Geo Political Risk

[Davexl]

China’s totalitarian regime cannot coexist with the democratic world

https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/china-s-totalitarian-regime-cannot-coexist-with-the-democratic-world-20210708-p587tn.html

It calls for a US-led alliance to raise the cost of China’s predatory actions, exploiting fault lines within the regime to bring about “leadership change”, first by helping pragmatists to stop Xi perpetuating his rule beyond the 20th Party Congress in 2022.

“With a perfect combination of internal and external pressures, triggered by a series of acute systemic crises, the CCP may indeed collapse. It would, however, be foolhardy for US strategists to bank on it,” said the paper.

[GTM 3442]

I am fond of returning to Gordon G Chang's 2002 book "The Coming Collapse of China" (Arrow 2002) every once in a while, especially when the Western Foreign Policy Establishment makes their usual set of predictions of imminent implosion.

I don't have much use for driving via the rear view mirror, nor for viewing the world through the windscreen whilst reversing.

[Davexl]

Things are warming up...
Royal Navy defies China en route to South China Sea by Richard Javad Heydarian

https://asiatimes.com/2021/07/royal-...uth-china-sea/

During its return voyage, the UK Carrier Strike Group is also slated to participate in the Five Power Defense Arrangements’ Bersama Gold exercise, also known as Bersama Lima, the annual air and sea exercises among the UK and fellow Commonwealth nations of Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Malaysia.

[Davexl]

Hold your breath over the next couple of weeks...What can the US actually do?

While the world was watching Kabul, Beijing set the scene for the next US humiliation - Peter Hartcher

https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/wh...06-p58p3r.html

[greater fool]

Hold your breath over the next couple of weeks...What can the US actually do?

While the world was watching Kabul, Beijing set the scene for the next US humiliation - Peter Hartcher

https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/wh...06-p58p3r.html

https://asiatimes.com/2020/11/what-r...-sea-conflict/

"As the US-China contest for control of the South China Sea approaches kinetic conflict, many pundits are proffering reasons as to why it has come to this point.
Many blame a variety of superficial disputes – over territory, maritime space, resources and the environment, and the disingenuous red herring of threats to
freedom of navigation.
The US has taken upon itself the duty of preventing China from dominating the Sea using the excuse that an international arbitration panel under the auspices of
the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea has deemed its claim there to be illegitimate.
But the US has not ratified that treaty and has little legitimacy and credibility in enforcing it.

The real reason is probably a fear of precedent and erosion of the “international order” from which it greatly benefits. Gregory Poling of the Washington-based
Center for Strategic and International Studies says the reason for this rather bizarre position is that if China were to succeed, Russia might try to follow in
the Arctic and Iran in the Persian Gulf. A better analogy might be the US Monroe Doctrine and its de facto domination of the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean.

Moreover, China’s domination of the South China Sea would push the US military out of the region and shake, if not shatter, its “free and open Indo-Pacific”
construct that it hopes to use to form a coalition against China."

https://asiatimes.com/2020/10/quad-i...y-foundations/

"Beijing lays claim to some islands in the East China sea to which some other Asian nations also lay claim. But, then, so too does Taiwan. The total area of the
islands claimed by Taiwan but contested by other Asian nations is far greater than that of those claimed by Beijing.

This was in effect also the 2016 conclusion of the UN tribunal set up to consider rival claims.
And if we go back into history, or to the US-brokered 1951 and ’52 peace treaties with Japan, both Chinas can claim some legal basis for their claims.

Beijing’s opposition to Japan’s claim to the Senkaku Islands in the East China sea is also seen as proof of aggressiveness. But Beijing does not claim the islands
for itself; it does so on behalf of Taiwan, whose claim has a strong historic and geographic basis.
In fact, it was so strong that under pressure from the Taiwan lobby in the US, Washington refused Japan’s claim to sovereignty over the Senkaku islands when the
Ryukyu Islands including Okinawa were returned to Japan in 1971.
The US only recognizes Japan’s administrative rights.
Even the name of the islands is not Japanese. Senkaku is a translation of the name Pinnacle Islands given by British explorers in the area in the 18th century.

So where, apart from the fertile imaginations of the Quad members, have we seen proof of Beijing’s alleged aggressiveness? If there is any belligerent talk coming
out of Beijing today the most likely cause is the belligerent attitudes of the Quad members."

[Davexl]

Beijing revs up South China Sea domination strategy by Richard Javad Heydarian

https://asiatimes.com/2021/09/beijin...tion-strategy/

The facts speak for themselves, the rest is Chinese Communist propaganda & coercion eg with the Philippines & Vietnam...

[greater fool]

Beijing revs up South China Sea domination strategy by Richard Javad Heydarian

https://asiatimes.com/2021/09/beijin...tion-strategy/

Asia Times’ correspondent Richard Javad Heydarian

https://asiatimes.com/2021/06/benign...ad-over-asean/

....one could argue that the former Obama administration oversaw a “golden age” in US-ASEAN relations with few parallels.
And now, suddenly a lot of Obama-era officials, including Biden, were back in the saddle. So, quite naturally, many
expected for relations to become as nuanced, multifaceted, mutually respectful and long-term-oriented under the new US
administration.

With raised expectations came major disappointment. In its first two months in office, the Biden administration held
multiple high-level engagements with allies in Europe as well as with major Indo-Pacific powers of India, Australia,
Japan and, later, South Korea. At one point, a single week saw Biden and his “alter ego”, Secretary of State Antony
Blinken, holding multiple high-level talks.

That was shuttle diplomacy on steroids. And yet, the same administration didn’t even bother to mention its century-old
Southeast Asian treaty allies, the Philippines and Thailand, in its Interim National Security Strategic Guidance;
nor did Biden show any urgency in calling up his Southeast Asian partners.

It was only this week that he bothered to call the Filipino populist Rodrigo Duterte amid the deadlock in the renewal
of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA). This is what? Four months into the Biden administration already!

To add insult to injury, Blinken failed to make any visit to the region, recently dispatching his deputy (Wendy Sherman)
instead, though even that downgraded trip, itself coming on the heels of visits to Europe and the Middle East, skips
key regional states such as the Philippines and Vietnam.

His scheduled virtual meeting with ASEAN leaders, while on a red-eye trip from Europe to the Middle East was a disaster,
as technical glitches left enraged ASEAN foreign ministers waiting 45 minutes before blank screens. Meanwhile, top Chinese leaders, including President Xi Jinping, have kept sustained communications with Southeast Asian counterparts,
with Foreign Minister Wang Yi set for in-person meetings with ASEAN this month.resident Xi Jinping, have kept sustained communications with Southeast Asian counterparts, with Foreign Minister Wang Yi set for in-person meetings with ASEAN this month."

[Davexl]

China’s foreign ship law stokes South China Sea tensions by Richard Javad Heydarian

US Pentagon says new law requiring foreign ships to take aboard Chinese pilots is 'serious threat' and violation of international law

https://asiatimes.com/2021/09/chinas...-sea-tensions/

China has demonstrated, under President Xi, that it is not prepared to abide by international law ie UNCLOS
EVEN THOUGH IT HAS SIGNED UP TO UNCLOS ITSELF!

[Davexl]

China’s ban on Australian coal has an expensive sting in its tail

https://www.smh.com.au/business/mark...07-p58pij.html

Australia doing better than ever, at China's expense (failed attempts to "punish" Australia)

[GTM 3442]

A little something from Australia a fortnight ago

https://www.hudson.org/research/1722...d-in-australia