Ambassador TS Tirumurti receives Dr S. Jaishankar in New York (Photo @ambtstirumurti)
Foreign Minister is expected to meet UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in New York and later he will hold discussions with his counterpart Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington DC, reports Asian Lite News
External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar on Monday landed in New York, as part of his US visit, to meet with senior United States officials, and discuss COVID-related cooperation between the two countries.
Ambassador of India to the UN TS Tirumurti received EAM Jaishankar on his first visit to New York after India entered the UN Security Council.
“Privilege to receive External Affairs Minister @DrSJaishankar on his first visit to New York after #India entered the UN #SecurityCouncil on 1 January 2021,” Ambassador Tirumurti tweeted.
Jaishankar’s US visit is slated to last till May 28, the External Affairs Ministry said last week.
The Foreign Minister is expected to meet UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in New York and later he will hold discussions with his counterpart Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington DC, the ministry said.
He will also be meeting Cabinet members and Senior Officials of the Administration dealing with the bilateral relationship. “External Affairs Minister will have two interactions with business forums on economic and COVID-related cooperation between India and the US,” said the ministry statement.
India is engaged in talks with various US entities involved in Covid vaccines production and is looking forward to procuring and subsequently producing these vaccines. The issue of vaccine procurement is expected to be a key agenda item during Jaishankar’s interaction with US leadership and other stakeholders.
The US has already announced that it is going to distribute 80 million vaccines from its stockpile to countries in need.
With India hit badly by the second Covid wave, efforts of New Delhi will focus on getting the maximum and also looking for tie-ups with vaccine developers to produce in India.
US has a stockpile 60 million Astra Zeneca vaccine doses and also Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines.
US is playing a lead role in assisting India’s fight against the COVID-19 virus. It has already provided large oxygen plants, concentrators, critical medicines like Remdesivir and also raw materials for vaccine manufacturer Serum Institute of India (SII), which is manufacturing Covishield.
US is also backing India sponsored proposal on TRIPS waiver at the WTO.
The TRIPS waiver aims to increase global vaccine production in order to take on the challenge of vaccinating the poorest of the poor and save lives.
In October last year, India and South Africa, along with 57 members of WTO proposed a waiver from certain provisions of the TRIPS agreement for prevention, containment, and treatment of the coronavirus. EAM Jaishankar met his US counterpart Antony Blinken in early May in London during G7 Foreign Minister’s meeting.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the Biden administration’s top medical adviser recently said that it is imperative for India to collaborate with other countries, and companies to ramp up its vaccine production capability to vaccinate country’s huge population against COVID-19.
Calling India as one of the best vaccine producer in the world, the leading American infectious disease expert said,”It’s a very very large country with a population of about 1.4 billion people, you only have a couple of percentage of the people who are fully vaccinated and over about 10 per cent or so that have at least one dose so you’ve got to work out arrangements with other countries, other companies at the same time as ramping up your own capability of making vaccines because as we all know, India is one of the best if not the biggest vaccine producer in the world.”
As several countries have announced support for India’s response to a devastating second wave of coronavirus infections that has hit healthcare facilities across the country, Dr Fauci told ANI in an exclusive interview: “There was the immediate issue that needs to be addressed as taking care of the people that are already infected. Getting better supplies of oxygen, oxygen cylinders, oxygen generators, PPEs, therapies like Remdesivir and things like that; the things that the US has helped with, but then probably in the intermediate and long run, you’ve got to figure out a way how to get as many vaccinations, administered to the people of India as possible.”
Noting that the B.1.617 mutant first detected in India has been found in over 40 countries including the US, he said, “in the ongoing crisis, the rich countries have a moral responsibility to assist those countries that don’t have the capability of doing that, particularly the low and middle-income countries.” (ANI)
China’s actions pose serious risks to privacy and national security, according to a National Counter-Intelligence and Security Center February 1 fact sheet…reports Asian Lite News
Senator for Florida, Marco Rubio has introduced two bills to counter China’s efforts to collect healthcare and genomics data both legally and illegally. For years, Beijing has collected vast amounts of health care data in the United States through illegal methods (for example, cyber hacking), investments in American biotech companies, and partnerships with hospitals and universities to access sensitive information.
China’s actions pose serious risks to privacy and national security, according to a National Counter-Intelligence and Security Center February 1 fact sheet. Rubio on Thursday introduced the Genomics Expenditure and Enhancement of National Security Act and the Genomic Data Security Act.
“There is no reason for US taxpayers to fund Beijing research or for our policies to allow access to US genomic data,” Rubio said in a statement. “It is imperative that Congress take action to address this growing threat to national security and privacy,” the US Senator said. The GENE Act, co-sponsored by Senator John Cornyn, R-Texas, would require the Special Senate Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to be included in the briefings of the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States.
The official release mentioned that the GENE Act would also order The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to rewrite its regulations to require mandatory filing for any deal involving a company working with genetic information, Rubio’s office said. The law would require that the Department of Health and Social Services be consulted on any transaction involving a transaction of DNA data.
XI CHINA
Rubio’s second bill seeks to prevent any entity with direct ties to the Chinese government from receiving funding from the National Institutes of Health. Each Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments Act certificate would be required to specify whether a company with access to Americans’ health data is directly related to the Chinese Communist government.
The Act also requires that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) be consulted on any deal that involves a genetic data transaction — this will increase cross-agency awareness of transactions of concern. Genomic data can also be used to target individuals for intelligence and military operations.
The report also said that Americans’ genomic information is particularly valuable to China because of the ethnic diversity of the American population. Varied data sets are more useful in research to identify genetic diseases. The Chinese government last year passed laws severely limiting the ability of foreign companies to access the biological data of its people.
According to the official release, the Genomics Data Security act would help modernize the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) approach to national security by requiring that the NIH prioritize national security considerations when developing and executing their NIH-Wide Strategic Plan. It would further prohibit any NIH funding from going to support entities with direct ties to the Government of the People’s Republic of China.
The legislation will update licensure requirements to account for national security considerations. The bill would require that every Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments Act certificate specify if a company with access to Americans’ health data is directly tied to the Government of the People’s Republic of China. The Genomics Data Security Act will require that the NIH report to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence an annual accounting on the status of ongoing investigations into ties to foreign governments that are not properly disclosed, vetted, and approved with researchers funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health.
The Bill will require an update to the NIH’s Genomic Data Sharing Policy and convene a working group across federal, private, and academic entities to develop and disseminate best practices to ensure that research institutions are better able to navigate and address national security risks with regard to data-sharing.
Former military analyst Ellsberg posted online the classified portion of a top-secret document on the crisis that had been only partially declassified in 1975, reports Asian Lite News
US military planners pushed for nuclear strikes on mainland China in 1958 to protect Taiwan from an invasion by Communist forces, classified documents posted online by Daniel Ellsberg of “Pentagon Papers” fame show.
US planners also assumed that the Soviet Union would aid China and retaliate with nuclear weapons — a price they deemed worth paying to protect Taiwan, according to the document, first reported by the New York Times.
Former military analyst Ellsberg posted online the classified portion of a top-secret document on the crisis that had been only partially declassified in 1975.
Ellsberg, now 90, is famous for his 1971 leak to US media of a top-secret Pentagon study on the Vietnam war known as the Pentagon Papers.
Ellsberg told the Times that he copied the top-secret Taiwan crisis study in the early 1970s, and is releasing it as tensions mount between the United States and China over Taiwan.
Had an invasion taken place, General Nathan Twining, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, “made it clear that the United States would have used nuclear weapons against Chinese air bases to prevent a successful air interdiction campaign,” the document’s authors wrote.
If this did not stop an invasion, then there was “no alternative but to conduct nuclear strikes deep into China as far north as Shanghai,” the document said, paraphrasing Twining.
In the event, US president Dwight D. Eisenhower decided to rely initially on conventional weapons.
The 1958 crisis ended when Communist forces halted artillery strikes on islands controlled by Taiwan, leaving the area under the control of Nationalist forces under Chiang Kai-shek.
China considers Taiwan to be a rebel province that will one day return to the mainland’s fold, by force if necessary.
Washington has recognized Beijing since 1979, but maintains relations with Taipei and is its most important military ally.
The United States also frequently conducts what it calls “freedom of navigation” operations in the flashpoint Taiwan Strait waterway.
President Joe Biden is expected to announce his strategy toward China soon, and calls are growing for him to make a clear public commitment to defend Taiwan militarily.
A US law requires Washington to help the island defend itself in the event of a conflict, but the United States has pursued a policy of “strategic ambiguity” for decades, refraining from clearly stating what circumstances would lead it to intervene militarily on Taiwan’s behalf.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov(Twitter)
During their discussion held on the sidelines of the Arctic Council meeting in Reykjavik, Lavrov and Blinken expressed willingness to cooperate but also admitted “serious differences” amid the two countries’ tense relations, reports Asian Lite News
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that he had “very frank” talks with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during their first-ever meeting earlier this week in Iceland.
Addressing reporters here on Friday, Lavrov said Blinken listened attentively after accusing Russia of interfering in the US presidential elections and launching cyber attacks on important systems.
The US side provided no evidence to prove these charges, he said.
During their discussion held on the sidelines of the Arctic Council meeting in Reykjavik, Lavrov and Blinken expressed willingness to cooperate but also admitted “serious differences” amid the two countries’ tense relations.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a briefing on Friday that Russian and Us diplomats are making efforts to mend bilateral relations.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Iceland.(pic credit: https://twitter.com/SecBlinken)
He said that mutual understanding between scientists, technologists, students and visionaries can become “the foundation for normalising ties”.
Wednesday’s meeting was the first between a member of US President Joe Biden’s administration and a high-ranking Russian official.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden has suggested a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladmir Putin in a third country at a summit, but it is unclear whether the latter will accept the invitation.
US-Russia ties have nose-dived over Washington’s allegations of election interference and cyberattacks, the treatment of Navalny and the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
The two sides have imposed a wave of sanctions and counter-sanctions.
Only 22 per cent of African-Americans have received a shot, and the rates still trail those of Whites in almost every state…reports Asian Lite News
Months into the US’ Covid-19 inoculation campaign, African-Americans’ vaccination rates are still lagging behind, while Hispanics are closing the gap and Native Americans show the highest rates overall, latest federal data has revealed.
Only 22 per cent of African-Americans have received a shot, and the rates still trail those of Whites in almost every state, according to the data obtained and released on Thursday by Kaiser Health News from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The data revealed a sweeping national look at the race and ethnicity of vaccinated people on a state-by-state basis, reports Xinhua news agency.
Targeted efforts have raised vaccination rates among other minority groups.
People head to the entrance of a mass COVID-19 vaccination site at the United Center in Chicago, the United States,
Hispanics in eight states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are now vaccinated at higher rates than non-Hispanic Whites.
Yet 29 per cent of Hispanics are vaccinated nationally, compared with 33 per cent of Whites, according to the data.
While 45 per cent of Native Americans have received at least one dose, stark differences exist depending on where they live, and Asian vaccination rates are high in most states, with 41 per cent getting a shot.
“The analysis underscores how vaccine disparities have improved as availability has opened up and (Joe) Biden administration officials have attempted to prioritize equitable distribution.
“Still, gaps persist even as minority groups have suffered much higher mortality rates from the pandemic than Whites and are at risk of infection as states move to reopen and lift mask mandates,” CNN said in a report on Thursday citing the figures and rates.
Currently, some 47.9 per cent of Americans have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, according to official figures.
The government has set a goal to have 70 per cent of Americans get at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine before July 4.
Mike Pompeo said China “covered up” the origins of COVID-19 and that evidence continues to mount despite their efforts to deny access to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, reports Asian Lite News
The evidence suggests that the coronavirus originated from the lab in Wuhan city of China, said former US Secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, adding that the risk of bioweapons and bioterror arising from the region is “very real”.
Pompeo told Fox News that the Chinese Communist Party “covered up” the origins of COVID-19 and that evidence continues to mount despite their efforts to deny access to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“We worked to get every bit of evidence that we could, we tried to deliver this to the CDC, tried to work with the Chinese. They covered it up terribly,” Pompeo said.
He said the combination of circumstantial evidence and China’s intense effort to deny any information relating to the lab suggests to him that the virus originated in that lab.
“I haven’t seen a shred of evidence to suggest anything to the contrary,” Pompeo said.
“The risk that something like this happens again from that laboratory or another Chinese laboratory is very real,” Pompeo said. “They [China] are operating and conducting activities that are inconsistent with their capacity to secure those facilities. And the risk of bioweapons and bioterror emanating from this region is very real.”
Pompeo also warned that similar scenarios could happen in the future, pointing to the possibility of biological warfare.
Recently, findings in a report in an Australian daily has yet again reinforced the call that international investigators must dig deeper to rule out whether COVID-19 is a made-in-China bioweapon.
The controversy about Covid-19 origins has resurfaced after the Weekend Australian newspaper revealed that Chinese scientists were thinking about bioweapons, visualising a World War-3 scenario.
The daily cited a Chinese government document that discussed the weaponisation of SARS coronavirus. Titled the Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic Bioweapons, the 2015 paper was authored by Chinese scientists, Chinese public health officials and members of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
Last month, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken launched a scathing attack against China for a lack of transparency during “the early stages” of the coronavirus pandemic and called for a more thorough investigation into the origins of COVID-19.
Blinken’s remarks come as a report of a joint inquiry by the World Health Organisation and China published in March did not conclusively establish how or when the virus began spreading and did little to address Western concerns that the Chinese Communist Party bent the investigation to its advantage.
The WHO report determined that the possibility the virus came from a lab was “extremely unlikely,” noting there was “no record” any lab had closely related viruses.
After the report was released, several countries including the United States, Australia and Canada released a statement, saying that they “fully” supported the WHO’s efforts to bring an end to the pandemic, including understanding how it “started and spread”.
But they added it was “essential that we voice our shared concerns that the international expert study on the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was significantly delayed and lacked access to complete, original data and samples”.
Scientists call for probe
A team of 18 scientists from Universities in the US, Canada, the UK and Switzerland said that more investigation is needed to determine the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable,” they wrote in a letter published on Thursday in the journal Science.
“Knowing how Covid-19 emerged is critical for informing global strategies to mitigate the risk of future outbreaks,” said the researchers led by Jesse Bloom, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Washington, US.
The Coronavirus disease, which was first documented on December 1, 2019 from Wuhan City in China, has since spread like wildfire throughout the globe. The overall global Covid-19 caseload has topped 160.8 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 3.34 million, so far.
The team of researchers lauded the efforts of scientists in understanding SARS-CoV-2 — its transmission, pathogenesis, and mitigation by vaccines, therapeutics, and non-pharmaceutical interventions. Yet, even after 17 months, how the coronavirus pandemic exactly began still remains a mystery.
The researchers highlighted a joint China-World Health Organization (WHO) report into the origins of SARS-CoV-2, some results of which were released in November 2020.
“WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus commented that the report’s consideration of evidence supporting a laboratory accident was insufficient,” they noted.
“As scientists with relevant expertise, we agree with the WHO director-general, the United States and 13 other countries, and the European Union that greater clarity about the origins of this pandemic is necessary and feasible to achieve,” they said. They call for an investigation that is “transparent, objective, data-driven, inclusive of broad expertise, subject to independent oversight, and responsibly managed.”
“In this time of unfortunate anti-Asian sentiment in some countries, we note that at the beginning of the pandemic, it was Chinese doctors, scientists, journalists, and citizens who shared with the world crucial information about the spread of the virus — often at great personal cost. We should show the same determination in promoting a dispassionate science-based discourse on this difficult but important issue,” they said. (ANI/IANS)
The fundamental point is that according to opinion-makers China has acquired second-strike nuclear reaction capability, reports Asian Lite News
Amid strained ties between Washington and Beijing, the US-China nuclear arms have raced up after reports have emerged of the communist nation developing second-strike capability in nuclear energy.
Francesco Sisci, writing in Asia Times said that the US commentariat is ringing alarms about China’s nuclear rearmament and apparent new second-strike reaction capability.
In recent days, two American journalistic heavyweights, David Ignatius and Fred Kaplan pointed to the ongoing nuclear and missile rearmament process in China. The fundamental point is that according to opinion-makers China has acquired second-strike nuclear reaction capability.
This is a fundamental point in the balance of nuclear terror. The ability to react after a first nuclear strike means that even if an enemy were to attack first with a nuclear offensive, the attacked country would retain the capacity for a counterattack. So far only the US and Russia officially have such capabilities.
If China has acquired it or is about to acquire it, global military and political dynamics will change. In fact, China reportedly has trucks that carry concealed, ballistic missiles capable of being operational in a short time always on the road. Given their number and the size of the country, some of them would survive the first strike and could launch their missiles at a possible first attacker, reported Asia Times.
America and Russia have built their arsenals over many years and at the same time have defined their political and military rules of engagement with increasing clarity over the same long period.
Today, however, there has not been a conflict in which the two sides have established the limits, and even if there was such a conflict, given China’s capacity for nuclear reaction, many things could quickly degenerate, said Sisci.
Moreover, the US and China find themselves with very robust arsenals (even if the US remains far more armed) but their political and military rules of engagement remain very confused. Hence there is an increased possibility of mutual accidents and errors, reported Asia Times.
There are also questions about what America will do in response to this new Chinese capacity. Opinions are divided in America. One careful observer from Washington, Chris Nelson, recommends a halt to US nuclear rearmament.
In fact, the US today has a much greater military capacity than China and nuclear rearmament would divert resources from the current American plan to relaunch infrastructure and factory production.
Until recently, the business elites have prevailed. Today, the balance is shifting faster and faster in favour of the military elites, not least because the business opportunities in the American and European stimulus plans for the post-Covid period could provide more opportunities than China, reported Asia Times.
Plus, many businessmen grew wary about the realities of dealing with the Chinese in a sustained and mutually beneficial way and security concerns always prevail in the end over business concerns in dangerous conditions.
The idea that China poses the same sort of strategic threat as the former USSR is gaining traction and increasing acceptance in Washington.
It is a very complex issue and such a comparative statement badly captures the whole set of ideas and concerns building up in Washington about China. But this consensus, once affirmed, will obey a logic that is difficult to stop or steer, wrote Sisci. (ANI)
The Covid-19 pandemic provided an opportunity for China to overtake the US in comprehensive global power, given that Xi Jinping has managed the aftermath of the pandemic much better than the leaders of the major countries of North America, Europe and Asia, writes Prof. Madhav Nalapat
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken very quickly echoed Henry Kissinger’s recent lament that “tensions between the US and the PRC needed to be reduced before another Cold War took place”. Blinken called on China to return to the “approved path of international cooperation”. Kissinger may be excused in view of his history, but it is a surprise that Secretary Blinken seems unaware of the Battle of Systems that China is engaged in with the US and other major democracies. The CCP leadership believes that theirs is by far the better system, and that in the ongoing contest between the two superpowers, its system will ensure that Beijing prevail over Washington.
The US Secretary of State seems to have missed what has been out in the open for at least the past six years: that Xi is engaged in a rivalry that will end only with a meltdown in one or the other of the competing systems of governance. This is a contest whose acceleration has been triggered by the 2008 financial crash caused by Wall Street. Every President of the US since Richard Nixon held the view that the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would permit it to accept permanently the primacy of Washington over Beijing in the international order.
It took the street-smart instincts of a New York builder to finally in 2017 enter the thinking of US President Donald J. Trump that CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping had not just accelerated the party’s longstanding drive towards global primacy, but had set a timeline and begun to implement what seemed to the CCP leadership to be a winning strategy. A plan designed to ensure the downfall of US global primacy.
BLINKEN TOO MUCH THE OPTIMIST
Events in Hong Kong have been taken by the CCP as exposing the danger of its earlier “One Country Two Systems” policy. The risk was that a growing public preference for a less restrictive system, should that (as in Hong Kong) deliver a better lifestyle than the mechanism based on the monopoly of authority of the CCP. Which is why Xi has ensured that the system in Hong Kong has been brought closer to that in the PRC. It is now “One Country, One System” so far as residents of that Special Autonomous Region are concerned.
Until Xi Jinping demonstrates to the people of China and to the rest of the world the superiority claimed by the CCP governance system, to the people, the risk is that more and more PRC citizens may convert to the same mindset that set much of Hong Kong’s population on an openly confrontational course with Beijing over five years ago. Such manifestations of public discontent against the restrictions that the CCP leadership believes essential are regarded as an existential (and exogenous) threat by the CCP leadership. For Anthony Blinken to believe that Xi would walk back (from a path that is regarded by the CCP leadership as essential to the continuation of its rule) may be somewhat optimistic.
A financial analyst based in Hong Kong discovered in 2015 that the PRC had slowed down almost to a stop its purchase of US debt with the dollars earned from the trade deficit that the US had long had with China. The deficit was partly the consequence of the unprecedented flow of currency pumped into the economy by the US Federal Reserve Board. This boosted consumer demand, which was met mainly by production from China. After all, this was where several manufacturing chains had shifted as a consequence of the “devil take the hindmost” approach of Wall Street-tilted US government policy since the period in office of Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.
As long as Beijing bought US treasury bills using the money it made through trade with Washington, both countries benefitted. China from increased economic growth, the US through fiscal spending cushioned by sales of debt to the biggest source of manufactures into the US. It did not take rocket science for Xi Jinping’s advisors to realise that the reason that the US dollar value was remaining firm despite ballooning deficit spending was through the accumulation of US debt by China. Should that slow down and finally stop altogether, the US government would no longer have the money to fund even its military, and would consequently enter a period of decline.
The Covid-19 pandemic provided an opportunity for China to overtake the US in comprehensive global power, given that Xi Jinping has managed the aftermath of the pandemic much better than the leaders of the major countries of North America, Europe and Asia. Deficit spending—necessary to ensure the avoidance of an economic collapse, shot up to record levels during the pandemic under both Trump as well as now Biden. When Secretary of State Blinken talks of Beijing returning to the international rules of the game, what he means is that China should revert to its pre-Xi policy of funding the US deficit by purchasing Treasury bills. This when Xi has switched the surpluses got through trade with the US (and other countries, including India) from buying US debt to investing in Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) projects and in the purchase of gold from central banks in countries, most of whom are NATO members. The BRI is designed to ensure that Beijing emerges as the hub of Eurasian commerce and logistics.
UNPRECEDENTED CHALLENGE TO INDIA AND U.S.
Simultaneously, General Secretary Xi has begun the (inevitable for other large economies as well) transition to a digital currency, the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Xi expects that this rollout will lead to a movement towards the RMB when the US dollar goes in for the painful reset that his tactics are designed to be about. About the change in outlook from Asia-Pacific to the Indo-Pacific, the objection that the CCP leadership has to such a shift is that they would like it to happen after Beijing displaces Washington as the dominant power in these waters, and not before. Apart of course from the importance given to India in the Indo-Pacific construct now being adopted by most of the Atlantic Alliance partners. CCP General Secretary Xi is working to a plan designed to ensure that India never reaches anywhere near its potential.
This has been operationalised in an increasingly transparent manner since the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor was launched a year after the “Heir to Mao”, Xi, took charge as CCP General Secretary in 2012. The leaders of India and the US are hopefully aware of the unprecedented magnitude of the challenge facing both of them. Plus the need to cobble up a strategy smart enough to overcome it. Nostrums of the past, which in different types of packaging is what Xi Jinping expects both Delhi and Washington to adhere to, will be even less effective in the new situation than they were in the past, when the US sleepwalked into creating its most potent challenger ever.
CHINA EXPECTS INDIA WILL UNDERPERFORM
In the case of India, the failure of the Union Government to anticipate the March 2021 second wave of the pandemic and prepare for it strengthened the confidence within the CCP that the country remains tethered through an outdated governance system. They believe that this will ensure that India remains true to its longstanding tradition of under-performance. The CCP expects that the pulls and pressures of competing lobbies will reduce the level of US-India security cooperation to levels safe for the PLA to operate in the Indo-Pacific region, on land, air and sea. In particular, that the operationalising of the Russian S-400 system by the Narendra Modi government will ensure that the trajectory of such relations fails to gain anywhere close to the altitude needed for both countries to work (together with other Quad members) on ensuring freedom of navigation to all and ASEAN’s right to seabed exploration in its share of the waters of the Indo-Pacific.
Just as the effects of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic ensured the defeat of President Trump, it is expected that the same factor will work to ensure that the BJP loses the public trust needed to win the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Hope in a better life under Modi and belief in his competence by voters is what ensured the BJP victory in 2014 and 2019. It is calculated that this hope and belief the Prime Minister will deliver on what he had promised, will get reduced with each passing day as a consequence of the handling by the Modi government of the Covid-19 crisis.
Thus far, it would appear that not a single individual in the numerous committees set up in early 2020 to battle the pandemic (and which have visibly failed to perform) has been brought to account. Whether the intervention of the Prime Minister to set matters right a month ago will suffice to turn the tide remains a matter of speculation. A forensic audit is needed of why there were delays in approving (a) those who came up with plans for new vaccines (b) production and dispersion of oxygen equipment and (c) neglect of the need to identify and ramp up the production of pharmaceuticals proved to be useful in the treatment of Covid-19.
The loss of political support has been added on to by the feeble response of North Block to the emergency caused by the pandemic, which ought to have led the Finance Ministry and the Reserve Bank of India in early 2020 itself into loosening purse strings much more than what was done. For example, by giving financial assistance to the over 26 million migrant workers stranded by the lockdown in cities all over India, so that there would not be the panic rush to their home states that was seen during the biggest lockdown in world history.
As yet, on the ground small and medium units are not getting the benefits that are being touted for schemes designed to keep them in business. Hundreds of thousands of small businesses have been shut down since the start of 2020, as have tens of thousands of medium and more than a few large businesses. What has been ramped up is a flight of entrepreneurs and innovators to locations outside India, a flight that began during the Police Constable (PC) days of the UPA and its coercive measures. Instead of dismantling these, many were added on to during Modi 1.0, and it is only during Modi 2.0 has the necessary reversal of such enterprise-killing policies has started to be carried out. As for the Quad evolving into a security mechanism, policies are yet to be discerned that move away from the standard Lutyens line of ambiguity and ambivalence.
CHINA EXPECTING DINOS TO SABOTAGE BIDEN
In the case of the US, the CCP leadership is looking towards DINOs (Democrats in Name Only). They believe that DINOs will derail the transformative reforms that President Biden and Vice-President Harris are seeking to navigate through the US Congress. The expected loss by the Democrats in the 2022 elections to the US House of Representatives and the Senate (assuming such a sabotage of the Biden-Harris policies) will further convince the CCP leadership that its gamble of accelerating the pace of transformation of the global order will pay off without triggering a kinetic conflict. The PLA is likely to lose such a contest, whether on land or sea, were the Quad to graduate to becoming a genuine security alliance rather than remain a talking shop.
In the meantime, CCP efforts will continue to topple the US dollar from its position as (i) the global unit of account and (ii) the world’s reserve currency. Petroleum, for example, is being increasingly bought by the PRC on payment of RMB rather than USD, reportedly even from Saudi Arabia. The calculation in Beijing is that a sudden decline of even 20% in the value of the dollar will lead to selling pressure that would force it down to much lower levels, thereby opening the field to the digital (and gold-backed) alternative being developed by Xi. Given the manner in which the CCP leadership is working to a plan designed to displace the US by first displacing the economy as the biggest in the world, later the US dollar and finally, end the lead of the US in advanced technology, it may be a sign of a disconnect from current reality that Henry
A. Kissinger still expects that a reconciliation is possible between Beijing and Washington except on surrender terms. In other words, the “White Flag” terms negotiated by the Trump administration with the Taliban, and which seems to have been accepted by President Biden. Meanwhile, the Central Bank Digital Currency (the digital RMB) will be getting ready in time for the anticipated dollar reset. Clearly, the CCP leadership believes that both the wallet as well as the gun are essential in the pursuit of power.
PLAN FOR SUCCESS
The assumption underpinning such calculations by the CCP leadership is that the Quad will not, owing to contradictory policies of its members, develop the structures needed to ensure a united response to efforts by the PLA to expand the land, air and sea space controlled by the PRC. And that business logic will prevent substantial de-coupling of production units from China to other locations. India was seen by many corporates as a suitable alternative, but that was before the second wave of SARS-CoV-2 struck. Should Prime Minister Modi do the impossible and be able to turn things around in India during the next two weeks, that would pose a significant challenge to the plans of the CCP leadership to ensure that the PRC remains the manufacturing (and increasingly the technological) hub of the world.
Should President Biden succeed in getting his plans for rejuvenation of the US economy and society approved by the US Congress, that would be a second blow to the CCP leadership. The months ahead will tell if India and the US can get their act together in time to enable a reversal of the progress made by the PRC. Both the authoritarian as well as the democratic systems are on test, and the outcome depends on who will come out the winner, Xi or Modi and Biden. As matters stand, even sufficient pairing between the two biggest democracies in the world remains a work in progress. The weeks ahead need to be much more productive than past months have been. Cold War 2.0 is very much a Zero Sum game.
Talks among the countries of the region and between Iran and Saudi Arabia will result in more peace, stability and progress, said Official…reports Asian Lite News
Iran has always been ready for talks “at any level and in any form” with its neighbours, including Saudi Arabia, to settle issues, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said here.
“Changes in tone and discourse help a lot to reduce tensions,” Xinhua news agency quoted Khatibzadeh as saying at a weekly press briefing on Monday.
He added that the talks will lead to serious practical results only if coupled with a change in behaviour.
Dialogues among the countries of the region and between Iran and Saudi Arabia will result in more peace, stability and progress, the spokesman noted.
Earlier, the Iranian Foreign Ministry had dismissed a report that Tehran is preparing to free five prisoners in exchange for access to bank accounts that have long been frozen due to diplomatic disputes with the UK and the US.
“As a rule, we don’t confirm reports and statements by so-called informed sources,” dpa news agency quoted Ministry spokesperson Saeid Khatibzadeh as saying.
The comments were prompted by a report by Lebanese broadcaster Al-Mayadeen, which reported on Sunday that Iran is poised to free five people, all with dual citizenship in either the UK or the US, for access to funds that have long been frozen because of ongoing diplomatic disputes about Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes.
The report, which the authors said was based on information from informed sources, was cited in Iranian media several times at the weekend.
Although Al-Mayadeen did not name the prisoners, it is believed that the four Americans refer to three business executives and one environmental activist incarcerated in Iran.
According to the report, their freedom would give access to 7 billion dollars currently frozen.
The fifth person is allegedly Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who also has British citizenship and was recently released after five years in detention.
But she was quickly sentenced again to another year in jail for participating in a demonstration 12 years ago.
United States President Joe Biden
According to the report, the UK was prepared to free up 400 million pounds out of frozen accounts in exchange for Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s freedom.
Khatibzadeh said there was no link between the frozen funds and any talks about releasing prisoners.
However, he did say there are routine conversations with the US about the status of the prisoners.
London and Washington have already denied the report.
The two countries have routinely accused Iran of using the prisoners as leverage in an effort to regain access to the frozen funds, a charge Iran regularly denies.
“We’re helping India significantly, Biden added…reports Arul Louis
President Joe Biden has said that the US was “doing a lot for India” by sending it oxygen and materials to make anti-COVID-19 vaccines.
He said on Tuesday that he had spoken to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and “what he needs most is, he needs the material and the parts to be able to have his machines that can make the vaccine work. We’re sending them that.
“We’re sending them a lot of the precursors,” he added, referring to the ingredients needed for making the vaccines.
He said the US was also sending oxygen, which is in short supply in the nation in the throes of a COVID-19 resurgence.
Oxygen cylinders
“We’re helping India significantly,” he said.
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has acknowledged assistance last year from India when the US was facing its deep crisis while speaking of the aid the US is now sending it.
“India came to our assistance early on in our hour of need when we were having real struggles with COVID-19, providing millions and millions, for example, of protective masks. We remember that, and we’re determined to do everything we can to help now,” he told the Financial Express according to the interview transcript provided by the State Department.
He said, “What I’ve seen really is an amazing mobilisation not just of the United States government, but of our private sector, and of Indian Americans as well. I was on a call a week ago with virtually every leading CEO — it was a who’s who — all wanting to help. And the government, our government, is coordinating those efforts. So we are doing everything we can.”
Biden’s Spokesperson Jen Psaki, who gave a rundown of the assistance to India, said that the US government was sending ingredients for making 20 million doses AstraZeneca (Covishield) vaccine from supplies that it had ordered.
AstraZeneca vaccine
These were ingredients had been ordered on a priority basis by invoking the Defence Production Act to supply to companies under contract to make vaccines for it.
The US is unlikely to need the 300 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine that it had contracted because it has adequate supplies of the Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.
She said that the total value of the COVID-19 aid will exceed $100 million.
Psaki said that six air shipments funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) with oxygen and oxygen supplies, N95 masks, rapid diagnostic tests, medicines and components requested by the Indian government have already been sent.
“At the request of the government of India, USAID provided these urgently needed supplies to the Indian Red Cross to ensure they reach those most in need as quickly as possible,” she said.
India is in dire need of oxygen and USAID sent about 1,500 oxygen cylinders that will remain in India and can repeatedly be refilled locally, 550 concentrators to obtain oxygen from ambient air and a large-scale unit to support up to 20 patients, she said.
She said that 2.5 million N95 masks have been sent and an additional 12.5 million are available if the Indian government asked for them, she said.
One million rapid diagnostic tests and 20,000 treatment courses of the anti-viral dug Remdesivir have also been sent, she said.
