India must not hurry Narendra Modi into a summit with Imran Khan

It has been reported that the Pakistani army chief quietly reached out to India a few months ago “to open barriers to trade between the countries, which would give Pakistan more access to regional markets”. Given the dire economic situation Pakistan is in, good neighbourliness is anyway in Prime Minister Imran Khan’s interests at this time.But every time a new government comes to power in India or Pakistan, people start expecting dramatic progress in bilateral relations. Not just common people, but even old hands put hope ahead of experience and start pushing up expectations of thaw, progress, breakthrough, or even some kind of resolution of disputes.This doesn’t make sense because bilateral relations are not the way they are because of the personalities, preferences, or political ideologies of the elected leaders on either side. It’s not as if Narendra Modi or Imran Khan, massively popular as they are in their respective countries, can set aside what happened in the past, ignore the other players in the game and their respective calculations of gains and losses, and simply strike a deal.Read more

Mahathir rocks (Xi's boat)

I wish to report to you, dear reader, that Mahathir Mohammed, Malaysia’s remarkable nonagenarian prime minister, has proved me right. That’s one more reason for you to read the Asian Balance regularly. You will recall I’d argued that China’s massive Belt and Road infrastructure investments will be resisted by forces of nationalism extant in Asian countries.Read more

Imran Khan’s existential crisis in Pakistan: To cut or not to cut defence expenditure

Last week, when the US government announced it would “re-programme” $300 million in military assistance to Pakistan, it was only the latest in a series of actions that have ratcheted up pressure on Islamabad.A year ago, when US President Donald Trump announced his Afghanistan strategy, Pakistan came in for mention only in the context of his pledge to put more pressure on the country. Trump’s tweet on the first day of this year set the tone: the US has been foolish in giving Pakistan more than $33 billion over the past 15 years, “receiving only lies and deceit” in return. In an indication of his priorities, Trump blamed Pakistan for giving safe haven to the very terrorists that the US troops were fighting in Afghanistan. “No more!” he thundered.His administration has stuck to this line since then. Even as the Pakistani economy hurtled towards a deeper crisis, Washington has remained unsympathetic. For the first time in years, the Trump administration suspended a military education and training programme and excluded over 60 Pakistani military officers from various US defence academies. The financial cost of suspending this programme was trivial, but the signal was massive and aimed directly at the Pakistani military establishment.Read more

Trump's gamble, China's gain

Trump's unilateralism in East Asia increasingly benefits China.

On his way home from the Singapore summit, US President Donald Trump announced in an interview for Fox News that he would be taking strong action on trade, saying that China was likely to be "a little bit upset". And indeed, three days later his administration slapped Chinese goods with a 25-percent tariff, provoking a sharp reaction from Beijing.That was despite China's support and assistance with the North Korea issue in the lead-up to the Singapore summit. For Trump, trade disputes, multilateral engagement, and the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula appear to be distinct, unrelated issues. In his unilateral world, there is little connection between geoeconomics and geopolitics.Chinese President Xi Jinping has adopted a completely different approach to global politics and economy, which seems to be paying off with every unilateral action Trump takes on the international arena. This seems to be the case with the US engagement of North Korea as well.Read more here>

The Long Game in the South China Sea

China outwitted the US by landing H-6 strategic bombers on Woody Island. Can the US get its act together?

Tensions are once again simmering in the South China Sea after Chinese media reported that the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) had landed H-6K strategic bombers on an airstrip on Woody Island, which is part of the Paracels group of islands. An official website of the Chinese armed forces reported:

"Several H-6Ks from an unidentified aviation division, headed by division commander Hao Jianke, took off from an undisclosed air base in South China and made a simulated strike against sea targets before landing on an island in the South China Sea…the operation provided experience for Air Force bomber units to use islands as their bases."

Analysts believe that the deployment of the H-6K long-range strategic bomber on Woody is likely to give the PLA coverage across the South China Sea region. Beijing is already believed to have deployed the HQ-9 surface-to-air missile systems, advanced radar systems, and truck-mounted surface-to-air or anti-ship cruise missiles on Woody Island.Read more here>

Breaking down China’s AI ambitions

China unveiled a plan to develop the country into the world’s primary innovation centre for artificial intelligence in 2017. It identified AI as a strategic industry, crucial for enhancing economic development, national security, and governance.The Chinese government’s command innovation approach towards AI development is crafting a political economy that tolerates sub-optimal and even wasteful outcomes in the quest for expanding the scale of the industry. Consequently, the industry is likely to be plagued by concerns about overinvestment, overcapacity, quality of products, and global competitiveness.In addition, increasing friction over trade with other states and President Xi Jinping’s turn towards techno-nationalism along with tightening political control could further undermine China’s AI industry. Before we dive into the challenges, here’s some background.Read more here>

Unpacking China’s Social Credit System

The Chinese social credit system has to contend with many challenges and has implications far beyond social control.

Ever since it was formally announced in 2014, China’s proposed Social Credit System (SCS) has attracted much media attention. Reports have frequently ranged from painting it as an Orwellian nightmare to a dystopian fantasy, with most commentaries viewing the policy purely from the prism of social control.While the SCS can indeed be located as an initiative in the tradition of Chinese government efforts at maintaining social order and ensuring public compliance of policies, reducing it to merely a surveillance tool doesn’t do justice to the ambitious scope of this initiative.The SCS is about much more than surveillance and loyalty. It is, in fact, fundamentally linked to the Chinese economy and its transformation to being more market driven. So while nudging persons to adopt desirable behaviour and actions and enhancing social control are all part of the story, there are larger drivers of this policy. Moreover, the implications of the SCS are not just limited to Chinese citizens or within China’s territorial boundaries.Read more here>

The vulnerabilities of Xi Jinping and China's Communist Party

Today, despite all the accumulation of power, Xi and the CPC are far more vulnerable than is apparent.

In advance of the National People's Congress (NPC) meeting in Beijing, which will mark the official start of Xi Jinping's second term as the president of the People's Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party's (CPC) Central Committee proposed a set of constitutional amendments, chief among them being the removal of presidential term limits and the inclusion of "Xi Jinping Thought" in the country's constitution.NPC deputies are expected to overwhelmingly support these changes in a vote on Sunday, effectively allowing Xi to remain at the helm of Chinese politics for as long as he deems fit.Ever since the 19th Party Congress in October 2017, Xi has been making moves to upend norms of collective leadership and succession that were cobbled together after the excesses of the Mao Zedong era.Read more here>