Continuation...
Afghanistan – A fluid Geopolitical Chessboard
Dictatorships are Bad - Sri Lanka and China
The Chip - Geopolitical Implications
Afghanistan - Back to Square One
Cyber Security - Issue on Anvil
India China Clash – Testing Times
India China clash - Collateral Damage
Coronavirus I - The Show Stopper
At the eve of the pullout of US troops from Afghanistan some US leaders had said that this was done partly to stem the war fatigue of twenty years, and get the boys back home. Also, one of the reasons was that America will be better able to allocate resources to the Indo-Pacific in view of the threat posed by the Chinese aggression in the South China Sea and elsewhere.
It was getting
quite obvious that the US was not making any headway in Afghanistan. Pakistan’s
complicity was neutralizing the effectiveness of America’s war on terror.
Meanwhile the first decade of the new century saw the rise of an aggressive China.
America now felt it could get mired in Afghanistan when it needs to focus its
attention in South Asia.
The AUKUS is ample proof for the US Afghanistan is to be a side show, to be closely monitored. The focus has now shifted to South Asia and particularly China.
The Obama administration was more accommodating of
Chinese demands and gave ground especially in the South China Sea. The Chinese
took advantage and built their bases in the Spratly and Paracel islands.
However, when Trump came to power things changed and the Chinese began to face
headwinds to their geopolitical ambitions.
They were denied technology due to their intellectual
property theft and companies like Huawei were banned by many countries from
participating their tenders.
AUKUS oddly as it is named, (Australia, United Kingdom, US) is completely focused on China and the Indo-Pacific. America wants to stay as the preeminent power in the world for the foreseeable future. The only way it can do this is by countering China. And AUKUS will do just that.
The older alliances like Five Eyes, ANZAC, ANZUS, NATO would not have helped. The EU has been reluctant to act against China for obvious reasons. Trade and commerce not being the least of them. Europe has vested interests in China which cannot be wished away. Canada and New Zealand are also not willing to take on China with full commitment as that would be contrary to their national interests.
Australia is a signatory to the NPT and has eschewed nuclear power. The US will however give nuclear powered submarines to Australia, not nuclear armed. This is the difference. This means the NPT is not so sacrosanct anymore. US national interest has thrown the treaty out of the door. Countries like India can now acquire nuclear technology denied to them earlier.
Moreover, post Brexit, the UK has no obligations towards the European Union. It
can now formulate its own foreign policy. That is why it has signed on as a
partner.
China wants to punish Australia for demanding an investigation into the
possible Corona virus origin in Wuhan city and for cancelling some proposed Chinese projects in Australia which were unviable.
Australia has been a very reliable partner for the US
for a long time since the cold war times. So much so that Australia did not hesitate to cancel a
submarine contract with France worth thirty billion dollars as the US offered it nuclear submarines. Tactically, as well as strategically, the
Australian nuclear submarines, when deployed, are going to be an additional
headache for China. They will bolster Australian power in the Indo Pacific and as a consequence, US power indirectly.
What about the Quad? The Quad will exist side by side
with the AUKUS. The Quad it seems, has a wider objective. Besides the military
aspect, it also has a economic side. Low-cost vaccine doses have already been
distributed to some of the countries in South East Asian countries under the Covax agreement. Also, India
will be manufacturing the Johnson and Johnson vaccine which will be given to
these countries by 2022. Supply chain diversification will be pursued to reduce over-dependence on China with other allies in the Indo-Pacific.
The withdrawal of the US from Afghanistan has opened a Pandora’s box in this part of the world and soon the creepy crawlies may spread in other parts of the world. The process may have already started.
It would not have made any difference if America had remained
in Afghanistan for a few more years. As long as the US was there, the Taliban
and other terrorist factions would have kept a low profile for fear of US
reprisals. Albeit, under Pakistan’s protection. But now that the US is gone,
the Taliban consider themselves free to rule Afghanistan.
The Taliban for all its ideology is not a homogenous
organization. It has the ISIS, the Haqqanis, the TTP, etc. Moreover, it has
some links with the LeT and the JeM which are predominantly Pakistani networks
instituted and backed by the ISI. It is said by experts that the Taliban’s
ideology is all about power and not about religion. But it is expected that
dilution of the ideology will create factions like the ISIS Khorasan which will
pursue a more fundamental version of Islam.
We have to see what the Chinese are after in this
scenario. The CCP in China as a matter of policy has the objective of uprooting
Islam from China. This Sinification of Islam is being carried out
systematically since Xi Jinping took over as the supreme leader. The CCP is
concerned that the Taliban could harbor the ETIM (East Turkmenistan Islamic
Movement) which has started fomenting trouble in the Xinjiang province against
Chinese persecution of Muslims.
Also, with the CPEC not making any progress in
Pakistan, the Chinese are now viewing Afghanistan as the new ground for
development of their Belt and Road Project. All this will need stability which
as yet has proved elusive. Whether or not the Taliban are able to reign in
their various factions, remains to be seen. The ISIS Khorasan has already shown
they will not follow the Taliban dictates. Whether ETIM does the same, only
time will tell.
A big contradiction here is that Taliban has said that
China – despite the cultural genocide of Muslims - is their best friend. This
can only mean that China will provide monetary aid to the Taliban and
particularly its leadership. China will also invest in Afghanistan. It has
already signed a MoU with the Taliban to exploit a copper mine.
Pakistan is also playing its own game in this
imbroglio. The political establishment in Pakistan revels in the fact that the
US has left. Pakistan wants to control the Taliban as much as they can. and get
them to do Pakistan’s bidding.
Already, there is a rumour of ’Panjshir for Kashmir’.
Pakistan will help the Taliban capture Panjshir from Amrullah Saleh, and in
return Talban will deliver Kashmir to Pakistan.
Meanwhile, the US has finally woken up to the fact
that Pakistan was playing a double game with them all through their occupation
of Afghanistan. How the US will punish the Pakistanis remains to be seen. But
Pakistan may now face US ire.
One small piece of news is intriguing in all this
clutter. There is talk of Afghanistan being divided on the ground of religious
factions. Some of the Northern provinces dominated by the Tajiks could separate
themselves from the Pashtuns who are in the South.
Another opinion which has hardly been voiced by any of the analysts is that the US left Afghanistan to concentrate on a rising China, but also have now cut its losses. After spending two trillion dollars, the US left the Afghanistan mess for its neighbours. Iran, China, Russia, the CIS countries, all had benefitted from US occupation of Afghanistan. The region was secure for the last twenty years and America was spending for it. But now this mess will be inherited by the all the countries who share a border with Afghanistan. Suddently the spectre of terrorism has raised its head for Afghanistan's immediate neighbours.
This is how the geopolitical chessboard looks like in the aftermath of the US departure from Afghanistan. It will be a hazardous task to predict an outcome of this game. However, there could be a spillover of the unrest in Afghanistan to areas like Kashmir, Xinjiang, and even Russia. Of course, Europe, the US and the rest of the world are no less vulnerable. The terror graph could see a spike in the days to come.
While the world, and especially India is pre-occupied with
the onset of the third wave of the corona pandemic, a piece of news from the
neighborhood has not got the attention it deserves.
It is about the crisis in Sri Lanka. It is a classic example
of how political concentration of power really throws a well-run economic
system into chaos. This has happened in the twenty first century. Dictatorships
were popular in the nineteenth and especially early twentieth century. Dictators really do not learn from their mistakes.
By and large dictatorships are a thing of the past, though
some are still going strong. The CCP in China, Kim Jong Un in North Korea, and
recently Gotabaya Rajapaksa Sri Lanka. The Singaporean dictatorship will have
to be excused from this list as it is not your run of the mill system. Lee took decisions which benefitted Singapore. One more benevolent dictator is the Sheikh of Dubai. There could be more such examples. However, as a rule dictatorships have been disastrous for their country.
From the nineties after the end of the civil war, Sri Lanka
was one of the fastest growing economies in Asia. It has a small population,
about 2 crore, and had a booming tourism industry. It was the largest producer
and exporter of Cinnamon in the world. It had robust exports of tea and
cardamom as well.
When Gotabaya Rajapaksa came to power in November 2019 Sri
Lanka was doing fine on the economic front. It had one of the best health care
systems in Asia. Tourism was the main source of foreign exchange with agriculture exports to back it up.
But President Rajapaksa is almost like a dictator in Sri Lanka today; (He was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Sri Lankan army). Though he is an elected member of the parliament, his election is suspect. In the best of times elections in Sri Lanka. especially the presidential ones are dicey to say the least.
This
President made a disastrous decision some time back of only allowing organic
farming. All pesticides and chemical fertilizers were banned. As a result crops
began to fail. Lack of chemical fertilizers reduced crop resistance to disease
and were ruined by insects and pests. As pesticides were banned, crops were destroyed
by pests. Being a small economy this quickly affected the entire country.
Typical of a dictatorship, instead of mitigating the crisis,
fuel was added to the fire. A disastrous solution was proposed by the
agricultural ministry, that of supplying organic compost. If there is no animal
feed, where is the compost going to come from?
The Rajapaksa family is heavily backed up by the CCP. The Sri Lankan leadership was so biased against India, that Sri Lanka did not even appoint an ambassador to India. Sri Lanka imported fertilizer from China for use in its agriculture. Certain harmful bacteria were found in the consignment. Sri Lanka then asked India to supply the fertilizer which India promptly did. Thus, now Sri Lanka's relations with China have come under a strain as Sri Lanka stopped payment for the fertilizer and in retaliation China blacklisted one of Sri Lanka's banks.
So Sri Lanka stands on the threshold of a massive food
crisis. A smoothly running economy was punctured and taken to the brink by the
whims of a dictator. Rajapaksa is propped up by the Chinese. He comes from the
Hambantota area. The port by the same
name had to be leased to the Chinese for 99 years to offset massive development
loans.
China has also shown how dictatorships can ruin a country. For decades Chinese economy grew at almost 10% per year. After the pandemic, some fault lines are becoming clear. It seems, there is only one avenue for the common man to invest in China. Real Estate. Almost 30% of the Chinese savings are in real estate. The common man in China does not trust the money market as it is considered too erratic and subject to sudden changes in government regulations. Real Estate companies took huge loans when the economy was booming during the last twenty years to expand business. Now that the economy has slowed down, these companies are saddled with huge debt.
Also the Chinese government promoted high-speed railways to showcase Chinese technological prowess. The railway projects were implemented with total disregard for economic viability. Bonds were floated to raise the money to fund the projects. Today China may have one of the best high-speed railway networks after Japan, but is again saddled with a huge debt. Most of the railway routes have become unviable. The single party dictatorship is responsible for the above fiascos.
Mao had ruined Chinese agriculture by nationalizing all private farming. The communal farm system was a disaster. When private incentive was taken away, output plummeted. The farmers stopped working when they were made to work on their own farms for a pittance paid by the government.
Dictatorships are bad as their political structure favours concentration of power. Concentration of power means there is little or no opposition to the leadership. No one questions the decisions of the ruling elite for fear of reprisals. The
result is, more often than not, wrong decisions are taken and implemented. If the economy is doing well, the dictator will be a powerful leader. However, if the people face economic hardships, the dictator quickly looses power as there is no alternative of electing another leader, as in a democracy. In bad times, the fall of a dictator is almost assured with the resulting political instability.
China's covid vaccine efficacy is also under question as according to recent news reports China is witnessing a spike in covid cases in spite of most of its population being vaccinated. The CCP wanted China to be the first country to produce the covid vaccine and hence relaxed quality control and comprehensive testing. Not buying Australian coal to punish Australia was another short sighted decision of the CCP. China is facing a big power crunch as a result.
History is replete with examples where dictators have forced disastrous decisions on their people and ruined the economies and social systems in their country. Sri Lanka and China are prime examples of how dictatorships are inherently bad political systems.
The semiconductor chip shortage faced by the world industry today can be traced back to the peculiar circumstances in which this industry developed. Of course the immediate reason for the shortage is the pandemic still blowing in the world.
The technology required to manufacture silicon chips is
extremely complex. As a result, not many companies can boast of harnessing this
technology. The USA of course has the lead. The company which started chip
manufacturing was Intel and it is one of the few companies which makes them
even today.
Among the few companies which are making semiconductor chips
today, are Intel, Samsung, TSM, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Micron, Texas Instruments
and Nvidia. These companies among themselves share the semiconductor market of
the world. There are other small players as well. A few years after the
semiconductor chip was invented, Intel had a virtual monopoly in manufacturing
and supply of chips worldwide. But later Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Nvidia
developed their own technology and became major players themselves.
In the late eighties and nineties the manufacturing of chips
was outsourced to the Taiwanese company TSM. TSM recognizing the importance of
the chip to the world industry had, over the decade between eighties and
nineties, developed its own technology to manufacture semiconductors.
Today it is one of the largest manufacturers of
semiconductors in the world. The chip may be designed by any of the above
mentioned companies. However, chances are, it will be outsourced for manufacture
to TSM. This company now supplies custom made chips to most of the industries
of the world. Since electronics are used in almost all the devices one uses
today, the chip has become an indispensable part of any gadget, from a wrist
watch to an airliner.
The pandemic created the shortage of chips as factories
closed down and production suffered. Enter China. China claims Taiwan as its integral
part. However, Taiwan’s prowess in manufacturing semiconductor chips has been
eyed by China for many years. With the integration of Taiwan, Beijing will get
the knowhow to make advanced chips. Its own efforts in this field have not been
so successful. Chips manufactured in China are several generations old compared
to the ones designed by the big chip companies today and outsourced to TSM for
manufacturing.
Massive investments by China in this field have not yielded
them much in terms of success. This is an incredibly complex technology and
most of it is controlled by the US. The recent ban on Huawei by the US has
caused a big problem for Huawei and China, as it could not get the latest chips
for its products.
The advanced machines to design and manufacture the chips
are not easily available on the market. The US owns most of the patents on that
technology as well. Moreover, no manufacturer will share such a lucrative
knowhow, so the only way China or any country can hope to make their own chips
is by research. This not easy, and is very expensive.
The chip war has only started, The US will zealously guard
its technology and China more than any other country, will try its best to
acquire it by hook or by crook. Also, it is worth noting that China has not
been able to hack or reverse engineer this technology due to its sheer
complexity.
