The Russian veto in the United Nations Security Council on Monday to block a Western-backed resolution to condemn Iran for its alleged violations of international sanctions and its fueling of the conflict in Yemen was a landmark event.

This is the first time Russia has shot down a US-led move in the Security Council regarding a regional conflict in which it is not directly involved. Moscow did not block the Western moves over Iraq in 2003 or over Libya in 2011, although Russian interests were involved. Nor did Moscow block Kosovo’s admission to the UN as a sovereign state, piloted by the West, in 2008, although it was a bitter pill to swallow in every sense.

In Syria, of course, Russia has exercised its veto power repeatedly both in self-interest and in the interests of its ally. But in the Yemen conflict, Russia is neither a participant nor a protagonist, nor has it any legitimate reason to take sides.

On its broadest plane, Russia has signaled that the US and its Western allies can no longer dominate the international system and Russia will oppose US hegemony as a matter of principle. This has serious implications for regional and international security.

Russia has signaled that the US and its Western allies can no longer dominate the international system and Russia will oppose US hegemony as a matter of principle. This has serious implications for regional and international security

Indeed, what Russia has done is shoot down an unprincipled Western attempt to isolate Iran from a geopolitical perspective. The West has adopted a cynical position over the conflict in Yemen. The US has been a virtual participant in the conflict by providing military assistance to the Saudi forces and identifying for them targets for their brutal air attacks on Yemen.

The administration of US President Donald Trump has not cared to provide any empirical evidence that the Houthis are dependent on Iran’s support. UN and other experts refuse to accept the US allegation that Iran supplied the Houthis with the missiles that targeted Saudi Arabia. The Barack Obama administration was frank enough to admit that while the Houthis could be “pro-Iran,” there was no alliance as such between the two.

In reality, Zaidi Shiite Muslims are more closely aligned to Sunni Islam than to the Shiism practiced in Iran.

The Russian stance took exception to the British-drafted text (supported by the US and France) containing a condemnation of Iran predicated on “unconfirmed conclusions and reports that should be double-checked and discussed by the sanctions committee,” as Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, put it.

Nebenzya noted that the Russian side offered “more than one compromising formulation” but those ideas had been dismissed. He said Russia “is fundamentally against a technical extension of sanctions committees’ export groups being politicized and used for solving not technical and expert tasks, but geopolitical ones.”

Significantly, the aborted British text not only contained condemnations against Tehran on illegal supplies of weapons to Houthis but also stated an intention to assume further measures in response to those violations. Conceivably, Moscow suspected the US intentions in the downstream, given the Trump administration’s hostile strategy toward Iran – scrapping the nuclear deal, imposing more sanctions, rolling back Iran’s missile capability and pushing back at Iran’s surge as a regional power.

In a clear rebuff to Washington, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday in Moscow that “it is necessary to fully implement the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [Iran nuclear deal]. If there is a desire to discuss some other issues concerning Iran in this format or in another format, this should be done with Iran’s voluntary participation and on the basis of consensus rather than through ultimatums.”

Interestingly, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir telephoned Lavrov on Monday just hours before the Security Council vote. According to the Russian readout, they “exchanged views on a number of issues on the bilateral and Middle East agendas, including in the context of the drafting of a new UN Security Council resolution on Yemen.”

Evidently, if the Trump administration had sought to leverage Saudi-Russian relations, it didn’t work. Moscow has in effect “de-hyphenated” its relations with Saudi Arabia and Iran. Russia has displayed its unique credentials to play an influential role in ending the conflict in Yemen and in facilitating a Saudi-Iranian rapprochement. Interestingly, Riyadh did not criticize Moscow’s veto on Monday and it was left to the US, Britain, France and Germany to issue a joint statement.

Of course, what emerges, in the final analysis, is the resilience of the Russian-Iranian alliance in Middle East politics. The Western thesis that an “assertive” Iran inevitably grates against Russian “expansionism” in the Middle East stands exposed as an overblown notion.

Ironically, Monday’s event will have a salutary effect on Russian-Iranian coordination in Syria, especially as the two powers prepare for a trilateral summit with Turkey in Istanbul in April.

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One of the top roller-coaster sagas in what, some years ago, I christened Pipelineistan, has yielded a definitive twist.

The US$8 billion,1,814-kilometer Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline (TAPI) was officially inaugurated on Friday, in full pomp, and with proceedings broadcast live on Afghan TV, on the Turkmen-Afghan border close to Herat.

Assuming there are no major glitches – and that’s a major “if” – TAPI should, in theory, be finished by 2020. So far, though, endless deadlines have come and gone.

TAPI simply cannot exist without Taliban approval. According to a statement by Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yusuf Ahmadi, “the Islamic Emirate views this project as an important element of the country’s economic infrastructure and believes its proper implementation will benefit the Afghan people. We announce our cooperation in providing security for the project in areas under our control.”

Another Taliban faction, led by Mullah Mohammad Rasool, also let it be known, via spokesman Mullah Abdul Manan Niazi, that, “we will not allow any group or state to disrupt this project.”

When Ahmadi claims TAPI was initially planned when the Taliban were in power in Kabul from 1996 to 2001, he’s correct. The Taliban were wined and dined in Houston in 1997, as I reported for Asia Times, but nothing came out of it. The haggling was all about transit fees

All of the above is code for the Taliban getting their cut – which happens to have been the key point of contention ever since the first Clinton administration decided the then rulers of Afghanistan were worth doing business with.

So when spokesman Ahmadi claims TAPI was initially planned when the Taliban were in power in Kabul from 1996 to 2001, he’s correct. The Taliban were wined and dined in Houston in 1997, as I reported for Asia Times, but nothing came out of it. The haggling was all about transit fees.

For Kabul, the game from now on is about providing adequate security – from construction to operation. After all, this is a major job-creating project bound to involve 30,000 Afghan workers and yield US$500 million annually for Kabul in transit rights.

Rumors swirled in Herat about a bunch of unidentified jihadis, allegedly trained in Iran, planning to attack the inauguration ceremony. There has been no confirmation whatsoever that this is the case – either from Afghan or Iranian sources. Even President Ghani rejected the outlandish idea that Tehran would sabotage TAPI.  

The rumors should be traced to a Pipelineistan mini-Cold War between TAPI and IPI – the competing Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, which, under pressure from the Bush and Obama administrations, was eventually reduced to IP.  

A win-win situation

TAPI is a very good deal for Ashgabat – as it allows Turkmenistan finally to diversify its export markets instead of relying entirely on its major customer China. Gurbanguly, moreover, wants to turn TAPI into an energy/IT/connectivity corridor.

Washington supports TAPI – and not IPI/IP – because its main financial source is the Japan-led Asian Development Bank (ADB), and because it would be a key stabilizing factor uniting Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.  

From Islamabad’s point of view, both TAPI and IP are very much needed. TAPI will meet at least 20% of Pakistan’s natural gas requirements and 10% of its energy needs.

In economic and geopolitical terms, a steel umbilical cord running along the intersection of Central and South Asia can only be a win-win.

“We hope our next generation will see this pipeline as the foundation of a joint position in our region which is aimed at improving our economy, providing jobs and increasing our security, all in our fight against extremists”

What we have here is a major upward twist in terms of Eurasian integration. The in-progress Turkmenistan energy corridor will eventually link with one of the major Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), sharply increasing Central Asian connectivity.

Even New Delhi, despite its immense reservations regarding CPEC, is now hailing TAPI, via Minister Akbar, as “a symbol of our goals” and “a new page in co-operation” between the four nations.

Additionally, TAPI adds to India’s connectivity with Central Asia, via Afghanistan, as embodied in New Delhi’s investment in Chabahar port in Iran.

Ghani, for his part, said: “We hope our next generation will see this pipeline as the foundation of a joint position in our region which is aimed at improving our economy, providing jobs and increasing our security, all in our fight against extremists.”

But the key piece of the puzzle is his public recognition that Afghanistan, slowly but surely, may now be positioning itself – finally – as a connector between Central Asia and South Asia.

The next piece will come from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) – with Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Iran making sure the war in Afghanistan is over for good.

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Taiwan’s Foreign Minister David Lee has admitted his country came under diplomatic siege from China in 2017, with only 20 countries now keeping consular representatives in the increasingly isolated republic.

Most of these are thinly-populated island nations in Central America, the Caribbean and Southern Pacific, like Dominica, Saint Lucia, the Marshall Islands, Paraguay, the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.

But Lee insisted in a Lunar New Year video uploaded to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website that his diplomats would keep battling on.

“Although our diplomatic situation is fraught with challenges, our diplomats are neither frustrated nor lax… They fight tirelessly for our nation’s dignity and interests, and to expand our nation’s international presence,” he said. Lee pointed to the impressive list of international cooperation and humanitarian aid projects that Taiwan undertook worldwide in 2017, as well as President Tsai Ing-wen’s visits to seven diplomatic allies in Central America and the Pacific in November.

There were more setbacks in 2017, notably with Panama’s decision in June to sever ties and switch its embassy to Beijing. São Tomé and Príncipe in Equatorial Africa had established diplomatic relations with China in December 2016 on a promise of generous aid.

In addition, Papua New Guinea, Bahrain, Ecuador and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates asked that Taiwan’s diplomatic missions in their countries remove all references to “Republic of China” or “Taiwan”. China is even putting pressure on countries that have made the switch. Nigeria ordered that Taiwan move its representative office from the capital Abuja to Lagos and banned all official exchanges with Taipei.

China has stepped up diplomatic pressure on Taiwan since Tsai’s staunchly pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party won the presidential election in 2016. Her predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou, from the pro-reunification Kuomintang party, fared a bit better: Beijing is said to have rejected Panama’s overtures at that time to “save Ma’s face”.

Taiwan still has one high-profile European friend in the Vatican City, but even that may soon change. Vatican sources have said the Holy See is likely to establish diplomatic relations with China within months as part of a controversial deal on the formal appointment of bishops. It has maintained consular relations with Taiwan for 96 years.

Few expect Taipei’s remaining allies in Caribbean and Pacific to resist the carrot of Chinese money for much longer. But Taipei does have at least one advantage over China: holders of its passport can get visa waivers and landing permits in 166 countries, including the United States, while mainland Chinese almost invariably face hassles.

About the only place Taiwanese are not welcome is at United Nations buildings, including offices in New York City, Geneva and Bangkok, as the global body does not recognise the republic. And these are the places where Taipei most needs to have its views being heard.

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he West’s notions of history and geography between Europe and Asia, are drenched in myriad cultural implications and can be traced back to ‘The Romance of Alexander’.

This is a collection of essays mixing truth, epic drama and mythology, composed between the death of Alexander The Great in 323 B.C., and the fourth century A.D, and attributed either to Callisthenes, Aristotle’s nephew or to Alexander’s tutor.

For more than two millennia, Alexander best embodied in the West the clash of these two lofty paradigms: East and West. Alexander’s conquests also helped India to enter the Western frame of mind in terms of geography and civilization.

We eventually learned that India was actually close to the Arab world – overland via Iran, and in naval terms via its direct connection to the Persian Gulf.

The exchange of goods, traditions and culture was always inbuilt in the Big Picture. Overland or seaborne, the ancient Silk Road – before arriving in China – went through India. Rome was already trading with India before learning about the Middle Kingdom, and vice-versa as the Chinese barely knew the Mediterranean existed.

Closer to the West

So, India was always closer to the Western mind than China.

In parallel, when Vasco da Gama reached southwest India in 1498, those ports for more than a millennium had been trading with China, Southeast Asia, the Arab world and the Mediterranean.

The historical case can be made that India’s royals, after trading for so long with Arab, Jewish and Chinese merchants, were fooled by the “peaceful” intention of the first European incursions, which eventually led to British domination of the subcontinent.

This background should be taken into account when we look at what happened during the latest international Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi. This was sponsored by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), an Indian think tank.

The theme of the Raisina Dialogue was “Managing Disruptive Transitions.” And the number one “disruptive transition” was identified as no less than China’s New Silk Road, otherwise known as the Belt and Road Initiative.

“The reality is that China is a disruptive transitional force in the Indo-Pacific, they are the owner of the trust deficit in the region.”

More than 200 million Indians are Muslims, which makes it the third largest Muslim nation in the world after Indonesia and Pakistan. So, it is no wonder that Premier Narendra Modi’s right-wing pro-Hindu BJP acts as the self-proclaimed defender of a multi-millennium civilization.

But when we dig deeper we find that modern Hindu nationalism – instead of worrying about the destiny of the Mahabharata – was actually born in the 1920s, infused with the theories of Mazzini, d’Annunzio and even one Benito Mussolini. Still, that was all about fear of the Hindu identity being swamped by Islam and Christendom.

Now, it is all about fear of China.

Belt and Road versus ‘Quad’

NATO was in full voice at the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi via Admiral Harry Harris, commander of US Pacific Command and named recently as US Ambassador to Australia. According to Harris, “the reality is that China is a disruptive transitional force in the Indo-Pacific, they are the owner of the trust deficit in the region.”

Significantly, the navy chiefs from the Quad nations – US, India, Japan, Australia – all agree on it. So does retired General David Petraeus, the former CIA director and mastermind of the surges in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Neocon ideologue Zalmay Khalilzad, a former US Ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan, also attended, and duly agreed that by trying to connect all of Eurasia via the Belt and Road, China would “change the international order.”

The Raisina Dialogue fully illustrated the scope of Washington’s terminological pivot from “Asia-Pacific” to “Indo-Pacific”, while detailing the prescription inbuilt in the new Pentagon Defense Strategy.

China – along with Russia – are “revisionist powers” bent on undermining the “international, rules-based order”, especially China with its “predatory economics” which will be fully developed through the Belt and Road program.

So, it was up to Quad to implement a new China containment strategy.

Geopolitically, in Beijing, China-India relations are regarded very seriously, second only in importance to China’s relations with the US. Lately, China-Russia relations have been in the ascendant – mutually exhorted as a “strategic partnership”.

China-Japan relations, meanwhile, may qualify as a distant fourth although vast swathes of the Chinese public appear to consider it the second biggest threat to President Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Dream”.

Yet once Beijing consolidates its influence over key maritime trade routes across East Asia, Japan will cease to be a problem. The real problem is if India ever decides to try to cut or at least interfere with China’s Belt and Road Initiative naval routes – and complex supply lines – across the Indian Ocean.

The key geopolitical question of the 21st century is how the ascension of China will “disrupt” American hegemony and arguably enable a Chinese – actually Eurasian – century.

China and India would have all it takes to be complementary. Both are members of BRICS, the group also comprising Brazil, Russia and South Africa. They are also part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), as well as top nations in the G-20. And yet New Delhi persists on treating Beijing not as a partner but as a threat.

Fear of the rising power

Xi Jinping, for his part, seems to take the Thucydides Trap seriously: when a rising power causes fear in an established power which escalates toward war. Xi has referred to it many times in his speeches.

So, closing the historical circle that started with Alexander, we now have an informed reader from the Middle Kingdom showing respect toward the most eminent historian of Ancient Greece

Xi is, in fact, warning the US, and by proxy, India, not to fall into the mistake that generated the Peloponnesian War, where every player lost.

The fear instilled in Sparta by the ascent of Athens rendered the war inevitable (replace Sparta by Washington/Delhi and Athens by Beijing). Athens was defeated as well as its model of democracy. In fact, the whole of Greece was defeated, its decline acting as a prelude for being conquered by Philip of Macedonia.

Inspired by the maritime expeditions of Admiral Zheng He, Xi’s point is that China is a benevolent power, with the New Silk Road – a massive trade route and a potential multiplier of wealth – developed as the archetypal globalization 2.0 “win-win”.

But, don’t count on India and the Quad to play along.

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The latest plot twist in the endless historical saga of Afghanistan as a graveyard of empires has thrown up an intriguing new chapter. For the past two months, Beijing and Kabul have been discussing the possibility of setting up a military base alongside Afghanistan’s border with China.

“We are going to build it [the base] and the Chinese government has committed to help financially, provide equipment and train Afghan soldiers,” Mohammad Radmanesh, a spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defense, admitted to the AFP.

“We are going to build it [the base] and the Chinese government has committed to help the division financially, provide equipment and train the Afghan soldiers,” he added.

On the record, the Chinese Foreign Ministry only admitted that Beijing was involved in “capacity-building” in Afghanistan, while NATO’s Resolute Support Mission, led by the United States, basically issued a “no comment.”

The military base will eventually be built in the mountainous Wakhan Corridor, a narrow strip of territory in northeastern Afghanistan that extends to China and separates Tajikistan from Pakistan.

It is one of the most spectacular, barren and remote stretches of Central Asia and according to local Kyrgyz nomads, joint Afghan-Chinese patrols are already active there. True to Sydney Wignall’s fabled Spy on the Roof of the World ethos, a great deal of shadow play is in effect. Apparently, this is basically about China’s own war on terror.

Strategic priority

Beijing’s strategic priority is to prevent Uyghur fighters of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), who have been exiled in Afghanistan, crossing the Wakhan Corridor to carry out operations across Xinjiang, an autonomous territory in northwest China. There is also the fear that ISIS or Daesh jihadis from Syria and Iraq may also use Afghanistan as a springboard to reach the country.

Even though the jihad galaxy may be split, Beijing is concerned about ETIM. As early as September 2013, the capo of historic al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, supported jihad against China in Xinjiang.

Later, in July 2014, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the leader of Daesh said: “Muslim rights [should be] forcibly seized in China, India and Palestine.” Then, on March 1, 2017, Daesh released a video announcing its presence in Afghanistan, with the terror group’s Uyghur jihadis vowing, on the record, to “shed blood like rivers” in Xinjiang.

At the heart of the matter is China’s Belt and Road Initiative, or the New Silk Road, which will connect China with Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe.

For Beijing, the stability of one of its links, the $57 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), is seriously compromised if terror threats abound in Central and South Asia. It could also affect China’s sizable investments in Afghanistan’s mineral mining industry. 

The Chinese and Russian strategies are similar. After all, they have been discussed at every meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), of which Afghanistan is an observer and future full member. For the Russia-China partnership, the future of a peaceful Afghanistan must be decided in Asia, by Asians, and at the SCO. 

In December,  Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told diplomats from fellow BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) member India that Moscow favors talking to the Taliban. He said this was the only way to reduce the risk of terror operations emanating from Afghanistan to Central Asia.

The question is which Taliban to talk to. There are roughly two main factions. The moderates favor a peace process and are against jihadism, while the radicals, who have been fighting the US and NATO-supported government in Kabul. 

Moscow’s strategy is pragmatic. Russia, Iran, India, Afghanistan and the Central Asian “stans” have reportedly held meetings to map out possible solutions. China, meanwhile, remains an active member of the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) promoting a peace deal and reconciliation process which will include the Kabul and the Taliban.

Beijing’s multi-pronged strategy is now clear. Ultimately, Afghanistan must become integrated with CPEC. In parallel, Beijing is counting on using its “special relationship” with Pakistan to maneuver the Taliban into a sustainable peace process.

The appointment of Liu Jinsong as the new Chinese ambassador to Kabul is significant. Liu was raised in Xinjiang and was a director of the Belt and Road Initiative’s $15 billion Silk Road Fund from 2012 to 2015. He knows the intricacies of the region.

Six projects

Even before Liu’s arrival, the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, had announced that Beijing and Islamabad would extend CPEC to Kabul with six projects selected as priorities. They included a revamped Peshawar-Kabul highway and a trans-Afghan highway linking Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia.

Of course, that would neatly fall into place with a possible Chinese military base in Gwadar port in Pakistan, the Arabian Sea terminal of CPEC, and one in the Wakhan corridor. 

Now, compare the Russia-China approach with Washington’s strategy. President Donald Trump’s foreign policy involves defeating the Taliban on the ground before forcing them to negotiate with Kabul. With the Taliban able to control key areas of Afghan territory, the Trump administration has opted for a mini-surge.

That may be as “successful” as President Obama’s much-touted 2009 surge. The US government has never made public any projection for the total cost of the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.

But according to the Dec. 8, 2014 version of a Congressional Research Service document – the latest to be made public – it had spent up until then, $1.6 trillion on the invasion and military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Which brings us to the question: Why does the US remain in Afghanistan?

After more than a trillion dollars lost and nothing really to show for it, no wonder all eyes are now on Beijing to see if China can come up with a ‘win-win’ situation.

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Mohammad Hamdan is the spiritual caretaker of Mesjid Raya Al Mashun, the largest mosque in the Indonesian city of Medan on the island of North Sumatra. One of his top responsibilities is to help parents name their new born children.

Names are full of meaning in Indonesia, meaning parents take great care to give their offspring the possible start in life. “As Muslims, we believe that a name is like a prayer to god. If we give our child a good name, it’s like our wish for them for the future,” said Hamdan

Academics Joel Kuipers and Askuri noted in a 2017 article entitled ‘Islamization and Identity in Indonesia: The Case of Arabic Names in Java’ that surveyed over three million names across three regencies a “growing popularity of bestowing Arabic names on Javanese children.”

In Java’s Bantul region, for example, “There were far fewer pure Arabic, or even Javanese–Arabic hybrid names until the mid 1980s. By the 1990s, however, about half of the children born have at least one Arabic name.

“During this same period … the number of children who have “pure” Javanese names — i.e., a name not mixed with either a Western or Arabic name—has dramatically declined, and by 2000, such names are a distinct minority.”

The origins of names are now a hot topic of national debate. In January, the Karanganyar Legislative Council (DPRD) in Central Java announced plans to issue a bylaw which will prohibit parents from naming their child using a ‘Western’ name.

According to the council’s speaker, Sumanto, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name, “It will take quite a long time for the council to pass the bylaw. But in principal, the bylaw aims to protect local cultures that have begun to disappear.”

He pointed to a rise in the use of Western names in Indonesia, saying that he was “concerned about the condition” and thinks that local names should be protected as “part of the nation’s noble historical inheritance.”

It is not immediately clear from Sumanto’s comments what differentiates a ‘Western’ from a ‘local’ name, or if the law would potentially be enforced retroactively, forcing Indonesians with Western-sounding names to pick new ones.

As Kuipers and Askuri’s research shows, however, many Indonesians in Java use Arabic names, so the law could cause a new surge in the Arabization of Indonesia’s naming culture.

Hamdan says for examples Indonesians who choose to name their children ‘David’ would in future need to use the Arabic version, which is ‘Daud.’ He says he supports the law as he feels that it is “better to give your child a Muslim name if you can” to show your Muslim identity.

Others, however, are gravely concerned about the proposed law’s implication for religious and other freedoms. Speaking to Asia Times, Indonesian human rights lawyer Veronica Koman describes the proposed law as “unnecessary and over-reaching into citizens’ private lives.”

From a legal perspective, Koman also urges caution because “the law could be discriminatory and could potentially violate parents’ right to freedom of cultural expression.”

Religious leaders already exercise a strong power of persuasion. Hamdan explains one of the ways that parents end up with Arabic names for their children. “When they are babies their parents take them to a Tuan Sheikh (an Islamic expert). The Tuan Sheikh asks questions, such as the day and time of birth and gives the child a good name accordingly.”

He also says that name choices are now increasingly being discussed publicly thanks to the rise of social media. The name you use on Twitter or Facebook forms part of your whole online persona, and people are now more mindful of their overall image, says Hamdan.

He suggests this is less a sign of Islamization and more an element of ‘showing off’ that comes with social media, with parents wanting to demonstrate that they have chosen a name with strong religious connotations. With the rise of shared online information, people are more aware that names matter, he says.

Hamdan also points to how names fall in and out of fashion depending on geopolitical events. At the time of the US-Iraq War in 2003, Hamdan says that a number of his friends named their children ‘Saddam Hussein.’

“Many of them wanted to show their support for Islam versus the West, which is how they saw the Iraq War,” Hamdan said. “To do this they did the most obvious thing they could think of – name their child after Saddam Hussein.”

Intan Veranica, an ethnic Batak Mandailing from Sumatra, says her name is not of Arab origin. Nor is her husband Wahyu Hidayat, a Javanese whose name is a Malay-Arabic hybrid.

Yet the couple recently chose to name their one-year-old son Abizar Al Ghani, one of the 99 names of Allah, because his father wanted him to have a name that “sounded more Arab than Indonesian to show that we are good Muslims,” she said. “Abizar means gold mine so we hope he will have a lot of money in his life.”

Naming a child after a religious or high-profile Muslim figure is common practice in Indonesia, but Hamdan says that this tends to come and go in cycles, as with the previous example of Saddam Hussein, which apparently is no longer popular.

He says that one of the biggest religious and political issues in Indonesia today is the struggle between Israel and Palestine, which is spelled ‘Palestina’ in the local Indonesian language.

Strung across the street of his mosque is a colorful banner urging support for the Palestinians in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s recent controversial decision to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

Hamdan notes that he observed a large rally in Medan several weeks ago in support of Palestine. “I walked through the crowd and people were saying that they would do anything they could to pledge their support to the Palestinian cause. Who knows? Maybe we will see more and more Indonesians naming their children ‘Palestina’ in the future,” he says.

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he unsung star of the World Economic Forum in Davos last week was not a head of state, but the Chinese Politburo member Liu He. The 66-year-old is a trusted confidant of President Xi Jinping and will soon be appointed vice-premier to oversee the Chinese economy.    

Last year in the Swiss ski resort, Xi stole the show with his keynote speech which outlined globalization with Beijing at the forefront. Now, his trusted chief economic adviser has taken the plaudits.

Liu emphasized, like his ‘boss’, that Beijing is against protectionism and that China is committed to sustainable growth. He also stressed the importance of economic reforms, which would “exceed the expectations of the international community.”

On an array of aspects, the dragon is on fire. Chinese debt is mostly internal, and in yuan, while the economy is fast becoming more productive through high-tech solutions such as big data. Thetransition from an export-fueled business model to a knowledge and innovation economy has been hyper-fast and relatively successful.

Still, red flags remain. Lou Jiwei, the chairman of the National Social Security Fund Council, has warned that China’s financial system is “severely distorted” and has “systematic financial risks.” 

On a macro level, concerns persist about how long Beijing’s campaign to “de-leverage the financial sector” will take. There are also worries about the willingness to reduce “off-balance-sheet exposure” in the banking sector. Finally, there are fears that a “squeeze on local government funding could also hit infrastructure spending.” 

Against this backdrop, the People’s Bank of China deputy governor, Yi Gang, has been hinting that ‘shadow banking’ and online finance operations will merit special attention in the central bank’s “macro-prudential framework.”

Yet for many, China’s digital ecosystem has been billed as one of the wonders of the ‘new’ world. A detailed report revealed how it is responsible for 7% of China’s gross domestic product and worth more than the GDP of France or the United Kingdom.

The all-powerful BATX, of Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and Xiaomi, alongside Didi Chuxing, the Chinese Uber, and tech giants JD.com and Huawei, are practically a state within a state.

Major breakthroughs in voice and face recognition have helped transform business life in rural China. According to the Boston Consulting Group, there are at least 751 million internet users in China, which is more than the United States and India combined.

Coupled with that, expansion is virtually unlimited as only 54% of the population is connected compared to 77% in the US and nearly 90% in Japan and South Korea. And it certainly helps that Google, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are not present in the Chinese market.

The inevitable trend is for China’s digital ecosystem to keep driving internal growth while, in parallel, the New Silk Road, officially known as the Belt and Road Initiative, generates external growth. 

Wang Yi, the Chinese Foreign Minister, recently set out plans to expand the Belt and Road’s reach to Latin America. He outlined the blueprint in Santiago, Chile, during the second ministerial meeting of the China and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States Forum.

So, the new ‘Silk Road’ infrastructure push now takes in Eurasia, Africa and Latin America. The West sees it differently, of course, tending to lump “hard and soft power” as the “China threat”, according to the Chinese state-owned Global Times. 

The US National Security Strategy took it one step further, defining China, alongside Russia, as a “strategic competitor.” In American ‘think tankland,’ opinion used to be split between the so-called ‘panda-huggers’, who favored engagement, and the ‘dragon-slayers’, who favored confrontation and sanctions.

A case can be made that the dragon slayers are in the ascendancy. This evokes the familiar specter of a trade war, with US attitudes hardening against China as a geopolitical and geoeconomic rival, mixed with a charm offensive to seduce fellow BRICS member India.   

A concerted Washington attack on Chinese trade policies may be all but inevitable. Complex global supply chains will suffer, while prices inflate. Naturally, Beijing will move key pieces in its global asset chessboard, which could affect US bonds and equities.

No one will profit from a trade war between two huge, interconnected economies accounting for nearly 25% of global trade, 20% of global services, and more than a third of global output.

Yet even if that was to happen, it would not be enough to halt the long profitable march of digital China. 

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The UN Security Council meeting on Tuesday regarding Turkey’s military operations in Syria turned out to be like the dog that didn’t bark in the night in the Sherlock Holmes short story. There was no bark – no statement by the Security Council – condemning Turkey.

However, these are early days and the big powers are assessing Turkey’s intentions and what might be in the changing picture for them. So far, Turkish President Recep Erdogan has played a masterful game.

Afrin’s importance for Turkey is well-recognized, too. It borders Hatay and Kilis, Turkey’s Syrian border provinces, and has been the gateway to the Amanos Mountains, where Kurdish guerillas fight the Turkish army. The Kurdish fighters ensconced in Afrin have amassed a big stockpile of weapons, thanks to American supplies since 2016: multiple rocket launchers, missile launchers, 80- and 120-mm mortars, MK19 grenade launchers, US-made BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missiles, reconnaissance vehicles, FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank missiles, and so on.

Besides, Afrin district slouches toward the Eastern Mediterranean coast. The Kurds hope to create a homeland that is not land-locked. Thus, by the fourth day of Turkish operations (Tuesday), Erdogan had already expanded its scope. Turkish forces have appeared to the east of Afrin as well, and aim to push back Kurdish fighters, who currently control around 65% of Turkey’s border with Syria.

The national security council which met in Ankara on Tuesday announced: “Our operations will continue until the separatist terror organization is fully cleared from the region and around 3.5 million Syrians who are now sheltered in Turkey are able to securely return to their homeland.”

Erdogan feels emboldened by the muted international reaction. He said on Tuesday: “We have no time to listen to what other countries say about our operation. The decision to launch the operation was given by our people. The people will not give any respite to a few ignoble men on our borders.” The belligerent tone is in marked departure from his own modest claim just two days ago that he sought an agreement with Russia to commence the operation.

Of course, the breakdown of trust and transparency in US-Russia relations works to Erdogan’s advantage. Equally, the Trump administration’s declaration that Iran is in its crosshairs in Syria prompts Tehran to look away while Turkey crushes the US’ only credible allies on the Syrian chessboard.

According to Iranian reports, Kurdish fighters have suddenly retreated from their positions in the Syrian-Iraqi border regions along Deir Ezzur and Iraq’s al-Qaem border region in Western Al-Anbar, and Iraqi forces and Shi’ite Hashd al-Shaabi militia (backed by Iran) are moving in.

Indeed, if Turkey steps up its military advances, Kurds will be compelled to retreat from the predominantly Arab regions around Raqqa and Deir Ezzor. That would nullify the impressive territorial gains that the US achieved toward gaining control of the Syrian-Iraqi border (and the fabulous oil fields in Deir Ezzor) in order to block a land route connecting Tehran with Beirut via Iraq-Syria.

Russia has tried to persuade Kurds to hand over Afrin and the oil fields to Syrian government forces as a quid pro quo for prevailing on Turkey to stop its operations. Quite possibly, Kurds, thoroughly disenchanted by the US’ inability to come to their aid, may eventually strike a deal with Russia.

Russia gains in other directions too. Its acquiescence is vital for Turkey to continue with the operation in Syria. In turn, Turkey is cooperating with Russia’s prestigious project to hold the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Sochi on January 29-30, which is a necessary step toward national reconciliation and settlement.

Turkey is also obliged to look away from the ongoing operations by Syrian government forces (backed by allies and Russian air support) to take control of Idlib province to the west of Afrin. Idlib borders the coastal province of Latakia, where Russia’s air and naval bases are located.

If the Turkish operations in Afrin succeed and Syrian government forces take control of Idlib, Kurdish plans (tacitly supported by Washington) to create a contiguous homeland across northern Syria with access to the Mediterranean become a pipedream. This brings Russia, Turkey and Iran on the same page.

Having said that, you can trust Turkey to hold back-to-back negotiations with the US. Interestingly, the Turkish national security council’s announcement recasting the raison d’etre of the military operation took into account discussions in Ankara earlier in the day with a visiting US delegation comprising military and intelligence officials and led by Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Jonathan Cohen.

Turkey’s non-negotiable demand will be that the Pentagon must conclusively end any sort of alliance or quasi-alliance with Syrian Kurds. The Turkish operations in Syria give Erdogan greater leverage to extract concessions from the Trump administration, since Turkey is maneuvering into a position where it can render meaningless and untenable the Pentagon’s plans to keep an indefinite military presence in northern Syria.

Meanwhile, Turkey will avoid any showdown with US forces in Syria. Turkey allows the US to use it Incirlik base in northern Syria, even as Turkish jets take off from the same base to pound the US’ Kurdish allies. The US has no option but to remain mindful of Turkey’s importance as a NATO member country, as a New Cold War with Russia and China revs up.

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India conducted a successful test of its most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), a nuclear-capable Agni-5, on Thursday, underscoring a potential threat to China as well as Pakistan.

China is also within range of nuclear-armed North Korean missiles and Japan is mulling whether it should develop similar capabilities. But there has been surprisingly little focus on Chinese efforts to develop a missile defense against these threats.

“China is worried about North Korea but it is not worried about being attacked by them,” MacDonald told Asia Times. Vague hints that Japan is mulling developing missiles with possible nuclear capability are also not a major Chinese concern at this time, he says.

India, which engaged in a tense border standoff with China at Doklam last year, is another matter. MacDonald argues, however, that any anti-missile technology that China fields against India will be modest — unless relations with New Delhi take an unexpected turn.

China also isn’t eyeing a “crash program” to defend against US ICBMs, in spite of ongoing modernization of the US missile arsenal. MacDonald says Beijing will likely stick to an earlier “deterrence” policy which holds that having nuclear weapons will deter attacks due to the promise of retaliation and mutually-assured destruction.

At the same time, MacDonald stresses that China’s hidden motive in pursuing missile defense is that such activities can be used to develop anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons. “ASAT weapons are the single biggest reason for China to pursue a missile defense program,” MacDonald said, noting that this factor even outweighs Chinese concerns about India’s nukes.

John Pike, a space security expert who heads the military think tank globalsecurity.org, agrees that China is moving on missile defense. “We haven’t seen much coming out of China on missile defense thus far, but I would certainly expect to see more,” Pike said.

“We haven’t seen much coming out of China on missile defense thus far, but I would certainly expect to see more”

MacDonald was Assistant Director for National Security at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and served as Senior Director for Science and Technology on the National Security Council. He also worked for the State Department as a nuclear weapons, space and technology specialist, in addition to serving in other posts. 

He authored a November 2015 report, with Federation of American Scientists President Charles Ferguson, titled ‘Chinese Strategic Missile Defense: Will It Happen, and What Would It Mean?’

MacDonald’s assessment then was that China was likely working to deploy a limited anti-missile shield, particularly in light of the fact that it had tested so-called strategic ballistic missile interceptors at least three times since January 2010. But he doesn’t know, based on publicly available sources, if China has tested any interceptors since.

He says most factors favoring China’s deployment of a missile defense system outlined in his 2015 report haven’t changed. But he notes that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s increasingly strong leadership position since 2015 and his pride in China’s military prowess makes it more probable that anti-missile efforts will move ahead.

Chinese cities in range of Indian missiles

MacDonald notes that India began deploying its canister-launched Agni-5 ICBM in 2016 in a move that put all major Chinese cities within range of Indian nukes for the first time. Another longer-range, bigger-payload Agni-6 ICBM capable of carrying multiple warheads is believed to be under development, though Indian officials are tight-lipped and it isn’t clear when the new missile will be tested and deployed.

At the same time, the analyst asserts that India’s offensive nukes weigh more on Chinese leaders for domestic political reasons than for the actual threat they represent to China.

He notes the rockets India and China have pointed at each other are for deterrence rather than actual war-fighting. But Beijing may feel it needs to develop an anti-missile response lest China’s perceived nuclear vulnerability to India become a hot political issue at home.

Another factor nudging China to deploy some type of missile shield is a fear that India may develop its own. India’s Defense Research and Development Organization has said it is working on ways to protect the country against missiles that have a range of up to 5,000 kilometers. And MacDonald’s 2015 report quoted a Chinese academic as saying: “Can you imagine India having strategic ballistic missile defense and China not having it?”

Global Security’s Pike adds that China should worry about a Japanese ICBM threat. He noted that Japan’s Epsilon rocket, which carried an Asnaro-2 radar satellite into orbit on January 17, can carry nuclear warheads. “The difference between a missile and a satellite launcher isn’t altitude, but attitude,” Pike said.

Pros and cons

Beyond the threats posed by India, North Korea and Japan, and the need to contain domestic criticism, MacDonald says China has other reasons to develop anti-missile capability. 

For one, such efforts would provide a better understanding of missile-defense technology and the anti-missile vulnerabilities of potential foes like the US and India.

China, moreover, has a small nuclear missile arsenal compared to the US and Russia. Selective use of anti-missile interceptors would help it protect the survivability of its deterrence. China may also want to use interceptors to defend critical “point targets” like military facilities or key infrastructure like the Three Gorges Dam from possible attack by India or others.

Anti-satellite angle

But potential ASAT testing remains the real elephant in the room when it comes to Chinese missile defense.

MacDonald notes that China was internationally criticized in 2007 when it conducted a kinetic-energy (inert projectile) ASAT test on a target satellite that scattered hazardous debris in space. The test also undercut the credibility of China’s earlier stance against the weaponization of space.

But destroying or blinding US spy satellites is expected to be a big part of Chinese strategy in a war with the US. MacDonald notes that unlike full ASAT tests, missile defense tests don’t generate orbital debris.

In this context, nurturing missile defense allows China to continue ASAT testing under another guise, while ducking foreign criticism. The US also can’t chide China for developing anti-missile systems because it’s doing the same against North Korea.

“US security policy has assumed that the United States was the only game in town when it comes to missile defense”

But there are downsides that might cause China to think twice about deploying an anti-missile shield. Among them: it would be extremely costly and might trigger an adverse response from India, Japan and the US. It would also contradict China’s criticism of missile defense efforts by other countries.

Will Chinese efforts to develop an effective anti-missile shield be more successful than the US? Much has been made of China’s growing technological prowess. MacDonald says China faces the same challenges as the US in perfecting a technology that has been compared to “hitting a bullet with a bullet.”

Pike says China also lacks the early-warning radar needed to guide interceptors.

Even so, the US must adjust to the idea of China being a player in anti-missile technology. MacDonald notes that American attention until now has been focused on China’s modernization and expansion of conventional nuclear forces.

“US security policy has assumed that the United States was the only game in town when it comes to missile defense,” MacDonald noted.

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Australia has always believed that it doesn’t have to choose between its economic relationship with China and its defense alliance with the United States. But 2018 is already shaping up to be the year of the hard choice.

It would be convenient for Australia if it was able to maintain its balancing act, but a confluence of global factors has stripped away the fiction that it can separate the economic benefits it gets from China and its post-World War II position as one of America’s closest strategic allies.

China is clearly not happy with Australia’s adherence to the US alliance and if it follows through on veiled threats to boycott Australian exports and limit investment, Canberra’s loyalty to Washington could come at the expense of significant economic pain.

China’s hawkish Global Times newspaper, widely viewed as a mouthpiece for the ruling Communist Party, spared no niceties in an op-ed last week that warned Australia against “interference” in the South China Sea (SCS) territorial disputes.

Australia was “kissing up” to the US and risked “poisoning” its relations with China, which could “adopt strong countermeasures which will seriously impact Australian economic development.” Australia hasn’t taken a position on SCS spats, but has said it favors “freedom of navigation” in the area, echoing the US’ position.

US President Donald Trump with Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at the ASEAN Summit in Manila, Philippines November 13, 2017. Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

China is Australia’s biggest trading partner, taking around a third of Australia’s exports. The two countries signed a free trade agreement (FTA) which came into effect at the end of 2015 and two-way trade now exceeds US$110 billion a year.

Chinese students comprise 38% of foreign students in Australia and prop up the university sector with their fees, bringing in US$18 billion per year.

The number of Chinese tourists is also booming. In 2005, 4.9% of foreign visitors to Australia were Chinese, a number which had risen to 13% by 2016. Chinese investors are key players in commercial and residential property markets, and are major investors in sectors such as agriculture and mining.

So when Australia congratulates itself on avoiding a recession for the last 30 years, it owes a major vote of thanks to China.

Despite this, Australia’s position on China is often schizophrenic. While the business and financial community continue to see China as Australia’s future, the defense and intelligence establishment in Canberra take a different view.

They see China as manipulating its global networks, including via the Chinese diaspora in Australia, in support of its global ambitions which are at odds with Australia’s traditional alliance with the US.

Ethnic Chinese wave China’s and Australia’s national flags in Canberra, Australia in a file photo. Photo: AFP

From these agencies comes innuendo about Chinese “interference” in Australia, a country which has for years hosted one of the most significant US surveillance facilities at Pine Gap in the Northern Territory.

A recent ban imposed on foreign donations to Australian political parties was squarely aimed at China, and friendships with Chinese donors cost a rising star of the opposition Labor Party, Sam Dasyari, his job in December.

Driven by fear of espionage and cyber-intelligence, successive Australian governments have blocked Chinese telecommunication giant Huawei from participating in the rollout of the country’s National Broadband Network.

In December, Canberra was also poised to kill a deal for Huawei Marine Networks to lay a 4,000-kilometer submarine cable from Sydney to the Solomon Islands.

Even Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who as Communications Minister was expected to overturn the Huawei ban, referred to China as a “frenemy” in comments at a public dinner last year.

Such paranoia about Chinese telecommunication companies does not extend to New Zealand, where Huawei has been a big player in new national infrastructure or in the United Kingdom, where the company is a big player in rolling out 4G wireless networks and fixed rural phone connections.

Meanwhile, Australia has spent more than US$10 billion on weapons and military equipment from the US in the last four years, according to a recent Australian National Audit Office analysis.

With Australia set to spend around US$150 billion on defense in the next decade, with big outlays earmarked to build a next generation navy and air force, that figure can be expected to rise as it further integrates into the US military supply chain with projects like the J-35 Strike Fighter.

American foreign policy, however, is fast changing under US President Donald Trump. As the US appears to shrink from the region, including through its withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, it is creating a vacuum which poses a major dilemma for Australia.

Does Australia fill that vacuum as a local enforcer of the US alliance and forge stronger alliances with other countries such as Japan and South Korea to counterbalance Chinese influence? Or does it accept China’s increased power in the world and recalibrate 70 years of foreign policy accordingly?

The fragmentation of late 20th century geopolitics is reconfiguring the world, and as a mid-ranking nation Australia is yet to find its new place.

Perhaps the only upside to this dilemma is that the US appears to be moving away from any direct confrontation with China in the Pacific as Trump looks to forge alliances against North Korea.

US Aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk receives fuel from the Royal Australian Navy auxiliary oiler replenishment ship during a joint exercise. Photo: US Navy via AFP

If US-China tensions are heightened, including by allegations that China is not acting genuine in its stated intention to isolate North Korea, it would quickly bring the polarity of Australian policy into sharp focus.

The inconsistencies and contradictions, including in strategic areas, are already apparent. While Huawei is banned from major national infrastructure contracts, its handsets have been approved for use by top defense officials and diplomats, and several thousand have been distributed.

When a Chinese company, Landbridge Group, secured a 99-year lease on the strategic Port of Darwin in 2015, top US defense officials said they were “stunned” by the decision. Critics at the time contended it gave China a “front row seat” to spy on joint US-Australian naval operations.

Australian universities have received government grants to work on collaborative research with Chinese companies on technologies which could have military applications. The University of Adelaide, for example, is working with the Beijing Institute of Aeronautical Materials, a company which is a part of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China.

All of this shows that Australia’s new hardline on China is and will inevitably be compromised by burgeoning economic relations. While the economic threats from China may simply be posturing at a tense juncture, they have called out and exposed the unresolved contradiction at the heart of Australia’s 21st century identity.

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