LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Monday, November 04, 2024

Who does South Asia want in the White House?

Published November 4, 2024

A view of the White House in Washington, USA

Like all parts of the world, countries in South Asia are closely following the US presidential race, keeping an eye out for their interests and preparing to tweak policies based on who among Donald Trump and Kamala Harris prevails on November 5.

Analysts say major regional countries — Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan — are divided in who they would like to be the next US president, but all remain willing to engage with whoever emerges victorious.

On the flip side, US policies are likely to be in the realm of “continuation”, with neither administration applying “a very sharp strategic lens to South Asia”, according to Michael Kugelman, an expert on Washington’s relations with South Asian nations.

“But I do think that you would see a sharper lens, relatively speaking, from Harris than from Trump,” he said.

The US will “investigate possibilities for infrastructure investments in South Asia, working with India for sure to counter China, trying to step up varying levels of cooperation on security levels … especially through maritime cooperation”, Kugelman, director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute, told Anadolu.
Afghanistan leaning toward Trump

For Afghanistan and the Taliban, they want a US president who will not give them “a hard time”, according to Kugelman.

It was in Trump’s previous tenure that the US negotiated the deal to pull out its troops from Afghanistan, and Harris was part of an administration that supported and enforced the decision, he said.

He believes that the Taliban government might be more inclined towards a Trump administration.

“With Afghanistan, I think the Taliban will be okay with whoever wins, but may lean a bit more toward wanting to see a return of Trump. But in the end … it could live with whoever wins the election,” he said.

Trump as president, he explained, would be less likely to focus on the state of women’s education and human rights in Afghanistan.

“The key question for the Taliban becomes which president would be more likely to want to look into the possibility of scaling up assistance to Afghanistan, particularly assistance for development, with Trump more inclined to look into financing opportunities,” he said.

However, he cautioned that, at the same time, Trump would not want to start violating US sanctions and giving aid to the Afghan government.
Who would India want in the White House?

India, the biggest economy of South Asia and a key US ally, has a level of comfort when it comes to these elections as there is strong bipartisan support in Washington for close ties with New Delhi, according to Kugelman.

There is a strategic imperative of needing to work with India to counter China, he added.

Kugelman believes that the US-India relationship could change if Trump wins, pointing to some major issues that have emerged in cooperation over the last few years, including technology, clean energy and climate change.

Trump’s hard line on export controls could make technology transfers very difficult, he said.

“Tech transfers have become a big part of the US-India relationship. There’s a much greater focus on those than there ever has been before. So, if Trump were to come back and if he were to maintain that hard line on export controls, I think that could cause some major challenges for US-India tech cooperation,” said the analyst.

Another issue is trade as, according to Kugelman, while Trump has been supportive of commercial ties, he has long been unhappy about India’s tariff policies.

“Trump has said relatively little about India on the campaign trail, but what he has said has been focused on India’s tariff policies. He has referred to India as an abuser, and he is referring to its tariff policies and this is very concerning for India,” he said.

“The Indian government would worry about a return of Trump because of the possibility that this could lead to significant changes in the nature of the relationship that could inject some tensions into their relationship.”

At the same time, Kugelman believes New Delhi would prefer to see a return of Trump, mainly because of foreign policy, especially with regards to Russia.

“Russia has become a bit of a constraint for US-India relations because of Russia’s close relationship with India. Trump has taken a more restrained position toward Russia and the war in Ukraine,” he said.

If Harris was to win the presidency, India would continue to feel the pressure from the US about this partnership with Russia, he said.

“India would have reasons to be both concerned and assured if Trump or Harris become president, so basically they could live with it,” he added.

With tensions escalating between Canada and India over the murder of a dissident Sikh activist on Canadian soil, Kugelman said both Harris and Trump could pressure New Delhi on this issue.

“They would not let it go. They would pressure India to carry out an investigation. If Harris were to come, there would be continued efforts on the part of the US to balance its alliance with Canada with its strategic partnership with India, and try to throw its support behind Canada’s efforts to push for an investigation, while at the same time being very careful about how it goes about its relationship with India,” Kugelman explained.

“If Trump were to come back as president, he has traditionally expressed more skepticism to the idea of alliances, and he may not feel as compelled to ensure that level of solidarity with Canada over its own allegations.”
Pakistan-US ties ‘could change in a big way if Trump wins’

Pakistan is not a major policy priority for the US at this point in time, according to Kugelman.

“I think the government in Pakistan might think, and rightly so, that the current dimensions of the relationship … could change in a big way if Trump were to come back,” he said.

However, issues like climate change and clean energy cooperation, which have become a big part of the relationship with Pakistan, will not be prioritised in case Trump returns, he said.

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“If Harris wins the election, I imagine you would see a status quo. There would be continuity in policy, which would basically be to pursue a limited relationship with Pakistan, but still one that would hold out the possibility of great economic support,” he said.

There could also be “assistance and cooperation around some of these big global multilateral challenges like climate change,” he added.

Kugelman said a Trump administration likely would not be interested in these issues, which would be a cause of concern for Pakistan.

Regarding public sentiment in Pakistan, he said supporters of incarcerated former Prime Minister Imran Khan believe Trump would be a better option and could put pressure for his release.

US-Bangladesh ‘relationship has been reshaped’

In Bangladesh, the interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus would be hoping for a Harris victory, according to Kugelman.

“Dhaka recognises that the relationship with the US has shifted in a big way since the major political changes in Bangladesh,” he said, referring to the August ouster of ex-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who ruled the country for over 15 years.

“It recognises that the relationship has been reshaped in a way that development assistance and support for reforms have become a big part of the relationship.”

For Trump, Bangladesh knows he likely would not have any interest in shaping any relationship around providing development assistance or support for reforms, said Kugelman.

“Dhaka would likely fear that if Trump were to come back, he would want to scale back the relationship and perhaps make it more about strategic issues, maybe make it more about trade issues,” he continued.

The other challenge for Bangladesh, he added, is that this new government “is much more inclined to strengthen relations with China than the previous government.”

“Sheikh Hasina did strengthen ties with China for sure, but I think this government wants to strengthen relations with both the US and China, which makes sense from the perspective of strategic autonomy,” said Kugelman.

Header image: A view of the White House in Washington, US on January 18, 2021. — Reuters File Photo.

USA

A People Divided Heads to the Polls to Decide the Nation’s Fate

Monday 4 November 2024, by Dan La Botz

As I am writing on November 3, two days before the presidential election in the United States, the country is divided as at no time since the Civil War of 1861-65. And more than ever the contrast between the two major parties is stark, the Democrats remaining a traditional political party of American capitalism and bourgeois democracy, while the Republican Party under candidate Donald Trump has evolved into a far-right party based on whites who resent Blacks and Latinos, men who resent women, and Evangelical Christians waiting for Armageddon, a party riddled with fascists and bands of armed men.

After months of what seemed perpetual summer, accompanied by forest fires and hurricanes, tokens of the climate catastrophe, and a hot Halloween everywhere, fall has finally arrived. Forty-seven of the 50 U.S. states permit early voting, and fifty-five million Americans of 161.4 million registered voters, have already cast early ballots. I voted yesterday in Brooklyn in the neighborhood recreation center where dozens of poll workers, mostly Black women, helped me and others.

The vote is too close to call. There are some shifts among the electorate, though we’re still divided geographically as usual. The Pacific Coast (California, Oregon, and Washington State) is blue, the Democrats’ color, as is most of the Northeast (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, and Rhode Island) but the Midwest and much of the South is Republican Red. As in the last presidential election, the outcome turns on seven swing-states scattered across the country: Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina.

The electorate is divided by gender, education, and by race, each candidate making gains among particular groups. Harris, who defends women’s right to abortion, has an 11-point lead among women, while Trump, who denigrates women in every speech, has a 10-point lead among men. As usual, Republicans have the support of about 60% of whites, while Democrats only about 40%. The great majority of Black voters still support the Democrats, but Republicans have made gains among Blacks, especially men, and may now have about 15% of the Black vote. Democrats will also get the majority of Latino votes, but here too Trump has made gains and could win 35%. Asian and Pacific Islands people, who in swing states represent 3 to 9% of the electorate, generally vote for Democrats, but Republicans have made some inroads among them too.

Senior citizens are just about divided evenly. Republicans usually win this group by a few points, though Harris could make some grains. Republicans generally win over 60 percent of the rural vote, but Democrats win about that same percentage of suburban voters.

A new gap among voters since Trump appeared on the political scene in 2015 is education. Among white voters without a college education, Trump could win about 60 percent, while Harris may win less than 40. These are voters, as some analysts say, those left behind by the post-industrial, high-tech society, and they hold only a fifth of the wealth of those who are college educated. Trump has succeeded in winning them over, especially the men among them.

Young people mostly don’t vote. Only half of all young people are registered and in the last national election of 2022 only about 25 percent voted. Young women are most likely to vote for Harris because of their concern about abortion rights.

As on most Saturdays, after we voted, my wife and I walked to the farmers’ market. There a group of Palestinians, pacifists, and leftist were shouting “don’t vote for genocide,” some urging a vote for Jill Stein of the Green Party. Few people stopped to listen. Still Stein could win many votes in Michigan, enough to beat Harris and throw the states electoral votes to Trump. We won’t know the results for a few days. I’ll present the results and prospects next week.

3 November 2024

Political Zombies: Devouring the Chinese Peop

Sunday 3 November 2024, by Lok Mui Lok

From January to June 2024, more than one million food and beverage-related businesses closed.

• In May, among the 70 large and medium-sized cities of China, the sales prices of new residential properties rose in only two cities, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Prices declined in the remaining 68 cities.

• In early July, a report published by The Beijing News about the tanker trucks transporting both cooking oil and industrial oil triggered public panic about food safety.

• As of mid-July, there had been 20 floods since the start of the year.

• A worker showed his payroll stub on social media: after working six days a week, 11 hours a day: he was paid 3723 yuan (about US$521) a month. Despite his long work hours he is unable to provide his family a decent life.

• In August, a story about a 33-year-old female graduate of a prestigious university who starved to death in a rented apartment sparked public empathy.

These stories and many others reveal a low birth rate, a high youth unemployment rate, an unsustainable social security system, the withdrawal of foreign investment, local fiscal deficits, etc.

The Chinese Communist Party’s Third Plenary Session, which had been significantly delayed, either turned a blind eye to all these crises or simply downplayed them in its documents. This has undoubtedly caused great disappointment to those who held expectations for this conference. Note that after the release of the conference resolution on July 21, the CSI 300 index of China’s stock market fell three days in a row, with a cumulative drop of more than 3%.

The CCP has not only ignored the people’s hardship, but in proposing to expand the sources of local governments’ tax revenues, are intensifying its efforts to extract more from the population. According to some experts, the document produced by the Third Plenary Session may mean that the new taxes include a consumption tax and a “data asset tax” based on the digital economy.

During the first half of the 2024, even before the Plenary, water, electricity and gas rates skyrocketed. In Shanghai, after 10 years of raising water prices, there was a 50% increase while in Guangzhou a water price “reform” program imposed nearly a 34% increase. Xianyang, Wuhu, Nanchong, Ganzhou and Qujing saw price increases ranging from 10% to 50%.

Gas prices increased in Shenzhen, Fuzhou, Zhenjiang and 125 other cities. Chongqing residents complained that gas meters “ran faster,” which served to double their gas fees. Electricity prices rose as high as 30% in Guangdong, Hunan, Anhui, Jiangsu and other provinces.

Although the downturn in the real estate market has hampered the introduction of property taxes, over the last year a mandatory housing inspection fee has been implemented in rural areas. And on August 2, the Ministry of Housing and Construction announced that it would speed up the promotion of several housing regulations, including inspection and insurance fees as well as a housing maintenance fund.

All these proposed measures are very unpopular as people see them as nothing but extortion.

The concept of “new quality productive forces,” as recently emphasized by Xi Jinping, can hardly improve the livelihood of the general public. In fact it will aggravate unemployment.

For example, the hasty introduction of unmanned AI driving in the cab industry has sparked discontent among drivers when it was introduced in Wuhan. The company, Baidu, has announced that it will expand this service to 65 cities by 2025 and 100 more cities by 2030.

This massive displacement of workers pursues the self-interest of the ruling party and its business cronies; it reminds people of the (late 1950s) “Great Leap Forward.” Will the result of today’s adventurist move be the same as the bitter consequences of that fiasco?

Zombies Eat People, People Eat Grass

Does the CCP really fail to realize the serious crisis that is developing? Do they believe that even if the economy collapses and social unrest grows, the regime will not be jeopardized? Can the Chinese people live for three years by only eating grass, as some high-ranking party officials predict?

If you come into contact with party members in daily life, you will find that they are not fools (at least not all of them). When they talk with close friends, they lament the difficult situation just as we do.

Therefore, I think we can describe the world’s largest party with its 90 million members as losing its ability to criticize, change and renew itself. More and more they are becoming like the zombies you see in movies.

Although there are many kinds of zombie films with different settings, moviegoers can still agree on one commonality of zombies: their original human consciousness, desires and goals in life have been lost, replaced with one obsession — biting people!

If we see the CCP as an organism, its past desires included overthrowing the Kuomintang’s rule and becoming a beacon of revolution in the world. Later its goal was to reintegrate into the capitalist world, fight against the wave of democratization, make a fortune together with others in the bureaucratic clique, and build a strong military power to struggle for world hegemony.

But today these goals seem to be losing their importance. Frequent purges of the military’s top brass will undoubtedly jeopardize the troop’s fighting strength. The repeated suppression of private enterprises only jeopardizes the white gloves of many party bosses, but also harms the country’s overall economy.

What good are these operations to the party? To discover the answer, we need to know what is left in the eyes of the CCP after its infection with the “zombie virus.”

In September of last year, the government-run magazine Half-monthly Talkings published an article on the wastefulness of the promotion campaign on “party building:”

“In a village next to the highway off-ramp in Central China, our reporters saw a huge party building slogan billboard, about 33 meters long and 10 meters high. We asked a local cadre and were told that this billboard was completed in the second half of 2021 and its total cost was more than 440,000 yuan. The person in charge of the enterprise that undertook this project said that there are several other projects that cost millions of yuan in total this year, some of which are being negotiated and some are in the process of designing.

“In a place in North China, our reporters saw a set of 12 huge red Chinese characters in a plaza, with the words ‘to approach party members if you have difficulties and to approach party branches if you need service.’ Mr. Huang, who is the boss of the company that undertook the project, said: ‘Each character is 6 meters long and 6 meters high, and the production and installation costed 311,800 yuan in total.’”

Later it was reported:
“A city in Central China is building a party educational theme park in an integrated urban and rural demonstration zone, covering an area of about 19,000 square meters, with an estimated cost of 15 million yuan. Another party theme park in a place in Southwest China has cost over 70 million yuan.”

And still later this example was cited:

“Since 2020, a province in Central China had begun to build ‘party building complexes’ in villages and urban communities with considerable investment. Our reporters found the relevant information of 10 party building promotion projects in this province, of which two were completed in 2020, two in 2021, and five in 2022. Some of the larger-scale projects’ investments reached 6 million to 8 million yuan; the largest investment was more than 13 million yuan.”

Of course bureaucrats get big fat kickbacks from building these facilities; but even if corruption were reduced or eliminated entirely, it still costs money to build these nearly useless things. At a time when local budgets are tight, why on earth does the party do this?

The Zombie Cultist

In fact, if we take a closer look at these facilities (see the billboard on the previous page), we will find that there is a commonality — the highlighting of Xi Jinping’s speeches, pictures, slogans, writings and so on. The so-called party building campaign is actually a campaign to strengthen the personal cult of Xi.

In June this year, another party-run newspaper, Economic Information Daily, reported the rise of the party building app proxy services:

“Our reporters talked to a Taobao store named ‘micro-power “supervision pass” registration’ and was told that the majority of their customers are grassroots party cadres, who mainly buy the data of registration, CTR, forwarding, etc. ‘The price of data of one registration is 1.8 yuan, the price of 1,000 clicks is 15 yuan, and the price of keeping an account active is 1.4 yuan per month.’ Our reporters were told that this Taobao store has received over 200,000 orders for this kind of service, including a single order of about 5,000 yuan for buying 4,000 active accounts by a township government.

“In addition to providing ‘tailored data forgery’ for various types of digital government service promotion tasks, these Taobao stores can also provide ‘ghostwriting service’ on party educational apps. ‘Some grassroots cadres look for us to complete online studying tasks, and we charge 30 yuan for 40 hours’ online time. Some government departments require their employees to gain a certain number of points on “Xue Xi Qiang Guo” app, and we can also do it on behalf of the clients for 45 yuan a month.’ Another Taobao store stated that, apart from a small number of more strict assessments, they can handle most of the local government’s appraisals on public servants.”

“Xue Xi Qiang Guo” (literally means “Learning about Strong Country”) is the party’s national educational app. The name is a double entendre because it can mean “studying to make the nation strong” and “learning from Xi to make the nation strong.” Apart from this boot-licking double entendre, every time you open its homepage there will be carefully retouched large photographs of the big boss (as shown on this page). The fact that all public servants and party cadres throughout the country have to spend time on it every day will definitely affect the operation of the state machinery.

With so many military troopers, cops and secret police more or less spending half an hour on it daily, how will it improve catching dissidents and “traitors” which is their job? It is obvious that the priority is to see every cell of the CCP is bathed daily in the newest spirit of the great leader.

The Zombie Bites

The conclusion I draw from the above two examples is that the focus of the “zombified” CCP is to “keep the supremacy of Xi.” But unlike in movies where the zombies bite everyone, the party will bite anyone Xi points to, and it will bite as hard as it is told to do so by Xi. Many other observers have come to similar conclusions. Bloomberg, for example, recently published an article, “Xi Jinping Has Made Himself China’s Chief Economist.” It reports that the past practice of senior party officials was to take advice from experts, whereas nowadays bureaucrats only need listen to Xi’s lectures. As Cai Xia, a former professor at the Central Party School, remarked in a recent podcast interview about the guiding idea behind the Third Plenary Session’s resolution, it is to “carry out reforms in the style of Xi.”

Yet it seems that the CCP’s zombification is not yet complete. I draw this conclusion from the criticisms found in the party-run media’s stories I’ve just quoted.

Let’s remember that Mao Zedong, the most successful party boss in pursuing a personal cult and autocracy in the CCP’s history, could not maintain his political legacy intact. Within weeks after Mao’s death, party leaders carried out a coup d’état in order to suppress his cronies.

This is similar to how movies use a shotgun to blow the zombies’ brains out. Perhaps the only way that could save Xi from such a fate is by having his scientists break through nature’s upper limit for human life.

Of course, there is also a view that the “zombification” of the CCP is not a bad thing. It would supposedly fetter the party, thus reducing its threat to the outside world and eventually causing it to collapse from inside.

But this idea is too passive. It’s just like locking yourself in your house and eating canned food in order to survive the apocalypse in zombie movies. Most importantly, according to the usual movie formula, the majority who adopt this strategy don’t live to see the credits roll.

Poker Games, Wars of Words

The recent “poker incident” is an example of passive resistance by low-ranking officials. In early August, Beijing Youth Daily — the official newspaper of Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League — published three articles in a row criticizing a poker game called “Guan Dan.” It writes:

“…The wind of ‘Guan Dan’ has swept across the country, blowing into all levels and corners. It is a manifestation of the society’s loss of motivation and entrepreneurial spirit — a wind of evasion and decadence.…

“The so-called ‘lying flat’ is a lifestyle of not seeking progress, instead of striving oneself in the face of challenges, it tells people to act like a ‘salted fish’ without a dream. This unhealthy trend has been very harmful, and with the ‘Guan Dan’ fad in the past two years, some people just prefer to lay down in a more comfortable position.”

It is very understandable that officials are addicted to playing cards. In order to maintain his throne, Xi only appoints his cronies. Officials beyond his circle have no hope of promotion. For the average bureaucrat, by working too hard they may end up making more mistakes. Thus there is a greater chance of being sacrificed in an anti-corruption drama.

Yet reading the writings of Xi is definitely not a good choice of entertainment. Therefore, if poker is banned, bureaucrats will probably choose to play video games, table tennis or sit in meditation. Just as with the symptoms of a zombie virus, the bureaucracy is becoming more dysfunctional.

Interestingly, after the criticism from Beijing Youth Daily was published, a number of local media, including the party committee’s official newspaper from Jiangsu Province, have attempted to refute the criticism. They accused the Beijing Youth Daily with fabricating accusations.

Does this war of words reflect the discord among party officials from different regions, the dissatisfaction of grassroots cadres, or both? As an outside observer, I think it is too early to draw a conclusion.

However, it reveals that the great leader’s China Dream is making bureaucrats increasingly disgusted. If lying down is not allowed, if playing cards is banned, then what is left but biting people or being bitten?

The nation was exhausted by the mess of a Great Leader’s senseless campaigns once before, in the latter stage of the Cultural Revolution. Eventually the whole nation began to passively resist Chairman Mao’s “Permanent Revolution,” which meant continuing to create Mao as a deity.

The party-arranged “political studies” and assemblies of purges and denunciation are nothing but “seriously going through the motions.” And we know what happened in the aftermath of Mao’s death.

Against the Current

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Monday, November 04, 2024

Attached documents

United States (USA)

Dan La Botz

Zombies Eat People, People Eat Grass

The Zombie Cultist

The Zombie Bites

Poker Games, Wars of Words

Attached documents

China

Lok Mui Lok

About Me