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Sunday, September 15, 2024

HK pivots to Asean, Belt and Road partners as ties with the West deteriorate

Magdalene Fung
Hong Kong Correspondent

Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee said his government was doing everything it could to strengthen ties with Asean.

PHOTO: BLOOMBERG

Updated Sep 15, 2024

HONG KONG – Hong Kong has intensified efforts to carve out international space for itself, especially among developing economies, as it increasingly comes under fire from the West for its governance.

Chief Executive John Lee on Sept 13 said his government was doing everything it could to strengthen ties with Asean, including improving trade, business and cultural links with the regional bloc.

On Sept 11, he talked up Hong Kong’s value to the world as a “super connector”, touting its pivotal role in inking deals with countries in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), as Beijing said it would expand the city’s scope of participation in the initiative.

Mr Lee’s speeches came after the United States on Sept 11 passed a Bill targeting the closure of Hong Kong’s trade offices in the country and on Sept 6 warned US businesses and individuals of the rising risks of operating in the city under its national security law.

The law was first imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong in June 2020, with Hong Kong later enacting its own legislation in March 2024.

Hundreds of activists have been arrested and dozens charged under the regulations, which criminalise treason, sedition and external interference, among other offences.

Mr Lee on Sept 14 warned that US businesses would “foot the bill” for their “very shameless and ugly political tactics” if they shut Hong Kong’s trade offices in America.

Separately, Britain on Sept 12 said in a parliamentary report on Hong Kong that the city had prioritised national security over the freedoms and rights of its residents.

The growing criticism from the West that Hong Kong has faced in recent years has contributed to a fresh urgency within Mr Lee’s administration to improve its ties with the rest of the world, an international relations expert said.

“In the past, Hong Kong used to target the developed world more in its external relations efforts, such as reaching out to the US and countries in Europe,” Dr Wilson Chan, director of policy research and co-founder of local think-tank Pagoda Institute, told The Straits Times.

“But now, to sidestep the growing geopolitical tensions with the West, Hong Kong has recognised that it needs to diversify its business and trade networks and has hence shifted its focus to Asean, the Middle East, Africa and other Belt and Road countries. So the government is now more eager to engage with these fast-developing economies.”

Dr Chan described Hong Kong’s approach as a form of “paradiplomacy” centred around global economic engagement. Paradiplomacy refers to the involvement of non-central governments and organisations in conducting international relations.

Under the one country, two systems framework, China’s central government conducts foreign affairs relating to Hong Kong. As a special administrative region, however, Hong Kong has the autonomy to handle certain external affairs on its own, including trade, finance, tourism, culture and sports.

The city is also authorised to participate in inter-governmental international organisations including the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec), the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Hong Kong has over the past year engaged in a rapid string of global outreach efforts to bring together the city’s top leaders and those from its surrounding countries.

A Belt and Road Summit on Sept 11 and 12 was attended by Malaysia’s Trade Minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz, Cambodia’s Secretary of State for Commerce Lim Lork Piseth and Kazakhstan’s National Economy Vice-Minister Arman Kassenov, among other senior officials.

A Hong Kong-Asean Summit on Sept 13 heard speeches delivered by Datuk Seri Zafrul, Lao Deputy Finance Minister Phouthanouphet Saysombath and Cambodian Secretary of State for Tourism Prak Phannara.

Saturday, September 07, 2024

End the violence, distribute natural resources wealth fairly, pope tells PNG

BenarNews Staff
2024.09.07

Pope Francis delivers his speech at APEC Haus in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

AP Photo/Mark Baker

The head of the Catholic Church Pope Francis has highlighted Papua New Guinea’s inequality and instability and called for an end to tribal violence during a public speech in the capital Port Moresby.

Speaking to government authorities and diplomats and huge crowds of PNG people, he also spoke out on women’s equality, fair distribution of wealth from natural resources and resolution of Bougainville’s independence aspirations.

He said it was his particular hope that tribal violence will come to an end, “for it causes many victims, prevents people from living in peace and hinders development.”

Pope Francis is presented with a wooden model of a traditional boat outside the APEC Haus in Port Moresby, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024, as he arrives with Papua New Guinea's Governor General Bob Dadae, left. [Gregorio Borgia/AP]

Deadly clashes between tribes regularly occur in the Pacific island nation of about 12 million people, including 49 killed in February in the mountainous Highlands. At least 16 people died in rioting in the capital Port Moresby a month earlier.

Stability for Papua New Guinea, which gained its independence from Australia in 1975, has remained elusive as it grapples with challenges such as corruption and lack of roads and basic healthcare in many regions.

The Pope amended his written remarks, according to Associated Press, to include violence against women, saying women “are the ones who carry the country forward they give life, build and grow a country, let us not forget the women who are on the front line of human and spiritual development”

People dressed in traditional attire wait for the arrival of Pope Francis at Caritas Technical Secondary School in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. [Mark Baker/AP]

Domestic violence affects more than two-thirds of women in Papua New Guinea. In March 2019, more than 200 domestic violence and sexual violence cases were reported in Lae and Port Moresby, where over 23 murders alone were attributed to domestic violence.

The Pope singled out PNG’s rich natural resources which he said were “destined by God for the entire community. “

“Even if outside experts and large international companies must be involved in the harnessing of these resources, it is only right that the needs of local people are given due consideration when distributing the proceeds and employing workers, in order to improve their living conditions” he said.

He appealed for the people of PNG to embark on the path that leads to fruitful cooperation for the benefit of all the people of the country.

The Pope also referred to the autonomous state of Bougainville, which is seeking independence from the PNG Central Government. An estimated 10,000-15,000 people died in a decade-long civil war between Bougainville and Papua New Guinea that ended with a peace agreement in 2001.

The Pope said fruitful cooperation can create the conditions in which the question of the status of Bougainville Island can also find a definitive solution while avoiding the rekindling of ancient tensions.

Pope Francis meets performers outside the APEC Haus in Port Moresby, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024, where Pope Francis and Papua New Guinea's Governor General Bob Dadae attended a traditional dance performance. [Gregorio Borgia/AP]

Today is the first full day of the Pope’s two-day visit to PNG, a country of devout Christians, of whom an estimated 31-percent are Catholics.

Followers have walked for days through remote mountains while others have made long journeys by canoe to see the Pope.

Tomorrow the Pope will hold an open-air mass which is expected to be attended by thousands in the Sir John Guise stadium in the capital before flying to the border town of Vanimo for a brief visit. He departs Port Moresby on Monday morning.

Francis is on an 11-day, four nation tour that began in Indonesia, he will head to East Timor next before his final stop in Singapore

Visiting Papua New Guinea, pope says

natural resources must benefit all

By AFP
September 7, 2024

The 87-year-old pope is on a marathon 12-day visit to the Asia-Pacific - Copyright AFP Tiziana FABI
Clément MELKI

Pope Francis visited Papua New Guinea Saturday, where he called for vast natural resources to benefit the “entire community” — a politically charged demand in a nation where many believe their riches are being stolen or squandered.

Addressing political and business leaders, the 87-year-old pontiff hailed his hosts as being rich in culture and in natural resources — a nod to vast reserves of gold, copper, nickel, gas and timber.

But, he suggested, the tens of billions of dollars made from digging, dredging and drilling the earth needed to benefit more than a fraction of the country’s 12 million people.

“These goods are destined by God for the entire community,” Pope Francis said.

Despite its resource wealth, Papua New Guinea is one of the poorest countries in the Pacific.

Between a quarter and half the population lives in extreme poverty. Scarcely more than 10 percent of homes have electricity.

Even if “outside experts and large international companies must be involved in the harnessing of these resources”, they should not be the only ones to benefit, the pope said.

“It is only right that the needs of local people are given due consideration when distributing the proceeds and employing workers, to improve their living conditions,” he added.

It is a message likely to resonate with millions of Catholics in Papua New Guinea — and with millions more in resource-rich regions of Africa, Latin America and elsewhere.

Twenty-two-year-old pilgrim Jonathan Kais, from Manus Island, welcomed the pope’s remarks and said he hoped they would spur the government to provide better services.

“The service we receive in our villages by our leaders at the parliament, it’s not much (compared to) what they are getting from the resources of the country,” he told AFP.

– ‘Poverty hardly changed’ –

For decades, Papua New Guinea has been dotted with vast American, Australian, Canadian, European and Chinese-run mines.

A $19 billion project led by ExxonMobil has produced tens of millions of tonnes of liquified natural gas since operations began in 2014.

But economists have found little evidence that any of the projects have helped poor Papua New Guineans.

A recent World Bank study showed that between 2009 and 2018, the country’s gross domestic product per person grew by more than a third on the back of the resource boom.

“Poverty hardly changed over that time,” the report’s authors said.

– ‘Spiral of violence’ –

Pope Francis is on a marathon 12-day visit to the Asia-Pacific, visiting Indonesia, East Timor and Singapore as he promotes interfaith dialogue and embraces regions on the periphery of world affairs.

On Saturday he also made a plea for Papua New Guineans to “stop the spiral” of tribal violence that has killed untold numbers of people and displaced tens of thousands more.

“It is my particular hope that tribal violence will come to an end,” he said.

“It causes many victims, prevents people from living in peace and hinders development.”

There are few reliable estimates as to how many people have died during decades of tribal unrest between dozens of clans in the country’s Highlands.

But UN agencies estimate that about 100,000 people have been displaced by the cycle of retaliatory attacks, which have intensified in recent years.

The murders are often extremely violent, with victims hacked by machetes, burned, mutilated or tortured. Civilians, including pregnant women and children, have been targeted in the past.

An influx of mercenaries and automatic weapons has made clashes much more deadly. Where bows, spears and clubs were once the weapons of choice, now tribesmen have a veritable armoury of SLR, AK-47, and M16 rifles.

Papua New Guinea’s stretched government has tried suppression, mediation, gun amnesties and a range of other strategies to control the situation, with little success.

But experts say the violence has little to do with ancient customs, and is more about the modern problems of a surging population, a breakdown in traditional rules of war, joblessness and the rising cost of living.

And there is growing concern that violence is spreading to other parts of the country.

In July, at least 27 people — among them 11 children — were massacred in Angoram District, not far from the northern coast.

Pope calls for greater care of indigenous

populations in Papua New Guinea

Pope Francis visits Street Ministry and Callan Services in the Caritas Technical Secondary School in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, Saturday. Photo by Alessandro Di Meo/EPA-EFE

Sept. 7 (UPI) -- Pope Francis said the world needs to address climate change while visiting the Pacific Island nation of Papua New Guinea, which is partly endangered by a rising Pacific Ocean.

The Pope began his visit Friday in the nation where islanders living near coastal areas might have to relocate if waters rise too much. It's the Pope's second stop during an 11-day tour of four nations in the region.

Deforestation and pollution from mining operations also are affecting the nation's water supplies.

"Climate change is real," Papua New Guinea Governor-General Bob Dadae told the Pope Saturday in Port Moresby. "The rise in the sea level is affecting the livelihoods of our people.

He asked Francis. 87, to advocate for nations to do more to counteract climate change and exploitation of natural resources.

"While foreign companies are involved in resource extraction, it is only fair that local populations benefit from the income and labor to improve their living conditions," Francis said while advocating for the "common good" for all people.

The Pope also called for greater recognition of the roles women fulfill in Papua New Guinea and other nations.

Women "are the ones who carry the country forward, give life, build and grow a country," Francis said.

While meeting with Bishops, clergy and others later Saturday, Francis said it's important to care for the "marginalized and wounded,both morally and physically, by prejudice and superstition."

Pope Francis also visited the Shrine of Mary, Help of Christians, in Port Moresby Saturday, where he praised the work of missionaries to brought Christianity to the island nation.

"It is thanks to them, to their starts and restarts,that we are here and that despite the current challenges ... we continue to move forward without fear, knowing we are not alone," Francis said.

Francis traveled to Papua New Guinea after visiting Indonesia during his tour of four nations in Southeast Asia and Oceania from Monday through Thursday.

On Sunday, the pope will travel to Vanimo, a city in the northwesternmost province of Papua New Guinea.

The 11-day trip is the longest Francis has undertaken while Pope and concludes with visits to East Timor and Singapore.

Friday, August 16, 2024

Downfall of Bangladesh’s leader is a lesson to Southeast Asian autocrats

Regimes in Myanmar, Vietnam and Laos should note the uprising that ousted Sheikh Hasina.

A commentary by David Hutt
2024.08.15

Downfall of Bangladesh’s leader is a lesson to Southeast Asian autocrats

A defaced wall mural of Bangladesh's ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in Dhaka on Aug. 9, 2024.

Indranil Mukherjee/AFP

Updated Aug. 15, 2024, 05:58 p.m. ET.

The overthrow of Bangladesh’s Sheikh Hasina earlier this month wouldn’t have pleased Southeast Asia’s autocrats. Some have been more open than others about their concerns.

“I don’t want to see this type of situation happening in Cambodia,” Prime Minister Hun Manet implored last week. “Don’t accuse the government of being a dictator if it takes legal action against those who attempt to burn the fire and push for Bangladesh-like demonstrations here in Cambodia.”

On Aug. 5, Bangladesh’s now-former prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, who ruled the country with an iron grip since 2009, fled to India as student protestors marched on her palace. Her security forces, supportive up until that point, let them through.

In cloud of pink smoke, police in riot gear remove a protester trying to march to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation APEC summit venue, Nov. 18, 2022, in Bangkok, Thailand. (Wason Wanichakorn/AP)

In many ways, it was textbook regime change — Filipinos will notice some similarities to the People Power Revolution that unseated Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. The sparks were both protracted and immediate. The economy had been in ill health for years, with high youth unemployment and winnowing state funds, a result of members of Hasina’s ruling Awami League stealing from the national purse.

The spark that galvanized the student protesters was also historic and contemporary. Since Bangladesh’s liberation war against Pakistan in 1971, the country has constitutionally allocated 30% of government jobs to the children of freedom fighters.

That stipulation was reversed in 2018, but in June the Supreme Court ordered that it be reinstated. Naturally, Bangladeshi youth, whose economic prospects are dim, felt their prospects would be even worse if the quota system returned.

Testing the ‘nerve’ of a regime

But protests aren’t enough to bring down a dictator. Two years of student protests in Thailand between 2021 and 2022 didn’t bring down the military-royalist establishment. Cambodia was alive with riots in 2013 and 2014, but the Hun dynasty survives.

Members of the Bangladeshi community in Rome demonstrate in support of former leader of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, in Piazza dell'Esquilino, Aug. 12, 2024 in Rome, Italy. (Simona Granati/Corbis via Getty Images)

Initially, when the latest student protests began in Dhaka last month, the security forces responded with terror. At least 100 people were killed and thousands arrested. The demonstration went quiet but then re-erupted earlier this month. Again, the police and military stood strong, imposed a curfew, and cut off internet access nationwide.

But on Aug. 5, when tens of thousands of people protested again, something changed. An article in the Economist put it: “Faced with the prospect of inflicting large-scale bloodshed in order to defend a decaying regime the security forces, and possibly senior figures in the [ruling Awami League], appear to have lost their nerve, allowing the protesters to pass.”

Indeed, for every revolution to be successful, the security forces and political elites must “lose their nerve.” One, they are shooting down protestors and championing the regime. The next day, they are laying down their weapons and championing a fresh start.

A Cambodian anti-riot police officer kicks a protester during a clash between police and garment workers in Phnom Penh on Nov. 12, 2013. (AFP)

Of course, all of this is an oversimplification – but then again there exists a cottage industry that makes understanding these things overly complicated. Put simply, public protests can be easily, though bloodily, put down for as long as the security forces remain on the side of the autocrats and the establishment remains self-confident. However, their nerve will never be tested until popular protests occur. So a revolution needs both to succeed.

Other popular movements

For more than a year, we’ve heard predictions about the imminent downfall of Myanmar’s bloody, military regime, which took power in early 2021 through a coup. You have the nationwide protests; a very bloody civil war is still raging and the junta’s forces are slowly but surely losing territory to the ethnic militias and pro-democracy People’s Defence Forces.

A protester, center, escapes from riot police officers who fire tear gas grenades during a protest in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Jan. 27, 2014. (Heng Sinith/AP)

However, the military brass and other elites haven’t yet “lost their nerve;” they haven’t yet turned on Hlaing Min Aung, the junta chief, and bargained that a post-junta regime suits their interests.

The civil war, now in its third year, probably won’t end with the People’s Defence Forces and the various militia storming into Naypyidaw or Yangon. Their slow and plodding successes on the rural battlefield matter, breaking down the nerve of the military regime and its collaborators. But, like in Dhaka, revolution in Myanmar will likely be achieved the day after it seemed so distant.

Take a moment to read more

BenarNews website unblocked in Bangladesh days after Hasina resigns as PM

Yunus-led interim Bangladesh govt sworn in; diverse members include 2 student leaders

China top diplomat meets Myanmar leader, junta denies coup rumors

Vietnamese activist found guilty of anti-state propaganda

Laos can feed itself, but its food security is complicated

Communist-run Vietnam and Laos couldn’t be more different. Vietnam saw an increase of open dissent throughout the 2010s, with the public seething against a Communist Party they saw as unpatriotic, feckless, and rotten by corruption. Indeed, some communist and business elites were so unnerved by the staggering levels of graft that pervaded all rungs of society, including those at the top of the Communist Party, that the ruling party seemed to be decaying from within. Dissidents felt it was their moment.

An injured Cambodian worker escapes from riot police in the compound of a Buddhist pagoda in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Nov. 12, 2013. (AP)

But then, in 2016, Nguyen Phu Trong, the hitherto quiet party chief, ousted Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, the apparent source of all these ills, and instigated a “blazing furnace” anti-graft campaign. Eight years on, the campaign has brought down thousands of officials and private sector moguls. Trong, who passed away last month, seems to have instilled a new sense of purpose within the party, and some of the public appears content that their rulers are at least cleaner than what came before.

At the same time, Trong and his enforcers have stamped out dissent. The pro-democracy movements that started to sprout in the 2010s have been weeded out. Fear again pervades society. It seems hard to imagine that the nationwide protests seen in 2016 and 2018 could happen again anytime soon.

Lao leaders ‘twiddling their thumbs’

It’s a different picture in Laos, a country with little recent history of public protests.

A man walks inside a burnt studio of the state-owned Bangladesh Television in Dhaka, Bangladesh, July 24, 2024. (Rajib Dhar/AP)

The mood within the ruling Lao People’s Revolutionary Party is bleak. The economy has been in the pits since 2021, brought low by sky-high inflation, a decimated currency, and debt service repayments the state can barely afford. A debt default haunts Vientiane. Basic services, like public education, aren’t functioning, and the government has angered those who are normally the most loyal by slashing state-sector jobs to balance the books.

With few job prospects and a cost-of-living crisis, many people have either returned to their family’s farms or gone abroad for work.

The party won’t admit it publicly, but nobody knows how to fix the economy—one reason why morale is so low. Many of the causes of the crisis are out of the party’s control; others were set in motion by leaders a decade ago and now cannot be undone.

People visit the vandalized museum dedicated to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, father of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, on Aug. 6, 2024, in Dhaka, Bangladesh. (Fatima Tuj Johora/AP)

So the party has contented itself with blaming the blameless—like the recently sacked central bank governor, Bounleua Sinxayvoravong—while twiddling their thumbs until things naturally get better and hoping that the public doesn’t grow too angry in the meantime.

Indeed, it’s stunning that there hasn’t been more unrest in a country where most ordinary people now find themselves worse off than a decade ago. Laotian youths are undoubtedly as aggrieved by their fate as their Bangladeshi counterparts.

Bounleua Sinxayvoravong, Governor, Bank of the Lao PDR, attends a meeting during the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2024, March 29, 2024 in Boao, Qionghai City, Hainan Province of China. (Tian Yuhao/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)

Yet, the communist party is undoubtedly thankful that, in the here and now, so many Laotians, mainly the young, can easily immigrate to Thailand to find better work—it saves them milling around at home, growing more embittered, and thinking up ways of emitting their anger. In Laos, some of the ruling elites and security apparatuses might quickly lose their nerve but their confidence is never likely to be tested by the public.

David Hutt is a research fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) and the Southeast Asia Columnist at the Diplomat. He writes the Watching Europe In Southeast Asia newsletter. The views expressed

Sunday, August 11, 2024

Russian oligarch under fire for rare anti-war comments

Euractiv.com with Reuters
Aug 9, 2024

The founder of the mining company RUSAL, Russian billionaire and industrialist Oleg Deripaska, attends a meeting of Russian President Putin with Indian Prime Minister Modi at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, 9 July 2024. [EPA-EFE/SERGEI ILNITSKY]
Euractiv is part of the Trust Project >>>

Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska came under attack from supporters of the war in Ukraine on Friday (9 August) after making a rare anti-war statement in which he described the conflict as “mad” and called for a ceasefire without pre-conditions.

Deripaska made the comment in an interview with Nikkei Asia in Japan this week on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Business Advisory Council meeting, where he officially represented Russia.

Nikkei Asia said he criticised his country’s defence spending and called for an “immediate, unconditional ceasefire” in Ukraine, saying: “If you want to stop the war, first you need to stop the fire.”

The reported comments marked the strongest criticism of the war by any powerful businessman still remaining in Russia since the start of the conflict in February 2022.

“Previously, Deripaska’s position on the special military operation was ambiguous. Now he has made his stance clear. He is on the other side,” said philosopher Alexander Dugin, widely seen as one of the key ideologists of the war.

“This is a stab in the back to our forces, and assistance to the Ukrainian army terrorists who have invaded the Kursk region,” Dugin added in a statement posted on his Telegram channel.

Representatives for Deripaska did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Deripaska branched out into metals trading as the Soviet Union crumbled, making a fortune by buying up stakes in aluminium factories. Forbes ranked his fortune in 2024 at $2.8 billion.

In his latest reported comments he went further than in 2022, when he called for peace in Ukraine and cast the war as a tragedy for both the Russian and Ukrainian people.

Deripaska has been under sanctions by the United States since 2018 and has tried to legally challenge them in US courts. He has been under European Union and British sanctions since 2022. He called sanctions “a 19th-century instrument” and said they were inefficient.

Wednesday, July 24, 2024

Kamala Harris could bring shift in Gaza war policy

Washington (AFP) – Kamala Harris's outspoken stance on the Gaza war hints at a possible shift from Joe Biden's Israel policy as she eyes the Democratic presidential nomination -- as Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to find out this week.

Issued on: 23/07/2024 -

Kamala Harris made a strong call for a Gaza ceasefire in a speech to mark "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Alabama, in March 2024

© SAUL LOEB / AFP/File

The US vice president will be conspicuously absent from the Israeli leader's address to the US Congress on Wednesday, in what analysts said was a clear signal about her concerns over civilian casualties in Gaza.

The 59-year-old has never contradicted Biden on Israel. Time and again, however, she has been the US administration official most loudly calling for a ceasefire in the conflict.

With Biden's shock exit from the White House race, Harris has a chance to make a "clean slate" on an issue where there has been a risk of alienating a swathe of Democratic voters ahead of November's election, said Colin Clarke, director of research at the Soufan Group.

"The Israel-Gaza issue is the one where there is the most daylight between Biden and Harris, and I think there's going to be people inside her camp that are going to push her to make that difference explicit," he told AFP.
'Immense suffering'

Biden has strongly supported Israel's war on Hamas since the group's October 7 attacks, and kept up military aid despite tensions with Netanyahu.

Hamas's attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

US President Joe Biden (L) has strongly supported Israel's war on Hamas and kept up military aid despite tensions with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (R) © Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP

The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in Gaza, including 44 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,090 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

While Harris has not broken from Biden on the issue, her statements on the conflict -- which has seen swathes of Gaza reduced to rubble -- have been more nuanced.

In March, she made what were then the strongest comments to date by any US administration official when she called for a ceasefire deal to end the "immense suffering", and criticized Israel over insufficient aid deliveries to Gaza.

The message was underlined by the first Black US vice president's choice of site to deliver it: Selma, Alabama, where in 1965 a civil rights march was violently suppressed by police on what is known as "Bloody Sunday."

It followed a pattern of remarks where she pushed the envelope of what the White House was saying about the death toll and dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.
'Unwavering commitment'

The issue will now come to the fore when Netanyahu visits Washington this week.

Reflecting the new reality of an outgoing president and his expected replacement as Democratic contender, Biden and Harris will hold separate meetings with the Israeli premier.

Harris's camp says that a previously scheduled campaign trip to a Black sorority in Indianapolis means she cannot fulfill the usual vice presidential role of presiding over Congress during Netanyahu's visit.

Her staff moved quickly to dampen suggestions of a snub.

"Her travel to Indianapolis on July 24 should not be interpreted as a change in her position with regard to Israel," an aide told AFP, noting her "unwavering commitment" to its security.

Biden, whose tensions with Netanyahu have burst into the open in recent months despite the president's stalwart support for Israel, is also set to miss the speech.

Clarke said Harris's decision was not necessarily a "cold shoulder" but added that "clearly, if she wanted to be there, she could be... it's something of kind of signal that, hey, things are going to be different."
'Orchestrated public dispute'

The Gaza war remains very much a factor in the US presidential election.

Biden's policy incensed large numbers of Democratic voters and threatened his party's hopes of winning the swing state of Michigan, which is home to a large Arab-American population.

Former US President Donald Trump has also declared strong support for Israel in its war in Gaza © Giorgio VIERA / AFP

Harris and her family have straddled the political divide on the issue. Her husband Doug Emhoff, the first Jewish spouse of a president or vice president, has made a series of public appearances to condemn rising anti-Semitism since October 7.

The war was an area where Harris could "pick a bit of a orchestrated public dispute" with Biden, said Peter Loge, director of George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs.

It would also help differentiate her from Trump's "all-in" support for Israel, he added.

"Harris has an opportunity to have a bit of a more nuanced position that recognizes those concerns while still supporting Israel -- to create a bit of distance to make that group (those angered by support for Israel) feel okay," Loge said.

© 2024 AFP

From Gaza to China: Where Kamala Harris stands on foreign policy issues

US Vice President Kamala Harris has supported President Joe Biden, a seasoned politician with decades of foreign policy experience, on key international issues. With the former California attorney general and senator set to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination, it’s time for Harris to set her agenda on vital issues concerning the international community.

Issued on: 23/07/2024 -

US Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to reporters at her presidential campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware on July 22, 2024.

By:Leela JACINTO AFP

When Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addresses a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, the US vice president – who also serves as president of the Senate – will not be in her customary seat on the rostrum, behind the visiting Israeli leader.

Kamala Harris will instead be at another event in Indianapolis, addressing a national convention of the Zeta Phi Beta sorority, one of the nation’s oldest university organisations for African American female students.

Senator Benjamin Cardin, a staunchly pro-Israel senator from Maryland, will instead take the US vice president’s seat next to House Speaker Mike Johnson as Netanyahu becomes the first foreign leader to address a joint US Congressional session four times – pulling ahead of Britain's Winston Churchill, at three.

Harris’s team informed the US Senate she would not preside over Netanyahu’s speech before the dramatic developments of the weekend, when President Joe Biden bowed out of the 2024 White House race, endorsing his 59 year-old vice president as Democratic nominee.

Read moreBiden drops out of White House race, endorses Harris

Briefing reporters on Monday about the scheduling clash, Harris’s aides played down the import of her absence, noting that the vice president will meet Netanyahu separately during his first foreign visit since the October 7 Hamas attack.

But with Harris set to clinch the Democratic nomination, her decision to skip Netanyahu’s address has come under intense scrutiny, highlighting the divisions among US voters on the Gaza war in the lead-up to the November presidential election.

Foreign policy is not the strong suit of the woman aiming to be the 47th president of the USA. It’s also a particularly fraught issue for Washington’s allies as they warily eye US security commitments after Trump picked Senator JD Vance – who has openly touted isolationist foreign policies – as his running mate.

Read moreEuropeans wary as Trump picks Vance for running mate
On ‘terra incognita’

A law school graduate and former California attorney general, Harris has spent much of her political career focused on domestic issues.

As vice president, she bucked a longstanding trend in US politics, which has seen the country’s second-most powerful official provide foreign policy expertise to newly elected presidents.

In the 2000 race for instance, when George W. Bush picked Dick Cheney – who had served as his father’s defence secretary during the Gulf War – as a running mate, it was viewed as a counterweight to the younger Bush’s lack of foreign policy experience.

Biden’s appointment as Barack Obama’s running mate was perhaps the best example of a newcomer president seeking a counsel-in-chief on international issues.

Vice President Harris, in contrast, had little foreign policy advice to offer a president who spent 36 years in the US Senate and eight in the White House.

“We’re in terra incognita here, since we don’t know very much about her foreign policy orientation,” said Steven Ekovich, a US politics and foreign policy expert and professor emeritus at the American University of Paris.

After nearly four years in the White House, Harris should be “up to date” on foreign policy issues, Ekovich noted, since vice presidents attend US National Security Council meetings and briefings. “I would assume that at least for the immediate future, she would keep the same direction and the same team. I can't imagine her changing things right away. I think she'll probably be running on a campaign of continuity.”
‘Far greater empathy’ for Palestinians

On the Israeli-Palestinian issue, support for a two-state solution and Israel’s right to self-defence are continuity positions Harris has held since she was elected to the US Senate from California in 2017.

As vice president, Harris has been careful not to contradict Biden’s positions on the Israeli assault on Gaza following the October 7 Hamas attacks. But she has pushed the envelope with her starkly forthright condemnations of Palestinian casualties and the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza.

At a March 5 event commemorating the 1965 crackdown on civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama, Harris blasted the inhumane conditions in Gaza, directing the bulk of her comments at the Israeli government.

“People in Gaza are starving. The conditions are inhumane and our common humanity compels us to act,” said Harris. “The Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid. No excuses,” she added.

A month later, the US vice president once again called on Israel to “do more to protect aid workers” after an Israeli strike on a humanitarian convoy killed seven World Central Kitchen staffers, including a US national.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Jim Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute, said he had a phone conversation with Harris in October and that she had demonstrated “far greater empathy” for Palestinians than Biden and other White House aides.
An eye on young voters in swing states

Democrats are deeply divided over the Gaza war and dozens of left-wing lawmakers within the party are expected to boycott Netanyahu’s speech on Wednesday.

These include members of “the squad”, the informal group of young, progressive lawmakers, many of whom – such as New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – have endorsed Harris’s White House bid.

With opinion polls over the past few months consistently showing younger Americans to be more pro-Palestinian than their elders, Harris’s absence at Netanyahu’s address is for “electoral purposes”, according to Ekovich.

“This is particularly true for a couple of swing states like Michigan, where there's Detroit,” he said, referring to the city’s large Arab and African American communities. “In Pennsylvania, we have Philadelphia, which has a large Black population. There is a kind of allergy to Biden’s very strong pro-Israeli position in these places.”

But while the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate has chosen to skip Netanyahu’s address, Ekovich says Harris is unlikely to radically change US policy on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
Attending summits Biden skipped

Continuity is also likely to mark Harris’s positions on the Ukraine war and US commitments to NATO, says Ekovich.

The US vice president has met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at several international summits, including this year’s Munich Security Conference, where she has stood in for Biden for three consecutive years.

At her last meeting with Zelensky at the Ukraine Peace Summit in Switzerland in June, Harris pledged $1.5 billion in aid for Ukraine’s energy sector as well as $379 million in humanitarian assistance.

On China, experts say Harris shares Biden’s positions on security in the Asia-Pacific region and Taiwan. She has also vociferously denounced Beijing’s human rights record in Hong Kong as well as the Uighur-dominated Xinjiang province.

Senior Democrats note that Harris has stepped in as a surrogate for Biden at several international gatherings, including ASEAN and Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings, giving her valuable foreign policy experience.

“Frankly, she has been stress-tested,” said Representative Adam Smith in an interview with the Politico news site. “She has been the lead spokesperson for the administration at the Munich Security Conference making the case for our role in Ukraine and NATO and in the world, and she’s been really strong.”
Mixed record on Latin America

On Latin America though, her record has been mixed.

Early in his presidency, Biden asked Harris to try to address the root problems of migration at the southern border by focusing on countries in Central and South America.

Sticking to the White House brief, Harris repeated the “don’t come” message to migrants illegally trying to cross the southern border with Mexico, much to the chagrin of left-leaning Democrats.

But most experts concede it was an impossible mission and not just for the new vice president. “She was given the immigration file and of course, she didn't solve it because nobody has. Nobody can,” said Ekovich.

But Harris managed to weather the migrant storm by backing a bill providing more funding for US border guards and agencies. The bill was however blocked by the Republicans earlier this year.

Trump has made “illegal immigrants” a central plank of his campaign and is likely to try to corner Harris on the issue. But Ekovich says Trump's tactics could backfire. “If the Republicans, if Trump and Vance, go after her on this, she can just respond that there was a bill on it and the Republicans blocked it,” he explained.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment