Chinese consider the South China Sea a Chinese lake – made more valuable through exploration by international companies for likely oil and gas under the seabed.  Palawan is, by the way, just south of the South China Sea. A BBC report argues that it is precisely because the Filipinos and Vietnamese have signed contracts with international companies to explore for those riches in the disputed territorial waters they claim as their own that set the Chinese off.

The area in contention is called Scarborough Shoal. The Schoal lies within the broader area known as the Spratly Islands, tiny basically uninhabited dots in the sea.    

The rationale for the US pivot towards Southeast Asia has centered on keeping the sea lanes open. This is part of long standing US security policy in the region. What’s new is the Chinese challenge to it. Most of the shipping to North Asia passes through the Straits of Malacca then northward through the South China Sea.  The claims by Asian nations for control of their pieces of this sea bed off the coasts of southern China, Vietnam and the Philippines have been fuses waiting for a match for years. 

With China’s economic rise, it’s increasingly heavy handed approach to Southeast Asia has become more pronounced.  On the one hand, Chinese leverage is major in the areas of trade and economics where China has become the region’s dominant trading partner.  This is not necessarily bad for the US.  When I lived in Southeast Asia in the early 1990s, the Japanese were economically dominant in the region but that trade dominance did not negatively impinge upon the freedom of navigation through the Straits of Malacca and Singapore or the South China Sea.             

On the other hand, a deeply held fear of China’s growing security desires has sent ASEAN governments scurrying to find protection from other big powers further away.  The US is the obvious choice despite a residue of anti-American anti-colonialism in the Philippines and the mistakes of the Vietnam War – both of which seem to have been all but forgotten or at least, in the face of their larger concern, brushed under the carpet for now.

Aung San Suu Kyi: Should She or Shouldn’t She?

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Some Americans boast of not voting in 2010.  Others strut and say they’ve never voted!  The system is too corrupt, too unresponsive, too dirty.  Idiots! They’re so pure they don’t exist, politically.  I wonder sometimes if WhirledView has any impact. And yet, without tossing a few well-chosen stones into the ocean, how to make a splash?

What's in a Win?

Just such questions of purity and efficacy have arisen in the aftermath of the recent Burmese elections.  Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League of Democracy have won 43 of the 44 seats available to civilian voters, which leaves 80% of the seats in Parliament controlled by the military (to say nothing of the presidency and other offices held by figures who have “resigned” from the military).  Suu Kyi herself has pointed out that the elections were flawed.  Observers from the European Union stopped short of praising the process as anything more than a step in the right direction. 

The elections, which were not nation-wide, evidently, were scheduled for many districts where cynics would have predicted no hope for reform-minded candidates, a devious way of tipping the scales even further against the opposition.  Most hard-headed observers expected voters in the four districts around the new capital and those in districts hosting military installations to back regime sympathizers.  Who employs them?  Who fills their rice bowls?  You don’t usually bite the hand that feeds you.  In addition, analysts assumed, the people in hilly tribal areas would vote for fellow tribals, not a Berman lowlander, whatever her glamor or her opposition to a repressive army.  This, too, would hurt Suu Kyi’s NLD.

Voters Thought for Themselves

The “realists” turned out to be wrong.  Suu Kyi and her party members won all but one available district, a Shan constituency, which did indeed send a tribal to the new Parliament, although the National League of Democracy won in a neighboring Shan district.  The NLD even came out ahead in those army-dominated districts.  This achievement should remind us all that military men and women can think for themselves, even if they spend most of their time following orders.

But let’s not over-hype the election results. Aung San Suu Kyi and her party have won a resounding victory in an election guaranteeing, by its very design, that she and her NLD colleagues will be hopelessly outnumbered in Parliament.  This clever bit of engineering on the part of the regime has led to the big question: should The Lady claim the seat she has won—or should she not, lest she legitimize a junta that kept her under house arrest for two decades and treated too many other justice-seekers worse by far? 

Is She Just a Tool?

Some analysts worry that Suu Kyi is being manipulated by a deeply-hated regime that has turned Myanmar into an economic basket case during its decades of iron-fisted control.  The Generals, they believe, have dug themselves into a hole they can’t get out of by themselves.  However, with Suu Kyi as a decorative but ineffectual figurehead in Parliament,  it may be that the US and other sources of economic aid will be sufficiently charmed and bamboozled to lift sanctions, allow trade and investment and provide the country with humanitarian assistance. 

What a contrast to the regime’s policy in the wake of the devastating cyclone Nargis in 2008, when the Generals preferred to allow people to die rather than risk the interference that would inevitably come with accepting commensurate emergency aid!  No doubt this callous policy lost them more than a few votes in the recent election.  Having monks shot during the Saffron uprising a few years ago didn’t help either. 

Santa Fe World Affairs Forum - Global Unrest Symposium April 16-17, 2012

April 1 Update

The Santa Fe World Affairs Forum

Join us on April 16 to 17,2012 for A Two Day Symposium on Global Unrest

Most recent commentary on the state of the world deals with revolution in one country or turmoil in a single geographic or cultural area.  The Santa Fe World Affairs Forum believes that it is time to examine these challenges and upheavals as part of a global phenomenon.  A SFWAF symposium to be held at St. John’s College on April 16-17 will look at the clash between change and status quo in Europe, China, Russia, and Mexico.  The symposium, co-sponsored with the University of New Mexico Center for Science, Technology and Policy, will provide for ample interaction between speakers and attendees.

The featured speakers for this symposium are:

EUROPE: Dr. Dieter Dettke, currently Foreign and Defense Policy Professor, Security Studies Program, Georgetown University, previously Executive Director for the US and Canada, Friedrich Ebert Foundation and staff director for the US-German Committee in the Bundestag, will help us understand a continent-wide social, political and economic flux. 

Ms. Teri Schultz, freelance international reporter for NPR and CBS News Radio and EU correspondent for Global Post will discuss the financial crash that threatens more than Europe’s image of unity.

RUSSIA: Dr. Raymond R. Smith, University of North Texas (Dallas) and former State Department political analyst is a specialist in Russian affairs.  Smith, author of Negotiating with the Soviets and The Craft of Political Analysis for Diplomats, will explore this question: “Is 21st Century Russia Doomed to be Authoritarian, Unlikeable and Threatening?”

CHINA: Dr. Douglas Spelman, former State Department China expert, now Deputy Director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D. C., will focus on  “China’s Rise: Promise or Problem?”

MEXICO: Dr. Lois Meyer, linguist and professor, School of Education, University of New Mexico, and author of the book New World of Indigenous Resistance, will explore the effects of globalization on indigenous resistance movements in Mexico and the Americas.

The Symposium, which takes place at St. John's College in Santa Fe, opens at 2:00 on Monday, April 16 with registration, the presentations on Europe and a welcome reception. The Symposium resumes with morning and afternoon sessions on Tuesday, April 17.  Admission fee of $65 for members and $80 for non-members includes the welcome reception, morning pastries, lunch, coffee/tea and refreshments.

St. John’s College, the University of New Mexico Latin American and Iberian Institute,  the Albuquerque Council for International Visitors, the International Studies Institute (ISI) at the University of New Mexico, the Albuquerque Committee on Foreign Relations (ACFR) and the  the New Mexico Chapter of the Fulbright Associationare are partner organizations for this symposium.

TO REGISTER:  Send an email to waforum@gmail.com and include your organizational affiliation.  You may pay with your credit card using our Paypal account. You can access Paypal directly by clicking on this link or send your check to The Santa Fe World Affairs Forum, PO Box 31965, Santa Fe. NM,87594.  Checks should be made out to The Santa Fe World Affairs Forum.  To help keep our records straight please note on your check that it is for the April 16-17 Symposium.  If you are a member of a cosponsoring or partner organization which makes you eligible for member rates please also so note. Your payment guarantees you a place, but it is non-refundable after Tuesday, April 10 if you are unable to attend.  Reservations will be taken on a first come, first serve basis.

It is also possible to register only for the Monday session about Europe ($40) or the longer Tuesday session about China, Russia and Mexico ($50).

For information on Santa Fe accommodations please click here for the link to the Santa Fe Convention Bureau's listings.

For additional symposium information, please e-mail us at waforum@gmail.com

 

SYRIA: WHY RUSSIA AND CHINA ARE APPLYING THE BRAKES

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

From any normal human point of view, the disinclination of Russia and China to enthusiastically join efforts to restrain Bashar Assad from his slaughter fest is incomprehensible.  So far as I can tell, not even the most horrified foreign leaders are eager to put boots on the ground or even to provide the degree of assistance that Libyan rebels received, but China and Russia are not ready for serious jaw-boning, either. Nor have they joined the chorus suggesting that Assad and his family might seek a cozy retirement site. If recently leaked emails are authentic, the Assads would settle for nothing less than world class luxury aka life among the global 1%.  Bribing the unjust with chateaux leaves a very bad taste in the mouth, but it’s a time honored way to dislodge tyrants with minimal loss of life.

Meanwhile, what a bonus for the enablers!  While supporting a brutal dictatorship, China and Russia  masquerade as global  good citizens upholding long understood principles of international law.

Yes, a state is allowed to protect itself from most civil unrest and to defend itself from external threat. But only up to a point, in each case. 

The Assad regime claims to be restoring peace and stability by neutralizing “armed gangs” beholden to outside forces. When restoring order requires the scale of destruction we’ve seen in Homs, including day-after-day blanket shelling of residential areas followed by the systematic house-to-house slaughter of survivors, it’s probably safe to say the regime  has lost its legitimacy.  At this point what’s labeled unrest more closely resembles revolution, To date, in Syria, nearly 10,000 people have been killed, and yet unarmed civilians continue to take to the streets in their thousands at the risk of being picked off by snipers stationed on roof tops. Individual soldiers and even whole units of the army have joined the rebels.  So have some high ranking officers and even a minister in the Assad government.  It seems a shame that many more people will have to die before Bashar finally admits that his day at the top is over.

Yes, external meddling in the internal affairs of a country is normally to be deplored and resisted.  The sovereignty argument has always made considerable sense because international neighbors, if bigger and stronger, tend to be greedy and aggressive. So it might be argued that China and Russia are taking the high road in respecting Syria’s sovereignty.  However, the genocides and other brutalities of the twentieth century have given rise to an important sovereignty-trumping principle. It is known as the “responsibility to protect,” which means that rulers do not have carte blanche in terrorizing their own citizens. When external interference prevents internal massacre, it is not judged to be a classic invasion of sovereignty. The Assad regime, it would seem, has set itself up for some meddling, to put it mildly.

Unfortunately for the rebels, Syria is not Libya.  Syria is a heavily populated country.  It is well institutionalized and the regime controls all subordinate centers of power, including a very large army officered  by members of the minority Alowite sect to which the Assads belong.  

This brings us to the problem of minorities in Syria, most of whom, it's argued, continue to support the secular-minded  Assad regime.  Syrian Christians have no doubt noted that the Coptics in Egypt fared better under Mubarak than they seem to be doing now.  Alowites may fear the sort of retalitory maltreatment that Sunnis are presently suffering in Iraq.  The Asad regime may be brutal, but it is an equal opportunity oppressor, which is a grudging way of recognizing its relative tolerance for minorities.  The U.S. Constitution's  Bill of Rights protects minorities from the tyrrany of the majority.  As the aftermath of the Arab spring indicates, tolerance doesn't always come automatically with democracy.

Minorities' not unfounded fear of repression gives some altruistic cover to the Chinese and Russian tenderness toward the Assad regime, but other motives for their behavior are no doubt more persuasive.  Neither country is governed by figures who find it convenient to respect the will of the people.  Russia’s Vladimir Putin maintains his hold on power by manipulating elections, curbing the media, jailing opponents and breaking up demonstrations before they get too large and enthusiastic.  China tolerates absolutely no debate or street activity at all.  What’s more, both regimes rigorously suppress the political and cultural demands of their ethnic and religious minorities, especially those who happen to form majorities in ancestral territories with historic claims to independence.  Like Homs, Chechnya was ravaged to keep it Russian; brutality keeps it Russian.  Suppression of protest over cultural genocide in Tibet is so complete that an increasing number of monks have resorted to setting themslves aflame, although Tibetan Buddhism does not encourage such acts.  Meanwhile, Beijing floods Tibet with Han Chinese in order to reduce Tibetans to a minority in what was once their own country.  (The Soviets did the same in the Baltic states, which has led to many complications for the post-Communist governments in those countries.) 

Freedom of speech?  Freedom of assembly?  Freedom to chose one’s leadership in free and fair elections? Syrians want these freedoms.  If China and Russia acknowledge the validity of Syrians’ desires, how can they continue to deny them to the people within their own national boundaries?

The Ambassador Effect

By Patricia H. Kushlis

I have been having an ongoing e-mail conversation about whether and what kind of influence the US and Western Europe can and should have on the political situation in Russia in view of the recent anti-government demonstrations protesting Putin’s cavalier changing places announcement last September and the well-documented and blatant electoral fraud in the December 4 parliamentary elections which was employed – almost Soviet style - to maintain his party in power.   

No, this was not a send-in-the-NATO-tanks-as-Putin-plays-hardball-with-the-Russian-political-opposition sort of conversation.  It was more about moral suasion and whether the new US Ambassador can have a positive influence on Russian internal politics at a time when the situation is more fluid than at any other period since 1991 only this time with Putin and his henchmen assuming the roles of the drunken coup-makers of twenty years ago.

What sort of influence can an Ambassador have on another country’s internal affairs – if at all?  This is what the tough and broader question boils down to.  Or should a US Ambassador in a country like Russia, China or even Syria confine his or her activities to dealing with the government in power as the best way to represent this country’s interests. 

There’s been a fair amount of play in the US news media and American academia about soft power and the importance of an Ambassador’s role as the country’s chief public face or public diplomacy representative and what sort of message that individual sends or should send to the people and the government of the country to which he or she is accredited.

The Eurozone, the West’s Kobayashi Maru

By John C. Dyer, UK Correspondent

I suffer from writer’s block recently. It is not the lack of subject matter. It is the abundance and complexity of stories with momentous stakes. I struggle to portray any one in less than a book composed of sentences that defy fog quotient.

The biggest news maker among them is the Eurozone.  Once again markets and leaders within and without the Eurozone pile pressure on Germany and France in advance of a scheduled meeting of Eurozone leaders later this week.   Leaders and analysts declare as if from script “only 7 days to save the Euro” (a reference to the upcoming meeting), just as leaders and analysts declared a couple months back “only 6 weeks to save the Euro” prior to the last meeting. That meeting failed to achieve what the analysts and leaders advocated.   Angela Merkel warned not to expect anything quick, but the pressure mounts.

How an amorphous “market” can form a script I must leave to historians and conspiracy buffs. But whether orchestrated or spontaneous, the markets ratcheted up rhetoric and interest rates on sovereign debt. Reporters from BBC to Reuters interpreted this as a signal that “the markets” want a “credible” plan and mechanism to “finally, once and for all, restore confidence.” That plan and mechanism is fiscal union with a “big bazooka” bailout fund, coupled with “austerity” or, alternatively phrased, “fiscal discipline.”

On 5 December German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicholas Sarcozy announced the measures they will propose to the other members at Friday’s meeting. Simply because they propose these measures does not mean they will be adopted or the only measures that are adopted.  But, the measures proposed do not appear to offer a “big bazooka.”  The translation job was difficult to follow, but the following measures appeared to be agreed by the two figures: 

• A New Treaty between 17 Eurozone members, not 27 European members.

• Future changes to require only 85% approval of 17 instead of 100% of 27.

• Deficits capped at 3% of GDP.

• Constitutional changes in each country to require balanced budgets in the future.

• Unspecified sanctions for failure to balance to the figure.

• Sanctions NOT administered by European Court.

• NO Euro Bonds.

• NO Big Bazooka (large bailout fund). Unspecified sized EMF fund.

• But also, NO further "controlled defaults" ala Greece.

• European Central Bank (ECB) will be encouraged to act but not required.
  

The stakes are high.

Economists differ on the value of austerity, the big bazooka, and fiscal union. But there is an almost universal consensus that the Eurozone has a serious problem that, if it remains unsolved, may collapse the economies of the Zone.  Such a collapse would also threaten, in order of immediacy, the economies of the UK and the US, and even have a knock on effect in China and India.

When the Symbol is the Message – Clinton, Obama and the South China Sea

By Patricia H. Kushlis

On November 16, 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke from the deck of a destroyer, the USS Fitzgerald, in Manila Bay.  She delivered America’s message in Philippine waters docked next to the capital’s shore - the gist of which included a not-so-veiled warning to the Chinese military to play by international rules and keep paws off the barren islands and rich resources resting under the surface of the South China Sea in territory claimed by four other Asian countries in addition to China.  

While there have been decades-old overlapping territorial claims among the five (Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, the Philippines and China), China is the single protagonist to have staked out the South China Sea as its own bathtub, a position which runs counter to the US policy of freedom of navigation, the international Law of the Sea Convention, and America’s own economic and trade interests in the region. 

In a press conference in Canberra on the same day, President Barack Obama and Australian Prime Minister Gillard announced the intent to rotate units of US Marines on Australian bases for training and exercises as well to increase US military flights out of Australian airfields along the country’s north coast. The six month rotations there are to begin the middle of 2012 with 250 US Marines ultimately increasing to as many as 2,500.

Obama and Clinton then moved on to the East Asian Summit in Bali where all but the leaders of three ASEAN countries spoke in support of the US position on the South China Sea.  The strongest statements came from the Philippines, Vietnam and Singapore. 

The photos tell the story

Clinton’s visit to Manila commemorated the 60^th Anniversary of the signing of the bilateral US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty.  That the ceremony was held on a US warship suggested in and of itself a made-for-media story with high profile visuals oozing with historical symbolism.   In essence the evocative photos told the story – the contents of the speech were almost secondary. 

Put those visuals next to photos of General Douglas MacArthur’s famous farewell “I shall return” declaration uttered upon departure after President Roosevelt ordered him to leave Corregidor Island in March 11, 1942 in the face of an overwhelming Japanese military invasion of the Islands.

Add in the pictures from 1898 when the US Navy steamed into Manila Bay and took the Philippines by force from the Spanish as an almost forgotten part of the Spanish-American War which otherwise focused on the battles of the Caribbean brought on by the Hearst media empire’s yellow journalism of the day.  

Yes, there were some 50-70 protestors in Manila who objected to Clinton’s presence last week – but in reality their numbers were negligible in comparison with the mass protests that have rocked Manila in the past.

South China Sea Policy Change

US policy towards the South China Sea changed over a year ago after the Vietnamese and Filipino governments objected to a new Chinese assertiveness in these long disputed waters. Both Southeast Asian governments voiced objections and turned to the US for support.  That the US demonstrated this support so visibly and at such high levels was not missed by any of the parties involved.  It also provoked – as likely expected – an angry retort from the Chinese.

The Filipinos understood the symbols; the Chinese got the message

The photos of Secretary Clinton speaking from the deck of a US warship in the harbor of its former colony surrounded by Filipino military brass in itself spoke volumes.

Combine Clinton’s speech with Obama’s nearly simultaneously timed press conference in Australia in which he also reiterated that the US had abandoned neither its interests nor its allies in Southeast Asia and Australia. In fact he stressed that the US would up its presence in this immensely vibrant economic part of the globe as the US military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan finally winds down.

Unlike the controversial and often negative reception to actions of previous American governments in decades past, however, the US defense presence this time around was solicited by the Southeast Asians and the Australians to help the region counter-balance an increasingly powerful China.

For the most part and until quite recently, the Chinese have almost exclusively focused on building trade and aid relations with their southern neighbors – approaches designed to win friends and positively influence the neighbors. This has included the signing of CAFTA or the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area agreement in 2010 as well as financing infrastructure development projects in Southeast Asia’s poorer parts over a number of years.

Yet, as with any large power on the ascendancy and especially one located nearby, the smaller neighbors prefer not to catch pneumonia if and when the elephant or the lion sneezes.  Furthermore, their sense of unique cultural and historic identities in this colorful part of globe combines with their singularly strong aversion to colonialism and vassaldom that come to the fore whenever a large beast stirs.   

Previous WV posts on this topic by Patricia H. Kushlis:

The US, China and the South China Sea - What's Changed?  July 2010