Focus should be on oil and gas, not maritime dispute, Beijing urges Philippines

China and the Philippines should not be distracted by their disputes in the South China Sea and should instead focus on advancing cooperation on oil and gas exploration in the region, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said when wrapping up his week-long tour of Southeast Asia.

Wang said the two countries would continue to “properly manage their disputes” and push for oil and gas exploration in the South China Sea.

Wang’s trip that included stopovers in Myanmar, Indonesia and Brunei was part of Beijing seeking to consolidate its ties with the region.

In an interview with state media posted on the Ministry’s website, Wang highlighted China’s desire to move the focus away from maritime disputes to joint exploration of resources in the waters. “Both sides believe that the South China Sea issue is only partial to the entirety of Sino-Philippines relations,” Wang said, discussing the outcomes of his Manila visit. “We should not let such one percent difference derail the 99 percent of our relations.”

Separately during Wang’s tour, China and Brunei set up a working group on energy cooperation, the ministry said on Friday, without providing details.

The Philippine government in October lifted a ban on offshore oil and gas exploration, reopening the door to joint energy development with China.

Two years ago, the two governments signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly explore undersea oil and gas, a way of defusing their corner of a broader regional dispute.

In 2016, an international tribunal in The Hague upheld the Philippines’ challenge to Beijing’s territorial claims to almost all of the South China Sea, but Beijing has never accepted the ruling. President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration has promised to shelve the dispute in exchange for Beijing’s economic aid.

As the Duterte administration nears its end, Beijing has sought to reaffirm support for its neighbour, promising half a million doses of Covid-19 vaccines, US$1.34 billion in loan pledges for infrastructure projects and US$77 million in grants.

Wang said the supply of vaccines to the Philippines showed Beijing’s willingness to help the Philippines overcome its Covid-19 pandemic challenges.

China and the Philippines also announced an arrangement for fast-track border crossing during the pandemic for certain personnel, and opened the Bank of China’s yuan clearing business in the Philippines.

China would continue to take part in the Philippine side’s infrastructure plans and actively promote cooperation on major projects to lay a better foundation for the Philippines’ long-term development, Wang said.

He said China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations were working together to advance post-pandemic recovery. “Facts once again show that adherence to regional and a multilateral mechanism is more important than ever,” he said.

Israel fears losing its freedom to operate against Iran

Speculation about the extent to which the incoming American administration will appease Iran has been rampant. But US President-elect Joe Biden’s picks for relevant top positions don’t seem to leave much room for supposition.

Let’s start with William Burns, Biden’s nomination for CIA director. Burns currently serves as president of the left-wing foreign-policy think tank the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, one of its donors is the Open Society Foundations network, established by George Soros.

Burns has decades of experience as a career diplomat under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Burns is a longtime associate of Biden. The two have worked closely together, most recently when the latter was Vice President and the former was Deputy Secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs, during the administration of former US President, Barack Obama.

Burns who had served as Ambassadors to Russia and Jordan, also had a key role in talks with the regime in Tehran in 2013. These led to the 2015 signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and the 5+1 countries: the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia and China plus Germany. By that time Burns had retired, but his imprint lived on in the nuclear deal.

In this context, Biden’s statement about Burns – “[He] shares my profound belief that intelligence must be apolitical” – is not liked by his opponents. The cause of greater concern is Burns’s faith in the JCPOA from which outgoing US President Donald Trump withdrew in 2018.

In an 29th August 29 2020 opinion piece in The Atlantic titled “‘America First’ Enters its Most Combustible Moment,” Burns spelled out his objections.

 “Any leverage against Iran produced by the UAE-Israel agreement [the Abraham Accords between the United Arab Emirates and the Jewish state that subsequently were signed on 15th September 2020 at the White House] is already being swallowed up in the serial diplomatic malpractice of the administration’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign – aimed more at toppling the Iranian regime than at changing its behavior,” he wrote. “Doubling down on failed policy is not a smart diplomatic prescription... but the Trump administration is not likely to see the light. Instead, it will continue to pretend that the United States can participate in only the punitive parts of the Iran nuclear deal... [a strategy that it] tried – and spectacularly failed at.”Nothing could be further from the truth. Trump’s “maximum-pressure campaign” is anything but “diplomatic malpractice.”

Antony Blinken, for instance – who, pending congressional confirmation, will replace Pompeo – is another JCPOA enthusiast. Blinken served under Obama, first as Deputy National Security advisor and then as deputy secretary of state. Like Burns, he was instrumental in formulating and promoting the deal. He also wants to lift sanctions against Tehran as one of those “goodwill gestures” that American multilateralists so love extending to the regimes.

He was clear about this in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA. In a thread of tweets on 9th May 2018, Blinken wrote, “By blowing up the Iran nuclear deal, President Trump puts us on a collision course with Iran and our closest allies. It gives Iranian hardliners the excuse to speed again toward the bomb without a united international coalition to oppose them or inspectors to expose them. Or if Iran and Europe stick with the deal, it forces us to sanction the latter to stop them from doing business with the former. Either way we lose.”

AS IF THIS weren’t an illustration of the degree to which Democrats misunderstand – or are willfully blind to – the mindset of the Iranian mullahs, Blinken goes on to make a ridiculous assertion. The cancellation of the JCPOA, he tweeted, “makes getting to yes with North Korea that much more challenging.

Cognizant of new reality, Israel is boosting its ability to combat Iranian forces and other proxy groups. The Democrats in the White House, State Department and Capitol building are lying in wait to lead the world, as Obama proudly did, “from behind.”

Will Biden also use India against China?

The United States has declassified its 2018 Indo-Pacific strategy for unknown reasons, although it was initially set to be released to the public at the end of 2042. Over the last three years, this National Security Council strategy has guided American maneuvers and policy in a region extending from the United State’s Pacific Coast all the way to India.

At its heart, the strategy reveals a deep concern with China’s rising influence in the Western and Central Pacific. It also highlights plans to deal with an increasingly belligerent North Korea, while seeking to strengthen India to counter Chinese military power.

The strategy was initially devised throughout 2017, going on to be approved and enforced by President Donald Trump in 2018 shortly after the US National Defense Strategy was finalized.

While the strategy’s actual authors are not credited in the document, much of the document accurately reflects the White House’s actions in the region for the last three years.

The strategy shares rare insights into how the US perceives its opponents and allies in the region, specifically India, China and North Korea. There is a realization that China enjoys growing dominance in the Indo-Pacific and it is the United State’s primary adversary and strategic opponent in the area. 

The strategy dwells how to maintain the US strategic edge and promote a liberal economic order while preventing China from establishing new, illiberal spheres of influence, and cultivating areas of cooperation to promote regional peace and prosperity. It also emphasizes that China will circumvent international rules and norms to gain an advantage in a strategic face-off between the two powers.

While the strategy doesn’t specifically mention the paths China follows to further its dominance in the region, it does cite China’s increasing use of digital surveillance, information controls, and influence operations that will counter US efforts to promote its values and national interests, not only in the Indo-Pacific, but also within the Western hemisphere itself.

Parallel to the strategy, the US government and military have consistently sounded alarms over China’s expanding nuclear arsenal, long-range ballistic and cruise missile capabilities, and the resurgence of its naval fleet.

Broadly speaking, it aims to build US capabilities to be capable of, but not limited to denying China control of the air and the sea in the first island chain, referring to a string of Pacific islands surrounding China that include Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam. China claims most of these waters. It also emphasizes the need to defend the first island chain, and dominate all areas outside it. 

While the document does not mention the South China Sea dispute, it reflects a concern over China’s claims there and in other parts of the Western Pacific. The South China Sea and Western Pacific as a whole have seen a tremendous increase in Chinese military activity, but also activities by the US and its allies in the region.

The strategy adopted by the Trump administration has arguably led to the worst deterioration in US-China ties in recent history, triggering an ongoing trade war and US commitment to defence of Taiwan by approving large defence deals with the island nation. On top of Trump blaming China for the COVID-19 global pandemic and accusing it of mismanaging the outbreak, Trump has fostered deeper ties with Taiwan that go beyond arms deals and include military capacity building and reinforce diplomatic ties.

After identifying China as a primary strategic concern, the strategy turns its attention to North Korea. Threatened by its multiple missile launches in 2017 including one missile that flew over Japan, the strategy acknowledges the rapid technological advances North Korea realized in its missile technology.

India features prominently in US strategic plans for the region. Specifically, the strategy seeks to build a quadrilateral security framework with India, Japan, Australia and the US. The four-cornered strategy wants to use a strong India to counterbalance China.

This comes after pointing out that India is already able to counter border provocations by China. It should be noted that the strategy was passed before India-China skirmishes in the Doklam region. 

Interestingly, the strategy makes no mention of Pakistan at all in spite of its close ties to China. It further defines a key need to accelerate India’s rise and capacity to serve as a net provider of security and Major Defense Partner; solidify an enduring strategic partnership with India underpinned by a strong Indian military able to effectively collaborate with the United States and its partners in the region to address shared interests.

The US Navy has advocated creating a new naval command exclusively for the Indian Ocean and close-by areas of the pacific. With the expiration of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the US has also assessed different locations in South East Asia to position long-range missile forces that would be able to counter China’s own strategic missiles.

Meanwhile, India continues to enjoy large defence procurements from the US, including the F-21 fighter jet. Others have indicated this could be a form of induction to bring India into the F-35 stealth fighter program. 

In spite of its bold efforts, much of the strategy’s ambitious objectives have yet to be fulfilled. That’s not to say that the strategy went entirely unfulfilled. The US Navy is set to create a new fleet to cover the Western Pacific. Freedom of Navigation deployments to the region is increasing, along with the major US efforts to arm Taiwan. While the strategy reflects Trump’s legacy, its approach may still shape coming US strategy as Biden’s new administration seeks to contend with China and North Korea. 

Biden Middle East Policy: Need to disentangle United States from Iran-Saudi Arabia rivalry

The Biden administration will face a number of challenges in the Middle East over the next four years. The diplomatic landscape of the region offers the United States ample opportunities to offer peace initiatives. 

Some have been successful and enduring, like the 1978 Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel. There have also been many more notable failed attempts, such as the stalled talks between Israelis and Palestinians during the Obama administration.

Diplomacy does not have to be big and bold to be successful. The Biden administration has an opportunity to stabilize the Middle East by disentangling from the regional rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia. This has the prospects of reducing the temperature of relations between these two regional rivals and possibly even prompting them to settle some of their differences on behalf of regional stability.

One may like it or not, the United States has become party to the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Of course there are profound issues related to wars in Syria and Yemen and instability in Iraq and Lebanon that separate them. But much of the enmity they harbor for each other relates in no small way to Washington. Iran sees Saudi Arabia (and Israel) as the tip of the spear of US efforts to undermine it. Iran sponsored attacks on Saudi oil facilities in 2019 after Washington’s maximum pressure campaign is prima facie evidence of this.

Saudi Arabia has felt little incentive to even entertain diplomacy with Iran given the large US military footprint in the Persian Gulf and Trump’s hostility toward Iran. Not only is the United States a party to the Iran-Saudi rivalry, but it has hardened the resolve of both sides, driving them further away from diplomacy, with negative consequences for the entire region.

The United States lacks the capacity to persuade either of the regional rivals toward rapprochement. But Washington can play a constructive role by extricating itself from the role of central character in this conflict. This will require recalibrating relations with Saudi Arabia, supporting Riyadh but also making sure that it does not continue using Washington as a crutch for shunning diplomacy.

It also necessitates the United States working to ensure that the Abraham Accords between Israel and the UAE are used as a bridge for building further regional cooperation and not merely as a cudgel for deepening hostilities to Iran. And it will necessitate the United States moving toward a diplomatic track with Iran, starting with rejoining the 2015 nuclear deal, on the condition that Tehran reverts to compliance.

The US will need to use leverage to move a stubborn Iran into a more constructive regional role, but skillful diplomacy can deprive Iranian leaders of the narrative that their regional adventurism is a necessary defensive crouch for deterring a hostile Washington.

Disentangling the United States from the regional rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia won’t ensure peace between the two regional powers. But it can force Iran and Saudi Arabia to deal with each other on their own terms, and not hide behind relations with Washington.

If successful in cooling the temperature of relations between these two powers, it can also possibly have other benefits, such as sucking some of the oxygen out of the proxy conflict dimension of the civil wars roiling Syria and Yemen and helping stabilize Lebanon and Iraq.

While the United States can’t start a peace process between Iran and Saudi Arabia, peace should be the objective of the US diplomacy. Rebalancing relations with friends and foes would go a long way toward this objective. Steady resolve rather than bold diplomacy might be just what the region needs from Washington right now.

Jewish groups laud Trump impeachment

Several Jewish organizations have welcomed the impeachment of US President Donald Trump by the House of Representatives and condemned him for his role in the storming of the US Capitol last week.

At a rally given at The Ellipse, adjacent to the White House, on 6th January, Trump spoke to several thousands of his supporters, whom he had told to attend via Twitter. He called on them to march to the US Capitol building and demand that Congress not certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 3rd November 2020 presidential election.

 “You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated,” Trump said, among other provocative comments.

The House of Representatives impeached Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors, with the article of impeachment stating that Trump “willfully made statements that, in context, encouraged – and foreseeably resulted in – lawless action at the Capitol, such as: ‘if you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore,’” and that these remarks incited the crowd to interfere with Congress’s certification of the election results.

The American Jewish Committee (AJC), one of the oldest and respected US Jewish organizations, said it welcomed the passage of the impeachment resolution and reiterated its “unqualified condemnation” of Trump’s actions, which it said “run counter to the democratic values we hold dear,” and disqualify the president from continuing to occupy his office.

“He has subverted the will of American voters by falsely alleging, without evidence that the November 2020 election was illegitimate, beset with fraud, and ‘stolen.’ Beyond that, he has incited his followers to commit acts of insurrection which involved an assault on a sacred edifice and which resulted in chaos, injury, and death,” the AJC said in a statement on Wednesday afternoon.

It added that “public officials charged with responsibility for addressing such conduct” use all means possible to hold Trump to account for what happened, including in the courts.

The Union for Reform Judaism said it applauded the passage of the article of impeachment “for his incitement of violence against the United States government,” and urged the Senate to convict him on this charge.

“President Trump’s behavior has shaken our democracy to its core. The president’s language and his actions preceding the riot and in the days since are an abdication of moral leadership,” said the URJ in its statement.

The organization said that “the expression of remorse is central to the act of teshuva, repentance” but that “rather than accept responsibility or express contrition for the role that his words played in the desecration of the Capitol and the deaths of at least six individuals, including two Capitol Police officers, President Trump has stood by his disproven lies and provocative rhetoric.”

The organization noted that Trump said in a video he tweeted out as the riot and invasion of the Capitol was underway that he loved his supporters involved in the attack, “among them white supremacists who rampaged through the House and Senate, some armed, some dressed in clothes bearing racist and antisemitic words and symbols.”

The left-wing J Street organization, which called for Trump’s removal from office immediately after the storming of the Capitol, also welcomed the passage of the article of impeachment.

“The House just voted (for the second time) to make clear what a majority of Americans know to be true: Trump is a danger to our democracy and is not fit to be our president. He never has been and should never have the opportunity to hold elected office again,” the organization said on Twitter.

The Pompeo ploy

In a sign of inability to prevent the incoming administration from rejoining the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has resorted to what he took from the CIA archives to cook up a new story against Iran.

Lately, Pompeo participated in an event at the National Press Club in Washington, DC to level new accusations against Iran for its alleged links to the al-Qaeda (AQ) terrorist group. Pompeo claimed that Iran has become a “new Afghanistan” in terms of hosting al-Qaeda leaders.

“Al-Qaeda has a new home base: it is the Islamic Republic of Iran. As a result, bin Laden’s wicked creation is poised to gain strength and capabilities. We ignore this Iran-al-Qaeda nexus at our own peril. We need to acknowledge it. We must confront it. Indeed, we must defeat it,” the hawkish top US diplomat claimed.

Pompeo pointed out that the United States has taken drastic measures against al-Qaeda since the 9/11 attacks. These measures, Pompeo claimed, have pushed the al-Qaeda members to search for a new haven.

“That effort drove al-Qaeda to search for a safer haven, and they found one. The Islamic Republic of Iran was the perfect choice,” he claimed. The outgoing US secretary of state went to say that Iran still has links to al-Qaeda.

Pompeo did not present any evidence to support his allegations, and, in fact, some of these allegations are nothing new. However, they elicited a strong response from Iran and Russia.

Iran termed Pompeo’s claims as “warmongering lies.”

“From designating Cuba to fictitious Iran 'declassifications' and AQ claims, 'we lie, cheat, steal' is pathetically ending his disastrous career with more warmongering lies. No one is fooled. All 9/11 terrorists came from @SecPompeo's favorite ME destinations; NONE from Iran,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted in response to Pompeo’s remarks.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry also rejected the allegations as “baseless,” calling on Pompeo to “die of anger.”

“Resorting to such ploys and threadbare and baseless claims can, by no means, help the terrorist US regime correct its path, which is full of mistakes, and restore the unjustifiable image of the officials of this regime,” Saeed Khatibzadeh, spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said in a statement. “As martyr Beheshti aptly put it, Mr. Pompeo! Be angry and die of this anger,” the spokesman continued.

Pompeo accused Iran of supporting al-Qaeda while ignoring his predecessor’s admission that it was the US that “created” and “funded” al-Qaeda. Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said many times that the US has created and funded al-Qaeda to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan.

“Let’s remember here that people we are fighting today, we funded 20 years ago. And we did it because we were locked in the struggle with the Soviet Union; they invaded Afghanistan. And we did not want to see them control Central Asia and we went to work. And it was President Reagan in partnership with the Congress led by Democrats, who said you know what? Sounds like a pretty good idea. Let’s deal with the ISIS and the Pakistani military, and let's go recruit these mujahidin. And great, let's get some to come from Saudi Arabia and other places, importing their Wahhabi brand of Islam, so that we can go beat the Soviet Union. And guess what? They retreated. They lost billions of dollars, and it led to the collapse of the Soviet Union,” Clinton infamously said testifying before a Congressional committee.

But why does Pompeo ignore these facts? The question is simple, because he hates the 2015 Iran nuclear deal – officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – and wants to make sure that the incoming Biden administration would not be able to return to it.

This was on full display during his Tuesday speech. Pompeo sought to use the alleged links between Iran and al-Qaeda to warn against reviving the JCPOA. He claimed that before 2015, Iranian authorities had strictly restricted the movement of al-Qaeda members living inside of Iran, “putting them under virtual house arrest.”

“But I have to say today that is not the situation. Indeed, everything changed in 2015 – the same year that the Obama administration and the E3 – France, Germany, and Britain – were in the middle of finalizing the JCPOA,” Pompeo noted.

He then tried to imply that Iran may use its links to al-Qaeda to put pressure on JCPOA signatories to revive the nuclear deal.

“Imagine that al-Qaeda starts carrying out attacks at Iran’s behest, even if the control is not perfect.  Who is to say that this isn’t the next form of blackmail to pressure countries back into a nuclear deal?” Pompeo asked.

Pompeo is clearly trying to torpedo any future effort to revive the JCPOA. Over the past few years, he has taken many measures to ensure that the nuclear deal will not be revived. Pompeo led the Trump administration’s efforts to change the logic of sanctions and, in some cases, reimpose previously imposed sanctions under non-nuclear-related authorities, including the U.S.’s counterterrorism sanctions authority. The main purpose of these measures was to create what pro-Trump experts call a “wall of sanctions,” a strategy that aims to make it harder for the Biden administration to lift sanctions against Iran.

Establishing links between Iran and al-Qaeda may be intended to make it even more difficult for the incoming US administration to lift sanctions that were re-imposed under United States counterterrorism sanctions authority.  Pompeo may have succeeded in doing so.

In his recent interview with the website of the Leader’s office, Zarif said that a US return to the JCPOA will not be enough anymore because the US has imposed pre-JCPOA sanctions and changed their logic to terrorism-related authorities, which made the lifting of sanctions even more difficult.

According to Zarif, when the JCPOA was negotiated there was a different kind of sanctions imposed on Iran and the JCPOA has outlined how these sanctions would be lifted but the situation has changed after the Trump administration pulled out of the JCPOA.

“Over the past four years, Trump worked to hollow out the JCPOA and impose sanctions that even if the U.S. returns to the JCPOA, they will remain in place. For example, they (the Trump administration) removed nuclear-related sanctions on our Central Bank and Petroleum Ministry and imposed sanctions on them under counterterrorism authority. They basically changed the logic of sanctions,” Zarif said.

UAE aspires to become Israel’s largest trading partner?

Bilateral trade between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) could realistically reach as high as US$6.5 billion in several years, which would make the UAE one of Israel’s largest trading partners, Samir Chaturvedi, CEO of the Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi (KIZAD), said at the UAE-Israel Peace and Prosperity Roundtable, presented by The Khaleej Times and The Jerusalem Post.

“I think that’s a realistic goal, not overly optimistic, “Chaturvedi said in a fireside chat on increasing bilateral trade. “Both of our economies are similar, in terms of size, population and innovation.”

David Leffler, Director General of the Economy Ministry, agreed.

“Both economies are export-oriented, and there are many reasons to be optimistic,” he said. “For example, the UAE imports about US$58 billion of precious stones and metals every year, and Israel imports US$12 billion. That can come out of that.”

Therefore, Leffler said, after all the official ceremonies about peace, the next step is for the countries’ business communities to get to know each other.

In a talk on preparing for a decade of economic transformation, Hamad Buamim, CEO of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce & Industry, expressed hope that normalization between the two countries will open up new opportunities in the post-pandemic world.

The year “2020 was a very difficult year, and everyone is looking for new markets to support economic recovery,” he said.

Buamim singled out tourism, healthcare, agriculture, food security and pharmaceutical equipment as areas ripe for new channels of cooperation.

A joint project with Israel’s Chamber of Commerce to map out other opportunities for collaboration will also help educate both sides and facilitate future cooperation, he noted.

In a panel on collaboration opportunities, Khalid al-Marzooqi, Commercial Director of KIZAD, noted that business “free zones” in Abu Dhabi offer a deregulated environment that helps create environments that are conducive for the ease of doing business.

Dr. Ibtesam al-Bastaki, Director of the Public-Private Partnership Department of the Dubai Health Authority, noted that Dubai’s government encourages public-private partnerships on many projects that allow it to split the risks with investors and provide potentially lucrative returns for dedicated investors.

Nir Hollander, Country Manager of Israel, Cyprus and Greece for cloud computing company Nutanix, noted that Israel and the UAE have a lot to learn from each other.

“Israel, the Start-up Nation, is said to have the most start-ups in the world outside of Silicon Valley, and Emirati society is known to be very innovative. The challenge will be to build infrastructures that will support future collaboration and trust for a long time.”