No, BlackRock is not leading a Marxist assault on capitalism

World’s biggest funds manager accused of advancing ‘corporate socialism’ via support for ESG in wild new US culture war twist

By CARL RHODES

THE CONVERSATION

APRIL 6, 2023

AsiaTimes

Five years ago it would have been unimaginable, but today there is a global movement convinced the world’s largest corporations are engaging in stealth warfare to transform liberal democracies into neo-communist dictatorships.

At the heart of this corporate-led Marxist revolution, apparently, is the trend towards businesses not just focusing on profit maximization but taking into account environmental, social and governance responsibilities (called ESG for short).

According to ESG opponents, this is putting democracy on a downhill road to socialism – or worse.

Purportedly central to this sinister plan is United States company BlackRock and its chief executive, Larry Fink. BlackRock is the world’s biggest funds manager, overseeing more than US$10 trillion in investments on behalf of clients such as superannuation funds. Fink is paid more than US$30 million a year, and his wealth is estimated to be more than US$1 billion.

You might think this would make Fink a very unlikely champion of destroying capitalism. But due to his support for ESG – particularly for businesses taking action on climate change – he’s been accused of advancing a form of “corporate socialism”, with ESG criticized as “socialism in sheep’s clothing.”

All the way to the president

Concerns about the “woke” politics of ESG don’t just live in the dark recesses of the internet. In the US it has become a mainstream fixation. Anti-ESG opinions abound in the pages of The Wall Street Journal and on the infotainment network Fox News. It is a hot battlefield in the culture wars.

In 2020, the Trump administration proposed a rule requiring pension funds to put “economic interests” ahead of “non-pecuniary” concerns – in other words, to force them to ignore issues of long-term social and environmental sustainability and focus on short-term profits.

The Biden administration reversed this plan. But last month the US Congress passed a bill to reverse that reversal, with support from two Democrats in the Senate. Biden then used his presidential power to veto the bill – the first veto of his presidency.

In all likelihood, ESG will be a major campaign issue in the 2024 presidential election. The speaker of the Republican-majority House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, has accused Biden of wanting “Wall Street to use your hard-earned money to fund a far-left political agenda.”

Republican presidential contender and Florida governor Ron DeSantis has also been railing hard against the “woke ESG financial scam.”

Florida governor Ron DeSantis is down on ESG. 

Photo: AFP / Chandan Khanna

A short history of stakeholder capitalism

What’s notable about all these emotive denunciations of ESG is that they demonstrate little understanding of how capitalism works.

This point was made by Fink in his 2022 annual letter to the chief executives of the companies in which BlackRock has invested clients’ money.

In today’s globally interconnected world, a company must create value for and be valued by its full range of stakeholders in order to deliver long-term value for its shareholders. It is through effective stakeholder capitalism that capital is efficiently allocated, companies achieve durable profitability, and value is created and sustained over the long-term. Make no mistake, the fair pursuit of profit is still what animates markets; and long-term profitability is the measure by which markets will ultimately determine your company’s success.

The idea that business owners have responsibilities to wider society is not new. It dates back at least to the 17th century when the modern corporate form began to emerge through innovations such as joint-stock ownership and the legal privilege of limited liability.

The origins of the corporate social responsibility and ethical investment movements can also be traced back hundreds of years – generally to groups and individuals motivated by religious values – and have been mainstream business ideas for decades.

Why? Because paying attention to social and environmental sustainability, ESG advocates argue, produces better long-term investment returns. If it didn’t, businesses wouldn’t be interested.

This is not to say the application of ESG principles isn’t above criticism – for going too far, or not going far enough – being mere window-dressing for the status quo.

But such arguments are over the best way to do capitalism. It’s all about as far from interest in a neo-Marxist insurgency as can be imagined. Debating the best way to produce shareholder value has nothing to do with wanting a “revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat” and to see private property abolished – key features of Marxism.

Capitalism is changing, that is certain. But it is doing so in a way that has accepted, and is willing to commercially exploit, changing public sentiment concerning climate and change social inequalities.

This is what businesses that make money do. They listen to customers, and other stakeholders – their workers, suppliers, the communities in which they operate, and the governments that regulate them. They plan for the future. They mitigate future risks.
Impoverishing democracy

So what explains this fantastical rhetoric about ESG being the road to Marxist tyranny? In my view, it shows just how much the intellectual foundations of conservatism and liberalism have been debased in a media marketplace that favors reactionary emotionalism over tempered thought.

Economic conservatism (rooted in the belief in free markets, globalization and small government) has become disconnected from social and political conservatism (especially as related to climate activism, social justice and diversity and inclusion).

All of this is a fatal distraction from the broader political and economic problems we face both locally and globally. It pushes serious discussions – such as what to do about economic inequality, political polarization and declining social capital – into the background.

BlackRock Chair and CEO Laurence Fink attends a session at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, on January 23, 2020. Photo: AFP / Fabrice Coffrini

There are biting criticisms to be made about ESG that don’t make the headlines. You don’t often hear business-friendly ESG supporters campaigning for increases to the minimum wage, progressive taxation, worker solidarity or the need to curb the runaway train of executive compensation.

Climate and social justice are pressing issues, to be sure. But they shouldn’t push fair economic distribution and shared prosperity off the agenda.

Ironically, the bogus labeling of ESG as a Marxist plot also helps do this. It serves the interests of the very elites populist pundits and politicians claim they oppose. It works against the interests of the working-class people they claim they care about. That is not socialism.


Carl Rhodes, Professor of Organization Studies, University of Technology Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Pentagon fake news about Chinese fast breeder reactors

Assistant Secretary of Defense John Plumb knew better when characterizing Russia-China reactor cooperation as a nuclear weapon threat

By JONATHAN TENNENBAUM

AsiaTimes

APRIL 3, 2023

Assistant Secretary of Defense John Plumb testifies before the House Armed Services Committee in Washington, DC, March 30, 2023. Photo: DOD / EJ Hersom

The US Department of Defense and numerous private commentators allege that Russian-Chinese cooperation on fast breeder reactors will provide plutonium for large numbers of Chinese nuclear weapons. Assistant Secretary of Defense John Plumb told Congressional hearings on March 8:

“It’s very troubling to see Russia and China cooperating on this. They may have talking points around it, but there’s no getting around the fact that breeder reactors are plutonium, and plutonium is for weapons. So I think the [Defense] Department is concerned. And of course, it matches our concerns about China’s increased expansion of its nuclear forces as well, because you need more plutonium for more weapons.”

The Pentagon knows better than this. Anyone conversant with fast breeder reactor technology is aware that the type of plutonium that can be produced in such reactors is much less suitable for nuclear weapons than the plutonium produced in other reactor types, whose design and construction China has long mastered.

It is therefore nonsensical to charge that the main goal of the Chinese fast breeder program is weapons-related. Rather, the motivation for the program is consistent with that of other nations that have pursued fast breeder reactor designs, including greater efficiency in the utilization of nuclear fuel, reduction in the amount and toxicity of nuclear waste and greater independence from outside fuel supplies.

Here are the details, point by point. They speak for themselves:


1.) Although fast breeder reactors have been around since the 1950s, practically the entirety of the plutonium employed in nuclear weapons in the world so far has been produced in dedicated military facilities by reactors of a completely different type – graphite-moderated or heavy-water-moderated reactors. These specialized military plutonium-production reactors operate with “slow” neutrons as opposed to the “fast”, high-energy neutrons involved in fast breeder reactors. (The graphite or heavy water is used to slow down – “moderate” – the neutrons produced in fission reactions, thereby increasing the probability of their absorption by other nuclei.)

In the US, for example, the plutonium used for thousands of nuclear weapons was supplied by graphite-moderated reactors at the Hanford facility and heavy-water-moderated reactors at the Savannah River facility. There are good technical and other reasons why other reactor types – all of which produce plutonium to a greater or lesser extent – have not been used in weapons production.

2.) China is quite familiar with the technology of military plutonium-production reactors, which it has used since the early days of its nuclear weapons program. If it so desired, China would have no difficulty whatsoever to rapidly expand its capacity to supply plutonium for nuclear weapons using dedicated graphite, or heavy-water-moderated plutonium-production reactors, which (relatively speaking) are far simpler, cheaper and faster to build and operate than the fast breeder reactors projected for China’s civilian nuclear power program. In case China would decide to produce thousands of nuclear weapons, it will not need help from Russia or anyone else, nor would it need breeder reactors.

3.) In fact, fast breeder reactors of the sort China is building are very poorly suited as potential sources of plutonium for nuclear weapons. The Pentagon and US Congress-circulated scare stories emphasize that large fast breeder reactors produce large amounts of plutonium. That is true, but plutonium produced in fast breeders cannot be used for nuclear weapons without cumbersome and costly processing. The plutonium generated in the relevant fission reactions is a mixture of the isotopes Pu-239 and Pu-240.

The core of the Russian Fast Breeder Reactor on June 27, 2017 in Zarechny, Svedlovsk Oblast, Russia. Image: Getty

Because of its specific properties, the presence of more than a tiny amount of Pu-240 renders the material unsuitable (or at least highly disadvantageous) for use in militarily viable nuclear weapons. As Pu-240 accumulates increasingly during operation, it would be necessary to remove fuel elements from the reactor prematurely after a short time – a procedure which would be totally contrary to the design and operation of fast breeder reactors such as those in China’s program, which are built to achieve a high “burn-up” of fuel.

Theoretically, this procedure is not absolutely impossible, but such a practice would be exorbitantly costly compared to a dedicated facility based on graphite- or heavy-water-moderated reactor technology.

4.) For these and other reasons, and given China’s well-established option to use dedicated military plutonium-producing facilities, it would be irrational for China – or any other nation – to utilize fast breeder reactors as the basis for a strategically-relevant expansion of weapons plutonium production.

5.) Russia, presently the world’s leader in fast breeder reactor technology and strategic partner for China’s fast breeder reactor program, has been operating large fast breeder reactors for many decades. But there is no evidence that Russia (or the former Soviet Union) ever used these reactors for military plutonium production. Ironically, since the end of the Cold War, Russia has used its fast breeder reactors to “burn up” plutonium from nuclear weapons, in the context of weapons reduction agreements with the US.

6.) All in all, there is no reason to doubt that the fast breeder reactor program in China has goals other than those that motivated fast breeder reactor development around the world. These include, most notably, achieving a “closed” fuel cycle, increasing by a factor of 100 the amount of energy that can be extracted from uranium, and creating a basis for fission reactors to potentially supply the world’s energy needs for hundreds or even thousands of years. At the same time, the fast breeders can provide an effective means for “burning up” waste products from nuclear power plants.

7.) The disinformation about China’s fast breeders offered by the Pentagon and others misses the key point: China and Russia are poised to dominate the world’s entire nuclear power sector, while the US and other Western countries have for decades been downsizing and even dismantling their nuclear industries.

China is currently pursuing by far the world’s largest nuclear power program, including the most innovative reactor types. Russia, the world’s leader in fast breeder reactors and a number of other key areas of nuclear technology, is today by far the world’s largest exporter of nuclear power plants and has a nearly dominant position in many global nuclear supply chains.

Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom is currently involved in the construction nuclear power plants in China. Photo: AFP / Sputnik / Rosatom.

Together, China and Russia are set to capture the vast emerging market for nuclear power in developing countries – a circumstance of great strategic importance. Russia’s nuclear exports are booming, and China already has plans to build and finance approximately 30 nuclear reactors in Asia, the Middle East and Africa as part of its Belt and Road Initiative.

This is only the beginning and that is the real cause for panic in Washington. The scaremongering about fast breeders and nuclear weapons is clearly intended to prepare the way for severe sanctions designed to cripple Russia-China nuclear cooperation efforts, particularly of the Russian nuclear company Rosatom and Chinese companies cooperating with it.

But Russian and Chinese commitment to the technology is firm, and sanctions are highly unlikely to derail the project.

US, UK and German tanks not built for Ukraine war

Abrams, Challengers and Leopard tanks are all likely to go up in smoke with their crews on Ukraine’s battlefields

By STEPHEN BRYEN

APRIL 2, 2023

AsiaTimes
M1 Abrams, a third-generation American main battle tanks, are seen in Poland in September 2022. Photo: Artur Widak / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images


German, British and American main battle tanks either already have arrived in Ukraine or will soon be on their way. But these tanks have some well-known weaknesses and the Russians are likely ready for them. Worse still, none of them have active defense systems, a critically important way of protecting tanks and tank crews from modern antitank weapons.

The German-made tanks are known as Leopards. Two different series of Leopard tanks are being sent to Ukraine, older Leopard-1 A-5s and Leopard 2 A-4 and A-6 tanks. The Leopard 2 series is regarded as one of the best-designed main battle tanks, comparing favorably to the US M1 Abrams, the Russian T-90 and the Israeli Merkav

Polish Leopard tanks arrive in Ukraine. Image: Substack

The US is refurbishing Abrams M-1 tanks for Ukraine. They should be arriving in the next two months, perhaps even sooner. The British have sent the first Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine. This behemoth weighs 69 tons, too heavy for many bridges in Ukraine and not suited to function on heavily mudded secondary roads.

None of the tanks being supplied are equipped with reactive armor. Instead, they rely on the built-in tank armor known as NERA (non-energetic reactive armor). The earliest form of NERA was known as Chobham armor because it was developed at the British Tank Research Center in Chobham, Surrey.

This type of armor combines steel plates with a non-steel material between two armor steel plates, sometimes with multiple levels and materials. The composite armor is designed to thwart shaped charge ammunition (like that found in HEAT tank ammunition) and against ammunition that uses a penetrator rod to essentially burn through armor.

These penetrator rods can be made out of hardened steel, tungsten (wolfram) or depleted uranium. Known as Armor Piercing Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot (APFSDS) rounds, British and US ammunition (M829A4) use depleted uranium for penetrator rods. The penetrators, sometimes called Darts, are 99% depleted uranium combined with other metals, together known as Stabilloy.

By contrast, German APFSDS ammunition uses tungsten penetrators because depleted uranium ammunition is banned in the EU. All the main guns for these European and American tanks are sized at 120mm with smooth bore barrels, originally designed by Rheinmetall in Germany. Russian tanks typically have a 125mm smoothbore main gun, entirely of Russian design.

A destroyed Abrams Tank in Iraq 2003. Image: Substack


Russia has both depleted uranium and tungsten dart ammunition in its inventory for its main battle tanks. These rounds have been produced for decades in different versions, such as differences in the length of APFSDS penetrators. Seemingly the Russians are not using depleted uranium ammunition in the Ukraine war.

In 1977 the Russians managed to steal the plans for Chobham armor and adapted it for Russian tanks. However, no Russian tank depends on this type of NERA armor for protection. Instead, the Russians put appliques of reactive (explosive, energetic) armor on the outside body of the tanks, typically on the front, on the turret and sides of the tank.

Russian reactive armor has evolved from a type known as Kontakt 1 to Kontakt 5. The Russians are now introducing a brand new type of reactive armor called Reklit which is designed to deal almost exclusively with APFSDS threats.

The basic idea of reactive, explosive armor is to explode when an incoming round strikes the tank. The explosion either redirects the actual incoming round, or damages it, making it ineffective.

The better forms of explosive reactive armor can either break or bend a penetrator, protecting the tank. Reactive armor has to be designed so that when it explodes it does not cause injury or death to nearby infantry or to other vehicles. (A similar consideration applies to hard-kill active defense systems – see below.)

The British, Germans and, especially the US long thought that their main battle tanks, designed in the 1970s and 1980s were good against most threats and did not require reactive (explosive) armor.

However, Iraq and Syria changed all that, as many Abrams tanks and Leopard tanks (especially those belonging to the Turkish army) were destroyed by Russian anti-tank weapons fired by ISIS irregulars.

If US and German armor could be knocked out with older ammunition using explosively formed penetrators (in the US best known as shaped charge weapons) and not DART ammunition, it was easy to see that Western tanks were at risk. The Russians immediately recognized the vulnerability of Leopard tanks to Russian antitank weapons.

Remains of a Turkish Leopard 2 A4 tank after the Battle of Al Bab. Image: Substack

Starting in 2017 the US army designed what it called Angled Tiles, a type of reactive armor designed to deflect an incoming threat, either upwards or downwards (depending on how the tiles are configured on installation). By 2019 the US Army started installing Angled Tiles on US Abrams tanks deployed in Europe, admitting that America’s top tank, despite its super secret armor, was deficient in protection.

This is especially significant since the newest US Abrams main battle tanks have a unique layered armor system that is said to include depleted uranium. The US decided not to provide this tank version with depleted uranium-enhanced armor to Ukraine fearing the Russians might copy it, but it is the most advanced version getting Layered Tiles. Ukraine is not getting layered tiles either.

Meanwhile, in Ukraine, the recently arriving Leopard tanks are being modified by the addition of external reactive armor. Lacking their own sources for reactive armor, the Ukrainians are pulling modules off of damaged or destroyed Russian tanks. So far at least, the modified Leopard 2 tanks are being fitted with Kontakt 1 reactive armor, at least a few generations behind the latest protective reactive armor systems.

Russian Kontakt 1 added to Leopard Tanks in Ukraine —Note also the steel caging (upper right) added to trip rocket propelled grenades fired at the tank turret). 

Image: Substack

The haste with which Ukraine is plastering its “new” Western tanks with reactive armor tells us something else: these new tanks are not much better than what they had before. And it tells us, furthermore, that even better ones held back by the Pentagon don’t cut it.

An Active Defense System is a system that destroys incoming mortars, rockets and shells before they hit a tank. The system works by detecting the incoming threat and neutralizing it by firing an explosively formed projectile.


An Active Defense System is at its best against antitank weapons and mortars. It is less capable against tank-fired ammunition because these rounds travel at supersonic (nearly Mach 3) speeds.

Thus proper tank defenses need to have top-quality armor, reactive armor and Active Defense Systems. Tanks with all three capabilities can potentially survive against even a well-equipped and heavily armed adversary.

There are a number of Active Defense Systems around, and some newer ones under development apparently will use lasers instead of explosively formed projectiles.

The Russians claim to have one or more active defense systems (one of them is called Arena), but not a single Russian tank in the Ukraine war is equipped with Active Defense. None of the tanks being delivered by Germany, the UK and the US are fitted with Active Defense.

The best of the currently-deployed systems is the Israeli Trophy (Rafael) and a newer type made in Israel called Iron First (Israel Military Industries). Trophy has been proven in combat and is fitted to Merkava tanks.

Part of the Trophy Active Defense System on a Merkava Tank. Image: Substack


Some 100 or so units have been sold to the Pentagon for the Abrams main battle tank, but that’s a drop in the bucket. Some Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles are being equipped with Iron Fist, but not those supplied to Ukraine.

Just as US forces have paltry air defenses because they refused to buy Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system, the same is true for US tanks, where only a small number of systems were purchased for trials. The Pentagon has long been rightly accused of suffering from the Not Invented Here (NIH) syndrome.

Other Abrams tanks have been fitted with a so-called Soft-Kill Active Defense System that is supposed to jam the electronics of a threat. Since kinetic weapons fired by tanks or artillery guns don’t use much in the way of electronics, soft kills offer no help.

Soft kill may be effective against troop-operated antitank weapons. It is unlikely any soft kill system will be on the Abrams tanks delivered to Ukraine.

Unfortunately, we won’t see how properly equipped Western tanks might perform in the Ukraine war. And it is increasingly likely that plenty of the main battle tanks from Europe and the United States will go up in smoke, along with their crews.


This article first appeared on Stephen Bryen’s Substack page and is republished with kind permission of the author. Read the original here.

A new femininity is starting to emerge in China

A blend of traditional Chinese culture, modern aesthetics & global influences promises to create a unique identity

By QINGYUE SUN

APRIL 11, 2023

AsiaTimes

One illustration of the fusion of traditional and modern beauty practices in 'nationalist femininity' is the adoption of the Peking Opera’s makeup techniques, which are characterized by ceramic white skin, red lips and finely arched eyebrows. Photo: Pinterest

Over the course of the last century, Western beauty ideals – thinness, light skin, large breasts, large eyes, a small nose and high cheekbones – have seeped into countries and cultures around the world.

But cracks are starting to emerge in these hegemonic beauty standards.

In my work as a social media scholar, I started to notice significant changes in beauty standards on Chinese social media over the past few years.

China’s economic success has enabled it to emerge as a major player in the global beauty market, and the country’s own beauty industry is starting to redefine the concept of feminine beauty.

From ‘iron women’ to Western idealization

Around the world, the beauty industry has long been, as feminist scholar Meeta Jha writes, a site of “ongoing struggles for economic development and mobility, modernity, social prestige, and power.”

As early as the 1920s, Chinese calendar posters began featuring Westernized women as symbols of “Shanghai modernity.”

However, after the Chinese Communist Party took power in 1949, Mao Zedong rejected Western beauty ideals as “bourgeois vanity.” His regime aimed to eliminate gender differences by promoting a more masculine-looking female image, such as “iron women” who drove tractors and operated welding machines.

But this started to shift in the 1980s after China’s Open Door Policy went into effect.

During this period, the “meinv jingji,” or Chinese beauty economy, emerged. Completely subverting the previous communist beauty ideology, it legitimized beauty consumption through capitalist enterprises.

This shift led to an obsession with mimicking Western features, such as whiter skin, higher-bridged noses and double eyelids, which is also known as “Asian blepharoplasty,” a surgical procedure that produces a crease in the eyelid, resulting in a larger, more symmetrical eye shape.

Split femininity

In recent years, however, a unique beauty culture has emerged on Chinese social media. To me, the different iterations represent the tensions and contradictions of various cultural forces.

One look that’s become immensely popular is what I call “split femininity.” I use the word “split” because this look oscillates between hypersexuality and infantilization.

In split femininity, qualities such as purity and innocence coexist with sultry, erotic imagery. There’s even a Chinese term for this seeming contradiction – “chun yu,” or “purity and desire.” Another related term, “ke tian ke yan,” metaphorically links beauty to tastes, such as sweetness and saltiness.

Together, these terms – and their accompanying looks – imply a flexible femininity that can switch between dominant and submissive, sexy and cute.

A blogger named ‘MissPiggy’ showcases makeup that reflects ‘chun yu,’ or ‘purity and desire.’ 

Qingyue Sun

Split femininity is often customized for particular occasions, such as dates. Another popular makeup style under the split femininity umbrella is called “xian nv luo lei,” which translates into “the fairy wept, and the man knelt.” This particular look seeks to capture and celebrate feminine vulnerability. Many of its promoters say it’s the best look for women who are arguing with men.

In essence, split femininity fuses a form of passive femininity that’s redolent of China’s traditional patriarchal values with the commodification of female sexuality.
Globalized femininity

Another beauty trend, “globalized femininity,” centers on transnational, cross-cultural beauty themes.

Chinese beauty influencers pull from the looks of international celebrities, historical periods and popular media coverage to craft diverse forms of femininity that span cultural boundaries.

For example, Thai beauty norms often showcase bold eyebrows and warm skin tones, whereas Western beauty ideals generally emphasize a sexualized, provocative look with dramatic facial contours. Chinese beauty bloggers will combine these various influences to craft new models of femininity.

A Chinese influencer displays looks inspired by Thai, Western and Korean femininity. Qingyue Sun

Korean culture has also influenced many beauty trends that are currently in vogue, with K-pop female idols serving as a significant source of inspiration. Jennie Kim, a member of the K-pop group Blackpink, has become known for her edgy streetwear, coupled with a soft and feminine facial appearance. Her unique style has inspired the emergence of the “baby fierce” look.

Influencers Ruby and YCC post two ‘baby fierce’ looks inspired by K-pop star Jennie Kim. Qingyue Sun

The rise of globalized femininity might appear to indicate a shift away from Western-centric beauty ideals. But it is important to recognize that many of these global sources of inspiration have already been Westernized or are a product of Western beauty assimilation.

In China, the trend of globalized femininity can simply be seen as a re-imagination of established Westernized beauty standards adapted to a Chinese context.
Nationalist femininity

Nationalist femininity, referred to as “China beauty,” has also become increasingly popular on Chinese social media.

This form of femininity appeals to national pride by integrating Chinese aesthetics and modernity through inspiration from traditional Chinese culture, tropes and imagery. Classic Chinese myths such as “A Hundred Birds Paying Homage to The Phoenix” and Chinese literature like the novel “Journey to the West” inspire extravagant looks imbued with symbolism.

One illustration of the fusion of traditional and modern beauty practices is the adoption of the Peking Opera’s makeup techniques, which are characterized by ceramic white skin, red lips and finely arched eyebrows.

The influencer YCC shows off two examples of ‘China beauty.’ 

Qingyue Sun

Nationalist beauty trends have become a means for China’s homegrown brands to expand their market share and reverse the negative connotations of “Made in China.”

While Western capitalism and consumerism have long driven the global beauty industry, the evolution of Chinese beauty culture is not simply a history of assimilation or suppression.

Instead, it is a complex process that involves compromise, integration and resistance against the dominance of Western beauty ideals. The emergence of nationalist femininity, the popularity of split femininity and the trend of globalized femininity are all manifestations of this dynamic nature.

As contemporary Chinese beauty culture encompasses a blending of traditional Chinese culture, modern aesthetics and global influences, it promises to create a unique identity that is distinctively Chinese.

Qingyue Sun is a PhD candidate in communication, culture and media at Drexel University.

Rich or poor? China’s ‘developing’ status faces fire

US legislators seek to designate China a ‘developed’ nation and thus strip away its various trade, finance and emissions privileges

By JEFF PAO

AsiaTimes

Should China still be considered a 'developing' nation? Legislators in the US don't think so. 

Image: Xinhua

China is weighing the risk of losing trade benefits and carbon emission exemptions after the United States House of Representatives passed a bill that calls for revoking “developing country” status of what is now the world’s second-largest economy.

The bipartisan bill, titled “The People’s Republic of China Is Not a Developing Country Act,” was passed by a unanimous vote of 415-0 under a fast-track process on Monday (March 27). It will need approval from the Senate and the US president before it becomes law.

Chinese commentators warned that if the act is passed, as seems likely, China will face higher tariffs, rising production costs, more obligations to cut greenhouse gas emissions and a significant reduction in international preferential loans – all of which would ultimately lead to job losses in China.

The impetus behind the bill goes back to February 2020, when then-US president Donald Trump said the US would treat 25 countries, including China, India and South Africa, as developed nations to eliminate the preferential trade treatment they receive in countervailing duty investigations.

Earlier this week, while US lawmakers advanced the current bipartisan legislation, bill co-sponsor Representative Young Kim pointed out that China – which overtook Japan as the world’s second-largest economy in 2010 – now accounts for 18.7% of the global economy.

She said China had been taking out low-interest loans from international organizations while at the same time spending trillions on infrastructure projects in other countries as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. She described the BRI as a “debt-trap diplomacy scam.”

The Chinese foreign ministry has not yet commented on the latest punitive bill but responded to the accusations of causing “debt traps” in other countries.

Mao Ning, a foreign ministry spokesperson, said on March 30 that China has been helping other developing nations reduce their debts. She said these countries’ debt problems were fueled more by the US Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes last year.

Currently, China is considered to be a “developing country” by organizations including the United Nations, although there are no clear definitions of the terms “developing” and “developed.”

\Security guards walk past a billboard for the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing on May 13, 2017. Photo: AFP / Wang Zhao

One Chinese writer on Weibo said in a recent article that China will take a serious blow if the “PRC Is Not a Developing Country Act” takes effect.

China now enjoys trade-remedy and anti-dumping exemptions from the World Trade Organization (WTO), financial aid from the World Bank, technical and financial support from international organizations, lower tariffs for many of its exports, agricultural support from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), scientific research funding from developed countries and additional time before it is required to reach the world’s intellectual property protection standards due to its developing nation status, he notes.

“As a developing country, China can get international support to tackle environmental and climate change challenges and receive technologies and funding that promote sustainable development,” he writes, noting that the UN Development Program (UNDP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have both initiated a series of social and economic development projects in the country that could be in jeopardy with a switch in designation from developing to developed.

He blames some “patriotic” internet influencers for having overblown China’s economic and technological achievements, which have now become ammunition for US politicians to target China’s privileges in the international order.

“If China is classified as a developed country, it will no longer be able to enjoy low tariffs, and its exports will decline,” a Guangdong-based columnist who writes under a “Blockbuster” pseudonym said.

“As foreign countries will impose stricter technology export rules on China, Chinese technology will not be able to obtain the technologies and parts they need.”

The writer also notes China won’t be able to apply for low-cost loans from multilateral development banks, including even the Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), if it is designated a developed nation.

Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’s Beijing Headquarters. Photo: CGTN

A Chongqing-based writer says it is possible that China will also lose its most favored nation (MFN) status, which grants Chinese exporters preferential tariff treatment. He says a shift from developing to developed status will specifically erode China’s exports of machines and electronic goods and cause higher fuel and mineral import costs.

Other commentators note China would face more international pressure to cut its carbon emissions if it is categorized as a developed nation. Due to its developing status, China now enjoys more flexibility in deciding the pace of its carbon emission reduction.

China surpassed the US to become the world’s largest CO2 emitter in 2005. In 2021, China’s carbon emissions hit a record high of 13,078 million tons, which far outpaced the US’s 5,289 million tons and the European Union’s 3,438 million tons, according to the EU’s Joint Research Center.

The US has vowed to halve its 2005 greenhouse gas emission level by 2030. China is currently targeting for its CO2 emissions to peak by 2030 and achieve net zero by 2060.

Chinese state media, for its part, say China should not be over-worried as the US’s call to designate China as a developed nation will not likely be accepted by most international organizations.

The Beijing Daily said in an article on March 30 that China is definitely not a developed country as its GDP per capita was only US$14,000 last year, compared with Luxembourg’s $127,000, the United States’ $75,000 and Japan’s $34,000.

GDP at purchasing power parity is considered by some a better tool than nominal GDP to compare different economies as it takes into account the relative cost of local goods, services and inflation rates of a given country, rather than using international market exchange rates.

China’s GDP (PPP) per capita was significantly higher at about US$21,000 last year, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Customers shop for fruits at a supermarket in Handan city, north China’s Hebei province, January 17, 2019. Photo: Imaginechina via AFP / Hao Qunying

The Beijing Daily notes China ranks No 85 in the world in terms of the UN Development Program’s Human Development Index, an indicator of a country’s education level, longevity and living standards.

“When has China become a wealthy nation? The US has no say in it,” the state-owned newspaper says. “When our social and economic development reaches that level, we will generously bear the responsibilities and obligations that we should bear.”

The state mouthpiece added that if the US achieves its goal to slow the Chinese economy by labeling it a developed country, Americans will also suffer from higher inflation caused by more expensive Chinese goods.

Follow Jeff Pao on Twitter at @jeffpao

MARCH 31, 2023

Rich-poor gap worsening in India

While a small section of India’s populace enjoys top privileges, for the bottom 50% sustainability of life is still a challenge

By SACHI SATAPATHY

AsiaTimes

APRIL 11, 2023

India still is home to the world’s highest number of poor people. 

Photo: Wikimedia Commons / Varun Chatterji

The deliberation and discourse on India’s inequality have been mostly concentrated on two key points: First, all highlights are on the top-1% “billionaire class” and its exponential growth over the period; second, on those surviving below poverty line. However, the most important question resides in the space occupied in between: What are the inequality dynamics, and how severe is this inequality trap?

Growing inequality is one of the biggest concerns, as a recent report says that in India, 5% own more than 60% of the country’s wealth. Data from the Forbes Rich List confirm this trend of concentration of wealth at the very top of the income distribution in India.

The net worth of Indian billionaires increased substantially, from 2% of GDP in 2000 to 20% in 2020. The concentration of assets in few people’s hands implies that the growth process is not inclusive.

At US$719 billion, India’s 142 billionaires are now worth more than the poorest 555 million Indians – more than half a billion people.

India’s billionaires saw their combined fortunes more than double during the Covid-19 pandemic and the number of Indian billionaires shot up by almost 40% since 2020 (data used here are from the Forbes billionaires list released every March). Ironically, while rich people were getting richer, the income of 84% of Indian households declined in 2021.

While a small section of India’s populace enjoys top privileges, for the bottom 50% sustainability of life is still a challenge. This is due to a variety of factors, including but not limited to loss of job opportunities, an erratic unorganized sector, rising poverty and inflation.

Between 2017 and 2022, the overall labor participation rate dropped from 46% to 40%. Among women, the data are even starker. About 21 million disappeared from the workforce, leaving only 9% of the eligible population employed or looking for positions.

Now, more than half of the 900 million Indians of legal working age – roughly the population of the US and Russia combined – don’t want a job, as most of them are not finding suitable jobs, matching to their education and skill.

More proof of growing inequality in India is surfacing from government income-tax data. The number of middle-income taxpayers in India has declined dramatically after 2018-19. It fell 17% in following years, from 49.8 million to 41.1 million. In the same period, the number of high-income taxpayers rose 15%.

India still is home to the world’s highest number of poor people, at 228.9 million. This poverty is hopelessly entrenched, more so because in an era of unbridled food and fuel inflation and the gravest health crisis in a century, the poor are even more vulnerable to rising food and energy prices and to catastrophic health expenditures.

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reports that, on an average, 115 daily wage workers died by suicide every day in 2021.
Lessons from abroad

Rising inequality is linked to slower economic growth. Given that the five Nordic countries – Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden – are among the most equal in the world on a variety of criteria, it makes sense to look to them for guidance on how to create a more equal society.

Nordic countries have attained high levels of welfare and equality. This is due to strong focus on social solidarity, taxation and higher spending on education and health care. Unlike most other nations, these countries offer free higher education to their citizens.

Evidence suggests that expenditure on health care, education, and social safety reduces inequality. For example, if a government invests in free and high-quality public services, poor people would not have to spend on them, allowing them to save money.

Income transfers to the poorest segment of society are the most direct way to keep inequality in check and reduce poverty. These taxes, if used to fund public services, can further reduce inequality. Providing tax benefits to companies that share more of the profits with their employees can also help in mitigating the disparity.

In other words, when income inequality is low, people’s position in income distribution is not so dependent on their circumstances at birth. Alternatively, in countries where income inequality is high, people’s position in the economic ladder is largely predetermined by their circumstances at birth.

People starting in disadvantaged positions are trapped in those positions. This means that someone born in the bottom economic class may have a slim chance of moving up to a better economic situation than their parents. This means that they are affected by more severe inequality traps, their inequalities in opportunities are reproduced over time and across generations.

In societies with low equality of opportunity, talented individuals may not reach their full potential because they are constrained by circumstances rather than by their lack of effort. Rural and urban linkages are also required to correct the structural wrongs in the system.

There is inequality in access to education and skill development across genders, scheduled caste/scheduled tribe populations and the minority communities, which needs to be addressed.

The current trend of rising inequality in India, if not checked by the right policy measures, could exacerbate the existing poverty situation to the worst level.

Why so many democracies prefer Russia to Ukraine

Non-aligned democracies say they prefer to ‘talk to both sides’ but economic and political incentives make many lean to Moscow

By JOSE CABALLERO

APRIL 13, 2023

THE CONVERSATION

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a meeting on the sidelines of the 11th BRICS Summit in Brasilia, Brazil, on November 13, 2019. India has been reluctant to condemn Russia outright for its invasion of Ukraine. Photo: Sputnik / Mikhail Metzel

After over a year of the Ukraine war, efforts at building a global consensus against Russia seem to have stalled, with many countries opting for neutrality.

The number of countries condemning Russia has declined, according to some sources. Botswana has edged towards Russia from its original pro-Ukraine stance, South Africa is moving from neutral to Russia-leaning and Colombia from condemning Russia to a neutral stance. At the same time, a large number of countries have been reluctant to support Ukraine.

In Africa, for example, despite the African Union’s call on Moscow for an “immediate ceasefire” most countries remain neutral. Some observers argue that this is the result of a tradition of left-leaning regimes that goes back to the cold war period. Others indicate that the current unwillingness of African countries originates in the history of Western intervention, sometimes covert and others overt, in their internal affairs.

The reluctance to condemn Russia, however, goes beyond Africa. In February 2023, most Latin American countries supported a UN resolution to call for an immediate and unconditional Russian withdrawal. And yet, despite Brazil’s support for several UN resolutions in Ukraine’s favor, it has not condemned Russia outright.

Within the UN, the stance of Bolivia, Cuba, El Salvador and Venezuela has allowed Russia to evade Western sanctions. Furthermore, Brazil, Argentina and Chile, rejected calls to send military material to Ukraine, and Mexico questioned Germany’s decision to provide tanks to Ukraine.

The same divisions are evident in Asia. While Japan and South Korea have openly denounced Russia, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has not collectively done so. China approaches the conflict through a balancing act through its strategic partnership with Russia and its increasing influence in the UN. During its time as a member of the UN Security Council, India abstained on votes related to the conflict.

The politics of neutrality

Such a cautious and neutral position has been influenced by the Cold War’s non-alignment movement which was perceived as a way for developing countries to fight the conflict “on their terms” and thus acquire a degree of foreign policy autonomy, outside the Soviet Union and the west’s sphere of influence.

Studies of EU sanctions have argued that an unwillingness of other countries to back the EU position can relate to both a desire for foreign policy independence and an unwillingness to antagonize a neighbor.

Non-alignment allows countries to avoid becoming entangled in the rising geopolitical tensions between the West and Russia. It is perhaps for this reason that many democratic countries maintain a stance of neutrality, preferring, as South African president Cyril Ramaphosa put it, to “talk to both sides.”

There are, however, particular economic and political incentives that are influential when countries decide against condemning Russia.

Brazil

Since the earlier stages of the Ukraine conflict, Brazil has maintained a pragmatic but ambivalent stance. This position connects to Brazil’s agricultural and energy needs. As one of the world’s top agricultural producers and exporter, Brazil requires a high rate of fertilizer usage. In 2021, the value of imports from Russia was of US$5.58 billion of which 64% was from fertilizers. Imports of fertilizers from Russia are 23% of the total 40 million tonnes imported.

OEC: https://oec.world/en/ ; Author provided (no reuse)

In February 2023, it was announced that the Russian gas company Gazprom will invest in Brazil’s energy sector as part of the expanding energy relations between the two countries. This could lead to close collaboration in oil and gas production and processing, and in the development of nuclear power.

Such collaboration can benefit Brazil’s oil sector, expected to be among the world’s top exporters. By March 2023, Russian exports of diesel to Brazil reached new records, at the same time as a total EU embargo on Russian oil products. Higher level of diesel supplies may alleviate any potential shortages that can affect Brazil’s agricultural sector.
India

Observers point out that in the post-cold-war era, Russia and India continue to share similar strategic and political views. In the early 2000s, in the context of their strategic partnership, Russia’s purpose was to build a multipolar global system which appealed to India’s wariness of the United States as a partner.

Russia has also provided India with support for its nuclear weapons program and its efforts to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Russia continues to be a key player in India’s arms trade, supplying 65% of India’s weapons imports between 1992 and 2021. Since the start of the war it has become an important supplier of oil at discount prices. This has meant an increase in purchases from about 50,000 barrels per day in 2021 to about 1 million barrels per day by June 2022.

South Africa

On the eve of the war’s anniversary, South Africa held a joint naval drill with Russia and China. For South Africa, the benefits from the exercise relate to security through capacity building for its underfunded and overstretched navy. More broadly, there are trade incentives for South Africa’s neutral stance.

Russia is the largest exporter of arms to the African continent. It also supplies nuclear power and, importantly, 30% of the continent’s grain supplies such as wheat, with 70% of Russia’s overall exports to the continent concentrated in four countries including South Africa.

In January 2023, Russia was one of the largest providers of nitrogenous fertilizers to South Africa, a critical element for pasture and crop growth. In addition, among the main imports from Russia are coal briquettes used for fuel in several industries including food processing. Considering the level of food insecurity in the country both imports are fundamental for its socio-political and economic stability.

The Ukraine war has shown that non-alignment continues to be a popular choice, despite appeals to support another democracy in trouble. This policy has long been an important element of the political identity of countries such as India. In other cases, such as Brazil, despite apparent shifts under President Jair Bolsonaro, non-interventionism remains a fundamental element of its policy tradition.

Nevertheless, neutrality is likely to become a “tricky balancing act” as conflicting interests become more acute, particularly in the context of the West’s provision of direct investment plus development and humanitarian aid to many of the non-aligned states.


Jose Caballero, Senior Economist, IMD World Competitiveness Center, International Institute for Management Development (IMD)

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

First Asian screenwriter challenged Hollywood racism

In the 1920s ‘dream factory,’ Winnifred Eaton also was the first woman to head a script department

By MARY CHAPMAN AND SYDNEY LINES

APRIL 15, 2023
THE CONVERSATION

Winnifred Eaton. Photo: Wikipedia


A century before Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian woman to win an Oscar for Best Actress, Winnifred Eaton,the daughter of a Chinese mother and a white English father, was working behind the scenes in Hollywood.

Winnifred Eaton, often credited in Hollywood as Winifred Reeve, was born in Montréal in 1875. She wrote and adapted scores of screenplays for MGM and Universal Studios, where she was literary advisor and editor-in-chief from 1925 to 1930.

Eaton was the first Asian screenwriter in Hollywood, and the first Asian — and first woman — to head a Hollywood script department.

Together with a team of scholars, including Joey Takeda and Jean Lee Cole, we are digitizing Eaton’s surviving screenplays so that her role in Hollywood, and the tradition of Asians in Hollywood, from Eaton to Yeoh, can be better understood.

Eaton was an advocate for more sympathetic depictions of women, the working classes and some racialized people, but also complicit in her era’s racism and sexism. That her efforts to hold space for Asian characters and themes were ultimately rejected by Hollywood speaks volumes about its refusal to accept Asians in its Golden Age.

Early career

Eaton’s mother, Achuen Amoy, was born in China, and, as our research has uncovered, toured the world as a child apprentice to a Chinese acrobatic troupe. After returning to China, she met and married English silk importer Edward Eaton. The Eatons lived in England and New York before settling in Montréal.

Eaton’s novel ‘A Japanese Nightingale’ (1901), an immediate bestseller, was made into a film. Photo: Wikipedia

Soon after Canada introduced the Chinese Head Tax in 1885, Eaton’s sister Edith Eaton began to publish sympathetic fictional and journalistic portraits of North American Chinatowns under the pen name “Sui Sin Far.”

Winnifred Eaton, however, began her career as an author at the height of the western popularization of Japanese art and design in a context of orientalism and racism. She published bestselling novels under the faux-Japanese pen-name “Onoto Watanna,” a problematic persona she assumed in 1896 and later came to regret.

Eaton’s second novel A Japanese Nightingale (1901) was an immediate bestseller, translated into several languages, and made into a film in 1918.
Screenwriting success

Yet Eaton was much more than the author of formulaic Japanese romances. Like many early 20th-century novelists and playwrights, Eaton recognized that the movie industry desperately needed writers with an ear for dialogue as it moved from its silent era into the “talkies.”

It also needed writers with perspectives on what were seen as exotic locales, the sites of cultural collision and exchange that were at the heart of the early “dream factory.”

As performing arts scholar Vito Adriaensens has uncovered, Eaton optioned her first story to the Selig Polyscope Company in 1914.

Later that decade, Eaton won a screenwriting contest. Writing as Winifred Reeve, she earned her first screenwriting credit for the 1921 Universal feature False Kisses. By the early 1920s, Eaton had moved with her second husband to Alberta, where she continued to write.

Credited on only five films

During this period, Eaton wrote scores of scripts, including several for starlets Mary Philbin and Mary Nolan.

Universal Studios referred to Eaton as “an instrument of salvage” who could go into its “morgues” and “garb” abandoned scripts in “modern screen attire.”

However, in the collaborative world of Hollywood, where much writing labor remains invisible, Eaton received screenwriting credit for only five films.

Many of the films we know she worked on, for example Shanghai Lady, East is West, Barbary Coast and Borneo, featured Asian characters, but these were played by white actors in yellowface.

Censored scripts

Eaton’s depictions of race and gender often aligned with the outdated standards of the time. That said, as literature scholar Jean Lee Cole has argued, multiple drafts of screenplays reveal Eaton’s efforts to create sympathetic racialized characters, particularly women, and to depict interracial relationships.

However, these efforts were often rejected or written out by later screenwriters and editors, or censored by 1930s production codes.

Cole compared scripts in Eaton’s papers with their final filmed versions and noted how other writers and producers revised Eaton’s scripts to conform to existing “film formulas that reified male dominance, class hierarchies and racial purity.”

Upon seeing the revised script for Barbary Coast, Eaton wrote “I really feel sick …. I feel as if I don’t want my name on this.”

Brilliant novel ‘Cattle’ critiqued colonialism

Eaton’s film treatment for her brilliant 1923 novel Cattle made a daring critique of the violence, racism and sexism undergirding settler colonialism.

In Eaton’s story, a rancher steals cattle from local Indigenous communities and unleashes violence on his illegitimate son by a Stoney Nakoda woman. The rancher rapes his housemaid. A Chinese cook achieves justice by loosening the gates so the abusive boss’s starving cattle can run free, and one of them gores the rancher to death.

However, in a revision of Eaton’s treatment, another writer eliminated the cook’s role. Paramount then scuttled the project because of the story’s sympathetic portrayal of a mother raising her illegitimate child. A film of Cattle was never made.

Hollywood ambivalence

Hollywood cast Anna May Wong as Indigenous characters. (Wikipedia)

As Everything Everywhere All at Once actor James Hong recalled, early Hollywood was not a welcoming place for Asian actors and writers, despite its fascination with Asian settings and topics. If Asian actors were given roles, these were often as villains or in other stereotyped racialized roles.

Chinese American actress Anna May Wong (1905-1961) played Indigenous characters in The Alaskan (1924) and Peter Pan (1924).

Sessue Hayakawa was a silent film star and in 1957 was nominated for an Oscar. (Wikipedia)

Sessue Hayakawa (1886-1973), the first big-screen heartthrob or sex symbol and first Japanese actor nominated for an Oscar, told Eaton in an 1929 interview that he “did not like the stories” he was required to play. He also told Eaton that he had left Hollywood in 1922 in protest because he had been referred to with a racial slur.

The Hays Code, introduced in 1930, made things worse for actors of Asian backgrounds when it forbade featuring non-white actors in romantic on-screen relationships with white actors.

New edition of ‘Cattle’

Eaton left Hollywood in 1931. While she continued to write screenplays, there is no evidence that any of her later scripts got produced.

This July, scholars will gather in Calgary, Alberta, with Eaton’s descendants including biographer Diana Birchall for a conference open to the public to discuss Eaton’s career and to launch a new edition of Cattle on the centenary of its publication.

Mary Chapman is a professor of English and the academic director of the Public Humanities Hub at the University of British Columbia. Sydney Lines is a public scholar and PhD candidate in English language and literatures at the University of British Columbia.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

US guns for more accurate, lethal and survivable nukes (NO SUCH THING)

US plans next generation reentry vehicle for its land-based nuclear arsenal to deter China and Russia’s new collective threat

By GABRIEL HONRADA

AsiaTimes

APRIL 13, 2023

An LGM-30G Minuteman III ICBM in its silo. Photo: Twitter / Screengrab

The US has unveiled plans for a new reentry vehicle to be mounted on the next generation of the land-based leg of its nuclear triad. The announcement comes amid increased tensions with China and Russia, two of the world’s other leading nuclear powers, at what some see as the outbreak of a New Cold War.

This month, Breaking Defense reported that the US Air Force had started soliciting plans for the Next Generation Reentry Vehicle (NGRV) to be mounted on its new LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), with design objectives requiring increased survivability, lethality and accuracy.

The report states that a reentry vehicle houses a nuclear missile’s warhead. The US Air Force plans to put one warhead on each LGM-35A Sentinel missile in its inventory but could put two or three warheads on each in response to changes in the international security environment.

Breaking Defense notes that the NGRV will be modularly developed using open system architecture and digital engineering to incorporate future warhead designs and countermeasures.

The project follows US efforts to replace its long-serving land-based ICBM. Last April, Asia Times reported on US plans to replace the Cold War-era LGM-30G Minuteman III with the LGM-35A Sentinel. The US aims to complete this modernization effort by 2029, with the latter missile being in service until the 2070s.

In contrast to the LGM-30G Minuteman III, the LGM-35A Sentinel features a modular design and open software architecture, allowing for easy replacement of obsolete components and multiple contractors to compete for system upgrades and improvements such as safety measures, guidance systems and penetration aids.

The LGM-35A Sentinel also allows warhead maintenance with closed silo doors, eliminating a security vulnerability and reducing security detail manpower requirements compared to the LGM-30G Minuteman III.

The LGM-35A Sentinel has improved throw weight compared to the LGM-30G Minuteman III, allowing the former to carry heavier payloads including up to three warheads or increased penetration aids

.

An unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile launches during an operational test at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. 

Photo: US Air Force / Senior Airman Ian Dudley

That ICBM upgrade project underscores the enduring importance of the US land-based nuclear arsenal. Given that, Todd Harrison, in a 2017 Center for Strategic and International Studies report, notes that ground-launched ICBMs serve two main roles in the US nuclear triad.

First, Harrison mentions that ground-launched ICBMs act as a “missile sponge” to draw incoming enemy missiles, saying that an adversary must spend at least one missile to neutralize geographically-dispersed targets in a pre-emptive strike, increasing the missile numbers and scale needed for such an attack to be successful.

Second, Harrison says that land-based ICBMs provide a first-strike capability because, unlike nuclear weapons on aircraft and submarines, nearly all are always on alert and can launch within minutes.

But despite the strategic importance of the US land-based nuclear arsenal, it is in dire need of modernization. In a September 2022 article for Time, W J Hennigan reported that the US land-based nuclear arsenal built around the LGM-30G Minuteman III still uses vintage components from the 1960s, struggles with obsolete command and control equipment, is housed in dilapidated infrastructure and faces increasingly difficult and expensive maintenance.

Despite these challenges, Hennigan mentions that a land-based nuclear arsenal is critical for the US to maintain strategic deterrence against China, North Korea and Russia.

Although he says critics point out that US air and sea-based nuclear weapons are more than enough to deter potential adversaries, land-based nuclear missile silos are tempting targets for an enemy nuclear attack as an accident in one of those facilities can result in a nuclear catastrophe.

Still, the enduring need for the US to maintain its strategic deterrent posture against evolving nuclear threats from near-peer adversaries and to reassure its allies has prompted US nuclear arsenal modernization efforts.

A Sino-Russian nuclear concert could tip the global balance of nuclear weapons away from the US. Last month, Asia Times reported on Russia’s plans to provide fast breeder reactor technology to China, which could allow it to produce more plutonium for its nuclear arsenal expansion.

Russia’s nuclear energy exports, which have surged since its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, have given it a lifeline to compensate for lost energy and weapons sales revenues.

It also shows that Russia has set aside long-term concerns about China’s long-term threat in its Far East and signifies Russia’s increased desire for cooperation with China.

The possible upsizing of China’s nuclear arsenal from 400 warheads today to 700, coupled with more diverse delivery systems such as stealth bombers, road-and-rail mobile launchers and ballistic missile submarines, gives China a credible second-strike capability, options for limited theater-level nuclear strikes and the means to brandish nuclear weapons coercively.

Given that, the US, for the first time in its history, is squaring off against two nuclear-armed near-peer adversaries, making it imperative to modernize its nuclear arsenal.

An intercontinental ballistic missile at a military parade in Moscow, May 9, 2017.

 Photo: TASS / Valery Sharifulin

A 2023 study by the Center for Global Security Research mentions that China and Russia are bound by hostility to US-led global and regional orders and are resolved to bring about their end, with both having large nuclear arsenals and new ideas for using them to break US alliances and sap US political will to defend its interests.

The report also mentions that China and Russia’s use of nuclear brinksmanship and blackmail threatens the US and its allies. US allies’ dependence on nuclear weapons for strategic deterrence has increased steadily over the last two decades, making it imperative that US nuclear security guarantees remain credible.

It also mentions a potential Sino-Russian nuclear concert, underscoring concerns that the US may not be able to deter China and Russia at the same time, noting that while the US may be preoccupied with one near-peer nuclear adversary, the other may choose to act in a limited manner against US interests, exploiting America’s distraction and playing up the threat of using nuclear weapons as strategic cover for its actions.

A PLAGUE UPON BOTH YOUR HOUSES

Don’t let US-Chinese rivalry haunt tracing of Covid-19 origin

The search for the truth has become a blame game driven not by science but by superpower rivalry

By SUN XI

APRIL 14, 2023

An aerial view shows a laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in central China's Hubei province. Photo: AFP

Although the global Covid-19 pandemic has not completely ended, the post-Covid era is coming. Life in Singapore where I reside has long gone back to normal, and I have traveled back to China twice this year for business trips. There is hardly any trace of the pandemic, and people are just working and living as usual to enjoy their lives without talking about Covid-19 any more.

However, some people seem still to be obsessed with Covid-19. Most notably, the US Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed the “Covid-19 Origin Act of 2023” last month to “get to the bottom of Covid-19’s origins to help ensure we can better prevent future pandemics.”

But why did the United States not pass an “HIV/AIDS Origin Act” or “Swine Flu/H1N1 Origin Act” in the past? Obviously, because the human immunodeficiency virus did not originate in China, and H1N1 virus was first detected in the US.

President Biden stated that under the Act, his administration will review all classified information relating to Covid-19’s origins, including potential links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The main advocate of the Act, US Senator Josh Hawley, put it more bluntly: “The American [people] deserve to know the truth behind the origins of the pandemic and we must begin the process of holding China accountable.”

So the real goal of the Act is very clear: to prove the SARS-CoV-2 virus was leaked from the Wuhan lab and to blame China. Isn’t that against the “presumption of innocence,” a principle long held by the US itself?

Previously, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo firmly claimed that he had “a large amount of evidence” of the leak but eventually was unable to show anything concrete. Even today, US intelligence agencies are still divided over whether virus came from a lab leak or an animal.

If the US government really wants to know the origin of Covid-19, it should not ignore the appeal that its Fort Detrick lab in Frederick, Maryland, and 336 biological laboratories overseas should also be investigated by an independent third party led by the World Health Organization. Doing otherwise shows double standards applied on China and the US itself.

In his recent article “Navigating the new age of great-power competition,” veteran former Singaporean diplomat Bilahari Kausikan sharply pointed out that “the US-Chinese rivalry seems set to become the defining feature of international relations in the 21st century.”

He is right. Tracing the origin of Covid-19 should be a matter of science, but unfortunately it has become a blame game haunted by superpower rivalry. It seems that the US does not really care whether the SARS-CoV-2 virus was from China, but it just wants to use the issue to attack China further.

If so, the world may never be able to know the truth about the virus’ origin. If we still want to know the facts, we need to put geopolitics aside and leave the matter to scientists.

Sun Xi, a China-born alumnus of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, is an independent commentary writer based in Singapore. He is also founder and CEO of ESGuru, a Singapore-based consultancy firm specializing in environmental, social and governance issues.