Friday News Roundup — February 24, 2023
Today, on the one year anniversary of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, we celebrate the fact that Kiev stands free and independent and we salute the courage and resolve of the Ukrainian people. We also reflect on the tragedy of this unnecessary war; the tens of thousands who have been killed or injured; the millions of Ukrainian civilians who have been displaced or kidnapped; and the fact there is no end in sight to the war. This week President Biden made a surprise trip to Kiev and delivered a speech in Poland to reassure Ukraine of U.S. support and to urge certain European partners to do more. Meanwhile, President Putin, sheltering in Moscow, sketched an alternate narrative wherein he blamed the West for the Ukraine war and accused NATO of plotting to attack Russian military bases. Putin’s audience reacted with a mix of yawns and applause.
Russia was not invited to last weekend’s Munich Security Conference, but China was in the house. In remarks to the delegates, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi accused the United States of warmongering and not caring about the Ukrainian people. Wang then flew to Budapest and Moscow. China, which is providing political and economic support to Russia, unveiled its “peace plan” for Ukraine on February 24. (Ethan Brown and Dan Mahaffee offer two perspectives on what China is up to in this week’s Roundup).
International relief efforts continue in the Turkey/Syria border region where officials estimate over 40,000 people died and thousands more were injured in the recent earthquake. Here in the United States, the environmental and human health impact of the Norfolk Southern train derailment — apparently caused by a train mechanical failure — might never be fully known. What we do know is that it has been a nightmare for the residents of the Ohio town of East Palestine where the accident occurred, and that it is a harsh stress test of America’s disaster preparedness.
On the economic front, domestic inflation remains stubborn at around 6% year-over-year. Unemployment is still low and 80% of employers say they plan to raise compensation for employees over the next year (survey by Payscale). This is good for jobseekers, but it also portends that both inflation and interest rates will remain high in the medium term. Reducing government spending could of course temper inflation over the long term, but both parties have drawn certain red lines around social security and medicare and Republicans would fight a reduction in defense spending. Nevertheless, Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) of the House Appropriations Committee expressed measured confidence that “quiet talks” would result in a spending agreement that would allow the U.S. government to avoid a debt default. Toward this end, he has proposed a bipartisan commission to ensure social security is fully funded for decades to come. In an attempt to relieve the crisis at the U.S. southern border, the White House announced that it would modify asylum rules to disqualify migrants who have circumvented “available, established pathways to lawful migration” including the option to seek protection in countries traversed en route to the U.S. border. The Department of Homeland security said the policy aimed to disincentivize dangerous border crossings.
This week, Joshua Huminski, Director of the Mike Rogers Center for Intelligence & Global Affairs moderated a panel on “The Militaries of Russia and Ukraine One Year Into the War” with Dr. Nora Bensahel and Lieutenant General David Barno. A recording of the discussion can be found here.
On February 20, The Hill published an op-ed by James Kitfield on the one year anniversary of the Ukraine war. And on February 23, The Hill ran Joshua Huminski’s op-ed on the need to maintain a robust counterintelligence campaign against the Russians.
CSPC President and CEO Glenn Nye and Director of Policy Dan Mahafee wrote an op-ed on the importance of future pandemic preparedness that was also featured in The Hill on February 24.
Zach Moyer takes a look at the geopolitical implications of Pakistan’s economic woes in this week’s Roundup. Hidetoshi Azuma reflects on the evolution of the Government of Japan’s policy toward Moscow over the past decade. We close with News You May Have Missed.
China looms as the world braces for Ukraine’s next chapter
Ethan Brown
The past week or so has been a whirlwind of national leaders galavanting about the world, assuring ties with partners and making stark resolve a mainstay talking point. President Biden of course made a surprise lightning visit to Kyiv to rally around Volodimir Zelensky before stopping in Poland to address NATO allies. Further, a top diplomat from the Chinese Communist Party, Wang Yi, director of policy for the CCP, met with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, affirming that relations between the West’s top two antagonists were “proceeding as planned.”
It’s almost as if we are watching the world shift into two poles, a la the Cold War ‘East v. West’ where the United States rallies NATO partners as the former communist flagships are of common accord, all the while those two rivals continue vying for influence abroad to one another’s long-term detriment. History doesn’t necessarily repeat itself, but it certainly does take notes from prior episodes and makes cyclic returns.
While the focus of the world is waiting to see what happens with the anticipated Spring offensive in Ukraine, it continues to lose focus at grand scale on the long-term implications of a patient Beijing, who is most certainly taking notes on the West’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
China looms as a potential benefactor to Russian needs for increased weapons, a possibility Secretary of State Blinken alluded to this week, but much like the ill-fated “weather balloon” from the crisis two weeks ago, Beijing is not so foolish as to invest it’s own precious resources in Moscow’s gambit in Eastern Europe. Instead, Beijing scores a victory here by the potential that it would involve itself in Russia’s plight.
Simply, it costs the Chinese Communist Party little to publicly show support and cohesion with Moscow in diplomatic climes, while knowing full well that overt support — shipping or selling any defense materiel — would cause the world to turn its angst on Beijing, must as it has against Moscow.
Beijing knows full well what it is doing, especially as its proximal regional concerns — like reconciliation (by one form or another) in Taiwan and the slowly expanding security ring in the Pacific — grow nearer to impacting world events as the months and Western liberal democratic parties tick by. Everything happening in Ukraine right now, from the unprecedented global economic and diplomatic response, to the outpouring of defense aid, to the bolstering of strategic ties and partnerships by liberal states, is being factored into the calculus by China’s leading strategists.
If we in the West thought that the swift and deliberate exchange of security aid and resources for Kyiv would deter China from pursuing regional, and indeed, future global hegemony, we are wrong. Beijing doesn’t want to initiate confrontation with the West or the collective security apparatus in the Pacific, knowing full well that such an engagement would likely set back the previous centuries worth of China’s growth on the world stage. So it is observing the crisis in Ukraine and all but certainly reconsidering how to reset that calculus.
If it looks like China and Russia are aligning under a new collective order that will compete with the West’s aims to stabilize the world under cooperation and democratic ideals, then the ensuing strategic panic will certainly benefit Beijing’s plans in the coming century. After all, Western democracies are woefully short-sighted in strategic planning, often shaping policies that are reactionary and for the moment with limited regards for future consequences. After all, the United States led the Western world in a wayward strategic gambit in Afghanistan without plans for an endstate, and it took twenty years and four Presidential administrations to finally acknowledge sunk costs of an endless endeavor there.
Fear of China-Russia collaboration is likely to produce a predictable increase in aid to Ukraine, an issue which, though reasonable to sustain, is dangerous if the checks remain blank and realistic end-states never established to bring this conflict to an end. Attrition and its war-format drains the resources of the West and Russia, and all the while China looms at the periphery spending exactly zero political or strategic resources to strengthen its position in the future.
That is the lesson to take away from the sudden (though hardly surprising) developments between Beijing and Moscow: it costs nothing for Beijing to shake the hand of Moscow’s diplomats, knowing full well that Western strategic shortsightedness will create a reactionary echo in policy. It costs Russia nothing to allow the West to think it has drawn in Beijing’s support in its reprehensible sustainment of this illegal war in Ukraine.
Therein lies the ruthless brilliance of the authoritarians with whom the liberal order is competing against. They are able to make small gestures that echo against our own better nature, knowing full well our reactions will be dramatic. To President Biden’s tremendous credit, during his speech in Prague ahead of the Bucharest Nine conference, he lambasted Putin’s similarly swift and callous declaration that Russia would suspend its adherence to the NEW START treaty, which the two nations had agreed to only a year prior. Instead, President Biden highlighted the incredible resolve in Ukraine, that Kyiv had not fallen to Russian tanks when a year ago all parties expected such, and that a coalition of democracy had enabled Ukraine to stand in the face of Russian aggression.
All these factors — Russia’s doubling down on it’s whole-of-nation engagement in Ukraine, the fear-inducing chumminess between Moscow and Beijing, and the simple reality of Western short-term thinking — point to one critical reality that must not be lost or ignored as the world continues to obsess over the frontlines in Ukraine: that Chine looms in the international competition that is ongoing and forgotten amidst the crisis in Eastern Europe. And most importantly, over-commitment to the short term crisis of the moment — a predictable sequence which authoritarians like China and Russia can exploit with little effort — will leave that newly catalyzed liberal order on unsure footing when Ukraine resolves and China has re-shaped its approach to pursuing its own regional and international hegemonic objectives.
Pakistan Leans on China and Russia to Prevent Economic Catastrophe
Zachary Moyer
Pakistan is increasingly dependent on its relationships with China and Russia as it tries to stabilize its economy, which has been rocked by the August 2022 floods and severe inflation. The floods are estimated to have killed about 2,000 Pakistanis, injured 15,000, and displaced around 8 million. The United Nations’ Post-Disaster Needs Assessment, supported by the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, and the European Union, estimated that flood damages will exceed $14.9 billion.
On February 22, Pakistan’s Finance Minister Ishaq Dar announced an agreement with the China Development Bank for a $700 million loan to help prevent an economic collapse. This comes a week after Pakistan raised tariffs on luxury goods and cut government salaries as part of an austerity program to qualify for a conditional International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout. (This will be the fifth IMF infusion the country has applied for since 2000.) Much of Pakistan’s foreign debt is owed to China, a longtime friend in Pakistan’s rivalry with mutual enemy India over disputed Kashmir. The United States has warned about the consequences of Pakistan’s debt to China. U.S. State Department Counselor Derek Chollet said in Islamabad on February 16: “We have been very clear about our concerns not just here in Pakistan, but elsewhere all around the world about Chinese debt, or debt owed to China.” Much of the debt is connected to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Former President of Pakistan Imran Khan warned that Pakistan will see an economic disaster Sri Lanka experienced in 2022 when the country failed to pay back interest on foreign loans and ended up forfeiting infrastructure assets to China.
Pakistan is the 6th largest country in the world by population (211 million) but it is ranked 155th in terms of per capita GDP. Pakistan’s economy has long underperformed in contrast to its neighbor and declared rival India, where the IMF is predicting economic growth of 6.5% this year. The Ukraine war pushed up energy and food prices both in Pakistan and India, as it did in many developing countries. Prior to 2022, Pakistan had imported over 30% of its wheat from Ukraine. Russia — which faces an EU oil embargo — has recently offered to sell oil to Pakistan at a discounted price. (Pakistan’s declared rival India has similarly purchased bargain oil and weapons from Russia.) Pakistan abstained from voting on the 2022 and 2023 UN General Assembly resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Pakistan’s increased dependence on Russia and China makes it even less likely to waver from its position of official neutrality over the Ukraine war.
China’s Charm Offensive & the Reality
Dan Mahaffee
Scholars have spoken recently of China’s charm offensive, coming on the heels of the end of the Covid lockdowns, broader pandemic criticism, and growing animus between Washington and Beijing. Much of China’s charm offensive has focused on Europe. The most recent example being a new 12-point peace plan proposed by Beijing that has been mostly rejected by European leaders. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz being the most prominent recent visitor to Beijing, but the effort to mend fences has also extended to the business community. It is the private sector that has borne the brunt of Xi’s crackdowns on prominent business leaders and sectors like tech and real estate — while the Covid lockdowns disrupted global supply chains and have dented the economic prospects of a generation of Chinese.
The charm offensive is driven by those in Beijing who understand that the current course is dangerously impacting vital commercial and trade ties with the world — especially as the United States increases its controls on critical technologies. Before the spy balloon incident, Washington and Beijing had sought to establish a floor for tensions. More broadly, Beijing’s charm offensive is also aimed at the broader global competition for countries that don’t want to necessarily align with the West versus China and Russia.
Despite the charm offensive, it is important to point out that China’s policies are not changing, despite the changed rhetoric. In fact, when it comes to the Ukraine War, we see the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) further aligning with Moscow. While it can be understood that Beijing was frustrated with the initial lack of success from Putin’s invasion, China has not used its influence to end the conflict. Peace plan notwithstanding, the Chinese leadership have failed to condemn the invasion and increasingly offer up anti western propaganda when describing the conflict.
In some ways, this alignment makes plenty of sense for Beijing: both Russia and the west are weakened by conflict, with Russia more dependent on China and the west unable to focus on China’s rise. At the same time, this conflict is demonstrating the shortcomings of the U.S. and allied defense industrial base. The more hawkish in Beijing could see assistance to Russia as a further opportunity to test Chinese military kit that has seen service in only parades and drills.
While European leaders have sought to bridge the divide with China — and perhaps diverge from the United States — a China that arms Russia cannot be a friend of Europe. If 2022 meant that the invasion of Ukraine woke Europe to the reality of global competition and a return to conventional conflict, 2023 and Chinese support for Russia could fully alert European leaders to Beijing’s aims. Furthermore, while Beijing increasingly paints U.S. support for Ukraine as escalation, it is worth reminding the world — especially Asian allies — that our support for Ukraine is fulfillment of our security obligations to Europe. Chinese aid for Russia should be considered highly escalators compared to existing U.S. and allied support for Kyiv.
The reality of China’s policies are not only limited to this discussion of Ukraine. The crackdown on the private sector and economic ties with the world continues. First, there is the disappearance of Bao Fan, the founder of China Renaissance Holdings, a major Chinese investment bank with close ties to that nation’s tech sector. Bao Fan had also sought to establish a family office in Singapore, suggesting that he was looking to shelter his wealth offshore. His disappearance, like those of other business leaders before him, demonstrates the CCP’s continued willingness to use detention to crack down on individual business leaders and send a message to an entire sector.
Beyond the specific example of Bao Fan, there was also news this week that Chinese regulators were telling state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to cease using the western “Big Four” accounting firms for their auditing. Despite promises from the Chinese regulators of greater compliance with western accounting standards, the CCP remains concerned about foreign access to business data. SOEs now play an increasingly important role in Xi Jinping’s economic and technology development plans, and further backsliding on economic and financial transparency by the Chinese only raises additional concerns for doing business there.
Again, the scope of a potential U.S.-China decoupling can boggle the mind given the nature of our economic and trade interdependence. At the same time, we cannot be blind to the policies that are being pursued by Beijing that demonstrate how they seek decoupling on their own terms. We are increasingly doing so in our own way, with technology restrictions, investment in our supply chains, and growing military and security support for Indo-Pacific allies. This week’s headlines provide just a few examples of how the U.S.-China competition spans various aspects of national interests and power, as well as how the underlying trends of competition remain despite the peaks and valleys of diplomatic rhetoric.
Reflections on Japan in the Russo-Ukrainian War
Hidetoshi Azuma
The Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida marked the first anniversary of Russia’s expanded invasion of Ukraine today by delivering a special address on the ongoing war waged by Japan’s northern neighbor. His speech revolved around his vision for Japan’s leadership in supporting Ukraine as the chair of the Group of Seven (G7) countries this year, culminating in the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s potential attendance in the G7 Summit in Hiroshima in May. While Kishida’s ambition for a G7 breakthrough in support for Ukraine was expected given his growing obsession with the upcoming summit in his hometown, the real significance of his speech was to be found in his willful disregard for Japan’s own war with Russia unresolved since August 1945. Such disregard revealed Japan’s fundamental divergence from other G7 countries on Russia, a crucial fact underpinning Tokyo’s approach to its northern neighbor ever since the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War on February 20, 2014. With Zelenskyy increasingly looking to visit Hiroshima later this year, Japan’s incorrigible strategic ambiguity toward Russia could threaten the G7 unity as Moscow seeks further escalation of the war. Therefore, Japan’s lingering strategic ambiguity merits a sober reflection on its significance throughout the course of the Russo-Ukrainian War.
Japan is the only G7 country consistently demonstrating strategic ambiguity toward Russia ever since the ongoing war began almost a decade ago. The slain former prime minister Shinzo Abe spearheaded his signature policy of rapprochement putatively paving ways for a territorial resolution followed by a peace deal. To this end, he even banked on a perceived bromance with the Russian president Vladimir Putin in hopes for a diplomatic breakthrough, leading him to meet the Russian autocrat the unrivaled total of 27 times between 2013 and 2019. Incredibly, Abe even boosted his efforts for engagement with Putin after Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, culminating in his offer of economic largesse to compensate for the perceived damage done on the two leaders’ mutual trust by Tokyo’s alignment with other G7 countries on economic sanctions. Apart from his obvious naïveté, the Japanese leader’s thinking in fact revolved around his questionable view that Japan could steer Russia into becoming a geopolitical counterweight against China. Inevitably, Abe resigned in August 2020 empty-handed, leaving behind his crippling legacy of strategic ambiguity toward Russia.
Kishida emerged against the backdrop of Abe’s towering legacy and the brewing geopolitical crisis in Ukraine in October 2021. While he lacked Abe’s knack for summitry and demonstrated little interest in a bromance with Putin, the new Japanese leader chose to perpetuate his predecessor’s overall legacy despite Russia’s growing military encirclement of Ukraine. Moscow’s launch of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine last February shocked the Japanese political establishment, leading Kishida to introduce a series of economic sanctions. The unprecedented speed with which he responded to Russia’s aggression with punitive measures consolidated the perception of Japan’s full alignment with the other G7 countries on Russia. Indeed, Kishida pledged to fully align Japan’s foreign and national security policy with the United States’ in March 2022 and even took extra pains to bolster the US-Japan alliance by boosting ties with other G7 countries, especially the United Kingdom. By summer 2022, Kishida appeared to have fundamentally transformed Japan’s grand strategy into one of confronting China and Russia simultaneously in Asia. His 2022 National Security Strategy released in December 2022 characterized Russia as a “strong security concern,” seemingly bidding final farewell to Abe’s legacy.
Such a perception soon proved to be deceptive. While the above developments certainly emerged on the one hand, Kishida’s Russia policy itself changed little on the other despite Moscow’s ongoing aggression in Ukraine. He has done nothing to rectify Abe’s policy legacy, leading to his almost comical pursuit of both a territorial resolution and a peace treaty through patient engagement with Moscow even after the Kremlin itself walked away from the negotiating table in March 2022. Moreover, Kishida went on to entreat Washington to exempt the G7 price cap requirement on Russian energy imports following mounting pressure from the Kremlin. As a result, having secured its energy stakes in Sakhalin, Japan has become the only G7 member to de facto continue to fund Putin’s war in Ukraine. Such a farcical show of obsequity toward Japan’s own warring adversary bent on destroying another democratic country only underscored Tokyo’s incurably distorted perspective on Russia. For Kishida and perhaps his future successors, resolving the perennial WWII leftover would be the ultimate diplomatic prize for personal legacy, stifling sober geostrategic considerations. Indeed, the prevailing thinking in Tokyo continues to promote strategic ambiguity toward Russia lest any last-remaining prospect for peace in the Far East be diminished.
In this sense, Ukraine has also become an object of self-aggrandizement for Kishida. His support for Ukraine is inextricable from his desire to emerge as a peacemaker at the upcoming G7 summit in his hometown of Hiroshima as Russia’s looming nuclear Armageddon overshadows the country. In fact, Japan remains the only G7 country not to have sent its political leaders to Ukraine. Nor has Japan provided Ukraine with weapons. Moreover, these inactions have not even inspired domestic political debate on Japan’s security commitments to the Russo-Ukrainian War. Therefore, Japan’s support for Ukraine remains virtually confined to Kishida’s rhetorical backing of Kyiv’s war efforts and occasional economic aid packages. In other words, Japan fundamentally remains aloof from this war unlike the other G7 countries and unabashedly continues to seek unrequited peace with Russia.
The first year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has unmistakably exposed the G7 disunity chiefly caused by Japan’s lingering strategic ambiguity toward Russia. In this respect, Russia is winning precisely because one of its key strategic objectives of its war in Ukraine is to sow divisions among the world’s democracies. In fact, Russia has been winning ever since Abe offered Putin an olive branch following the 2014 annexation of Crimea. If Abe’s tragic demise cannot change Tokyo’s perspective on Russia, what could? Indeed, even the recent revelation of Russia’s reported plan to invade Japan failed to effect a course correction in Tokyo. After all, Japan and Russia are still at war with each other, and Tokyo’s continued deliberate disregard of this fundamental fact is even treacherous in light of Ukraine’s troubled fate. The world simply cannot afford a nuclear Armageddon over Ukraine to have Japan finally rectify its questionable approach to Russia. The burden of remedy, then, would unfortunately fall on Washington if Tokyo continues to waver on Russia, ironically undermining the global democratic solidarity against Japan’s own warring adversary.
News You May Have Missed
Nigeria Presidential Elections
On February 25, Nigerians will vote in presidential elections. Voters have a choice among 18 candidates running. Nigeria returned to democratic rule in 1999 and this is the first election where none of the candidates is an incumbent or a former military leader. President Muhammadu Buhari, facing term limits, will step down after eight years in office. The election takes place in a climate where the government has faced significant security threats and economic pressures including high inflation and a currency devaluation. Experts predict high turnout but note that security concerns are on voters’ minds. The postponement of the last two elections made many voters uncertain about the current status of this election. If no candidate receives 25% of votes in at least ⅔ of Nigeria’s states, the country will hold a run-off election.
New Reform Bills in Israel Spark Large Demonstrations Across the Country
Protests have continued across Israel after the government passed legislation in the Knesset which would undermine the independence of its judicial system. On February 20, protestors blocked city roads, and large groups walked the streets. An estimated 75,000 people participated in the Jerusalem demonstration. Some protestors were dressed in red gowns and white coverings like characters from the dystopian book ”The Handmaid’s Tale.” The controversial legislation would allow a simple majority to overturn certain Supreme Court rulings. It would also change the selection process for judges and government ministries’ independent legal advisers. President Biden commented on the reforms, stating, “The genius of American democracy and Israeli democracy is that they are both built on strong institutions, on checks and balances, on an independent judiciary. Building consensus for fundamental changes is really important to ensure that the people buy into them so they can be sustained.”