Category: World Diary

(3 February 2012) — No elected government in the history of Pakistan has survived a full term in office. In fact, up to late last year, the impoverished yet nuclear-armed country has come under military rule more often than it has enjoyed democratic government. 8,839 days over 8,830 days to be exact, according to the Centre of Civic Education Pakistan as of September 15, 2011.

However, for the first time in the history of independent Pakistan, the all-powerful military, which sees itself as the principal guardian of the nation, now seems unsure of itself as it ponders its next move in the standoff with the civilian goverment.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has openly challenged the generals over the ‘memogate scandal’ — an alleged note from Pakistan’s political leadership that urged the US to prevent any possible coup by the Pakistan military. He further upped the ante on January 11 by sacking the defence secretary, Naeem Khalid Lodhi, a retired general close to the military establishment.

Tensions have calmed down slightly after Gilani, now the longest-serving premier of the country, extended an olive branch of sorts last week  during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He told reporters, “I want to dispel the impression that the military leadership acted unconstitutionally or violated rules […] We have to be seen on the same page.”

Still, the continued survival of the civilian government despite its very public and combative confrontation with the generals is seen as a remarkable new development in Pakistan political circles.  After all, seasoned pundits would tell you that “removing a civilian government was something the generals used to do between lunch and tea”.

For decades, the military has maintained its stranglehold over the country by controlling the presidency and playing the political parties against each other, while receiving abundant backing from the US, first for supporting  the US during the Cold War and now for its campaign against terrorism.

But the US Marines’ daring capture of terrorist Osama Bin Laden in the Pakistani military town of Abbottabad in 2011 robbed the armed forces of their public adulation. People in Pakistan treat the incident as the greatest national humiliation since the 1971 war with India that had resulted in the break-up of Pakistan and hold the military, which they used to deify, singularly responsible for it.

Crucially, the incident has also weakened US support for the Pakistani army. Few in the US believe that the generals did not know about Osama’s hideout a few hundred metres from their academy.

At home, the military is increasingly isolated. The president and the prime minister are united against the army. The supreme court, while hostile to the president, has become an independent centre of power since the chief justice successfully led a movement to oust former president Parvez Musharraf in 2008.

Significantly for the military, the US has now virtually replaced India as the bogeyman of the Pakistani people. The incessant drone attacks by US and NATO forces inside Pakistan’s territory, which often result in deaths of innocent civilians, and the US demand on Pakistan to carry out military operations against its own people in the tribal areas have made the US the most hated nation among most Pakistanis, especially among the poor and religious.

Security experts like India’s Mahroof Raza have suggested that terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba are finding it difficult to keep their foot-soldiers focused on India, especially Kashmir, and that the new generation see the NATO and US soldiers in Afghanistan as much better targets for the fulfillment of their psychological jihadi calling.

In fact, the Pakistani military itself is so submerged in containing secessionist demands from elements in its south-western Balochistan province, violence on its Afghan border, and frequent skirmishes with the US and NATO over drone attacks on its soil and occasional Pakistani military casualties, that India seems almost a diversion at this point.

With fewer people apprehensive of a war with India anytime soon, the daily reliance on the military has receded from public consciousness.

The army is now being forced to sit back and hope that the supreme court would dismiss President Asif Ali Zardari in an old corruption case. Army chief General Kayani believes that Zadari is directing the government against the army, with the prime minister as the public face of the challenge.

The military feels that any preemptive move on its part to dislodge the government may not find popular public support under the present circumstances. Moreover, given the military’s current lack of standing with the US after the Osama capture, the US is almost sure to favour Zardari.

Losing to Zardari in the current tussle will confirm the diminished authority and influence of the military.  For the moment though, no one quite knows how the present narrative might evolve. For a change, not even the military. And that is what makes the current imbroglio intriguing.

(16 December 2011) — As global headlines sway between economic meltdown in the West and violent uprisings in the Middle East, one social group is silently writing its own story in large parts of Asia.

In one of the largest demonstrations in China since the Tiananmen Square protest in 1989, a public protest by the people of the northeastern town of Dalian in mid-August this year resulted in authorities shutting down a chemical factory believed to be a health risk after being damaged in a storm.

In the same month, India witnessed a spontaneous middle-class anti-graft movement converging around a previously unheralded hunger-fasting activist Anna Hazare. The government eventually caved in under the force of public opinion and agreed to draft anti-graft legislation.

But this is not just a story of China and India. People’s movements shook political plates across Asia this year.

In July, in a rally that marked the 14th anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to China, more than 200,000 demonstrators marched in Hong Kong for universal suffrage and against a controversial plan to scrap by-elections.

In same month, more than 20,000 protesters took to the streets of the Malaysian capital city of Kuala Lumpur to demand electoral reform.

Thousands of people in Bhutan also took to social media this year to protest a government ban on public smoking. In Male, Maldives – Asia’s smallest country by population – several thousand demonstrated against the government’s handling of the economy.

Unlike the mass discontent caused by the economic meltdown in Western nations and anger against theocratic regimes in the Middle East, appraisal of growing public protests in parts of Asia makes for an interesting reading.

There can be no single explanation for the new middle class activism that is sweeping across the continent. However, the broad undertone of the trend is that the emerging economies are experiencing socio-political churning brought about by growing political demands of its burgeoning middle classes.

Recent estimates by various international development banks illustrate the point.

According to the Asian Development Bank report Asian Development Outlook 2010: Macroeconomic Management Beyond the Crisis, the Asian middle class (defined as people earning between US$2 and US$20 a day) accounted for 21% of the total population in 1990 and an imposing 56% in 2008.

From a global perspective, Deutsche Bank says Asia’s middle class is one of the fastest growing population groups in the world. Meanwhile, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development projects that the size of Asian middle classes, which now accounts for less than 25% of the world’s middle class population, will double in the next 15 years.

Significantly, a large percentage of the middle class growth class in Asia is occurring outside large global centers like Shanghai or New Delhi, in smaller towns and villages.

On one hand, the development presents a daunting challenge to previously unequipped local governments to pursue policies that help sustain the growing middle class. At the same time it brings an opportunity for the burgeoning middle class to exert pressure on local governments to improve governance and service delivery.

The underlying idea behind the term ‘middle class’ embodies not just the material aspects of a particular section of society, but also – more often than not – its aspirations such as better education and wider exposure to the world beyond the immediate environment. It is this development that encourages the middle class to be more aware of – and consequently, more vocal about – seemingly highbrow matters like civil liberties and free choices.

A survey of 13 emerging markets by the Pew Global Attitudes Project in Washington, DC, the middle classes consistently give more weight to free speech and fair elections than do the poor, who are more concerned about freedom from poverty.

But India had democracy before it had vast wealth and the Chinese middle class was more likely to demand political liberalization prior to the 1989 Tiananmen protests than it is today.

The argument can be extended to Dalian, which is a prosperous town that has reaped the dividends of Beijing’s economic growth. And so overthrowing the Chinese government in favour of a new democratic order is not a burning priority for the city’s middle class. In fact, rural people in China who still do not receive the desired benefits of the nation’s economic boom are more likely to support democracy than the urban middle classes, who are just starting to express themselves on issues of corruption and environment. So what explains the recent spurt in street activism?

Manu Joseph, the editor of Indian news weekly magazine Open, calls India’s anti-corruption movement “a self-righteous middle-class uprising”. In a conversation with a television panel, he said the shock success and the scale of the protests were partly because they were broadcast round the clock on cable TV, the staple diet of the middle classes.

Elsewhere in Asia too, the focus on corruption, environment and governance reforms suggests the current middle-class activism is more of a protest movement towards better service delivery for the middle classes rather than a push for political revolution.

But in most emerging economies, corruption is not a legal matter; it is a highly political one. It is seen as both the cause and effect of undesirable politics. Hence, there exists a real possibility the present middle-class protests — against corruption and service delivery shortcomings — could shape a larger transformation movement in their respective nations.

For that to happen, the middle classes would not just have to ensure economic growth, but also select the most suitable tool for achieving their goal. As long as the middle class in Asia believes that they owe their present affluence to the present day political order, the present protests will not uproot political templates.

Over the years, the Western idea that political freedom is essential for economic freedom has lost credibility in the East, especially in China. The present financial troubles of Europe and the US may further discourage the middle class of Asia from effecting a systemic change.

(9 December 2011) — More than 3000 government officials from over 160 countries agreed to a new international architecture for aid last week in the port city of Busan, South Korea. The Fourth High Level Conference on Aid Effectiveness (HLF-4), which ended on December 1, was aimed at improving the way official development assistance (ODA) is being delivered to the poor.

What was achieved however was a declaration on how to do better, with the harder work of adopting concrete actions, time bound commitments and measureable targets deferred till June next year.

Yet some are encouraged by the outcome. New donors such as India, China, Brazil and Russia acceded at least in principle to international best practices on how aid is to be delivered.

They have vehemently resisted throughout the conference to being held to the same  standards as the traditional donor countries, arguing that tying aid to transparency, accountability and monitoring mechanisms would hinder rather than facilitate aid delivery.

In the end, a compromise was found in the declaration recognising that “the  principles,  commitments  and  actions  agreed  in  the  outcome   document  in  Busan  shall  be  the  reference [for these countries] on a voluntary basis.”

“It’s a big step forward that China is at the table, but it’s a pity that they aren’t yet ready to promise to act on what they say,” said Antonio Tujan, chair of BetterAid.

Critics have pointed out repeatedly that China exhibits a remarkable lack of transparency on the ODA it provides, especially to Africa, where it conducts business with regimes such as Robert Mugabe’s government in Zimbabwe. China has never released data related to aid, apart from one white paper this year that revealed that it had given about US$40 billion in ODA over the last six decades. Much of that aid has gone to African countries where Beijing has growing interests in oil, minerals and other natural resources.

However, China is increasingly aware that its “mercantile approach” to aid is meeting resistance, Andrew Mitchell, UK’s Secretary of State for International Development, said on the conference sidelines.

Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State was less diplomatic, cautioning in her keynote address during the conference for “the recipient nations [to…] be wary of donors who are more interested in extracting their resources than in building their capacity”. Though she did not mention any name, the general consensus was that her barb was aimed at China.

According to Professor Deborah Bräutigam in China, Africa and the International Aid Architecture published by the African Development Bank, China and India along with Russia and Brazil are blurring the boundaries between aid and commercial investment, undermining the hard-won consensus that aid should be devoted exclusively to reducing poverty.

Still, there is a strong demand for Chinese assistance in Africa.

“A lot of African leaders say that with Western donor countries, they just end up having negotiations after negotiations after negotiations, but with China, things happen,” former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair explained.

With the increasing aid largesse of these fast growing developing countries donors, things will keep happening.  Countries such as China and India do not give out official annual ODA figures but estimates put the total aid flow from the emerging donors at US$11–41.7 billion, making up 8-31% of global gross ODA. Going by the higher estimates, China, Brazil and Saudi Arabia give more ODA than half of traditional OECD donors.

The largest donors by volume in 2010 were still the UK, France, Germany and Japan and the US, which continued to be the largest single donor with net ODA disbursements of US$30.2 billion.

However, “the politics have changed”, Paul Okuma, head of Secretariat Africa Civil Society Organization Platform on Principled Partnership, told Inter Press Service. The European Union and the US are no longer the only drivers of development aid.

“The thrust for all development actors is to get along with China to support the need of the state, which is growth. The option we face is to work with citizens in developing countries to be more aware of their own development effectiveness,” said Okuma.

“This is the lesson in Busan.”

(16 December 2011) — On 16 December 1971, the Indian army forced the ‘unconditional surrender’ of 90,000 Pakistani troops occupying East Pakistan after a decisive 14-day operation in support of the independence movement, giving birth to the nation state of Bangladesh.

At the end of British rule in the Indian subcontinent in 1947, the region east of India was made part of Pakistan, on the basis of their common faith in Islam. However, despite the fact that the two regions on either side of India shared the same religion, deeper socio-cultural differences existed between them right from the beginning. This subsequently gave rise to student movements in favour of greater autonomy for East Pakistan 13 years after the formation of the larger Pakistan state. By 1969, the protest snowballed into a nationwide movement.

In the elections of December 7, 1970 the Sheikh Mujibur Rahman-led Awami League won 160 out of 162 seats in East Pakistan, making Awami League the largest party in the Pakistan National Assembly. But the ruling military leadership of Pakistan blocked the Awami League from forming a government. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman declared independence from Pakistan and led a mass non-cooperation movement against Pakistani military leadership from 26 March 1971, which is celebrated as Bangladesh’s Independence Day ever since.

The Pakistani military leadership retaliated brutally and massacred thousands of Bengali speaking citizens in Dhaka city over the next several months – forcing up to 10 million people taking refuge in India. A Bangladeshi government in exile was formed during the nine month struggle, even as the Pakistani leadership imprisoned Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in West Pakistan.

In December, India, which provided significant moral and material support to the East Pakistani independence movement, launched a massive offensive against the Pakistani forces in East Pakistan and ended the West Pakistani occupation forces within two weeks. On December 16, 1971, Lt. Gen A. A. K. Niazi, Commanding Officer of Pakistan Army forces located in East Pakistan signed the Instrument of Surrender.

News of surrender of the Pakistan army spread like wildfire across the new country. People danced on the roofs of buses and marched up and down city streets singing the new nation’s anthem, Sonar Bangla (“Golden Bangladesh”). Carrying pictures of their beloved leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, people brought out green, red and gold banners of Bangladesh and hoisted them atop homes and official establishments.

The erstwhile Pakistan Observer newspaper, renamed The Observer, published its first issue in independent Bangladesh on December 18, 1971, with the screaming banner headline “Bangladesh comes into being”. Pakistan eventually recognised Bangladesh in 1974.

(16 December 2011) — An interesting political concept in China proposes that the overall power of a nation-state can be quantitatively measured using an index called the Comprehensive National Power (CNP).

An amalgamation of various quantitative benchmarks, the index takes into consideration the military (the hard power), economic and cultural (‘soft’ power) factors while calculating the ‘net power’ of a country.

The thought behind the uniquely Chinese political concept is that a nation-state can falter for a variety of reasons; and that a truly powerful entity will be insured from all possiblecauses of failure – socio-cultural, economic and military.

One of the reasons suggested for the collapse of the Soviet Union is that it invested all its resources in military capacity building during the Cold War, at the expense of culture and the general economic wellbeing of all social groups.

The US, on the other hand, encouraged its independent economy and culture to evolve – and grow – beyond its shores.

If we add the military might of US to that sphere of influence, it becomes easy to understand why the US earned the highest CNP score in the 2009 index. China, the current flavour of the world and the birthplace of the index, lags behind the UK, Russia, France and Germany.

China may be behind, but it still forms a four-nation strong contingent of Asian nations in the top ten rankings of powerful countries – with Japan, South Korea and India.

For a continent that has come through sectarian genocides, political upheavals and violent civic fissures, quite apart from scores of history-defining natural disasters in the last five decades, having four nations in the top ten on an all-round index is a notable achievement.

From being the home of the world’s fastest growing middle class, to boasting three of the world’s top four economies, Asia is now what the West was a couple of decades ago.
In the coming four decades, Asia would have more than 50% of the world’s population (as compared to Europe’s mere 5% share), while China and India would be the two largest economies of the world in terms of gross domestic product.

So when US President Barack Obama told a gathering at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Hawaii in November that “there is no region in the world that we consider more vital than the Asia-Pacific region,” he was merely echoing what global analysts have been proclaiming for the last decade – the Asian century is upon us.

What that really means is that Asia’s biggest nations, China and India, are now well into the process of replicating the sustained economic success that Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong have already attained.

It also means that the economic growth is now traveling beyond extravagant real estate and throbbing stock exchanges to sink deep into the social fabric of these Asian nations.

Like every transition, this too carries the sub-text of inherent chaos. Governments’ ambitious drive towards modern cities is displacing people, fueling frequent expressions of anger and angst by those affected.

The sections of the society who have acquired the ‘power of choices’ by means of economic growth are, in turn, questioning the unmitigated power that the state exercises over their lives. As a result, in the decades to come, people power across the region is either going to ensure governments become accountable to its citizens or give rise to general socio-political malaise and turmoil.

At the same time, private corporations, the raison d’etre for much of that people power, are becoming increasingly more powerful than, in some instances, the state itself. This comes from the ability of private corporations to hold a government hostage by their sheer significance to the nation’s economic wellbeing. With such power, corporations have the potential to control the lives of individual employees to an alarming extent.

Consequently, the power equation within Asian nation-states now resembles a continuing fight for supremacy between people, corporations and the state.

The same power struggle travels beyond borders to define the wider geo-political balances too. As an example, the territorial dispute in the South China Sea between China, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Brunei is playing out the geographical ambitions of nation-states and the nationalist emotions and livelihood issues of the local populace, as well as the business interests of corporations.

Beyond individual interests, as nation-states amass greater power, they start becoming more responsible for their surrounding environments too. So, India may be expected to get tougher with China over Tibet and with Myanmar over democracy. China, at the same time, would get even more decisive in its dismissal of a Western code of conduct for its administration, even though it might accede to some of the demands from its own people.

Eventually, Asian nation-states would begin to expect – and often demand – other nation-states adhere to practices (of governance) that they believe in – thereby completing the life cycle of acquiring overall power.

This expression of power would play out at all levels of society. The burgeoning middle classes of the region would force corporations from Asia and the world to pay attention to their consumer demands; social groups would advocate for and get greater socio-political powers; artists and thinkers would force the government to liberalise the space for free expression and governments would enforce a strict rule of law in exchange for governance delivery.

The rise of Asia would not make the established powers of the West less capable, or important – but they would cease to be the dominant power. And that is the hallmark of true power: It makes ‘others’ less dominant.

Europe and the US would retain their essential stature, but Asia would be the center stage – all over again.

(13 January 2012)

2011, the year that Asia seemed to have discovered ‘people power’, has drawn to a close. But the people’s demand to be heard on a range of issues from graft to governance show no signs of abating. In particular, issues surrounding financial security may find increased resonance as Asian economies show signs of slowing down.

On New Year’s Day, thousands of protesters in central China’s Henan province came together in anger over multi million-dollar investment scams in the province. Challenging the 1,000-strong armed police to fire on them, the angry mob converged on a train station in Anyang city, and threatened to board trains to Beijing to petition the central government. The protest came after a government crackdown on illegal investment schemes in September and appears to be motivated by frustration with inadequate governance.

Over the festive period, residents in the southern Chinese village of Wukan took over the village to demand an end to forced sales of collective land and rigged elections, forcing provincial officials to step in.

About 65% of “mass conflicts” happen in the rural areas, figures from the China Academy of Social Sciences suggest.

However, prominent protests have also erupted in urban areas. These include July 2011, when protestors gathered after the crash of a high-speed train in Wenzhou in southern China, putting pressure on Beijing to conduct a transparent investigation on the accident. In August 2011, protests in the prosperous northern city of Dalian led local authorities to shut down a chemical factory over inadequate safeguards.

Across the border, India’s anti-corruption pulled off an even bigger coup by forcing the nation’s political class to convene a historic, special parliamentary session to discuss an anti-graft bill.

Inspired by the success of the on going citizens’ campaign against corruption, tens of thousands of protestors in September 2011 converged at nuclear power plants at Jaitapur in Maharashtra state and Koodankulam in Tamil Nadu state and forced a dialogue between India’s federal government and the agitators.

Governments across Asia are braced for more protests as demands for good governance continue to rise.

The first anniversary of Japan’s devastating tsunami on March 11 could see voices rally again to call for the abandoning of atomic energy in the earthquake-prone country. Tens of thousands already marched for the cause on September 19 last year, and public pressure over the mishandling of the disaster has forced the resignation of Naoto Kan as prime minister.

The Thai public are also closely watching the government’s handling of massive flood relief and rehabilitation funds in the wake of the devastating floods that left large parts of the country submerged for months. Protestors marched last year in the aftermath of the floods to call the government to task for its mismanagement. There is no reason that they will not march again if Yingluck Shinawatra government’s fails to improve and threaten her nascent administration.

Asia’s list of grievances is long and include issues relating to displacement, food, water and sanitation. Any one of these can spark a protest, particularly in a year when several countries are undergoing a change of political leadership.  Governments, whether voluntarily or under public coercion, appear to be sitting up and listening, with the full awareness that Asians are willing and more ready than ever to speak up.

2011, the year that Asia seemed to have discovered ‘people power’, has drawn to a close. But the people’s demand to be heard on a range of issues from graft to governance show no signs of abating. In particular, issues surrounding financial security may find increased resonance as Asian economies show signs of slowing down.

On New Year’s Day, thousands of protesters in central China’s Henan province came together in anger over multi million-dollar investment scams in the province. Challenging the 1,000-strong armed police to fire on them, the angry mob converged on a train station in Anyang city, and threatened to board trains to Beijing to petition the central government. The protest came after a government crackdown on illegal investment schemes in September and appears to be motivated by frustration with inadequate governance.