For several years now, the world economy has been showing signs of a global crisis, affecting not only underdeveloped economies but also fully developed states such as the US or the EU. One of the signs of instability and unease increasing around the world is the rapid growth of the arms trade.

Data on arms transfers are often concealed, and so there are several versions of how they have evolved over the past few years. In March 2022, for example, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) published its report on the global arms trade. According to its data, the global arms trade declined slightly between 2017 and 2021, primarily due to lower deliveries to Latin America (LA). This news could be to the advantage of the US, as many blame Washington for the extrajudicial killings of Colombian and Mexican drug traffickers, which led to a struggle between the surviving drug lords for vacated spheres of influence. This struggle has turned into a real war, which claims thousands of lives every year in LA. The decline in arms shipments to Latin American countries suggests that this war may have been on the wane. Probably until the next US force actions.

However, as mentioned above, according to SIPRI, arms trade declined only marginally between 2017 and 2021, as the decline in shipments to LA was almost entirely offset by a rapid increase in arms exports to East Asia, Europe and Oceania.

But there are other data as well. For example, the Russian Center for Analysis of World Arms Trade (CAWAT) gives the following picture for 2018-2021: in 2018, global trade in “conventional weapons” (that is, all weapons and military equipment not related to weapons of mass destruction) was over $76 billion. In 2019, this figure was $79.7 billion, and in 2020 it was over $85.4 billion. In 2021, according to various sources, the global arms trade was about $100 billion. It is believed to be the largest volume since the Cold War.

Given the secrecy of the subject, it is hard to say who provides more reliable information: the pro-Western SIPRI or the pro-Kremlin CAWAT. It is much more interesting to see where they agree. SIPRI and CAWAT are unanimous on the following points:

As always, the US topped the list of arms suppliers, accounting for about 40% of all arms exports by the end of 2021.

Russia comes next in the top ten arms exporters. It should be recalled that the Russian defense industry, established back in Soviet times, was originally “geared” primarily towards national defense and aid to friendly states, with commercial interests being a secondary consideration.

France, Italy, China, Germany, Spain and Israel are next in the top ten according to CAWAT. Interestingly, there has been a movement in this group between 2018 and 2021, with China moving from sixth to fifth place. As for SIRPI, as of the end of 2021, it gives the Celestial Empire an even higher, fourth place after France. Thus, despite significant differences in information from SIRPI and CAWAT, both organizations agree that the PRC has been very successful in the arms trade.

Having developed into a superpower with the world’s second largest economy, in recent years China has been actively building up its military might by developing and producing modern weapons and military equipment in large quantities sufficient for both the Chinese army and for exports. According to some estimates, China’s arms exports are growing faster than those of other countries, and a new reshuffle of the top exporters’ rankings is not long in coming.

It should be noted that, despite all the negative elements that are associated with periods of growth in an economy sector such as the military trade, it should be recognized that arms production is a very high-tech, knowledge-intensive industry that stimulates scientific and technological development and generates large revenues. Therefore, military technology and its exports are not only means of competition between states, but also spheres of that competition.

Of course, to win in arms export competition, the quality of the arms produced and their price are important: every state that cares about its security wants to provide its troops with effective weapons in the right quantities. However, the relationship between the purchasing state and the arms supplying country also plays a significant role. No one understands certain types of weapons better than the manufacturer, and by purchasing weapons, especially high-tech ones, the importer makes his defense dependent on equipment whose characteristics are all known to the exporter. Therefore, arms are usually bought from countries with which, at the very least, one is not in conflict. Often the purchase of arms is a friendly gesture on the part of the importer towards the supplier, a demonstration of trust, and so arms are often bought from those countries with which they want to maintain friendly relations, sometimes even if the weapon is not the best in terms of price/quality ratio. Thus, arms exports can be used to assess current international relations.

In 2020, for example, the main purchasers of weapons from the PRC were from the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East. China is competing with the US for influence in both of these regions, and the success of Chinese sales suggests that its struggle with America is also going well. The situation in South Asia is also revealing: India is the most powerful and wealthy state in the region. It does not buy weapons from China because it is its old and bitter rival. Instead, the People’s Republic of Bangladesh has acquired many Chinese weapons, which is interesting: for a long time it was considered a zone of Indian influence, then there was a competition between India and China for it, and now it seems that China is prevailing. Pakistan, another South Asian state, also purchases a lot of Chinese arms. On the one hand, this is not surprising, as Pakistan has very strained and even hostile relations with India. On the other hand, in past years, the US was considered Pakistan’s main military and technical partner. Now, Pakistan prefers to cooperate with Beijing.

It can be concluded that the state of the arms market clearly reflects the situation in international relations: China is steadily gaining weight on the world stage, gradually overtaking its competitors, and its arms exports serve both as a means of increasing Chinese influence and as an indicator of it.

Dmitry Bokarev, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

So, the elections have finished and a winner has been declared! The election results have been discussed in detail in the Korean media, with breakdowns of the results by region and in terms of the age and sex of voters.

According to data published by the Korean Electoral Commission following the counting of votes, elector turnout was 77.1%, 0.1% less than in 2017. According to the television and radio broadcasters KBS, МВС, SBS and the Korean Television and Radio Broadcasters’ Association, Yoon Suk-yeol was elected with 48.4% of the votes.  Lee Jae-myung received 47.8% of the votes. The gap between the two leading candidates was less than the statistical error margin.

In general, voting patterns were consistent with the traditional regional sympathies in Korea. Lee Jae-myung won the support of “his” Gyeonggi Province (where he served as governor) and the Honam region (Gwangju and the South Jeolla and North Jeolla Provinces), a traditional opposition stronghold.   Equally predictably, Yoon Suk-yeol won the support of traditional Conservative regions – the Yeongnam region (North Gyeongsang and Daegu, Park Geun-hye’s home city).

As expected, Sejong City voted in favor of Lee Jae-myung, or rather against Yoon Suk-yeol. Since the government is currently trying to transform that city into an administrative centre by relocating ministries and other bodies there, the city’s vote can be seen as an expression of the sympathies of Korea’s civil servants.

In general female voters supported Lee Jae-myung, probably as a result of the Conservative Party’s promise to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and the Family, which many young people see as supporting reverse discrimination.

Men’s voting choices are also worth looking at. Yoon Suk-yeol was supported by men in their 20s and pensioners. People over 60 traditionally tend to support the Conservatives, and this was the only age group in which most women voted for Yoon Suk-yeol, but the voting choices of Koreans aged between 18 and 29 are interesting. In addition to protest voting and social justice, another factor is also relevant: this generation was born after South Korea became a developed nation. According to Park Sung-min, President and founder of MIN Consulting, “they have never experienced poverty or lived under a dictatorship… They are very critical of China and North Korea, and very positive in their attitudes to the USA and Japan.” Unemployment, especially among young men, has also led to anti-feminism and anti-migration sympathies, which helped to boost the vote for Yoon Suk-yeol.

There has been a lot of focus on the 586 generation, who were born in the 1960s, took part in the protests against the dictatorship of the 1980s. On the whole, this cohort voted for Lee Jae-myung. Those in their thirties or in their fifties tended to be evenly split between the two leading candidates. Within those age groups, the closer voters were to the age of forty, the more likely they were to vote for Lee Jae-myung.

Some conservatives have already started making a fuss about falsifications, but since Yoon won the vote anyway and they lacked support, the Democrats have accepted their defeat, fearful of a scandal should there be a recount. While the present author attributes this to a conspiracy theory, it may also be due to other mistakes made by Lee Jae-myung and his supporters, who were too indulgent to Yoon Sook-yeol.

Lee Jae-myung himself disassociated himself from his election team and party leadership during the campaign. He may have believed that his personal charisma was enough to win him the vote, but he had little support from Song Young-gil or Lee Nak-yon, leaders of two other Democratic Party factions.  Moon Jae-in also failed to lend him his full support, seeing him merely as the lesser of two evils. Thus, while Yoon Seok-yeol held difficult but ultimately successful talks with Ahn Cheol-soo and Lee Jun-seok and was able to unify his party, Lee Jae-myung, despite not having to deal with any external scandals, was left on his own as a result of party infighting.

Some people believe that if Lee Jae-myung had managed to persuade Sim Sang-jung to withdraw from the race then he could have won, although probably by a similarly narrow margin to that by which he lost. But the present author doubts whether she would have agreed to do that. Firstly, the Justice Party is a left-leaning group that does not get involved in party-political intrigues of this sort. Secondly, the Democrats stole a number of her election promises to use in their own campaign. And thirdly, the Justice Party had not forgotten about how their performance in the 2020 parliamentary elections was undermined by the creation of a number of “satellite” parties, thus – according to some experts – reducing their vote by two thirds.

One can therefore see Yoon Seok-yeol’s victory not so much as a swing towards the right, but as a protest against recent political maneuvering and an expression of hope that an honest public prosecutor can restore a culture of justice and fair play. However, his image was also damaged in the mutual mud-slinging that characterized the campaign, and a number of commentators expressed dissatisfaction with both of the main candidates.

Following the election, Yoon Seok-yeol was congratulated over the phone by US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and the Russian President Vladimir Putin sent him a telegram complimenting him on his victory. Xi Jinping did not call him in person but during a regular press conference Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian congratulated him on his election victory and expressed the hope that relations between the two nations would continue to develop. Yoon Seok-yeol later had a meeting with ambassador Xing Haiming, who passed on the congratulations of the Chinese premier. Unusually, the North Korean media also reported on Yoon Seok-yeol’s victory – in the past they have refrained from commenting when Conservative presidents have been elected.

This is the first time in the country’s history that a president has been democratically elected without first serving as a lawmaker or minister. The new president has inherited a considerable number of problems, including, to name but a few, the challenge of dealing with the rampant COVID-19 epidemic, foreign policy challenges, particularly in relation to North Korea, and economic pressures (especially in relation to social support and housing shortages).

Yoon Seok-yeol will officially become president in two months – his inauguration is scheduled for May 10, 2022 – and under the Constitution, his term of office will be five years.

As you may have noticed, he seized his victory at the last moment, and while the election result is far from inconclusive, the narrow margin makes it clear that the divisions in Korean society have yet to be overcome. And it is one thing to win an election, it is quite another to govern well and fulfil one’s campaign promises. The new president has a difficult journey ahead of him, and will face significant resistance from his defeated opponents. As a result one can be sure that the next season of Korea’s “Game of Thrones” will be every bit as entertaining as the previous ones have been.

Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of the Far East at the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Although Japan used to be associated with the poetic name “Land of the Rising Sun,” it has recently been increasingly turning, through the fault of its current political authorities, into a “Land of the Rising Sanctions.”

Until recently, under former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, relations between Russia and Japan were consistently good and even warm. Regular working and personal contacts between Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin fostered trade and business cooperation between the two countries and were somewhat of a “failsafe” against Japan sliding into Russophobia under pressure from Washington and its own right-wing radicals calling for “war over the Kuril Islands.” It is precisely this skillful dialogue that distinguishes an outstanding politician, which Shinzo Abe no doubt was, from a run-of-the-mill Washington stooge willing to “please the big brother” even for a small handout from the big table.

Sure, Japan lost its identity after World War II and became an outright US dependent state, suffering a host of challenges from more than 75 years of US occupation, forced as a geisha to serve a contingent of thousands of US troops, who rampage and commit multiple crimes against Japanese citizens on a regular basis. The US military has notoriously been stationed in Japan since the end of World War II. More than 70% of US military facilities are located on the island of Okinawa – some 30,000 US troops serve here and several tens of thousands of their family members live there. According to statistics, Americans have committed more than five thousand crimes in Japan since 1972. And the US military often went unpunished. The Japanese regularly take to the streets to demand the dismantling of the military bases, but Japanese politicians have not been sufficiently assertive and consistent in supporting such demands of their people, servilely preferring “not to anger Washington” in the UN and other international institutions.

Nevertheless, even this stance towards the US has not prevented the now legendary Shinzo Abe from pursuing a policy of his own, which has led, among other things, to maintaining a “special relationship” with Russia. Abe’s main foreign policy tenets have been, in addition to alliance with the US and containment of a fast-growing China, friendship with Russia. A friendship, or rather amity between the two parties that enables cooperation to solve common problems. Abe took the approach literally – building a good personal relationship with Vladimir Putin, whom he called his friend, and with whom he met almost 30 times for talks. Because of this relationship, in 2014, despite pressure from Washington, Tokyo imposed a very mild, minimalist package of sanctions against Russia, described in the press as “polite,” letting everyone know that it does so with great reluctance too.

Abe’s tremendous domestic support made it possible to hope that Japan, through him, would agree to a convenient compromise (for example, joint economic activities on the disputed islands) that would open a truly new era in bilateral relations.

Abe valued mutual understanding with Putin because he believed it could ensure the balance of power in the South China Sea region, where Japan’s main adversary and – potentially – mortal enemy, i.e. China, has been creeping expansion for years.

But the new leadership of Japan, a country with centuries-old traditions of morality and noble behavior, Bushido, which has always stood apart from the rest of the world, has decided to fundamentally change its policy and bow even more to Washington. As early as January 21, a meeting between US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida led to the conclusion that Japan’s new leadership, together with Washington, would open a second front against Russia in the Pacific Ocean if Russia carried out an “invasion” of Ukraine.

And now, according to the Japanese Mainichi Shimbun, some 70 volunteers, including about 50 former members of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, are to go to Ukraine to fight for the Nazi authorities in Kiev. The Japanese government has announced the freezing of assets of four Russian banks, including VTB, as part of sanctions against Russia over the situation in Ukraine, Kyodo news agency reported, citing the country’s finance ministry chief, Shunichi Suzuki. Then the Japanese government imposed export sanctions on 49 Russian companies and organizations, as well as sanctions on 20 Russians, including businessmen, officials and prominent Russian figures in connection with the Russian military special operation to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine.

Given the clearly Washington-inspired support by official Tokyo for the Nazi authorities in Kiev, it is not surprising that the Russian embassy in Tokyo said in its Telegram channel that Japan “has supported a Nazi regime twice in less than a hundred years.” Meaning that the first of these regimes was Hitler’s Germany and the second the current Ukraine.

At the same time, Tokyo’s territorial claims to Russia have intensified, as expressed, in particular, in Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s declaration during a March 7 parliamentary debate that the southern part of the Kuril Islands are “ancestral territories” of Japan. “Unfortunately, Japan has been very active in this Western mainstream, and is obeying all instructions without complaint. Japan does not seem to realize how destructive it is acting against its own national interests,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on March 9 on Sputnik radio, commenting on Japanese officials’ statements about territorial claims against Moscow.

At the same time, Japan’s business world refuses to go along with Tokyo and Washington’s politicians in dealing with Russia. Despite announcements of large-scale withdrawal of Western companies from Russia and the fact that Dutch-British Shell is leaving the Sakhalin-2 project, Japan’s Mitsui & Co. and Mitsubishi Corp. consider it advisable to stay. According to Nikkei, a top corporate executive in Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has submitted a document saying that a hasty withdrawal is dangerous and will play into China’s hands. Sakhalin-2 is the first LNG project in Russia, in which Gazprom owns 50%, Shell another 27.5% and Mitsui & Co. and Mitsubishi Corp. 12.5 and 10%, respectively. The Japanese companies believe, Nikkei reports, that no matter what happens, Sakhalin-2 will continue to operate, and Japanese consumers will have to pay an extra $20 billion for LNG on the spot market if corporations leave Sakhalin-2.

Vladimir Danilov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

February 28, 1972 was marked by a major event that would shape the development of global political trends for decades to come. We can still notice the impact that this event had today, but it is now viewed very differently by the major powers that were behind it some five decades ago.

The author is referring to the signing of the so-called Shanghai Communiqué by US President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai that represented the PRC. The document was but one of the three fundamental agreements that defined the development of bilateral ties between the US and China.

The other two were the joint communiqué signed on 16, 1978, which established full diplomatic relations between the US and China in two weeks’ time. (in effect since January 1, 1979), and the communiqué issued on August 17, 1982, which regulated a rather minor issue (which has now become a stumbling block of the modern bilateral ties) of US arms supplies to Taiwan. It should be noted that official relations with the island (one of the most loyal allies of the US in the region) were severed by Washington at the time of signing the second communiqué.

All of these documents have a significance, but it was the first that marked a turning point in US-China relations, putting an end to a period of confrontation to launch a phase of increasing (comprehensive, which should also be noted) cooperation. This cooperation undergoes radical changes since the second half of the 2000s, with these changes defining the nature of the current stage of the “Great Game”.

The signing of the Shanghai Communiqué was preceded by a brief period, when the parties were mapping each other’s positions on key issues in both bilateral relations and global politics, a process known as “ping-pong diplomacy”. This period was marked by Henry Kissinger’s visit to China, six months prior to the signing of the Shanghai Communiqué. The parties must have agreed on the contents of the communique in advance during Kissinger’s stay in China. Visits to China paid by top US officials at six-month intervals since the early 1970s represented the first official tie established between the two countries since the founding of the PRC, that took place in 1949.

The principal notion of the Shanghai Communiqué was an acknowledgement of the need for a complete normalization of US-China relations based on respect for individual interests of the parties. This document already maked a shift towards a radical change in the US position on the Taiwan issue, which resulted in the establishment of US-China diplomatic relations seven years later. The part of the text that reflects the US position on the issue acknowledges that all Chinese living on both sides of the Taiwan Strait agree that there is but one China and that Taiwan is part of China. The US also announced the withdrawal of all US forces from the island, which finished by the time the diplomatic relations between the PRC and US were established.

The part when the parties opposed the establishment of a dominant force in the region was also noteworthy. Experts agree that this statement was influenced by a dramatic rise of influence that  the USSR enjoyed in the Southeast Asia as a consequence of its all-out support of Vietnam against the armed US aggression. In fact the very signing of comunique implied there were prospects of bilateral cooperation between the US and the PRC in the fight against the USSR.

This, in the author’s view, predetermined the negative outcome of the Cold War for the latter. It is important to ackonwledge, however, that no one in the US at the time could predict the exact date of the final victory over the USSR. The process of rapprochement with the PRC outlined in the Shanghai Communiqué was therefore seen as a long-term strategy that was to last for decades.

Without taking the above mentioned facts into the consideration, it is impossible to understand the current neutral-negative attitude in the US towards the document that looks like one of the country’s biggest foreign policy victories. The current US administration paid no attention to the aniversary. At the regular press conference held on February 28, this year, Department of State spokesman Ned Price clearly wasn’t looking too confident when a persistent journalist tried several times to get an explanation for such a disregard towards such a memorable date.

But at the expert level, both Kissinger (who lived to this day) and Nixon are held in contempt, with the main accusations leveled against them being: “We have nurtured our strongest enemy with our own hands.” Putting emotions aside, those accusations are not without merit, since the US provided full support to Deng Xiaoping’s rapid economic development course, leaving ideological differences aside for the moment being. Nine months after the establishment of diplomatic relations, China already gained the status of “the most preferred trade partner of the United States.”

It is not uncommon in the American expert community to see statements like “we would never have made those concessions to the PRC (particularly on the Taiwan issue) if we had known in advance that our main opponent was to crumble in late 80s, early 90s.”

But it’s easy enough to say that with the wisdom of hindsight. It is not unusual for recent allies in the fight against a common enemy to find themselves opposing each other in the next round of the Great Game. The period of World War II is an illustrative example of this, and the decades that preceded it (including World War I) as well as a significant stretch of the post-war period should also be taken into consideration.

A striking contrast to the current attitude in the US towards this anniversary date was a massive celebration organized in the PRC. There was even a concert where ‘the young represent our shared future’ (. Moreover, a videoconference was held with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Henry Kissinger as the main participants. That is, China was represented at the event by one of the top government officials, while the US representation is difficult to describe in any meaningful way. These days Henry Kissinger is almost a hundred years old and he’s no more than an exhibit in a museum of US diplomatic history.

In general, the commemorative events held by the PRC represented one of the signals from Beijing towards Washington that it wanted to restore the “spirit of the early 1970s” in the bilateral ties with the preservation, of course, of all the cornerstone positions that Beijing was able to secure at that time. This is particularly relevant to the One China Principle and the Taiwan issue. It should be noted that there are signals from US businesses, too, that the bilateral economic potential should be preserved.

As for the PRC, the report that the PRC-controlled Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is not about to go break the anti-Russian sanctions regime imposed by the collective  West is particularly noteworthy. And there’s no complaining about it, as Beijing has its own interests, and Russia’s should be the one solving its own problems. In the current configuration, the countries are standing “back-to-back”, which not the same as standing “side-by-side” (with the latter posture being desirable).

What lessons can Russia draw from the 1979 Shanghai Communiqué? It should be noted that it’s nowhere near the situation in which China found itself in the second half of the 1950s, which demanded very unorthodox and rather unexpected moves from its leadership.

It’s noteworthy in its recent history there were moments where Russia was in a similar position (specifically, in the first half of the 1920s) to the one that China manged to escape. And the present situation requires as much diplomatic prowess from its representatives, as we’re in the period of “inter-imperialist contradictions” yet again, and the divergences in the positions of the major players on virtually all issues of world politics (including the prospect of relations with Russia) are visible to the naked eye.

The current proponents of the USSR 2.0 project, however, should not lose sight of the role of the “external factor” both in getting out of the foreign policy blockade and the phenomenal process of industrialization of the USSR 1.0. The actors that played the role of the “external factor” back then were not only the US, but also its future enemy – Germany.

It cannot be ruled out that, for present-day Russia, contemporary China, its regional rival Japan, and India could all serve the role of an “external factor”. Generally speaking, this would be consistent with a process (seemingly irreversible) of shifting the focus of global political processes from the Euro-Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific region. However, this trend would not be contradicted by the involvement of the US. All the more so since Washington itself is increasingly positioning itself as an “Indo-Pacific power”.

These are, in brief, the history and the modern interpretation (including for the Russian Federation) of the 1972 US-China Shanghai Communiqué, one of the most remarkable political documents of the second half of the last century.

Vladimir Terekhov, expert on the issues of the Asia-Pacific region, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Against the backdrop of the seriousness of Ukraine’s Western-backed preparations for a dramatic escalation and aggression against Donbass and Luhansk, including with US-funded biological weapons, China has rolled out its defense budget for 2022. It happened on the opening day of the fifth annual session of the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC). Usually these annual announcements of Chinese military expenditures hit the headlines, but in 2022 Beijing’s 7.1% rise in defense expenditures is overshadowed by a war unleashed by the West in Europe.

In monetary terms, China’s defense expenditures for 2022 is 1.45045 trillion yuan ($229.39 billion). Indeed, the budget released on March 5 confirms the continuing rise in expenditure. Last year, China increased expenditures by 6.8% to 1.355 trillion yuan ($209.4 billion).  The total increase of around $20 billion this year is actually the biggest ever (the second highest was $13.4 billion in 2021 and the biggest was $13.6 billion in 2014).

Two years ago, China approved an increase in defense expenditures of only 6.6%, a drop due to the start of COVID-19. In previous years, the budget has increased by 7.5% (2019) and 8.1% (2018) each year. Also, this is the seventh consecutive year that the defense budget has only grown in single-digit percentages, highlighting that the serene days of double-digit growth are long gone. Threat perceptions may change over time, but China continues to prioritize spending on the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) regardless of pretexts for the increase.

Anonymous analysts quoted by China’s Global Times said the budget was “steady and reasonable at a time when China needs to modernize its military capabilities to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity amid severe external threats and an unstable security environment.” Chinese commentators also cited “provocative” US actions, such as warships sailing through the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea. The border confrontation with India has also not been resolved, even after almost two years, and this requires additional money to maintain stability in the region.

Chinese analysts argue that despite military threats from the US and other countries, “China is not interested in joining an arms race, and the country’s defense policy is defensive in nature.” In the future, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will expect the PLA to have more military capabilities so that it can effectively confront its neighbors, such as India, as well as South China Sea claimants and the US. Chinese leaders say they are prepared to use force to defend their territory, so the PLA must be a credible tool of deterrence.

There is a striking difference between the PLA and the quality of the bewildered Ukrainian conscripts, who now only scatter at the sight of Russian troops or willingly surrender, asking to be fed. The PLA is taught that their composition must serve Xi Jinping, the CCP and the nation. With such strong ideological indoctrination among Chinese soldiers, there would be no hesitation if they were ordered to attack any enemy.

China has the second largest defense budget in the world after the US, although Beijing still spends less than a third of what Washington does. President Joe Biden has requested a budget of around $770 billion for the coming financial year. In fact, the US spends more than the other ten largest countries combined trying to demonstrate its willingness to remain a superpower, ready to solve any domestic, and especially foreign, policy issues with brute force. Of course, it is difficult to compare China and the US directly. The PLA benefits from a non-market economy where equipment is cheaper and the military has greater purchasing power than in competitive markets such as the US. Moreover, the Pentagon also deploys troops and assets around the world, while China largely stays at home.

Beijing has not given any details on how the money will be distributed. According to some estimates, about 40% will go for equipment, both new and to maintain existing stocks. Total secrecy makes it impossible to determine exactly what China’s actual defense budget is. Many areas, such as the space program, extrabudgetary revenues from military commercial enterprises, defense mobilization funds and maintenance costs of provincial military bases, are not reflected in its defense budget. Additional funding such as military pensions and allowances, civilian/double-use research and development, and Central Military Commission responsibilities such as the People’s Armed Police and the Chinese Coast Guard are also not part of the defense budget. Both latter paramilitary organizations will support the PLA during the war.

Foreign analysts agree that the true budget is much higher than the stated amount, although there is some debate as to how much. According to some estimates, the real budget is 25% higher than declared, while others say it could be almost 40%. Undoubtedly, the difference between Chinese and US expenditures is much smaller than it appears on paper.

Beijing said in its government performance report that in 2021, China made major strides in strengthening national defense and the armed forces, getting off to a good start in this endeavor in the 14th Five-Year Plan period, and in 2022, China will work toward the goals for the centenary of the People’s Liberation Army in 2027. The report adds that the PLA will upgrade military logistics systems and establish a modern weapons and equipment management system more quickly. In addition, emphasis will be placed on continuing the reform of national defense and the armed forces; enhancing innovation in defense science and technology; and implementing a strategy to strengthen the armed forces by training competent personnel for the new era. Not forgotten are the precepts for managing the armed forces in accordance with law and strict discipline; promoting the qualitative development of the armed forces; and improving the structure of defense science, technology and industry.

A prime example to be seen this year will be the launch of the PLA Navy’s next generation aircraft carrier, Type 003, which is currently under construction. It differs from the two aircraft carriers in that it dispenses with a ramp and instead uses catapults to launch aircraft. Other priorities for 2022 are increasing production of J-20 stealth fighters and modernizing the nuclear arsenal of the PLA’s missile force.

China is closely monitoring the Russian special operation in Ukraine. Just as it scrutinized the lessons of the two wars unleashed by the US against Iraq in 1990-91 and 2003, it will be analyzing the results of this fierce special operation between Russia and the collective West led by an aggressive US for years to come.

The current fashionable priorities in the CCP are mechanization, informatization and intellectualization, the three components of the PLA’s modernization as it seeks to dominate the digital, cyber and networked world of military operations. These are some of the areas where Russia has expertise, especially in terms of a possible joint war. The latter is a priority for the PLA, even if it still has a long way to go to coordinate land, sea and air forces into a unified and integrated force.

In recent decades, given the experience of the Russian army, the PLA has prioritized airborne command and control through such means as KJ-500 aircraft, plus the introduction of electronic warfare aircraft such as the J-16D and various types of Y-8 / Y-9. The PLA Air Force has already more than 700 modern fighter jets in service.  China has a large number of air-launched cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, but, importantly, its stockpile of precision-guided munitions is limited. For example, it has only one type of 500kg laser-guided bomb in service. The 500kg bomb is overkill for many missions, and China has yet to move to a range of 250kg and 100kg precision-guided munitions, so it will have to rely on blunt bombs and unguided missiles.

The PLA has numerous strike aircraft to carry these high-precision weapons, including nearly 100 J-20 fighters, 200 J-16 fighters, 250 J-10B/C fighters and 300 J-10A fighters; 200 JH-7A fighter-bombers; and 120 H-6J/ K/N bombers, many of which are equipped with targeting pods. Add to this unmanned aerial vehicles such as the WZ-7 and the Wing Loong 1/2 family, and one can see that China can deliver the necessary flow of weapons early on in a future conflict.

The successful overcoming of international sanctions by Russia and the fact that the US, by exerting brutal pressure on NATO and Europe as a whole, forced them to follow, against their will, the fairway of Washington’s policies in support of the fascist rulers of Ukraine is an invaluable experience for China. The whole world is well aware that the massive supply of the most modern weapons to Kiev by the West is only adding petrol to the burning fire of the agony of the current Ukrainian regime and contributing to a flood of new victims.

Viktor Mikhin, corresponding member of RANS, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

After publishing the materials about the traces of shamanism in Yoon Suk-yeol’s case, the author received many comments asking him to clarify this case in more detail. Therefore, it was decided to offer some more insights on such issues as shamanism and politics in South Korea.

Despite traditional role and popularity in the society, the social status of a shaman in South Korea has been always low. Two more important aspects complicate this situation:

Firstly, Koreans, similarly to Japanese, confess a certain type of syncretism, which means that you can visit a shaman, go to a Protestant church, and to a Buddhist temple. However, shamanism does not have a status of a religion, and most shamans describe themselves as Buddhists, especially as in some temples, near the Buddha statues there are also statues of mountain spirits.

Secondly, in religious issues Koreans behave like consumers or pagans, which can be expressed along the lines of “I’ll light a candle in your name, and you give me a salary raise and help my son enter the university.” If the problem looks important enough, it is allowed to light and candle in a church and bring a gift – a pork head – to a shaman.

In addition, for most shamans such things as contacting the spirits of their ancestors or exorcising the spirits of illness are not their core competence, as they are mostly engaged in fortunetelling and predictions about the future, and are in effect akin to personal growth coaches, by simply issuing “differently encoded” recommendations. This is the reason why visiting shamans, on the one hand, is considered a sign of being a superstitious and dark person. On the other hand, many people visit shamans. And as a result, it works out to be like with bribery cases, when a person is brought to trial not so much for stealing, but for getting caught or attracting attention under the existing political conditions.

Some experts and researchers of Korean political culture emphasize that along with authoritarianism, hierarchy, clientelism, etc., another important element of this culture is a kind of fatalism which means that people prefer to rely on good luck, or the intervention of external forces instead of putting in hard work. It is commonly believed that people may plan certain events, but it is up to Heaven’s will to let those plans become real, and the outcome of an event is not a result of cause-effect relationship, but the result of good or bad luck or destiny.

This leads to an increased role of superstitions and increased trust in shamans and other occultists, whose competence is not about planning events, but to predict the reaction to them. The hope for a magical solution to the problem is based on faith in fate and the help of some external forces, including representatives of the authorities. So when you address your request to an official, it is almost the same as addressing supernatural forces in the person of a shaman: both of them are expected to ensure good outcome. It is not surprising that university graduates visit shamans with a list of their potential employers to help them choose which job to apply for, businessmen often ask supernatural forces which investments to make, and young people see this as a way to gain confidence and psychological comfort.

The data about the number of practicing shamans in Korea varies. According to the Korean Statistical Office in 2019, there are 10,745 prophets and shamans in the country. It is believed that there are much more of them than the official statistics shows, because many shamans work without any licenses: only ‘supernatural power’ is needed and some training with those who already know the craft. This is why “during the economic recession more and more people choose to become shamans or fortunetellers,” and, according to The Economist and Korea Economic Daily reports in 2018, the market of mystical services at the time reached USD 3.7 billion.

According to Baek Yoon Sang, the head of the Korean Association of Fortune Tellers, there are more than 300,000 fortune tellers and 150,000 shamans in the country. For comparison, the headcount of the Korea’s Armed Forces is 610,000 persons.

Not only ordinary citizens, but also some decision-makers are among the clients of shamans. In the shamanist community, it is said that it was shamanism which played a role in Park Geun-hye’s political games. It is worth noting that during the military regime shamans were out of favor.

Some say that shamanism in Korea’s political life dates back to the country’s first president – Syngman Rhee (1952-1960), who was believed to have changed his name following the advice of some shaman, as he wanted to “become president at the advanced age” and he really became president at 73. Also, shamans had allegedly predicted the death of President Park Chung-hee 20 years before he was killed by one of his closest aides in 1979. And the President Chun Doo-hwan’s mother had three of her front teeth pulled out after a monk had told her they would hinder her son’s future career.

Of course, people tend to expect shamans to bring luck and ignore real life circumstances. For example, the history says that President Kim Dae-jung, who lost the presidential elections three times, was elected in his fourth attempt in 1998, after he had moved his father’s grave to a place which was better from the geomancy point of view. The financial recession and the split in the ruling party side remained out of focus, as did the fact that his contemporary and well-known conservative leader Lee Hoi-chang lost the presidential election race even after he moved the graves of his ancestors several times. The shaman Shim Jin Song became famous when he predicted the death of North Korean President Kim Il Sung in 1994 and the election of President Kim Dae-jung. However, after some bad forecasts his popularity drastically dropped. Other famous Korean fortunetellers could not guess that Kim Young-sam, Kim Dae-jung, Lee Myung-bak and Roh Moo-hyun would be elected.

However, during the military regime, shamans were given the cold shoulder, and many politicians began to visit shamans and fortunetellers only after democratization and liberalization. According to the former Environment Minister Yun Ye Jung, Korean politicians and businessmen consulted with shamans “almost without exception.”

The political commentator Park Sang-byung said that shamanism has naturally penetrated the Korean institutional culture, and “… visiting a shaman cannot be prevented because it is the freedom of the individual. … However, this is problematic and causes public distrust.”

The most interesting thing is that Choi Soon-sil, Park Geun-hye’s friend, who is usually introduced as a shaman herself, was in fact only the daughter of a shaman. However, the propaganda of the Democrats presented her as the second Rasputin, and they played on the people’s annoyance described above, despite the fact that at the time when Choi “had especially strong influence on her friend, the president,” she was living in Germany.

In this context Yoon Suk-yeol is being made look like a puppet of shamans, taking into consideration the well-known telephone conversations – when his wife Kim Keon-hee said that she would move to the Blue House if she became the president’s wife, because the shamans advised her to do so. She also met her husband, who is 12 years older than her, following the advice of a Buddhist monk.

This is the basis to accuse Yoon and his wife of their close relations with religious figures who allegedly gave them advice on the verge of interfering in politics.

In January 2022, the Segye Ilbo newspaper “reported on the suspicions” about an incident in February 2020, when Yoon (at that time the Prosecutor General) refused to execute the order of the Minister of Justice on the repressions against the Shincheonji religious sect in connection with the fact that its members spread the coronavirus (there was a clear instruction to dig the dirt about the sect and show them as guilty in the disease spread), and he refused to do that because the shaman Chong Gong Jin allegedly told him: “Don’t get your hands dirty with blood.”

The same person allegedly took part in the work of Yoon’s election center – the so-called network headquarters, which was disestablished after the above news.

Then the representative of the Democratic Party, Kim Yoo-geum, said that back in 2018 (when Yoon was the prosecutor General), Yoon Suk-yeol and his wife were involved in a dubious religious ritual conducted by a shaman who informally participated in Yoon’s election campaign as a consultant.

Kim showed photos of the ritual held in Chungju, North Chungcheong Province, where tags with the names of Yoon and his wife and some Conservative Party members can be seen. Participation in the ritual is very expensive, and the ritual includes skinning a cow and hanging it on the altar wall next to a pile of 10 slaughtered pigs.

In response, the opposition party stated that in the same videos and photos from this ceremony, there are tags with the names of some prominent figures of the ruling party, including President Moon Jae-in and Lee Si-jong, governor of North Chungcheong Province.  After that this conviction was not mentioned anywhere in the news.

Thus, this seems to be an attempt to reproach Yoon Suk-yeol for doing things everyone else was somehow engaged in, playing on those fears that were artificially created during the candle revolution. However, most voters are dissatisfied with the close relationship that some politicians maintain with shamans. According to the two-day survey by the Southern Post when 1,002 persons were interviewed at the CBS’s request in January 2022, 60.7% of respondents said that relationship with shamans would have a negative impact on their attitude to Yoon Suk-yeol.

It is up to you to decide what effect this had on the outcome of the elections.

Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of the Far East at the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

While January 2022 saw a record number of missile launches by the DPRK in a calendar month, late February and early March 2022 marked the beginning of a new series.

On February 27, the DPRK launched an unspecified ballistic missile from Sunan Airport near Pyongyang towards the Sea of Japan. According to a statement by the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff, the DPRK-launched missile flew about 300 kilometers, with its highest flight altitude of about 620 kilometers. In January, two short-range ballistic missiles were launched from this area.

According to KCNA, the DPRK’s National Aerospace Development Administration and the Academy of National Defense Science have conducted important tests to develop an intelligence satellite. The tests included “vertical and oblique photography of a certain ground area with cameras that will be installed in the reconnaissance satellite. And they have confirmed the specificity and accuracy of the high-resolution photographic system, the data transmission system and the positioning control apparatus.”

A second launch of a similar type of missile took place on March 5, 2022. From the same launch site, the missile flew 270 km and reached a maximum flight altitude of 560 km. According to analysts, if the missile had been launched at a standard angle, it would have travelled between 1,000 and 1,200 km – a flight distance for a medium-range ballistic missile.

KCNA also reported that once again important tests on the satellite development plan had been conducted, and they “confirmed the reliability of data transmission and reception system of the satellite, its control command system and various ground-based control systems.”

The launch and telemetry were monitored by the US Air Force RC-135S (61-2663) reconnaissance aircraft from the waters off the Sea of Japan.

The reaction to the launches is described by the word “expected”, and although each side has said the “buzzwords” that are customary on the political agenda, there has been no excessive excitement. Hence only “big news” was noted, not another expression of regret or a call to stop.

On February 28, the UN Security Council held a closed meeting, at the end of which representatives of 11 countries, including the ROK, the US, the UK and Japan, issued a joint statement condemning the missile launches. They called on all UN member states to condemn Pyongyang’s dangerous actions, stressing the importance of complying with anti-North Korean sanctions. The statement also said the DPRK should choose to strengthen international security and peace by working to ease tensions in the region.  But what matters to the author is that the meeting itself did not end with a condemnatory official document.

A similar situation occurred on March 7 when discussing the next launch. 11 countries – the US, Albania, Australia, Brazil, the UK, France, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Norway and the ROK – condemned it in a statement noting that by launching 11 ballistic missiles since the beginning of this year, Pyongyang violated Security Council resolutions. “We condemn the ballistic missile launch while remaining committed to achieving the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” US Permanent Representative to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said, and recalled that the US and other countries have repeatedly offered Pyongyang dialogue without preconditions.

Yoon Seok-yeol, the Republic of Korea’s opposition presidential candidate, said that North Korea’s lifting of the moratorium on nuclear tests and long-range missile tests appears to be a matter of time: “Along with the nation, I strongly condemn North Korea’s provocation, which was a blatant violation of UN resolutions” that prohibit the North from using ballistic missile technology. Yoon reiterated his pledge to achieve peace by force, and criticized the government and ruling party presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung for failing to condemn the North’s provocations.

South Korean Defense Minister Suh Wook considered that with the launch Pyongyang had unveiled its policy principle of “power for power and good-will for good-will” in response to the South’s launch of a long-range surface-to-air missile (L-SAM) under development and to the global attention being focused on the armed conflict in Ukraine.

But back to the launch. As can be seen, the trajectory of North Korean missiles is becoming more and more elongated in altitude, leading the author to believe that the de facto moratorium has been broken. And if you recalculate these trajectories into typical combat missile trajectories, we are talking about a medium-range, instead of a short-range missile launch. The high trajectory in this context has a double meaning.

First, Pyongyang thus tries not to escalate the situation too much, so that missiles fall at a reasonable distance around the Korean peninsula without disturbing allies and neighbors. Second, this launch can honestly be called a space launch and this is the second time that North has published photos of the Earth taken from a satellite.

As early as the 8th Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea in January 2021, if not earlier, the DPRK unveiled an ambitious weapons program that included not only hypersonic missiles, but also the launch of a reconnaissance satellite. This is not surprising, since satellite surveillance is important not only for military purposes but also for tracking and dealing with typhoons, which periodically affect the North Korean coastline.

Not only the author, but other experts also believe that the next step by Pyongyang may be not so much an open ICBM launch or a nuclear test, but the launch of a satellite for formally peaceful purposes.

Military analyst Ankit Panda notes that the apparent preparations for a new reconnaissance satellite space launch should come as little surprise. What is surprising, however, is the nature of the launch itself. North Korea used an apparent ballistic missile to launch a suborbital payload specifically to test technology for a possible Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite.

Russian military expert Vladimir Khrustalev also points out that engineers are quietly tackling the task of developing and testing the hardware for their advanced reconnaissance satellite. The DPRK cannot easily buy a complete set of equipment on the world market for full-scale testing of the equipment in space conditions. But outer space begins above 100 km – the perfect laboratory overhead! This is why the equipment kits are launched by combat missiles for short periods of time to the same altitudes where the satellite is scheduled to operate, especially as it is not difficult or expensive – the DPRK has many medium-range liquid-fueled and obsolete missiles in storage. Their energy capacity is more than enough to take a small load above 100 km.

In the past, Pyongyang has repeatedly claimed to have conducted satellite launches as part of “peaceful space exploration”, which have been perceived in other countries as long-range missile tests. The point here is that we are faced with self-contradiction: on the one hand every country has a right to the peaceful exploration of space, while on the other hand a UN resolution banning the launch of ballistic missiles deprives it of this right. This leaves the global community to choose a priority and the DPRK to check which trend prevails.

In the context of the Ukrainian crisis, the DPRK is discussed mainly on two fronts. There is speculation about how, while everyone else is busy, Pyongyang will decide not to miss out and launch something surreptitiously, whether making another step in the development of its missile program or conducting field training exercises. For example, the conservative JoongAng Ilbo notes that North Korea wants international recognition as a nuclear power under the power vacuum created by the China-US conflict: “North Korea will be tempted to build more pressure on America under such circumstances”.

Other authors add that the North may carry out a provocative act to mark Kim Il-sung’s 110th birthday on April 15, while the Japanese pro-North Korean newspaper Chosun Shinbo reported on March 7 that the DPRK would launch a satellite “at a time and place to be determined by the highest leadership.”

The second direction concerns the extent to which, amid the growing confrontation between the West on the one hand and Russia and China on the other, Moscow and Beijing will go for more systematic support for their ally. In this context, some predict a split in the UNSC (up to and including vetoing anti-North Korea resolutions), as well as overt and covert loosening of the sanctions regime. The extent to which this may be true will become clear within a year at least.

Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of the Far East at the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

]]> https://journal-neo.org/2022/03/11/waiting-for-dprk-s-new-satellite/feed/ 0 https://journal-neo.org/2022/03/11/a-second-us-front-against-china/ https://journal-neo.org/2022/03/11/a-second-us-front-against-china/#comments Fri, 11 Mar 2022 04:50:04 +0000 https://journal-neo.org/?p=177347

Ukraine-related events in recent days have clearly exposed Washington’s criminal policy and its desire to solve its financial and geopolitical problems by unleashing armed conflicts on foreign territories. It is quite remarkable that the crisis around Ukraine itself, according to even US analysts, was engineered by the US and they are fully responsible for it.

The military action that has begun in Ukraine has been prepared by the White House for a long time and was intended to draw Russia and China into a destructive confrontation with the US and the UK. The only question was when and on what occasion the next heated battle would begin. Unfortunately for Ukraine, it was the country that, having succumbed to the “rotten carrot” of empty promises of EU and NATO membership, stepped on this rake itself, in order to please Washington, fueling its Russophobic fervor, strengthening the Nazi position in the country, and blackmailing the whole world with the possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons. Again, it was the US that managed, by its refusal to discuss security guarantees for all, to provoke the Russian Federation into a forceful solution to the Ukrainian problem. And to do so now, otherwise it would be too late. In this situation, Washington has a chance to pull France, Germany, Israel and several other “permanent US satellites” into its camp by inclining them to openly support the Nazi authorities in Kiev. Meanwhile, Ukraine has become nothing more than a bargaining chip for the US.

In addition to pursuing a provocative policy against Russia, the US, against the backdrop of the Ukraine crisis, has blatantly adopted similar tactics against China, speculating on the situation around Taiwan, openly provoking Beijing against Taiwan, demonstratively arguing about the “need” to cross the “red line” drawn by the PRC. In addition to arming Taiwan, Washington has also chosen another, no less hypocritical trick for China – the pseudo-diplomatic one: speculation about “recognition” of the island’s independence. And such policy is already becoming national, with support from the two major parties, Democrats and Republicans, as well as from antagonist presidents Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump.

As for Moscow’s confrontation with Kiev, one US delegation after another is being sent to Taiwan to discuss further deepening relations and new US arms supplies. By analogy with Ukraine, there is an opposition between the island and mainland Chinese populations, and there are active attempts by “democratic teachers from the US” to create a new Chinese gene pool that benefits the current US political establishment.

And this, in particular, is confirmed by the arrival on March 2 in Taiwan of two American delegations representing key US foreign policy agencies – the Army Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Department of State. Despite their representation by “retirees” Michael Mullen and Mike Pompeo, nevertheless their level and former status already speaks volumes. As, indeed, do the tactics of official Washington’s call, first by M. Pompeo on March 4 in Taiwan to recognize the island’s “independence”, under the pretext of the supposedly already existing “de facto sovereignty” of Taiwan and the “democratic choice of its 23 million inhabitants”. And then a March 5 proposal by Michele Sison, Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations Affairs, to restore Taiwan’s rights at the UN, which it lost in 1971 along with the mandate given to the PRC to become a permanent member of the Security Council. And all this is happening against the blatant contradiction of the official US position recognizing the One-China principle!

Meanwhile, in the context of Pompeo’s ambition for the upcoming presidential election, he has even deployed active criticism of the “passivity of the current head of state Joseph Biden” in acting against Beijing, not ruling out the use of force to resolve the “Taiwan issue”. Meanwhile, the White House’s hands are tied by the US-PRC agreements of the 1970s, under which Washington severed diplomatic relations with Taipei, established them with Beijing and recognized the island as part of China. However, the law passed in the US allows them to help Taiwan with arms, but does not oblige them to send their soldiers to defend the island.

Beijing, naturally, could not fail to react to Pompeo’s trip. The newspaper Renmin Ribao, an organ of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, called Pompeo an extremely vulgar anti-Chinese politician. Taipei has also responded to Washington’s policy adjustment on China, with the Legislative Yuan (parliament) adopting a reinforced budget to mass-produce 18 types of weapons and military equipment by 2026. Moreover, ground-to-ground missiles, which are controlled by artificial intelligence, and ground-to-air missiles should be ready for delivery to troops between 2024 and 2025.

It is understood in Washington that reuniting China with Taiwan with force support would cost Beijing dearly. Moreover, they do not rule out that at a critical moment, the US 7th Fleet, which is based nearby, in Japan, could come to the rescue of Taiwan. Meanwhile, the US also expects the PRC to face swift and globally coordinated economic retaliation from the US and its allies. However, American experts believe that Beijing, realizing the difficulties faced by Russia, will still not give up the option of a military takeover of the island.

In Washington’s plans for China, the US also expects to use Moscow’s capabilities to its advantage, assuming that Russia will be “more compliant” and receptive to Washington’s interests as a result of the multiple sanctions already imposed on it. However, a similar policy to Washington’s use of China in countering Russia in recent months has not brought the US the result it had hoped for. Washington has failed to persuade Beijing to press Russia, despite holding unsuccessful secret talks with China over the past three months to persuade Xi Jinping to dissuade Russia from military action in Ukraine. This, in particular, was reported by the Daily Mail.

According to The New York Times, the Biden administration’s contacts with Beijing began in November, after the president held a video summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. A few days later the White House met with the Chinese ambassador. According to the newspaper, US officials told the Chinese diplomat that the United States was planning to impose strict sanctions against Russian companies and officials in the event of a Russian invasion – far more severe than in 2014, when Moscow annexed Crimea. At the same time, officials reportedly said Beijing’s commercial ties with Russia could also “feel some consequences”. The New York Times pointed out that US officials had spoken to the Chinese ambassador at least three more times, but Ambassador Qin said Moscow had legitimate security concerns. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has also spoken to his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on this issue several times, but he has failed to use China in the plan of interest to Washington either.

As for the new US strategy in the Indo-Pacific region, it poses, as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a conversation with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on February 22, an open challenge to China. “The attempt to incorporate “Taiwan in strategy to contain China” into US regional policy is a wrong signal,” the Chinese Foreign Minister said, noting that US calls for long-term competition with China could escalate into an “all-out confrontation”. Washington’s support for Taiwan’s independence aspirations threatens an armed conflict between the US and China, the Chinese ambassador to the US, Qin Gang, told US radio station NPR. “If the Taiwanese authorities, emboldened by the United States, keep going down the road for independence, it most likely (will) involve China and the United States, the two big countries, in a military conflict,” he said. At the same time, the diplomat called Taiwan “the biggest powder keg” in relations between Beijing and Washington and stressed that China was seeking peaceful reunification with the island, but would not give up force, as it was a deterrent.

As for Washington’s advertised readiness to intensify confrontation simultaneously with Russia and China, including the use of military instruments such as NATO, the Chinese edition of the Global Times recently bluntly pointed out: Forget about two wars, US is reluctant to fight even one!

Professor Shen Yi of the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University recalled in this regard: “Former president Richard Nixon had long ago done the math for the US – it could not afford to fight two wars at once.” As for current American power, its best days are long behind it: even Washington itself is not sure that it can win even a single regional war. Proof of this is the US decision not to send its armed forces to the front lines in Ukraine. Other examples come to mind: how they got bogged down in conflicts in Vietnam, Afghanistan and failed to win anywhere. Against this background, it is suicidal for the US to fight two wars at the same time. Plus, it must not be forgotten that the US economy is in a catastrophic state. Even when they got up the courage to impose so-called “nuclear-level sanctions” by disconnecting Russia from the Swift system, they had to carefully circumvent banks linked to the energy sector. Compared to World War II era, America’s sun is setting.

Valery Kulikov, political expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Expansionism knows no bounds. After taking Europe to the verge of a major war by pushing for NATO’s expansion further into Eastern Europe to encircle Russia, the US is now increasingly focusing on Taiwan for what the US officials have been, for over a year now, calling an ‘increasing possibility’ of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. There is a flurry of activity going on around Taiwan to prevent it from suffering what Mike Pompeo, the former US Secretary of State and a possible candidate for presidential elections in the US in 2024, said during his recent visit to Taiwan the ‘Ukraine like fate.’ Again, even though Joe Biden, when he became POTUS last year, vowed to reverse Trump’s policies, China is one case where he is very much following in Trump’s footsteps. In fact, various officials of Biden administration have vowed to continue Trump’s policy vis-à-vis Taiwan and China, showing anti-China policy is embedded within the US “deep-state” and that it is not simply dependent upon POTUS.

A high-profile delegation sent by Biden arrived in Taiwan on March 2 to express firm US commitment with Taiwan’s security and future. “The United States will continue to oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo and will continue to support a peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues, consistent with the wishes and best interests of the people of Taiwan”, told former chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, who is leading the delegation, to the president of Taiwan.

The visit actually follows US efforts to arm Taiwan vis-à-vis China. On February 8, Joe Biden approved a US$ 100 million contract aimed at strengthening Taiwan’s missile defense systems. In early February, the Biden administration unveiled its Indo-Pacific strategy to contain China. As the document stresses, “We will also work with partners inside and outside of the region to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, including by supporting Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities, to ensure an environment in which Taiwan’s future is determined peacefully in accordance with the wishes and best interests of Taiwan’s people.”

This rhetoric is being facilitated by Taiwan’s top leadership as well. As president of Taiwan said, “China’s military threat to the Taiwan Strait and to the region continues to rise, whether by working to limit Taiwan’s international participation or by using cognitive warfare tactics and disinformation to divide Taiwanese society and erode our democracy.”

As an administration following the Trump administration’s policy, the delegation’s visit manifests what Mike Pompeo, as Secretary of State, said in 2020 that the US will no longer adhere to its traditional level of political contact with Taiwan. That the US is invariably enhancing its political – and military – contact with Taiwan also means that the US is keen to expand its overall ties with Taiwan – something that China resents. This is quite similar to how the US efforts to push NATO into Ukraine provoked the Russia-Ukraine war in the first place. Enhancing political and military contacts with Taiwan against China is qualitatively similar to NATO’s expansion in Europe against Russia.

A simultaneous crisis surrounding two of the US’ most formidable military and economic peers will have many consequences for Washington.

First, it will keep both Russia and China involved military conflicts in their own backyards rather than thousands of miles from their mainland. Secondly, by provoking both of its strategic peers into wars, the US might be able to develop an anti-Russia and anti-China global coalition it has been seeking to build for almost a decade now when the ‘Asia Pivot’ was launched by the Obama administration. Thirdly, such a coalition will inevitably be led by the US. As it stands, taking Ukraine as a playbook for entrenching US hegemony in Europe, many states in Europe, including Germany, have decided to increase their defense budgets to spend more on common defense. This means that the European drive to establish a European security system is now effectively out of focus for the next few years and the US remains central to the European security. Fourthly, the US hopes that by engaging Russia and China in wars and by demonising them, it might be able to restrict their ability to challenge the US-centric, dollar dominate global financial systems with their alternative model of finance that places local currencies, rather the USD, at the centre of most financial transactions. By restricting the Russian-Chinese payment systems, the US can maintain the global relevance of its own system.

A full provocation is, thus, at play here. China’s response to these efforts must be nothing but a good news for the hawks occupying the White House. As China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said in a regular media briefing on March 1, “If the US tries to intimidate and pressure China in this way, then we have this stern warning: the so-called military deterrence will be reduced to scrap iron when facing the steely great wall of the 1.4 billion Chinese people,” Wang said. “The trick of sending vessels to sail through the Taiwan Strait should be better saved to entertain those obsessed with hegemony”, Wang added.

These provocations are very much consistent with how the US very largely portrays the Russian and Chinese leaders as ‘expansionists’ driven by the desire to expand their empires, although it remains that the actual reason for the trouble we see in Europe today or might see in Asia in near future is tied directly and unambiguously to the US efforts to preserve its hegemony. This is one key reason why the US got out of Afghanistan in an absurdly haphazard manner, because staying in Afghanistan any longer would not have served the US purpose of tackling its rivals. By extracting itself out of Afghanistan, the US “deep-state” is now in a better position to sell fresh wars to the US public against the ‘authoritarian’ states of China and Russia as ‘wars for democracy.’

Salman Rafi Sheikh, research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The South Korean presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol recently stated that he thought a preemptive strike against the DPRK would be justified, since, if the latter were to launch a rocket armed with a nuclear warhead against Seoul, it would be almost impossible to intercept itю The only option would be to forestall the attack.

This statement triggered a great deal of heated discussion, and the left-leaning daily Hankyoreh published an article in response, quoting Otto von Bismark’s famous dictum that “Preventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death.”

Nevertheless both the US and Israel have at various times launched attacks that they described as preemptive strikes. Given the situation on the Korean peninsula there appears to be a real risk that an attack on the DPRK’s missile launchers could trigger a full-scale war – but in other parts of the world the principle that “attack is the best form of defense” seems more justified, at least in relation to the bases of terrorist groups.

But the concept of a preemptive strike raises a number of problems, some of which relate to ethical issues, as will be discussed below.

In principle, a preemptive strike can be a viable strategy: “Strike first and do not let your adversary strike you back.  In a fight between a weaker and a stronger party, where a first blow by your enemy or an extended struggle would manifest your defeat, the best way to turn the situation to your advantage is to strike first.” In the US and many other countries, this principle is applied by law enforcement officers, who frequently shoot first when faced with suspicious activity.  In a country where citizens have the right to bear arms, if a suspect puts their hand in their pocket during an arrest, then the police officer is likely to assume they are reaching for a gun. The officer will naturally shoot first, before it is too late.

Although in theory a preemptive strike is a first blow, in practice it is a last resort, adopted only when a fight seems inevitable. But if the fight is NOT inevitable then the preemptive strike closes off all other options for resolving the conflict, leaving force as the only option.

That leads us to the first problem: the need to have a proper justification for such a strike. Whether it is a conflict between individuals or between states, it is essential to have cast iron proof that the party against which the strike is directed was staging an attack.  Otherwise the result will be the same as so often happens on American streets when the police get involved. The “suspicious” activity turns out to have been misinterpreted, but it is too late – the shots have already been fired.

To make things more difficult, the decision to strike preemptively is often made in a split second and in response to incomplete information, and, at least in a political context, what Dick Cheney referred to as the “one per cent doctrine” also comes into play. As Mr. Cheney put it: “if there’s a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response. It’s not about our analysis… It’s about our response.”

In terms of what could be called the “bodyguard’s reflex” (a quality common to security professionals all over the world – it’s in the nature of their job) that approach is justifiable – a one percent risk may represent a significant threat if we are talking about what Cheney refers to as low-probability, high-impact events.

For example if there is a 1% risk of a car accident due to technical failure it is essential to check all parts of the vehicle and ensure that everything is working properly. A 1% risk of an epidemic would justify strict quarantine measures against a person who may be infectious – even if it turns out to be a false alarm.

The US Patriot Act allows official to block potential terrorists’ bank accounts and their telephones without need for any proof, in order, on the off chance that he really is a terrorist, to prevent him from carrying out an attack. And if it turns out that he is not a terrorist and protests about these measures, no harm is done – in relation to such a serious threat, it is better to be safe than sorry.

That is why, for example when the US started looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, it paid no heed to the potential consequences for that country: “We need to be absolutely certain that you do not and cannot obtain such weapons, and any suspicious or dual use technology will be taken as proof of our suspicions, and any reluctance to cooperate (or failure to comply in full with all our instructions) will be treated as indirect evidence and an indication that you have got something to hide.”

This bears some explanation. Certain media outlets have promoted the theory that the US knew right from the beginning that Iraq did not have any WMDs, and that it fabricated the data it needed in order to launch the invasion. But in fact it is now clear that the reality was rather different, and perhaps even worse. In view of Saddam Hussein’s reputation, the US was convinced (or better, convinced itself) that it was impossible that such a tyrant did not have a WMD program, and the lack of evidence simply meant that the program was well hidden – it was just a question of carrying on the search. And there was no need to check that the information was true as a pro-democracy defector could not possibly be lying!

The bodyguard’s reflex is based on the idea that it is better to arrest 10 potential terrorists, even if they then turn out to be innocent, rather than miss one real terrorist whose actions would cause far more harm than the unpleasantness suffered by the ten mistakenly arrested individuals. Which is better, to be cautious but earn a reputation for infringing civil liberties, or to fail to take action and thus allow a catastrophic attack to occur?

But there is another, much darker, side to the coin. Any fast-track procedures such as those provided by the Patriot Act or other special regulations can streamline processes and minimize bureaucracy, but they can also make it easier for the authorities to abuse their powers, as the normal checks and balances have been weakened. It is not surprising that government critics and conspiracy theorists see such measures as primarily aimed at making such abuse easier.

That approach also erodes the distinction between likely and unlikely scenarios, which can result in self-fulfilling prophecies. This response, however, is clearly insufficient. This combination – demonizing the enemy and applying the 1% doctrine – is doubly dangerous: firstly because we assess the likelihood of a scenario (often using such phrases as “it is impossible to exclude the risk of X”) based on our a priori assumption that the enemy regime is evil, and secondly because the 1% doctrine allows us to treat a small likelihood in the same way as a certainty.

Moreover, the public reaction to a preemptive strike will inevitably be mixed: generally people approve of government actions when they are a response to another party’s conduct. Following a terrorist attack, the government strikes back and those responsible are punished. But when measures are taken, not in response to events that have occurred, but to prevent something that thus never happens, then many people question whether the measures were morally justified. Was the preemptive strike really proportionate to the danger? Or was it just a provocation?  What if the claims that the attack was a preemptive strike are just an attempt to justify the decision to strike first?

The present author could cite a number of unpleasant situations in which people are forced to choose between two versions of the truth, their choice being determined in each case by religious considerations or their political views.

Once such dilemma has become quite common thanks to the #MeToo movement. A woman accuses a man of raping her many years ago, and apart from her own claim there is no evidence of the alleged crime. As a result, we have two conflicting presumptions: the presumption of an accused person’s innocence, which is a foundation of the criminal justice system, and the widespread presumption that a person accused of rape is guilty.  If the accused defends himself he is often seen as slandering his accuser, but in reality it is often the case that the only evidence for a rape is the woman’s accusation. There is no satisfactory solution to this dilemma.

Here’s another example. States are often accused of torturing political dissidents, and then using the confessions extracted under torture against them. In many cases the torture is impossible to prove, due to the lack of any physical evidence – we just have to take the victim’s word for it. Thus we again have two presumptions: the presumption of innocence, and the presumption that the regime is guilty – as there are many types of torture which leave no physical mark on the victim.

But public opinion will always favor simple solutions. People want a universal rule like “if the state is accused of using violence, it means it used violence,” or “if he was tortured, it means he is innocent.” In the absence of such simple solutions, people resort to the logic of “us and them” – they are terrorists, and we are freedom fighters. Or – he is a rapist, and we are victims.

The problem is the same with preemptive strikes: it is often hard for society to accept that the events that we have averted would have been worse than what has actually happened. After all, what has happened is a certainty, while what might happen could be just a 1% chance, or it could be more. No one would fall for the argument that “this cute puppy would have grown up into a killer dog, so we shot him to stop this happening.” We need other arguments.

Especially if people generally believe that “the authorities are hiding the truth,” or if distrust of the government takes some other form, in which case the regime is inevitably assumed to be guilty: “Of course they attacked innocent civilians and then accused them of being terrorists for some political reason or other self-serving motive.” And, naturally, dead militants, or persons accused of being militants, cannot say anything – they were killed by a preemptive strike before they could launch an attack.

This article will necessarily lack a clear conclusion – as normally dilemmas of the types discussed above have specific features that allow us to make a balanced rational assessment in each case, without having to resorting to a crude rule of thumb. The present author simply wishes to draw attention to these kinds of conflicting presumptions, and point out the importance of carefully assessing the circumstances and causes in each individual case.

 Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of the Far East at the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.