Russia's 'oil sickness' erodes urgency for reform, critics say

By Carol J. Williams

April 6, 2014

As oil exports soared, the Kremlin put its resources into showy projects that won't generate much revenue, analysts say. Already, growth has flat-lined.

MOSCOW — It can take Moscow residents two hours in dense traffic to drive the first 10 miles on the highway to St. Petersburg, in the direction of their country cottages surrounded by lakes and birch groves. Then the road's real limitations become apparent.

The potholed two-lane route connecting Russia's two largest cities has never been upgraded into a proper highway. Anyone who cares to drive its entire 440-mile length — mostly truckers — will need at least 12 hours.

East Asia’s Maritime Disputes: Fishing in Troubled Waters

Alan Dupont & Christopher G. Baker

Few doubt that China’s rise is this era’s principal driver of strategic change, just as the United States’ equally influential ascendancy shaped the last. But earlier optimism that the Middle Kingdom’s re-emergence as a major power would be largely benign is fading as evidence mounts that Beijing is determined to press its territorial and resource claims in the vitally important seas of the Western Pacific. In barely the blink of a geopolitical eye, China’s once lauded charm offensive has given way to exactly the kind of coercive behavior its critics have long predicted.1 In a 3,000-mile maritime arc running from the East China Sea to the southern reaches of the South China Sea, Beijing is at loggerheads with many of its neighbors, including erstwhile friends, over several linked territorial and resource disputes. If not wisely managed, these disputes could bring East Asia’s long peace to a premature and bloody end.

Welcome to China's political gamble of the century

Timothy Garton Ash

President Xi Jinping has put the burden of modernisation squarely on the single ruling party. It is quite an experiment

As export-hungry Europeans have feted president Xi Jinping on his imperial progress across the continent over the past week, how many have realised just how extraordinary is the political experiment he is leading back home? In essence, he is trying to turn China into an advanced economy and three-dimensional superpower, drawing on the energies of capitalism, patriotism and Chinese traditions, yet all still under the control of what remains, at its core, a Leninist party-state. He may be a Chinese emperor but he is also a Leninist emperor. This is the most surprising and important political experiment on the face of the earth. No one in the 20th century expected it. No one in the 21st will be unaffected by its success or failure.

China After Tiananmen: Money, Yes; Ideas, No

Perry Link

The June Fourth Massacre in Beijing has had remarkable longevity. What happened in and around Tiananmen Square twenty-five years ago this June not only haunts the memories of people who witnessed the events and of friends and families of the victims, but also persists in the minds of people who stood, and still stand, with the attacking side. Deng Xiaoping, the man who said “go” for the final assault on thousands of Chinese citizens protesting peacefully for democracy, has died. But people who today are inside or allied with the political regime responsible for the killing remain acutely aware of it.

They seldom put their awareness into words; indeed, their policy toward massacre-memory is repression. They assign plainclothes police to monitor and control people who have a history of speaking publicly about the massacre. They hire hundreds of thousands of Internet censors, one of whose tasks is to expunge any sign of the massacre from websites and email.

Crimea and South China Sea Diplomacy

Sophie Boisseau du Rocher & Bruno Hellendorff

Russia’s big move shows both the limits and importance of diplomacy in territorial disputes.

On March 18, China and ASEAN gathered in Singapore to pursue consultations on a Code of Conduct (COC) for the South China Sea, alongside talks on the implementation of the Declaration of Conduct (DOC). The gathering came at a time of rising preoccupation over a perceived creeping assertiveness by China in pursuing its maritime claims. Just one week before, Manila and Beijing experienced another diplomatic row, after Chinese Coast Guard vessels barred the resupply of Philippine marines based in the Spratly Islands.

In broader terms, several high-profile developments have hinted that China is becoming more inclined to consider the threat and use of force as its preferred vehicle for influence in the South China Sea. 

Nationalism and the rise of China

Neville Meaney

The Communist leadership could remake itself as an anti-Western nationalist party, struggling against US–led encirclement

There is a large body of opinion that holds that the 21st Century is to be the Asian or Asia-Pacific century and that China will be the prime driving force in creating a new regional order. In the eyes of many, Napoleon’s famous prediction that when the sleeping giant China awoke it would shake the world seems to be about to come true. 

It is widely held that if China’s GDP continues to grow at the rate achieved in the last three decades it will, by 2030, if not earlier, overtake that of the United States. This has led to many commentators forecasting that China, like all rising great powers, would in due course demand its place in the sun. 

Can China Rise Peacefully?

John J. Mearsheimer 

 (The following is the new concluding chapter of Dr. John J. Mearsheimer’s book The Tragedy of the Great Power Politics. A new, updated edition was released on April 7 and is available via Amazon.)

With the end of the Cold War in 1989 and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union two years later, the United States emerged as the most powerful state on the planet. Many commentators said we are living in a unipolar world for the first time in history, which is another way of saying America is the only great power in the international system. If that statement is true, it makes little sense to talk about great-power politics, since there is just one great power.

4 Ways China Can Prepare for War in East Asia

Yang Hengjun

Northeast Asia has become a potential powder keg. What should China do to prepare itself for possible conflict?

 Over the past decades, the fuse for the powder keg of war moved from the Balkans to the Middle East. Now it has shifted to China’s backyard without us even noticing. Five years ago, if someone had told me that Northeast Asia would become the world’s leading powder keg, even more dangerous than the Middle East, I wouldn’t have believed it. But now, such a statement seems more and more like the truth.

After the U.S. military conquered Iraq, the “Arab Spring” bloomed in the Middle East and North Africa. Although the internal turmoil suffered by countries in this region shows no signs of abating, in terms of geopolitics the Middle East crisis has been greatly alleviated. Nowadays, there is only one “troublemaker” left – Iran, which would find it hard to cause a crisis without support ( not to mention Iran is not up to fighting with the United States and Israel). Iran’s recent willingness to give up its nuclear weapons program foreshadows a shift in the winds.

Russia and Vietnam Team Up to Balance Chin

Stephen Blank

Justified emphasis on the current Ukraine crisis should not lead us to make the mistake of overlooking Russia’s policies in East Asia. Normally Russia’s policies in Southeast Asia do not get much attention. But they reveal important motifs and themes in Russia’s overall foreign policy and its response to China’s rising power and to trends in Asian security. Examination of those policies reveals much about Russian policy in Asia and in general. In particular they demonstrate Moscow’s quest for total independence and tactical flexibility as well as its habitual reliance on energy and arms sales in strife-torn areas as the instruments by which it seeks to gain leverage on regional security agendas. Moreover, they also demonstrate that like other powers, Russia is pursuing what may be called a hedging strategy against China in Asia. On the one hand it supports China against the US and on the other works to constrain Chinese power in Asia.

Политические реформы в Китае - езда в незнаемое Политические реформы

Доклад ведущего научного сотрудника Института Дальнего Востока РАН В А.Г. Ларина на «круглом столе» «КНР накануне XVIII съезда КПК. Аспекты развития политических институтов» в Институте стран Азии и Африки МГУ 23 мая 2012 г.

Как можно заключить из заявлений руководителей КНР, по крайней мере некоторые из них считают, что время политических реформ уже настало[1]. Содержание реформ они не раскрывают, оно обозначается достаточно расплывчатыми терминами, такими как «демократическая социалистическая политика». Однако при всей специфике политического развития Китая можно предположить, что речь должна идти о введении в какой-то форме и в какой-то мере универсальных демократических механизмов, которые служат рычагами (или создают условия) для воздействия снизу на власть, с тем чтобы заставить ее обслуживать интересы всех слоев общества, а не только собственные, к чему она неизменно тяготеет.

Dying Breath: The inside story of Pol Pot’s last days and the disintegration of the movement he created

NATE THAYER 

As Pol Pot’s body lies bloating 100 metres away in a spartan shack, exhausted Khmer Rouge leaders gather in a jungle-shrouded ammunition depot filled with home-made mines and crude communications equipment. Explosions of heavy artillery and exchanges of automatic-weapons fire echo in the mountains as the Khmer Rouge’s remaining guerrillas hold off government troops.

Ta Mok, the movement’s strongman, vows to fight on, and blames his longtime comrade-in-arms for the Khmer Rouge’s desperate plight. “It is good that Pol Pot is dead. I feel no sorrow,” he says. Then he levels a bizarre accusation against the rabidly nationalistic mass murderer: “Pol Pot was a Vietnamese agent. I have the documents.”

North Korea: A Criminal Syndicate Posing as a Government

Nate Thayer

After a decade of failed Clinton era diplomacy, the United Nations and both the Bush and Obama administrations shifted to a more confrontational policy regarding the PDRK,  from negotiations on stopping the North Korean program for nuclear and missile development, to increased confrontation over their state sponsored criminal activity and financial sanctions directed to punish the North Koreans for weapons development. This evolved to a collapse of all diplomatic negotiations whatsoever in 2009.

The US and its allies have essentially been left bewildered and have little strategic policy towards the PDRK at all. International policy towards North Korea currently is labelled one of “Strategic Patience”, a euphamism, after exhausting all obvious paths, since 1985, of engaging the worlds most stark threat to regional and international peace, which has left the world community at a loss of what to do next. And currently having no strategic policy at all.

Since President Clinton left office in January 2001 until the present, there has been a marked escalation of hostility between the two sides that has reached a complete breakdown in diplomatic negotiations over the development of the PDRK nuclear and other military program. 

North Korea: The World’s Only Mafia Crime State

NATE THAYER 

How  North Korea Funds their Army, Nuclear Weapons Programme. and Small Group of Elite Cadre in Control

(Excerpts from an unpublished study of the criminal syndicates run by Kim Jong Il as central State policy)

North Korea is the only nation where it is central government policy to operate as a systematic criminal syndicate through a myriad of state controlled illicit activities. According to evidence compiled over a recent six month investigation, the North Korean government has, since at least 1974, run a worldwide network of diplomats, intelligence operatives, military, and other government officials, as well as state controlled front companies that use the rights and powers of a sovereign state to manage illegal operations worldwide.

Pol Pot Meets Kim Il Sung

NATE THAYER 

In October 1977, Pol Pot and his delegation of brother-in-law Ieng Sary, and sister-in-law Ieng Tirith, arrived in Pyongyang where they were given the highest level of enthusiastic welcome, meriting no less than 26 separate stories in official North Korean media, non stop radio and TV coverage, innumerable photographs above the fold on the party organs, and at least 6 separate meeting with the Great leader Kim Il Sung, who met Pol Pot at the airport, bringing along a crowd of hundreds of thousands cheering and waving flowers. who lined the road to Pyongyang.

Upon his arrival, “The great leader Comrade Kim Il-song firmly shook hands with Comrade Pol Pot at Pyongyang Airport” where “The great leader Comrade Kim Il-song posed for a commemorative photo with the party and government delegation of Democratic Cambodia headed by Comrade Pol Pot”.

Pot Pot Tells China in 1977 that Killings Underway, to Continue

Nate Thayer

Pol Pot  details Khmer Rouge killing enemies in the party to Chinese premier Hua Guofeng in 1977, warns him war with Vietnam is neccessary and looming

 Beijing, 29 September 1977

The day before Pol Pot arrived for a state visit in Beijing in September 1977, he made a speech in Phnom Penh in which he publicly revealed for the first time the existence of the Cambodian Communist Party and that he himself was its General Secretary. Neither the Cambodian people nor the world was aware of this even after they had been in power for over two years.

Five days earlier, on September 24, Khmer Rouge forces launched attacks against a number of villages inside Vietnam.

Party of the Century: How China is Reorganizing for the Future

Eric X. Li

November 2013, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held its much-anticipated Third Plenum of its 18th Congress. Third Plenums, which are usually held a year after a party congress, have generally been used to set the policy agenda for a new administration. More than 30 years ago, Deng Xiaoping famously launched his groundbreaking economic reforms at the Third Plenum of the party’s 11th Congress -- a meeting that changed the trajectory of China and, thereby, the world. Coming just a year after China’s latest leadership transition, the November Plenum offered the most concrete look at how the country’s top leader, General Secretary Xi Jinping, intends to lead.

Крым от Сталина до Путина

в Ялте, в 1945-м году, встретились Сталин, Черчилль и Рузвельт. На этой встрече решался вопрос о переделе европейских границ после, уже грядущего, окончания войны. И Черчилль с Рузвельтом предложили Сталину: «Иосиф Виссарионович! Отдай нам Крым, а мы за это отдадим тебе таких же размеров кусок Германии».

Сталин подумал немного и со свойственным ему акцентом говорит: «Если ви отгадаете мою загадку, то отдам вам Крим». И показывает Черчиллю и Рузвельту три пальца левой руки: большой, средний и указательный. «Какой из этих трёх пальцев сэрэдний?», — спросил Сталин. Черчилль удивился простоте загадки и ухватился за указательный палец «Вот средний!» «Нэээт…, нэ угадал», — ответил Сталин.

ПУТИН И СТАЛИН

ИГОРЬ ХАРИЧЕВ

Очередное эпохальное общение президента Путина с народом России состоялось. На все многочисленные вопросы последовали бодрые ответы. Ибо для постоянных зрителей основных российских телеканалов главное — как отвечают, а не что. Народ получил заряд, которого должно хватить до следующей «Прямой линии» в 2014 году.

Действительно заслуживающим внимания в этом году был вопрос Алексея Венедиктова о «сталинских нотках»: о нарастающем числе политических процессов, о большом числе людей, которых подозревают в том, что они — иностранные агенты, о законах, резко сужающих свободу общения, в частности в интернете.«Скажите, пожалуйста, вы действительно считаете, что Россия в XXI веке с помощью приемов таких, эффективного менеджера Сталина, может быть передовой державой?» — закончил свой вопрос Венедиктов.

Путин и Сталин. Сравнение 12 лет правления

"А не замахнуться ли нам, на Вильяма нашего Шекспира? А что? И замахнемся!

Часто можно услышать мнение, что Путин это так себе. Вот Сталин это настоящий руководитель. Святая троица: Бомба, Ракета, Победа. Вот это достижения, ну а то что делает Путин полная ерунда. Конечно можно сказать бомбу сперли, Победа это промах, не надо было доводить внешнюю политику до такого запущенного состояния, ну а ракета вообще была после Сталина да и она побочный продукт.  Нет все это конечно было. Но это итог 27 летнего правления. А что было в первые 12 лет правления Сталина, что он сделал то для России?

Inside Xi Jinping's Reform Strategy

Peter Martin, David Cohen 

Chinese President Xi Jinping has set out to be a transformative leader. While he is, in his own words, no Gorbachev, he is equally committed to breaking free of the Brezhnevian stagnation that many Chinese feel characterized politics under Hu Jintao. In his speeches and in the official decisions of November’s Third Plenum (reported to have been prepared under his close guidance), he has promised to establish a “decisive” role for market forces—under the guidance of the Party. Doing so, by his own analysis, requires overcoming and controlling “vested interests” which stand in his way.