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China and their defence budget: devious or defensive? 6, March 2008

Posted by thegulfblog.com in China.
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There are two broad theses regarding China’s future. The first suggests that China is essentially a peacefully creature looking to expand its economy, improve its society, and generally emerge as a modern developed nation. It will do this by being neither more nor less aggressive than any other country in the state system.

The alternative thesis suggests that China is an angry country. For the vast majority of its history it was the superpower in its corner of the world. This all came to an end with the arrival, interference, and subjugation at the hands of Europeans (and the Japanese briefly). China is, therefore, seeking to emerge from its ‘century of humiliation’ and eager to reassert its rightful place at the top of the international tree. They will pursue this goal single-mindedly and with vigour, spurred on by the painful and humiliating memories of its recent history.

These opinions (though particularly the latter) can clearly be seen as soon as China releases its defence spending figures. Now that the Soviet Union is dead and buried (in its old guise at least) the US Department of Defence (DOD) now produces an annual assessment of the Chinese military threat as opposed to the Soviet one. This time around the headline is China’s 17.6% increase in defence spending. That sounds like a lot. Yet, if the absolute figure is compared to US defence spending and assuming that China has released an honest appraisal of its spending (which many people doubt), then we are comparing China’s paltry $57.2 billion to the US’ mammoth $700 billion. Even accounting for any Chinese ‘creative accounting’ when arriving at the $57.2 figure, it would still be utterly dwarfed by US spending.

However, it is not really the money per se that has the US DOD worried, but what they are spending it on and the apparent furtiveness with which China seek to disguise such spending.

Firstly, the Chinese are – sensibly – employing asymmetric tactics when it comes to thinking about America and its military. For example, the US navy currently has twenty-four aircraft carriers, which is more than twice the number that the rest of the world has put together and twenty-four times as many as China. These gigantic floating fortresses are staggeringly powerful and play a crucial role in guaranteeing America’s pre-eminence in the Pacific and elsewhere. China – somewhat unsportingly as far as the US DOD are concerned – are not spending hundreds of billions of dollars on creating their own fleet of aircraft carriers, but instead only tens or hundreds of millions of dollars on designing and producing highly advanced cruise missiles with the potential capability of taking out America’s aircraft carriers. Other important aspects of China’s asymmetric warfare potential are their development of satellite-killing missiles to take advantage of the US military’s dependence on their spying and communication satellites as well as China’s apparent investment in cyber-warfare.

David Sedney the US deputy assistant secretary of defence for East Asia neatly describes America’s secondary concern.

“China’s military build-up has been characterized by opacity…The real story is the continuing development, the continuing modernization, the continuing acquisition of capabilities and the corresponding and unfortunate lack of understanding, lack of transparency about the intentions of those and how they are going to be employed. What is China going to do with all that?”

America seem to want China to be more forthcoming than rational prudence would suggest is sensible. Of course China is keeping some things a secret from the rest of the world. Why is this such a great shock? All countries do this to some degree. Whilst America may well be one of the most open countries about such things, they are the world hegemon and account for 48% of the world’s spending on the military, as much as China, Russia, the UK, France, Japan, Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, India, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Spain, Turkey, Israel, the Netherlands, the UAE, Taiwan, Greece, Iran, Myanmar, Singapore, Poland, Sweden, Colombia, Chile, Belgium, Egypt, Pakistan, Denmark, Indonesia, Switzerland, Kuwait, South Africa, Oman, Malaysia, Mexico, Portugal, Algeria, Finland, Austria, Venezuela, the Czech Republic, Romania, Qatar and Thailand put together. They have nearly 170,000 troops between China and America, including nearly 70,000 right on China’s doorstep. This list of the manifestations of American pre-eminence, as you can probably imagine, could go on for a while. In short, it is easy to be sanctimonious and somewhat smug when you have such staggering hegemony.

Yet just think of how China sees the American position. They see, I would argue, American military presence filtered through two prisms: Taiwan and resource procurement. Taiwan is one of the most sensitive subjects for China. They see it as an utterly private and internal matter. They viscerally despise American intervention in it and it is often – rightly – quoted as a potential flashpoint for US-Chinese relations. China, therefore, see the advanced American hardware floating around the South China sea (and indeed, just about every other sea of importance). They see the 70,000 American troops stationed in South Korea (less than a three hour flight away), Japan (less than a four hour flight away) and Guam (armed with long-range stealth B-2s). They see America’s huge defence budget. They see and believe America’s stated stance to defend Taiwan in the event of Chinese aggression, and are, somewhat understandably, nervous.

China’s other prism is that of resource protection. China is becoming ever increasingly dependent on Middle Eastern oil despite numerous attempts to procure other energy sources from other locales. Whilst they have very good relations with the producing states themselves, they still have to get it back to the homeland. The only viable way to do this (for the medium term at least) is to ship it. The problem here is – again – that America rules the waves. No nation on earth would have its lifeline so firmly in the hands of another power, friendly or unfriendly. China has tried to redress this balance by establishing a base on Gwadar in Pakistan, close to the Straits of Hormuz from where they can project some power. Also, as the US DOD report points out, China will have almost twice as many submarines as America by 2010. Whilst this is an important statistic, it must be remembered that the vast majority of these submarines are vastly inferior to their American counterparts and don’t forget the rest of the American hi-tech arsenal. Overall, therefore, China is still woefully outmatched by America on this front. Hence their asymmetric stance.

There is clearly enough information in these arguments which sounds sufficiently plausible and convincing to make either case. The numbers can be alarming. Yet if the situation can be seen from the Chinese perspective many of China’s actions seem like a perfectly reasonable course of action, however much we in the West may see them as unnecessary.

Reform in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? 28, February 2008

Posted by thegulfblog.com in American ME Relations, Saudi Arabia, Soft Power.
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For those studying the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and attempting to discern its future directions, there are two broad schools of thought into which opinions fall. One says that the Kingdom is slowly but surely reforming; that the elite, or at least enough of the elite, are of the opinion that reforms are critical to the future of Saudi society. This line of thinking usually endows King Abdullah with relatively liberal values and a desire to open up the Kingdom. The other school suggests that the real heart of the elite is true-blue conservative, with a very large C. Concessions for greater rights and freedoms, where they have been made, were grudgingly employed because of international (or indeed domestic) pressure to do so. Whilst they may make hopeful noises from time to time about liberalisation, really, deep down, the regime just want things to remain the same as they were for their forefathers. The protagonist for this half of the argument is usually referred to as Prince Naif, the head of the Ministry of the Interior.

Therefore, for the student beginning to delve into the seemingly bipolar world of Saudi Arabian politics, there is a choice to make, and what is worse, there is ample evidence for both camps. This can most starkly be seen regarding the role of women in Saudi society and their rights, or lack thereof.

In the months around the turn of 2008, there have been a myriad of confusing, contradictory and, at times, disheartening reports on women’s rights. In November 2007 the Saudi appeal court doubled the sentence of a 19 year old Saudi woman who was gang raped 14 times from three to six months in jail and from 100 to 200 lashes. Her crime was sitting in a car with a man who was not related to her. This, understandably and justly, created international opprobrium and lead – over a month later – to Saudi King Abdullah pardoning the woman for the crime and thus sparing her the punishment.

Despite the barbarism of the initial sentencing and the staggering inhumanity and callousness of the appeal, in the end, some kind of sense prevailed. In January this year there was another small step forward for women’s rights, when it was decreed that women could now stay in hotel rooms by themselves. True, this is only provided that they had photo ID which would be photocopied and sent to the local police, but, again it is one small step in the right direction. More importantly, however, the very next day it was reported that women in Saudi Arabia would be able to drive ‘by the end of the year.’ This would be a massive step. The fact that a woman could drive is more or less incidental; it is the fact that this has become the symbol of the battle over Saudi women’s rights, which makes this so important.

Back in 1990 a group of women drove through the streets of Riyadh hoping to capitalise on the presence of so many foreign reporters in the Kingdom owing to the Gulf War, only to be arrested and have their jobs taken away. The time was, it seems, not right. However, that is all it is: time. All agree that there is nothing whatsoever in the Quran which forbids women to drive. Indeed, two prominent Saudi scholars including one of Saudi’s most senior religious figures, Abdel-Mohsin al-Obaikan, have recently reaffirmed this wide spread belief. However, aside from practical issues (is it safe for women to wear the mandatory Niqab when driving?) problems lie in the fact that many of those against allowing such a practice see this as making it easier for men and women to fraternise. Indeed, they see women driving as the first great step towards a more liberal and permissive society.

In recent years, there have been other smaller but still significant improvements in women’s rights, which could be seen as softening up the ground for the decisive decision over women driving. For example, women may now travel abroad without a male companion (though his permission is still needed), own companies and seek a divorce. Further sign of progress was seen at the end of January when the Saudi Ministry of Social Affairs allowed the creation of a women’s charity – ‘Ansar Al Marrah’ (supporters of women). Its stated goal is to help women improve their social, educational, and cultural levels. The degree to which it will be able to help is, however, entirely dependant on the level of support that it receives from the authorities. Yet, this is, nevertheless, another positive sign.

Unfortunately, we may well get to see just how much power this charity has sooner rather then later. At the start of February a woman was arrested for having a coffee with a work colleague in a Starbucks. After being arrested, she was put in jail, denied the right to call her husband, and forced to thumbprint (sign) a prewritten confession. It was only when her husband found out about this and managed to pull some strings that she was released. There have been suggestions that she might seek legal advice against the religious police that arrested her and the Charity has offered their help.

The arrest was carried out by the Committee to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice, who used to be a feared organisation in the Kingdom and were highlighted in a recent UN report as “reportedly often act[ing] independently and are accountable only to the governor…[and thus] said to be responsible for serious human rights abuses in harassing, threatening and arresting women who ‘deviate from accepted norms.’” Their powers today are as wide ranging today as they have ever been, but, tellingly, in 2006 there were record numbers of attacks on the religious police by angry citizens in addition to a number of high profile incidents highlighting the seemingly growing trend against the police in more recent years. This could suggest that the Saudi population are turning a corner.

A number of factors appear to cause or support such changing attitudes. The explosion of blogging has been a well documented phenomenon in Saudi Arabia. Whilst the police have been cracking down on this, including the arrest (for officially no reason) of one of the country’s most famous bloggers, Fouad Al Farhan, it is still a massively popular means for Saudi’s to discuss social and political issues. Also, the slow but sure encroachment of Western values via American soft power (i.e. through television, films, music, education in America etc) could finally be having an effect.

However, the religious police are not giving up easily, as shown by the arrest of large numbers of Saudi young men for the outrageous, scandalous, and reprehensible, moral, legal and ethical crime of allegedly “flirting” with a group of girls covered head to toe in a shopping mall in the Kingdom. Not to mention the arrest and sentencing of a lecturer at a Saudi University to flogging for meeting with a female student and the death sentence passed down to an illiterate woman who is accused of being a witch.

Perhaps it is a naïve comment to make, but despite such instances, I am personally convinced that, eventually, Saudi society will reform and treat its citizens equally. The only question is how well the country can manage this transformation. There is worrying scope for destabilisation, which King Abdullah is all too aware of. Indeed, maybe we ought to fall back on the trite, unhelpful, clichéd but thoroughly genuine fact that it took the Western world significantly longer than 150 years to give equality to the sexes. Saudi Arabia is a young country: all we can hope for is that it is a quick learner.

Iranian, Israeli and American relations 15, February 2008

Posted by thegulfblog.com in Iran, Western-Muslim Relations.
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The University of Berkeley, California has a useful series of interviews with various people of various persuasions discussing various aspects of international relations and politics.

In this video, Trita Parsi, the Director of the National Iranian American Council discusses the surprisingly close relations between Israel and Iran over the past two decades.

Iran threatens reprisals 30, January 2008

Posted by thegulfblog.com in Iran.
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The commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, General Mohammad Ali Jaafari, has told Al Jazeera that Iran will  retaliate against American bases in the region if they are used in an attack against Iran. This, obviously, does not even need to be stated – of course Iran would attack these bases. Thus perhaps the reason that this statement has come out now is in light of the recent French acquisition of a military base in the UAE, less than 250km from the Iranian mainland. Then again, this could simply be the Iranians gently rattling their sabre as they are wont to do.

Interestingly, in this statement the General said that Iran would specifically try to only attack the American bases and not retaliate against the Arab hosts. This is a change in policy. Previously, Iran made bellicose remarks about how states that hosted US troops – Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar – could be attacked as part of Iranian reprisals, were they themselves to be attacked. This, if indeed it is a firm shift in policy, would be a welcome relief for the countries in the region and could signal Tehran’s desire to defuse regional tension.

A Chinese military base in Iran? 28, January 2008

Posted by thegulfblog.com in China, China and the ME, Iran, Oil, Western-Muslim Relations.
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After France’s move to secure a military base in the UAE looking out at the Straits of Hormuz last week, it is no surprise that the Iranians are feeling yet more hemmed it. Kaveh L Afrasiabi , an Iranian expert has suggested that it might not be too long before Iran seek a Chinese base on Iranian soil to compensate and reinforce their security. This is, without doubt, a premature forecast. However, the logic at the heart of the argument is sound.

China’s ever expanding need for importing fossil fuels is well known. Indeed, in the coming years, China will be – from their perspective – worryingly dependent on shipments from both sides of the Persian Gulf. They have tried to compensate for this in many ways. For example, recently China has been exploring the potential of overland pipes from various Central Asian countries through to the west of China. However, no matter how optimistic projections are about such a project, the lion’s share of fuel would still need to be shipped from Iran and the Gulf countries through the Straits of Hormuz to China. Bearing this in mind, there seems to be no way that China, in the long run, would simply accept American stewardship of a sea passage so crucial to Chinese interests. At the moment, the Chinese have a naval base in Gawdar, Pakistan (just around the corner), from which they have limited power projection to the Straits. However, compared to the massive American bases in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, the Chinese base is far from adequate. The fact that the French have just announced that they will soon have a base in the region too is no deal breaker, but it certainly does not help ease China’s nerves, especially since the recent French-American rapprochement under Sarkozy.

As far as Iran are concerned, China are excellent trading partners. They have a guaranteed growing demand in the long term for their fossil fuels, they have the means to pay for it (in goods or cash), they have fairly sophisticated weaponry to sell to the Iranians, they have no (or at least, certainly fewer) compunctions about selling such weaponry or indeed nuclear related technology, they have a meticulous approach to never criticising other governments internal policies and as they are a member of the P5 on the UN Security Council, they have a casting and blocking vote there. They are, thus, very useful allies to have. Additionally, Iran are currently uncertain and not a little perturbed about American intentions regarding their nuclear activities. China too, whilst having good relations with the US right now, are by no means close to America. To choose just one example, the issue of Taiwan – deeply, deeply important to Beijing – is a divisive issue that reoccurs periodically between the two powers. Add to this the afore mentioned point about China not wanting America to be able to cut off their supplies so easily, and there is a definite dove-tailing of interests here: a Chinese base in Iran doesn’t seem so far fetched all of a sudden.

However, China are a country with a long-term view of things and there are no pressing needs right now to do something as drastic as establish a base in Iran, especially with their moment in the sun – the Olympics – coming up. However, the West generally, and America specifically need to be wary about forcing China and Iran closer and closer together. Such a situation, with a worried and recalcitrant China sated for fossil fuels and with an emboldened Iran with access to sophisticated weaponry and even advanced nuclear technology, is not that much short of a nightmare scenario.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JA29Ak03.html

Close Saudi-US ties lead to Arab anger 24, January 2008

Posted by thegulfblog.com in American ME Relations, Saudi Arabia.
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The recent visit of President Bush to the region has elicited predictable responses from predictable sources. Various critics of the US have used this opportunity to berate the Americans for – amongst other things – preaching peace on the one hand, and imparting billions of dollars worth of weapons on the other. These points do have some validity, but, because of the quarters out of which they come, it is no great shock.

Additionally, you don’t need a political science degree to realise that Syria will not like the cordiality afforded the to Americans this past week. However, usually, you’d expect them to keep these views to themselves. However, the Saudi newspaper Al Sharq al Awsat reports a spat between the Syrian Ambassador to Egypt (as well as to the Arab League) Yusuf al-Ahmad and the Saudi Ambassador to the League, Ahmad Abdulaziz Qattan, at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo.

The Syrian Ambassador suggested that it was not appropriate to give the US President such a welcome, bearing in mind the US’ support of Israel. To this, the Saudi Ambassador vociferously defended Saudi Arabic, and pointed out that the US – a long term ally of Saudi – had physically defended Saudi Arabia in the Gulf War.

Of course, when questioned about this later on, this argument became ‘banter’ between friends, and the comments of the Syrian Ambassador were – apparently – not aimed at any country in particular. Naturally.

http://www.asharqalawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=1&id=11556

One report but with differing reports of it 22, January 2008

Posted by thegulfblog.com in Western-Muslim Relations.
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The World Economic Forum have just released a major new report on the state of Western-Islamic relations. It was complied by a veritable cornucopia of experts in the field and runs to some 156 well-spaced pages of sensible, articulate, and accurate observations and conclusions on the current state of affairs.

Th BBC covered the release of the report with the headline “Islam-West rift widens, poll says”. Contrast this with the headline ran by the Arab News: “Muslim-West conflict can be avoided: Report”. Both headlines are correct: that is to say that what they suggest is indeed to be found in the report and neither article, in the end, comes across as biased one way or the other. However, the crucial thing is the overall impression that each news agency wants to impress upon its readers: one of pessimism; one of hope.

Why the difference? Neither the BBC nor the Arab News are known for being overly hawkish or dovish. The answer may lie within the report itself. One part of the report deals with what people in the West and the Muslim world think about each other. On the specific question of how they view closer ties and interactions between the two worlds, it is Europeans who are most uneasy with this notion. Contrarily, it is the US, Israel and the Islamic countries polled whom believe that closer ties would more beneficial to both sides.

It seems, therefore, that the BBC and the Arab News are simply conforming to their culture-wide stereotypical beliefs as described by the report. It will be interesting to see more reaction in the coming days from the media to see if they carry on the trend, in many ways, vindicating and confirming the report’s conclusions.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7200514.stm

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=105951&d=22&m=1&y=2008