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4 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
Mayday, Mayday, Mayday
Ali Inan
Lahore, Pakistan
2
2nd May 2020 was a may-day that none
would have desired in an already crisis
ridden year. The mayday call by the pilot of
the unfortunate plane PK 8303 could not have been
more tragic despite its strikingly calm decibels.
“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Pakistan 8303” the
pilot conveyed, and then was heard no more. Such
helplessness in the hapless flight bound to crash is
more symptomatic of the calm surrender of the
nation to the criminal denial of the failing system.
This tragedy is also an evidence of the
transformation of the national flag carrier from a
drain on the state purse to a death’s head at the feast.
Probably, the one thing not needful has been to keep
the ailing airline on ventilator. There have always
been odious approximations that have made the
safest mode of travel ‘unsafe’ in Pakistan. Tragedy
after tragedy, the failing system has done nothing
but to find excuses for placating its haunting
conscience. It is a ‘perpetually recurring
mortification’ devoid of guilt, and therein lay the
rub.
Pakistan Airlines have been known for
unpunctuality, but now the airlines could be known
for putting passengers to the sword. During the last
two decades there has been on an average one civil-
ian domestic crash every two years. Alarmingly,
none of the Pakistani airlines make to the list of
safest airlines: not even to the list of low-cost safe
airlines.(Considering the services and cost parity,
the airlines do not even deserve to be bracketed as
low cost.) Hours after the unfortunate plane crash,
the aviation authorities told that both the engines
had stopped functioning. Interestingly, the same
was the reason for the unfortunate plane crash of
PIA ATR-42 aircraft PK 661 on December 7th, 2016,
claiming 47 lives including the artist and evangelist
Junaid Jamshed and a serving PAS officer Usama
Warraich. This time round the death toll is doubled
up, making it one of the deadliest plane crashes in
the history of Pakistan, yet less deadly than the 2010
Air Blue Air Bus crash which claimed 152 lives. How-
ever, the collateral damage of this crash might be
humungous as it sadly occurred in a populated
neighborhood of the airport.
The loss of lives is an irreparable damage, but
to avert future disasters can still be a possibility. It is
imperative to set the house in order. The national
flag carrier can no longer be tolerated to act like a
Lazarus at the state's door and yet under perform.
The state is doing no more than preserving an
Agathocles pot for itself in the shape of PIA. Raising
the standards seems an unlikely possibility with a
fragile economy. The options available hint towards
outsourcing the national flag carrier. This might be a
solution for economic aspect of the crisis, but the
human aspect of the crisis demands both the fram-
ing and implementation of SOPs for all airlines oper-
ating in Pakistan to prioritize the safety of the pas-
sengers and crew. A criminal state of denial by the
state is a worse evil than the gross neglect by the
airlines. The truth must out without shuffling that
any neglect would lead to cancellation of license;
otherwise the truth will out in the face of the state
like a drawback upon success.
Time waits for none. Much time has been
wasted on mere rhetoric. The nation may not bear
more tragedies. A timely and pertinent response can
still transform the system beneath the leaven of
change. However, protecting the status quo of an
ailing system can easily spark into an uncontrollable
fire. How much symbolic is the raging fire that
blazed after the aircraft’s wings had sliced through
the roofs. The fire spread to homes in the bustling
port city after the plane had scattered to pieces. It
was horrifying, terrifying and chaotic. Alas! horror,
terror, squalor have been the words dinned into the
ears of the nation. The nation might not take any
more of it. Let it not perpetuate because such fires
might be extinguished, but the loss is often irrepara-
ble.
This tragic plane crash will always be an unwel-
come remembrance, but it must be recognized as a
mayday call with little time left to avert future catas-
trophes. Such tragedies are not merely a blot on the
state's escutcheon, but also a rebuke to its rising.
Responsible nations learn from history and carve
their destinies by application of newfound light.
Lethargic responses would only result in greater
miseries. Lion in the path is not the ill organized
institutions, its rather sloth, apathy, and a persistent
state of denial of a failing system. Age old tested and
failed models would never bear fruit. Inquiry com-
mittees would prepare files, use the state resources,
find scapegoats, and let the system run in its mis-
guided trajectory. Hear the mayday call before its no
more. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday Pakistan…
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
Current edition
June 2020

4 Editorial
Mayday, Mayday, Mayday

MACROECONOMICS
SOUTH ASIAN DIPLOMACY 32 Corona Crisis and Eurobonds
The Calamity of Germany’s Distorted Perception of Italy.

8 Pakistan and Azerbaijan: Deepening a Mutually Beneficial Relationship

Azerbaijan and Pakistan share an enduring diplomatic relationship, though there are some challenges to the further development of relations. THE FINAL RECKONING
BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE 36 The Crisis of the Liberal Zombie Order
Since the attacks of 9/11, progressives have endured a series of profound shocks – but coronavirus looks like a new and more disturbing portent.

10 Pakistan Discovers the High Cost of Chinese Investment

A new report sheds light on the true costs of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor for Pakistan. TIMELINE
AHMADIS IN PAKISTAN 41 U.S.-Russia Nuclear Arms Control 1949 – 2019
The nuclear arms race was one of the most alarming features of the Cold War superpower competition between the United States and Soviet Union.
Both sides rapidly expanded their nuclear stockpiles, but after two decades, each embarked on efforts to cut down its arsenal. Disarmament efforts
12 How Effective Is Pakistan’s Newly Established National Commission for Minorities?
The new commission has serious limitations that it should recognize.
picked up speed after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but maintaining momentum and confidence in arms control between the United States and
Russia has proved challenging.

CHINA-PHILIPPINE RELATIONS KASHMIR BIFURCATION

14 China’s COVID-19 Diplomacy Backfires in the Philippines
A music video ode to “friendly neighbors across the sea” can’t patch over growing discontent with China in the Philippines.
46 The Story of Indian Democracy Written in Blood and Betrayal
BJP thinks it is going to Indianise Kashmir. Instead, we will see, potentially, the Kashmirisation of India.

CENTRAL ASIA OPINION OPINION

16 Post-Pandemic Central Asia: Moving Beyond ‘Helicopter Money’
Social and economic upheaval at such a scale as experienced amid the COVID-19 pandemic unavoidably entails political effects.
48 Sugar and the Making of a Rentier Economy
Cleary, the fuel which runs our sugar mills is not competition. It is extraction.

PACIFIC MONEY MOTIVATION

20 The US, China, and the Perils of Post-COVID Decoupling
Resorting to economic nationalism is the wrong lesson to take from the pandemic.
50 The coronavirus slayer! How Kerala’s rock star health minister helped save it from Covid-19
KK Shailaja has been hailed as the reason a state of 35 million people has only lost four to the virus. Here’s how the former teacher did it.

CORONAVIRUS IN THE PACIFIC LEGAL EYE

22 Where Are There Still No COVID-19 Cases? An Updated Analysis
The roster of apparently lucky (or lying) few has dwindled to about a dozen.
52 Scofflaws at work
Are there better alternatives to devolution of power?

FATF AND PAKISTAN ROYAL BATTLE

24 Pakistan Gets Unexpected Economic Relief in a Time of Global Crisis
Will Pakistan find some respite from the effects of COVID–19 outside its borders?
54 NFC: Maneuverings and Equity
The other side of the argument is that the resources allocated from the Federal Divisible Pool are not sufficient.

PAKISTAN TRIBAL BELT ECONOMICS

26 Killing of PTM Leader Further Antagonizes Pakistan Pashtun Rights Defenders
Sardar Arif Wazir was killed by armed men on May 1.
56 Relief & Rehabilitation
How do we make policies and we will need innovative policies to address vulnerability?

PAKISTAN-RUSSIA RELATIONS WAR ON TERROR

28 Can COVID-19 Draw Pakistan and Russia Closer Together?
In recent years, Russia and Pakistan have put aside some of their differences. The coronavirus could accelerate this reconciliation.
57 Of Strategic Depth
This is an old story and it always ends badly.

TRUMP PEACE PLAN WOMEN RIGHTS

30 Gangster Geopolitics and Israel’s Annexation Plans
The Israeli plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank shows a shocking disregard for international law.
58 Nameless Girls
So-called honour killings are simply mercenary money killings, where women are reduced to a kind of stock.

6 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020

globalagemagazine.kipscss.net globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
June 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 7
SOUTH ASIAN DIPLOMACY
Pakistan and Azerbaijan:
Deepening a Mutually Beneficial
Relationship
Azerbaijan and Pakistan share an enduring diplomatic relationship, though there are
some challenges to the further development of relations.
By Shahid Hussain
London, United Kingdom
T ies between Pakistan and Russia
date back to the Early Modern
period, when the Muscovite Tsar
Ivan the Terrible and his successor
Alexis I expressed an interest in opening
trade relations with the subcontinent
(including parts of modern-day
Pakistan). After the formalization of
diplomatic relations between the two
nations in 1948, the history of Soviet-
Pakistan, and subsequently Russia-
Pakistan, relations has been
characterized by distrust and mutual
competition. Pakistan’s close ties to
America and the West during the Cold
War, culminating in the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan, meant both countries
continued to view each other with
hostility and distrust. Russia’s
continuing support for India, both
before and after the Cold War, including
8 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
its frequent arms deals with New Delhi,
have done little to improve bilateral ties
between Moscow and Islamabad.
However, in recent years, Russia
and Pakistan have put aside some of
these differences and the COVID-19 pan-
demic could accelerate this process of
reconciliation. In the recent past, natural
disasters have acted as a catalyst for
closer ties. In the wake of the devastating
earthquake in 2005 that ravaged north-
ern Pakistan, Russia was one of the first
to provide assistance to Islamabad.
Shortly thereafter, a Russian trade dele-
gation visited Pakistan and overall bilat-
eral trade rose by $270 million and sub-
sequently by $520 million while Russian
energy giant Gazprom signed a Memo-
randum of Understanding with the Paki-
stani Ministry of Petroleum and Natural
Resources. After the 2010 floods in Paki-
stan, Russia again offered assistance and
humanitarian aid, leading to President
Vladimir Putin’s public endorsement of
Pakistan joining the Shanghai Coopera-
tion Organization. An official visit by
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
to Islamabad soon followed. Aside from
economic and political ties, there was
also an improvement in cultural ties and
the “softer” aspects of diplomacy, includ-
ing the publication of the world’s first
bilingual Urdu-Russian dictionary.
These gradual improvements then led to
the Friendship Drills carried out
between the Pakistani and Russian
armies, a step that would have seemed
impossible a decade before.
Could the COVID-19 pandemic
serve to further cement ties between the
two nations, in the same way other natu-
ral disasters have? Or will some of the
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
s On May 8, President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan Arif Alvi made a phone call to President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev.
historical problems that have plagued
the relationship in the past continue to
hinder tangible progress in the future?
The answer lies somewhere in between
the two.
The Pakistani ambassador to Rus-
sia, Shafqat Ali Khan, has recently
explored the possibility of purchasing
ventilators from Moscow to help Paki-
stan’s fragile healthcare system deal with
COVID-19. Although he stressed that
Pakistan has no immediate intention to
ask Russia for help, the mere suggestion
that Pakistan may look to Russia for sup-
port is revealing. He also suggested that
if Islamabad were to ask Moscow for help
in tackling the outbreak, “Russia will be
the first country to offer assistance.” In
addition, Khan also expressed his desire
to extend people-to-people contact
between the two nations, including the
possibility of sending more Pakistani
students to Russia to study in prestigious
Russian universities. Meanwhile, the
last Friendship Drill between the two
countries took place just last year, and
after the coronavirus pandemic it is
likely we will see their resumption.
Pakistan’s friendship with Russia
has been and may continue to be
strengthened by its improving relation-
ships with former Soviet countries, par-
ticularly those with strong ties to Putin.
In 2019, Pakistan-Belarus bilateral
political consultations took place and a
number of Belarusian companies were
invited to invest in Pakistan’s growing
textile, food processing, and agriculture
sectors. Some of the softer aspects of
diplomacy were also apparent, with
Belarus even commissioning a com-
memorative stamp to celebrate friendly
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
relations with Pakistan. Islamabad’s
desire to court favor with Russia’s allies
could bring the two countries closer
together, something that may continue
in the wake of COVID-19.
However, it would be over-
simplistic to assume that the pandemic
and Pakistan’s apparent interest in
India’s ambassador to
Russia, Bala Venkatesh
Varm, said he expected
Russia’s planned
delivery of the S-400 air
defense system to be
take place on time
despite the global
pandemic, something
that will do little to
please Pakistan’s Prime
Minister Imran Khan
developing closer ties with Russia to help
fight the outbreak will be enough to
strengthen Islamabad’s relationship
with Moscow. After the previous two
natural disasters, bilateral trade
increased, but is still far below where it
should be. And Russia’s continued sup-
port for its traditional subcontinental
ally, India, also continues. Just last
month, India’s ambassador to Russia,
Bala Venkatesh Varm, said he expected
Russia’s planned delivery of the S-400
air defense system to be take place on
time despite the global pandemic, some-
thing that will do little to please Paki-
stan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan. Fur-
thermore, Russia is also committed to
supplying India with three more Kilo-
class submarines.
Of course, India is not the only thorn
in the side of Pakistan-Russia relations.
Pakistan’s continued refusal to recog-
nize Armenia, one of Russia’s closest
allies, is another point of contention
between the two. Pakistan’s stance on
Armenia is unlikely to change anytime
soon, and Islamabad’s commitment to
Armenia’s adversary, Azerbaijan, con-
tinues to strengthen. In fact, just this
month, Pakistan’s President Arif Alvi
held talks talks with his Azeri counter-
part, Ilham Aliyev, discussing the possi-
bility of further cooperation in the wake
of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Previous natural disasters have
served to bring Pakistan and Russia
closer together and Ambassador Khan’s
assertion that relations are at their
“strongest point” has a factual basis.
However, Russia’s continuing support
for Pakistan’s historic adversary and
Pakistan’s refusal to recognize one of
Moscow’s closest allies could hamper
bilateral progress. However, if Pakistan
does ask Moscow for help in tackling the
coronavirus, this will not only be reveal-
ing in itself, but will also provide the
opportunity for further mutual coopera-
tion.
l Shahid Hussain completed his undergraduate and master’s degrees at University
College London (UCL) and will be pursuing a Ph.D. at UCL focusing on Early
Modern diplomacy.
June 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 9
BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE
Pakistan Discovers the High Cost
of Chinese Investment
A new report sheds light on the true costs of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor
for Pakistan.
s Then-Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, second from right, introduces then-Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, third from right, to Chinese
Premier Li Keqiang, right, before a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing July 5, 2013.
By Husain Haqqani
@husainhaqqani
P akistan’s desire to maintain
strategic relations with China has
resulted in the $62 billion China-
Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a
set of infrastructure projects, being
mired in insufficient transparency.
But a Committee formed by Paki-
stani Prime Minister Imran Khan to
examine the causes for the high cost of
electricity to Pakistani consumers has
lifted the lid on corruption involving
Chinese private power producers in Paki-
stan.
The report reveals that the Huaneng
Shandong Ruyi (Pak) Energy (HSR) or
the Sahiwal and the Port Qasim Electric
Power Company Limited (PQEPCL) coal
plants under CPEC inflated their set-up
costs.
For Pakistan’s citizens, who are
always told how China is their most reli-
able friend in the world, it was a shock to
10 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
discover that China does business merci-
lessly and unscrupulously.
Successive civilian governments
and Pakistan’s military have looked
upon China as their principal backer
against India.
China’s consistent strategic sup-
port, including help with Pakistan’s
nuclear program, is often held out by
Pakistan’s military establishment favor-
ably in contrast with the more condi-
tional Pakistani alliance with the United
States.
But it seems now that China is not in
Pakistan to help its people but rather as a
predatory economic actor.
The 278-page report by the “Com-
mittee for Power Sector Audit, Circular
Debt Reservation, and Future
RoadMap” listed malpractices to the
tune of 100 billion Pakistani rupees
($625 million) in the independent power
generating sector, with at least a third of
it relating to Chinese projects.
Given the close ties between CPEC
and the all-powerful Pakistan military —
the CPEC Authority is currently chaired
by Lt. General Asim Saleem Bajwa, who
is also the Prime Minister’s Special
Assistant on Information and Broad-
casting — the Committee treaded softly
in relation to the Chinese projects.
According to the committee’s
report, “excess set-up costs of Rs. 32.46
billion (approximately $204 million)
was allowed to the two coal-based [Chi-
nese] plants due to misrepresentation by
sponsors regarding [deductions for] the
‘Interest During Construction’ (IDC) as
well as non-consideration of earlier com-
pletion of plants.”
The interest deduction was appar-
ently allowed for 48 months whereas the
plants were actually completed within
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
s The government announced the appointment of retired Lt Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa as chairman of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Authority
(CPECA) amid the opposition’s criticism of formation of the authority.
27-29 months leading to entitlement of
an excess Return on Equity (RoE) of
$27.4 million annually over the entire
project life of 30 years in the case of the
Sahiwal plant.
The Chinese company
HSR claimed IDC based
on a long-term loan at
the rate of LIBOR +4.5
percent for the length of
the entire construction
period, even though it
borrowed no money
during the first year of
construction and used
only short-term loans at
substantially lower
interest rates during the
second year
The estimated excess payment,
keeping in mind the 6 percent annual
rupee depreciation against the dollar,
works out to a whopping Rs. 291.04 bil-
lion (approximately $1.8 billion).
The Chinese company HSR claimed
IDC based on a long-term loan at the rate
of LIBOR +4.5 percent for the length of
the entire construction period, even
though it borrowed no money during the
first year of construction and used only
short-term loans at substantially lower
interest rates during the second year.
The magnitude of profiteering by
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
the Chinese companies is incomprehen-
sible. The two projects examined by the
Pakistani experts’ Committee were
worth $3.8 billion at the time of their
launch. The Committee found over-
payments of Rs. 483.64 billion, which
amounts to $3 billion at current rates of
exchange.
This includes overpayment of Rs.
376.71 billion (approximately $2.3 bil-
lion) to HSR and Rs. 106.93 billion (ap-
proximately $672 million) to PQEPCL
on account of excess set-up cost, excess
return due to excess set-up cost in 30
years, and excess return due to miscalcu-
lation in Internal Rate of Return (IRR).
In its report, the Committee recom-
mended that Rs. 32.46 billion (approxi-
mately $204 million) be deducted from
the project cost of PQEPCL and HSR; the
return payment formula be corrected to
reflect actual construction time; and
Tariff of PQEPCL and HSR be adjusted
accordingly.
Under the current formula, in two
years of operation, HSR has already
recovered 71.18 percent of its original
equity invested whereas PQEPCL has
recovered 32.46 percent of its original
equity in the first year of operation.
This is over and above the profits
that the companies would have made
without subterfuge. Imagine the return
the Chinese will generate on the $62
billion CPEC projects. These numbers
are way too large to have been missed as
oversight or malfeasance of individuals
within the companies and their Paki-
stani counterparts.
The experience of the Sri Lankan
and Maldives governments suggests that
these overpayments are generated with
the complicity of leaders in the Pakistan
government and the loot shared by all
parties.
Pakistan’s economy has been teeter-
ing on the verge of bankruptcy for some
time and the COVID-19 pandemic has
made the situation even worse.
Instead of reforming their country’s
policies, Pakistan’s leaders, once again,
sought debt restructuring and waivers
on account of the pandemic, just as they
previously sought international assis-
tance as a reward for fighting terrorism.
But expecting the international com-
munity to repeatedly bail Pakistan out
from one economic crisis after the other
is unrealistic. Massive military expendi-
ture, deep rooted corruption, and lack of
accountability are at the heart of Paki-
stan’s perennial and ever widening gulf
between revenue and expenditure.
Now, it seems, Chinese investments
have become a new liability. The Inter-
national Monetary Fund (IMF) has been
pushing Pakistan’s officials to raise taxes
and power tariffs, effectively asking the
Pakistani public to foot the bill for
China’s rapacious practices.
The United States and Western
financial institutions should not help
Pakistan’s ruling elites in their own and
China’s predatory behavior. The people
of Pakistan deserve better.
l
Husain Haqqani, director for South and Central Asia at the Hudson Institute, was
Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States from 2008 to 2011.
June 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 11
AHMADIS IN PAKISTAN
How Effective Is Pakistan’s Newly
Established National Commission
for Minorities?
The new commission has serious limitations that it should recognize.
s Pakistan’s Minister for Religious Affairs Pir Noor-ul-Haq Qadri gives an interview in Islamabad on April 23, 2020.
By Umair Jamal
@UmairJamal15
L ast month, Pakistan’s
government announced the
formation of the National
Commission on Minorities (NCM). The
government has acclaimed the
development of the commission as a
major step toward a religiously inclusive
Pakistan. The commission not only
includes members of the Parsi and
Hindu communities, but also appointed
a member from the Hindu community as
its chairman.
However, there are some major
constitutional flaws in the commission
that emphasize that the body is hardly
set up to address the woes of minority
communities in Pakistan.
In general, the development is a
welcome move in a country where
minorities’ constitutional rights do not
ensure religious or political freedom. For
12 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
instance, in Pakistan, a non-Muslim
cannot hold the prime minister or presi-
dent’s office. The creeping Islamization
has been directly enshrined into the
country’s constitution, which has
increasingly made the Pakistani found-
ing father’s commitment of giving equal
rights to all citizens an unattainable goal.
One of the major flaws remains with
the NCM’s constitutional interpretation.
It’s important to note that the body has
not been set up through an act of legisla-
tion or by the parliament. The setting up
of the NCM was carried out by a federal
cabinet and is not likely to have any sig-
nificance when it comes to the commis-
sion enjoying constitutional powers
backed by the state’s enforcement rules.
Moreover, after the passing of the consti-
tution’s 18th amendment in 2010, the
issue of minorities became a provincial
matter. Thus, the decision of the federal
cabinet to appoint a commission doesn’t
hold any sway beyond the capital terri-
tory. Simply put, the commission doesn’t
have the legal power to enforce its reso-
lutions across the country.
The members of the commission
should recognize the limits of their weak
jurisdiction. The fact that the commis-
sion still comes under the Ministry of
Religious Affairs, which is headed by a
Muslim, takes away much of the working
space. Furthermore, the inclusion of
Muslim members into the commission
underscores that issues which generally
get refused by right-wing extremists will
not find a platform for discussion here.
Significantly, Prime Minister Imran
Khan had to walk back his declaration to
include members of the Ahmadi Muslim
community in the commission. Last
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
The minister of
religious affairs refused
to follow the cabinet’s
decision that
recommended making
Ahmadis part of the
commission. An
onslaught of criticism
was launched against
the prime minister’s
decision not only by
right-wing Islamist
groups, but also by the
government’s ministers
and allies
s Ali Muhammad Khan denied media reports that Ahmadis would be part of a new minorities council.
month, the minister of religious affairs
refused to follow the cabinet’s decision
that recommended making Ahmadis
part of the commission. An onslaught of
criticism was launched against the prime
minister’s decision not only by right-
wing Islamist groups, but also by the
government’s ministers and allies.
After the cabinet’s first decision to
include Ahmadis into the minorities
commission, Ali Muhammad Khan, a
lawmaker from the ruling party, tweeted
that “Beheading is the only punishment
for those who mock Prophet Muham-
mad.” The head of Pakistan Muslim
League Quaid said that “The opening of
Ahmadis’ Pandora box is beyond under-
standing. The Ahmadis neither accept
themselves as non-Muslim minority nor
do they accept the constitution of Paki-
stan. Under these circumstances, favor-
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
ing Ahmadis is a joke with Pakistan that
is unacceptable.” These sentiments
should only make the non-Muslim mem-
bers of the forum nervous as any slipup
could make them a target of Islamists
that sit inside and outside the govern-
ment.
The prevailing attitude of fanati-
cism is not likely to allow any more polit-
ical or social space for Ahmadis or
minorities regardless of what the coun-
try’s founding father may have prom-
ised. It’s a fact that Pakistan’s first for-
eign minister, Zafarullah Khan,
belonged to the Ahmadi community and
was a close friend of the country’s
founder. Additionally, Muhammad Ali
Jinnah, in his address to the Constituent
Assembly of Pakistan on August 11, 1947,
said that “We are starting in the days
The main argument
of the Jamaat-e-Islami
against Pakistan was
that the Muslim League
leaders were too
westernized and were
not known for their
religiosity and
therefore, they were in
all likelihood to turn
Pakistan into a secular-
democratic state
when there is no discrimination, no dis-
tinction between one community and
another, no discrimination between one
caste or creed and another. We are start-
ing with this fundamental principle that
we are all citizens and equal citizens of
one State.”
It should not come as a surprise that
the mainstream Ulama didn’t support
Jinnah’s idea of a separate homeland.
“The main argument of the Jamaat-e-
Islami against Pakistan was that the Mus-
lim League leaders were too westernized
and were not known for their religiosity
and therefore, they were in all likelihood
to turn Pakistan into a secular- demo-
cratic state,” notes Kalim Bahadur in his
book Democracy in Pakistan: Crisis and
Conflicts. Over the last seven decades, all
mainstream Islamist parties that once
rejected Jinnah’s journey for a separate
homeland now own the state’s constitu-
tion.
The Pakistani state needs to estab-
lish the commission through an effective
legislative way that can give the body real
authority. The parliament should get
involved in the process and expand the
NCM’s jurisdiction to all provinces.
Moreover, the current setup doesn’t
send a message of inclusivity, particu-
larly after the exclusion of Ahmadis. The
decision also shows that the Pakistani
state remains a weak actor when it comes
to formulating policies that might offend
the religious right’s sentiments.
Unless a serious effort is made to
bring credibility to the commission, it
will remain powerless with no effect
beyond the paper trail.
l Umair Jamal is a freelance journalist based in Lahore, Pakistan. His research
focuses primarily on the analysis of South Asian security and politics. His work has
been featured in number of renowned media outlets.
June 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 13
CHINA-PHILIPPINE RELATIONS
China’s COVID-19 Diplomacy
Backfires in the Philippines
A music video ode to “friendly neighbors across the sea” can’t patch over growing
discontent with China in the Philippines.
By Mong Palatino
@mongster
T he Chinese embassy in Manila
released a music video dedicated
to COVID-19 frontline workers,
but it quickly drew widespread anger
among Filipino internet users because of
the song’s indirect reference to the South
China Sea, known locally as the West
Philippine Sea.
The music video of the song “Iisang
Dagat” (One Sea) was released on April
23. The lyrics were written by Chinese
Ambassador H.E. Huang Xilian and the
song was performed by Chinese diplo-
mat Xia Wenxin from the embassy and
several Filipino and Chinese celebrities.
The song mentions the friendship
between the two countries and their
mutual cooperation in dealing with the
pandemic.
“Just as the lyric goes, as friendly
neighbors across the sea, China and the
Philippines will continue to join hands
and make every effort to overcome the
COVID-19 at the earliest,” the Chinese
embassy posted on Twitter.
The video begins by showing a fisher
14 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
on a small boat in Manila Bay. This plus
the song title made it difficult for many
Filipinos not to think that Chinese diplo-
mats were seeking to downplay the mari-
time dispute over the South China Sea by
highlighting the supposed unity of the
two governments in battling COVID-19.
The video immediately garnered a
huge number of dislikes. As of this writ-
ing, it has 212,000 dislikes compared to
just 3,700 likes.
An editorial by the Philippine Daily
Inquirer sums up the reaction of many
who heard and watched the music video:
“The song’s fervent avowals to friend-
ship, solidarity, and furthering Filipino-
Chinese relations flies in the face of
China’s brazen disregard and aggressive
lockout of the country’s territorial rights
over the West Philippine Sea.”
In fact, two days before official
release of the song, the Philippine gov-
ernment filed a diplomatic protest
against China regarding two incidents in
the sea. The first referenced a People’s
Liberation Army Navy vessel pointing a
radar gun at a Philippine Navy ship in
Philippine waters on February 17. And
the second issue cited the naming and
inclusion of Philippine territories in
China’s administrative rolls.
“The Philippine government
strongly protests the establishment of
the so-called districts of ‘Nansha’ and
‘Xisha’ under the supposed administra-
tive jurisdiction of its self-declared
‘Sansha City’ announced on 18 April
2020, by the People’s Republic of
China,” an excerpt from the statement
released by the Philippines’ Department
of Foreign Affairs reads.
Releasing a song about friendship
right after the filing of a diplomatic pro-
test by that same neighbor was seen by
many as insincere and malicious, an
attempt to divert public attention to
China’s aggressive behavior toward the
Philippines.
Instead of promoting Chinese assis-
tance in responding to the COVID-19
crisis, the music video reinforced public
anger against the Chinese government’s
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
A Chinese-owned
mining operation in
Eastern Samar province
continued operating
despite community
resistance amid the
COVID-19 lockdown. In
addition to this, the
nonstop expansion of
Philippine Offshore
Gaming Operators
(POGO) continues to be
controversial because of
reports that the industry
provides minimal
economic benefits to the
country, despite the
impression that the
sector enjoys
preferential treatment
of a team of Chinese experts and doctors notoriety. A Chinese-owned mining oper-
from the Duterte to share expertise with their counter- ation in Eastern Samar province contin-
government parts in the Philippines. Chinese aid is ued operating despite community resis-
now viewed not just with suspicion, but tance amid the COVID-19 lockdown. In
building of artificial islands, installa- also with contempt. addition to this, the nonstop expansion
tions, and structures in the Philippines’ A senator even proposed that China of Philippine Offshore Gaming Opera-
maritime territories. should shoulder the Philippines’ tors (POGO) continues to be controver-
The consequence of the immense COVID-19 expenses as payment for the sial because of reports that the industry
unpopularity of the embassy-produced destruction of marine resources in the provides minimal economic benefits to
song and video was to politicize previous South China Sea. the country, despite the impression that
goodwill gestures extended by China, It didn’t help China’s case that some the sector enjoys preferential treatment
such as the sending of medical supplies of the recent business activities of its from the Duterte government. In various
and other donations and the deployment citizens in the Philippines have gained news reports, the industry is consistently
linked to corruption, organized crime,
and labor abuses. A majority of POGO
workers in the Philippines are from main-
land China since the industry caters to
Chinese online gamers.
There has been a noticeable surge of
anti-China sentiment as the country is
reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic.
But unlike in other countries, where this
reaction is infected with racism and
Sinophobia, in the Philippines it is ulti-
mately related to the popular perception
that China is using the COVID-19 crisis
to undermine the sovereignty of the Phil-
ippines in the South China Sea. It will
take more than a song to convince many
Filipinos that President Rodrigo
Duterte’s friendship with China and Xi
Jinping will benefit the country’s inter-
est, or that China has nothing but good
intentions as it continues to expand its
presence in the South China Sea.
s Phillippines’ President Rodrigo Roa Duterte holds a meeting with some members of the Inter-Agency
Task Force on the Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) at the Malago Clubhouse in Malacañang on
April 13, 2020.
l Mong Palatino served for two terms in the House of Representatives in the
Philippines representing the youth sector.
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
June 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 15
CENTRAL ASIA OPINION
Post-Pandemic Central Asia:
Moving Beyond ‘Helicopter Money’
Social and economic upheaval at such a scale as experienced amid the COVID-19
pandemic unavoidably entails political effects.
By Gregory Gleason
New Mexico, United States
I MF Managing Director Kristalina
Georgieva described the scope and
scale of the COVID-19 pandemic
challenge bluntly: “COVID-19 has
disrupted our social and economic order
at lightning speed and on a scale that we
have not seen in living memory.” The
recent announcement by the IMF that it
would provide $375 million in
emergency assistance to Uzbekistan
demonstrates the commitment of
international financial institutions to
address the economic upheaval created
by the pandemic in the Central Asian
region.
Virtually all major financial institu-
tions long associated with the “West,”
such as the World Bank and the Asian
Development Bank, have announced
major financial assistance programs that
apply to Central Asia. The newer interna-
tional financial institutions associated
with the “East,” such as the Eurasian
Development Bank and the Asian Infra-
structure Investment Bank, have also
stepped forward offering emergency
assistance.
16 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
These actions echo emergency mea-
sures under way in the economically
advantaged countries of Europe and
North America. European Commission
President Ursula von der Leyen told
European parliamentarians, “We need a
Marshall Plan for Europe’s recovery and
it needs to be put in place immediately.”
European Central Bank (ECB) President
Christine Lagarde put it succinctly, stat-
ing the “Pandemic Emergency Purchase
Programme,” (PEPP), is prepared to
provide an economic stimulus “by as
much as necessary and for as long as
needed.”
The challenge of the COVID-19 pan-
demic is global in scope but the specific,
local problems in some respects are very
different. COVID-19 makes its own
rules. It knows no nationality and no
borders. The infection spreads without
discrimination based on form of govern-
ment, religion, or ethnicity. COVID-19
challenges all countries in common ways
and the response, for all countries, is
comprised of three stages: first, the
immediate public health emergency;
second, the mid-term economic and
social requirements of containing the
spread of the virus and mitigating the
effects; and third, the long-term effects
of recovery and restoration of normal
economic and social relationships.
The Central Asian countries face the
same challenges as countries around the
world, but they also face some unique
problems that are a product of their par-
ticular circumstances of geography, econ-
omy, and even culture. The governments
of Central Asia are responding to the
situation and international financial
institutions are taking steps to help. The
Central Asian countries have not, in com-
parative respects, done badly in mobiliz-
ing for the first emergency stage of this
crisis. As we move toward the longer-
term questions of sustainability, there
are very real questions about whether
regional finances will be sufficient to
meet the challenge.
Until very recently in economically
developed countries, discussion of so-
called “helicopter money” was a subject
for philosophically-inclined economists.
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
COVID-19 changed that. Today discus-
sion of “bail-out money” fills the talk of
even budget managers and parliamen-
tarians in the United States and the Euro-
pean Union. If “manna from heaven”
works for highly developed countries,
can similar mechanisms be used to
address the challenges Central Asian
countries face? Foreign assistance is
often motivated by altruism but often
comes with conditions.
s Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov held a working meeting with the participation of Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers.
During the meeting, issues of combating the negative effects of the spread of coronavirus infection in the world were discussed.
Nothing is free, especially money.
Just as in all countries around the
world, the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the
disease it causes, COVID-19, came as a
surprise to Central Asia. In the Central
Asian countries, as in other countries
around the world, the first response
steps were emergency measures. Politi-
cal authorities called on medical person-
nel and law enforcement to respond
quickly and effectively. After the first
cases of COVID-19 were identified in
March 2020 in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
and Uzbekistan, counter-infection mea-
sures were taken quickly. Tajikistan took
some measures but sought to downplay
the spread of the virus, perhaps out of
misplaced bravado or out of concern
about panic. The neighboring Turkmen
leader generally avoided the virus issue
but did respond to requests from neigh-
boring leaders to participate in joint
action in a video conference on April 9,
2020.
All Central Asian countries shared
the same wrenching adaptation to the
pandemic and its economic conse-
quences as scores of other countries
around the world. Air, rail, and road traf-
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
fic connections were severed. Supply
chains linking many of the most impor-
tant sectors of the economy to world sup-
pliers and world markets were suddenly
broken. Markets, shops, factories,
schools, public institutions, and places
of worship were put into lockdown. An
unprecedented collapse of commodities
prices threatened exporters. The evapo-
ration of routine earnings and liveli-
hoods threatened millions of house-
holds.
Unlike some other regions of the
world, the Central Asian countries have
developed in such a way as to become
highly dependent upon neighbors for
trade and employment. To a very high
degree, the Central Asian countries are
reliant on export earnings, particularly
for fuel and mineral exports. Also, the
Central Asian countries, particularly
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, have devel-
oped extraordinarily large, foreign-
employed migrant workforces.
At the end of 2019 there were about
3.8 million Central Asians officially at
work in the Russian Federation. Esti-
mates vary, but some demographers say
that undocumented workers from Cen-
tral Asian states during this period may
have been as high as an additional 3 mil-
lion people. The earnings of these Cen-
tral Asian workers not only lined their
own pockets; they sustained their fami-
lies at home. The number of foreign
laborers from Central Asian countries
appears to have diminished somewhat in
the past few years, but the labor contri-
bution to the overall economic standing
of the countries continued to be signifi-
cant, particularly in Kyrgyzstan and
Tajikistan. As much as 50 percent of the
national GDP of Kyrgyzstan was esti-
mated by a UNDP study to be derived
from Kyrgyz remittances.
Foreign labor practiced at this level
is an economic issue; but the disruption
of the personal and individual relation-
ships in the space of just a few weeks is
also an issue of human suffering on a
massive scale. As Catherine Putz pointed
out, this crisis will mean “not just less
money flowing back into countries in
South and Central Asia, but millions of
unemployed individuals across the
broader region.” Azamat Temirkulov in
Kyrgyzstan posed a further question:
What happens when they come back?
“Because of the crisis, enterprises will
solve their difficulties through job cuts,
some will close due to lack of profit, oth-
ers will completely go bankrupt. Our
migrant workers will begin to return
home, joining the ranks of the army of
unemployed Kyrgyzstan.”
As Central Asian planners look
toward the future, they pay attention to
what other countries are doing. How are
the economically advantaged countries
dealing with this global crisis?
Analysts in the United States have
watched legislation speed through the
political process. The Coronavirus Aid,
Relief, and Economic Security (CARES)
Act was passed by Congress and signed
into law on March 27, 2020. The over $2
trillion economic relief package included
funding for individuals, workers, com-
panies, and local governments. The goal
of the legislation was to prevent the econ-
June 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 17
omy as a whole from grinding to a halt by
making sure that individuals have sup-
port, companies can continue to operate,
and governments continue to function.
The CARES Act and other “stimu-
lus” legislation provides for financial
outlays far in advance of the U.S. govern-
ment’s previous expenditures. This
raises the question: If there was so much
discussion of the U.S. federal budget
deficit being excessive in the past, where
does the new money come from to meet
these bills? Is it borrowed or simply
printed? Can other countries use similar
methods to meet the commitments that
the crisis entails? Can, for instance,
Tajikistan simply legislate its exit from
the financial crisis that is shadowing
COVID-19?
A proposal for accelerating the cir-
culation of money, which was made par-
tially in jest by economist Milton Fried-
man many years ago, described throwing
money from a helicopter in order to get
cash to people as quickly as possible. In
the midst of the financial crisis in 2008,
the U.S. Federal Reserve began using
unconventional measures to encourage
the circulation of money.
The COVID-19 crisis prompted
many people to favor immediate mea-
sures such as “helicopter money.” The
U.S. Federal Reserve is now purchasing
bonds and equities on the open market
and at the same time offering these same
assets for repurchase on the open mar-
ket. This process has the effect of sup-
porting asset prices and it makes credit
available to banks at very low rates. The
European Central Bank is pursuing the
same course. Should the Central Asian
central banks simply follow these same
lines of action? Here it is important to
note there a few things that are specific to
Central Asia.
The cycle of a downturn in an econ-
omy, whether initiated by poor gover-
nance or by some external force such as a
foreign war, tends to limit opportunities
for workers and producers alike. As pro-
ducers lay off workers, purchasing falls,
thereby limiting producers further.
These “pro-cyclic” effects snowball, driv-
ing the economy lower and lower. For
centuries political leaders have seen a
slowing economy limit their ability to
gather revenue and meet obligations and
have turned to the idea of simply print-
ing more money to settle accounts. But it
has long been apparent that if the supply
of cash in circulation is increased, the
exchange value of the currency will com-
pensate by falling.
Central Asian states moved out of
the “Ruble zone” in 1994 because they
were caught in an inflationary spiral they
could not control. Simply printing more
money and distributing it to the public
18 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
can meet some challenges on a tempo-
rary basis. One example is the decision of
Kazakh officials in summer 2019 to clear
books and start anew by simply forgiving
debt it had previously extended to help
households. Can the Central Asian banks
simply pay all salaries and forgive all
debts without fueling runaway inflation
in Central Asia today?
The Uzbek
government has passed
a number of laws and
enacted a series of
administrative
measures to stimulate
the national economy,
speed direct assistance
to the most vulnerable
sectors, and insulate
markets from
international financial
turmoil
Financial measures like the COVID-
19 emergency response in the European
Union and the United States are not
available to the Central Asian states. The
economic situation in Europe and in
North America is significantly different
for two reasons. First, the Western econ-
omies are highly diversified, while the
Central Asian countries are narrowly
dependent upon export revenues. The
fall of key commodity prices, for instance
oil, will have an enduring impact on
Kazakhstan, for example, and it may be
some time before energy markets fully
recover. Second, the U.S. dollar and the
European Union enjoy the feature of
seigniorage, which the Central Asian
currencies do not. This is not magic; it
merely means that the currency is more
widely tradable and therefore resilient.
The long-term economic effects for
all the Central Asian nations given the
collapse in commodity prices, the dis-
ruption of commercial supply chains, the
sudden shift in migrant labor and remit-
tances, the cessation of typical earnings
and livelihoods, and a panoply of other
collateral effects of the pandemic have
created an unprecedented social and
economic crisis in Central Asia.
Social and economic upheaval at
this level unavoidably entails political
effects. The political and national secu-
rity implications of the pandemic dis-
ruption call for contingency planning on
a region-wide level.
The international financial institu-
tions offer critical bridge funds to help
the Central Asian states in their post-
pandemic courses. Some of this interna-
tional assistance comes in the form of
grants and some in the form of loans. In
both cases, the assistance that is cur-
rently being proposed only represents a
very small portion of what is needed to
sustain the Central Asian states in a mid-
term adjustment period that could be
two years or more.
The kind of “helicopter money”
which is being discussed in Central Asian
capitals is not among the measures nec-
essary to protect and sustain these soci-
eties into the future. The Uzbek govern-
ment has passed a number of laws and
enacted a series of administrative mea-
sures to stimulate the national economy,
speed direct assistance to the most vul-
nerable sectors, and insulate markets
from international financial turmoil.
The global financial institutional frame-
work is tilted toward self-protection of
the major players. North American and
European financial institutions have
adopted programs to lend dollars to
countries in need as part of their efforts
to help combat the economic impact of
the coronavirus pandemic, but many
countries do not have adequate access to
refinancing and currency swap mecha-
nisms despite their heavy dollar-based
financing needs to service current
account deficits, repay external borrow-
ing, and to provide foreign-based liquid-
ity to their own banking systems.
The discussion of “helicopter funds”
is necessary, but it must move to a more
realistic level. If serious considerations
are ignored or prolonged, the political
implications of economic insolvency can
be expected to emerge on the horizon.
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, in particular,
face dire economic circumstances.
The offers of foreign assistance in
the post-pandemic “reconstruction”
period may be associated with infra-
structure projects. The former Soviet
states, with the Russian Federation in
the lead, have been insistent in offering a
platform for northern-oriented relations
in the form of the Eurasian Economic
Union. Meanwhile the attraction from
the east in the form of concessional
terms for infrastructure development in
Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)
is apt to attract more attention. As Arne
Elias Corneliussen observed, “COVID-19
does not change China’s underlying stra-
tegic rationale for the BRI.”
In other geographical circum-
stances, a long-term solution to many of
the problems caused by the disruptions
of COVID-19 might call for spatial reor-
ganization. This might include a condo-
minium or a consolidation of geograph-
ical territory into the territory of a neigh-
bor. Geography is destiny. That is some-
thing even the pandemic cannot change.
l Gregory Gleason is Professor of Security Studies at the George C. Marshall
European Center for Security Studies.
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
PACIFIC MONEY
The US, China, and the Perils of
Post-COVID Decoupling
Resorting to economic nationalism is the wrong lesson to take from the pandemic.
By Yan Liang
@YanLian31677392
U
.S.-China relations are
undergoing a major challenge
due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Prior to the outbreak, the United States
and China had just ameliorated two
years of trade tensions with the inking of
the so-called “Phase One” trade deal. But
the pandemic has reintensified old
strains on the relationship. Instead of
working together to fight off the global
pandemic, the two countries’ leaders
have been playing a blame game,
complete with misinformation
campaigns. U.S. President Donald
Trump blamed China for concealing
critical information about COVID-19,
deliberately referred to the “Chinese
virus” (despite warnings that such
rhetoric instigates hatred against East
Asian people around the world) and even
stepped up support for the conspiracy
theory that the virus escaped from a
Wuhan lab. On the other hand, the
Chinese government accused the U.S.
military of spreading the virus in China
and complained that the United States’
20 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
early travel ban was unnecessary and
harmful. Tensions continue to escalate,
with Trump administration recently
threatening to sue China for billions of
dollars in pandemic reparations while
Beijing forcefully condemned such
charges.
Political battles aside, many Ameri-
cans believe that COVID-19 revealed the
danger of relying on China for manufac-
tured products. Indeed, the United
States was incredibly ill-prepared for the
global pandemic, which revealed a lack
of basic medical supplies and personal
protective equipment (PPE) such as face
masks, nasal swabs, and ventilators. The
disruption of China’s supply chain due to
the pandemic and lockdown also sent
negative shockwaves to U.S. production
and markets. The lesson seems to be that
production must be brought back home,
while the United States decouples from
China. Support is rising for economic
nationalism.
However, resorting to economic
nationalism is the wrong lesson. It is not
only infeasible but undesirable.
To start, it is impossible to decouple
the two largest economies in the world.
The United States and China are closely
connected, not only with regard to the
global supply chain but also their supple-
mental demand structure. It is a myth
that China only offers cheap labor and
that this cost advantage is quickly erod-
ing. In fact, China occupies an important
knot in the global supply chain because it
has a 270 million-strong, highly flexible
migrant workforce; far more technically
trained workers than other countries;
integrated infrastructure to ensure logis-
tical efficiency; and vast and compli-
cated industrial clustering and supply
chains within the country. There are all
advantages that cannot be easily repli-
cated by other countries and regions. It’s
true that the U.S.-China trade war has
raised uncertainty and costs for the
global supply chain, prompting some
businesses to move out of China and
possibly causing the global value chain to
shrink. But what remains in China is
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
production that has relatively limited
room to change drastically – the very
slow relocation of Apple’s production
out of China and the opening of a Tesla
factory near Shanghai are both testa-
ments to the significance of China as a
critical component of the global supply
chain.
More importantly, even if the U.S.
government could impose exorbitant
tariffs or use executive orders to force
U.S. businesses to leave China, that
would be highly undesirable. First, pro-
duction may simply move elsewhere
rather than return to the United States
after decades of stagnation in the pro-
ductive sector and the structural trans-
formation of the country into a service-
based economy. Second, some produc-
tion may return to the United States but
increasingly rely on automation, bring-
ing few job or income benefits for the
working class, as the Trump administra-
tion likes to portray.
Retreating from the global division
of value chains is counterproductive.
The lesson from COVID-19 is not that the
United States needs to produce every-
thing, but that it needs to produce some-
thing. China may have an advantage in
producing masks and gowns and other
relatively low-end PPE, but the U.S. has
an advantage in producing more high-
tech products such as ventilators and
vaccines. The shortage of ventilators in
the United States was not due to a lack of
national capacity — in fact, four out of
the top 10 ventilators manufacturers are
U.S. companies. The problem was the
lack of a strategic stockpile of ventilators
to cope with surging demand — an utter
failure on the part of the U.S. govern-
ment, which had attempted in vain to
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
China remains an
attractive market,
especially now with the
opening of $45 trillion
worth of financial
markets. It is more
urgent than ever to
build a global public
health system and to
rebuild the global
economy, and that
requires cooperation,
rather than
confrontation, by the
world’s two largest
countries
build the stockpile since 2006.
Diversification of production loca-
tions is actually the most effective mea-
sure to deal with supply chain disruption
in face of a global pandemic. When coun-
tries are in different phases of the curve,
they are able to open their respective
economies at different points in time,
which prevents a complete halt in global
production. China was the first victim of
the pandemic and now is the first to
reopen its economy. This allows China to
produce some very essential PPE and
medical supplies for the rest of the world,
and to provide many important parts
and components to auto, electronics,
and various other makers around the
globe.
In addition, the post-pandemic
recovery will not be easy. The severity
and duration of the COVID-19 crisis sug-
gests that the hope for a quick “V-
shaped” recovery in the United States is
rapidly fading away. Nationalism is a
very costly strategy for rebuilding the
economy. The Trump administration is
unlikely to reverse course and squander
the trade deals achieved so far. China
remains an attractive market, especially
now with the opening of $45 trillion
worth of financial markets.
Finally, to successfully battle the
pandemic requires the containment of
the virus in the “weakest link.” Helping
the most vulnerable countries to cope
requires coordinated assistance from the
United States and China. For example, to
help some of the highly indebted low-
income countries, the United States
could support the IMF to issue more
Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) and
China could extend or relieve some of
these countries’ loans. A global crisis, be
it a pandemic or climate change, requires
coordination and cooperation. Pooling
resources, sharing knowledge and coor-
dinating policies are the key. It is more
urgent than ever to build a global public
health system and to rebuild the global
economy, and that requires cooperation,
rather than confrontation, by the world’s
two largest countries.
COVID-19, like any virus, knows no
borders. All countries are in this
together. As the world’s two largest econ-
omies, which remain closely connected,
the United States and China must work
together to effectively fight the pandemic
and revive the economy.
l Yan Liang is associate professor of Economics at Willamette University. Previ-
ously, she taught at Redlands University for two years and at Bard College at
Simon’s Rock for a year. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of
Missouri-Kansas City and a B.A in economics from Zhongshan University, China.
June 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 21
CORONAVIRUS IN THE PACIFIC
Where Are There Still No
COVID-19 Cases?
An Updated Analysis
The roster of apparently lucky (or lying) few has dwindled to about a dozen.
s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaks at a briefing on the coronavirus pandemic at Parliament in Wellington, New Zealand.
A couple of months ago, the
number of confirmed cases of
COVID-19 — caused by a novel
coronavirus that emerged in late 2019 in
Wuhan, China — around the world
passed the 1 million mark. As of May 6,
there are 3.7 million reported cases
around the world since the beginning of
the pandemic. More than 250,000
people have died from COVID-19 in less
than six months.
In early April, I wrote an article
titled “Where In the World Are There No
Coronavirus Cases?” The countries with
no reported cases of COVID-19 fell into
three broad, and sometimes overlap-
ping, categories: isolated island states,
duplicitous autocratic states, and poor
states with little capacity to test widely or
well.
One interesting facet of attempting
to count is the fact that the exact number
depends on how you count “countries” —
for example, the Cook Islands are usually
grouped in with New Zealand, with
which the island state freely associates;
Guam is an “organized, unincorporated
territory” of the United States. (The Cook
Islands has had no COVID-19 cases con-
firmed and New Zealand’s prime minis-
ter said they’d won the “battle” against
the virus in late April.) The Pacific is a
web of political statuses: territories,
freely associated states, and fully inde-
pendent states (though some with
defense arrangements with either New
Zealand or Australia.)
But nevertheless, by my count the
roster of apparently lucky (or lying) few
has dwindled to about a dozen: North
Korea, Turkmenistan, Lesotho, the Solo-
mon Islands, Vanuatu, Samoa, Kiribati,
Micronesia, Tonga, the Marshall islands,
Palau, Tuvalu and Nauru. Of the coun-
tries that appeared in earlier articles as
case-free, Comoros and Tajikistan have
confirmed cases now.
By Catherine Putz In my earlier article I tried to walk
@LadyPutz
through the range of reasons a state
22 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
would or could remain untouched by the
pandemic. In this piece, I want to explain
more deeply the underlying logic of how
to think about the last (officially)
COVID-19-free countries.
First, it’s important to recognize
that all the wonderful dashboards avail-
able on the internet are nevertheless
hamstrung by the same data that powers
them. Because that data comes from
governments, the transparency and
trustworthiness of a given government
matters tremendously in whether the
data is actually reliable. After a country
confirms the virus’ presence, a govern-
ment can certainly still manipulate how
bad the situation appears via data. It will
be less conspicuous to do so, but under-
reporting cases and deaths nevertheless
misrepresents reality in a dangerous
way.
While it would be simple to sort
countries into transparent democracies
and opaque autocracies, the present
crises exposes the fact that reality is
more complex than that: Vietnam, an
autocratic communist state, has been
been seen as very transparent about
COVID-19; meanwhile, some states
within the United States have been
transparent about the crisis, while oth-
ers have moved to hide critical informa-
tion and rushed to re-open.
Second, a given country’s infection
and death rates rest on a web of factors
that include, but are not limited to, the
timing and range of government preven-
tative actions, international integration
and travel patterns, population density,
poverty, healthcare system type and test-
ing capacity, and arguably also cultural
norms with regard to matters such as
obedience to government orders and
normalization of mask wearing. Certain
states — by the virtue of their existent
attributes — are more insulated or more
prepared; others are at higher risk
despite greater capacities. Factoring in
these complexities is as important as
being critical about what data is, or is
not, available.
Tajikistan is an illustrative example
of a perfect storm of risks in both the first
and second factors explained above.
Unlike uninfected Pacific Islands,
Tajikistan’s land borders are much more
difficult to police. In addition Dushanbe
stumbled in rolling out preventative
border and travel controls — announcing
a ban on the entry of foreigners from 35
countries the first week of March and
then the next day reversing that decision.
Not only was Tajikistan arguably already
at higher risk, its government monu-
mentally botched the rollout of reason-
able precautionary measures.
On April 30 the Tajik government
acknowledged its first 15 COVID-19
cases at once. Within a week, by May 6,
that number had leapt officially to 379,
with eight deaths. The announcement of
its first cases came after weeks of criti-
cism from regional observers and jour-
nalists (myself included), who were
being told by sources inside the country
that the state’s denials were almost cer-
tainly lies and that Dushanbe was cover-
ing up the reality of COVID-19 in the
country. Now that Tajikistan has
reported cases, in-country sources con-
tinue to say that reality is far worse than
what the government says.
Turkmenistan, even more secretive
and autocratic than Tajikistan, remains
in denial.
For states that continue to report no
cases — either believably (as in the
Pacific) or not (looking at you,
Turkmenistan and North Korea) — there
is only small benefit in that victory.
These states are still affected by the dev-
astation COVID-19 has wrought on the
global economy, and the risk still exists
that the virus could creep onto their
shores, if it has not already. Denial is not
a real vaccine.
l Catherine Putz is a graduate of the Patterson School of Diplomacy and Interna-
tional Commerce at the University of Kentucky, where she studied international
security and Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, where she majored in
history with a focus on U.S. diplomatic and conflict history.
June 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 23
FATF AND PAKISTAN
Pakistan Gets Unexpected
Economic Relief in a Time of
Global Crisis
Will Pakistan find some respite from the effects of COVID–19 outside its borders?
By Umair Jamal
@UmairJamal15
F or months, Pakistan has
struggled to find an opportunity
that could ease the country’s
balance of payments crisis. From
imposing a stricter tax regime to scaling
up its interest rates, the current
government has done it all to increase its
revenue. Despite all these efforts to uplift
the economy, the indicators of Pakistan’s
economic growth have remained dismal.
However, that may not be the case
anymore if Pakistan’s economic plan-
ners realizes the significance of the
opportunity that is being offered to them
by global financial markets and other
prospects emerging from the COVID-19
crisis.
The COVID-19 crisis has sent
shockwaves when it comes to the pan-
demic’s economic impact globally. Coun-
tries across the world have been forced to
recalibrate their financial targets for the
coming years as the majority of growth
indicators hew negative.
Pakistan too has been on the same
24 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
path with a difference that the country
didn’t have much to offer to its populace
simply due to the existing economic con-
straints. However, with the COVID-19
situation developing, this means that the
loans that the country worked hard to
earn from international donors to avoid
bankruptcy couldn’t be paid back
according to negotiations done during
tough circumstances.
The current government in Pakistan
cannot forget the pressure that it had to
face at the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) a year ago when it asked for a $6
billion loan package. On the one hand,
the IMF, armed with leverage against a
weak economy, demanded major inter-
ventions in Pakistan’s financial deci-
sions. On the other hand, Pakistan was
forced to fall in line with Washington’s
demands to cooperate in various sectors,
particularly Afghanistan and revealing
the terms of the financial transactions on
the China Pakistan Economic Corridor
(CPEC).
Not more than two years ago, U.S.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned
that any potential IMF bailout for “Paki-
stan’s new government should not pro-
vide funds to pay off Chinese lenders.”
Last year, the IMF ensured that Pakistan
shared details of the CPEC loans from
China and pushed the country to reduce
its reliance on Beijing. Arguably, Wash-
ington clearly saw an opportunity to not
only force Pakistan’s hand, but also
warned Islamabad of the costs of keep-
ing a relationship with China.
Amid these pressures came the
Financial Action Task Force (FATF) situ-
ation: a threat that could mutilate the
country’s financial policies. Before the
breakout of the COVID-19 crisis, the
FATF was on its way to conclude Paki-
stan’s case in mid-2020.
The case’s result could have gone
either way – more economic pain if the
country got blacklisted or relief in the
form of more time for Pakistan to further
consolidate gains against extremist
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
Additionally, the current circum-
stances offer an ideal opportunity for
Pakistan to renegotiate the terms of the
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor
(CPEC). Already, Pakistan has requested
that China ease payment obligations in
major power projects that are part of the
infrastructure project. It’s important to
note that Pakistan and China have sev-
eral bilateral loan agreements and the
current crisis should make Islamabad’s
negotiating leverage more effective
when it comes to asking for a better deal
that may not have been possible before.
Additional support from China will fur-
ther boost Pakistan’s economic recovery
in the months to come.
Pakistan’s policymakers need to
ensure that the opportunity coming their
way should not go to waste: the unex-
pected financial support that the country
has received must go into supporting the
local economy, job creation, uplifting
small businesses, and other growth sec-
tors. Islamabad should be on a war foot-
s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks at the Indo-Pacific Business Forum at the U.S. Chamber of ing to utilize the timeline, circumstances
Commerce in Washington DC on July 30, 2018. Pompeo discussed U.S. investments in the region as
part of a strategy to contain China's rising influence. and improved financial means at dis-
posal to support domestic growth. If
groups and their funding networks. How- imports. Consequently, Islamabad done successfully, Pakistan can enter the
ever, amid the COVID-19 crisis, the should be expected to strengthen its fis- tough phase of paying back international
FATF has extended Pakistan’s deadline cal account position in the coming loans with ease whenever it happens.
for another three months and the next months and save considerable amounts l Umair Jamal is a freelance journalist based in Lahore, Pakistan. His research
review is expected to take place in Sep- in foreign exchange reserves. focuses primarily on the analysis of South Asian security and politics.
tember 2020. This not only takes away
some pressure from Pakistan’s economy,
but it also gives the country more time to
consolidate gains made against terror
financing.
To Pakistan’s advantage, all of the
above-mentioned pressure points stand
neutralized at least for the foreseeable
future. With the world completely
focused on containing the spread of
COVID-19 and Islamabad successfully
navigating its ties with states such as
China and the United States, Pakistan
may not be forced to confront the cir-
cumstances that existed in the pre-
COVID-19 era. Arguably, the COVID-19
global crisis has placed Pakistan in a
position which the country could not
have imagined under normal circum-
stances given the financial and
geopolitical vulnerabilities it faces in the
region and beyond.
On April 16, the IMF under its Rapid
Financing Instrument (RFI) scheme
approved a loan of $1.4 billion for Paki-
stan. Moreover, Pakistan is also
expected to receive around $1.5 billion
relief in the form of delay in repayment of
loans to bilateral creditors. Pakistan’s
currency continues to gain value against
the dollar and the hot inflow of cash has
also started to move back to the Paki-
stani market. Add to this situation the
unprecedented drop in oil prices, which
accounts for a quarter of Pakistan’s total
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
June 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 25
PAKISTAN TRIBAL BELT
Killing of PTM Leader Further
Antagonizes Pakistan Pashtun
Rights Defenders
Sardar Arif Wazir was killed by armed men on May 1.
By Daud Khattak
@DaudKhattak1
P akistan civil rights group
Pashtun Tahafuz Movement
(PTM) lost another key leader
and activist in an attack perpetrated by
unidentified armed men on May 1 in the
country’s South Waziristan tribal district
bordering Afghanistan.
Sardar Arif Wazir, a cousin of Paki-
stani parliamentarian Ali Wazir, was
targeted four days after his release from
a Pakistani prison. He was arrested on
April 17 on charges of delivering an “anti-
Pakistan speech” during his visit to
Afghanistan.
The 35-year-old has become 18th
member of his immediate and extended
family targeted since the launch of Paki-
stan’s anti-Taliban military operations
in the tribal region in 2003.
Pakistani officials have been silent
about the possible motive of the murder
and the perpetrators. There has been no
claim of responsibility from any armed
26 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
group operating in the region.
PTM central leader and member of
Pakistan national assembly from North
Waziristan Mohsin Dawar, however,
said in a tweet that “Arif Wazir was mur-
dered by “good terrorists.” Our struggle
against their masters will continue.”
The PTM and the “Peace
Committee”
The term “good terrorists” refers to the
pro-government armed groups that
locals sarcastically call the “good
Taliban.” The Pakistani government and
military style the groups as a “peace com-
mittee.” The so-called peace committee
members bear arms without being ques-
tioned by the security agencies. They
support the military presence in
Waziristan and fight against those
Taliban who target the Pakistani security
forces.
For years, leaders of the PTM,
among other demands, have asked for
the disbanding of the “peace committee”
and across-the-board action against all
armed groups, whom PTM leaders
believe are posing a threat to the security
of the common people.
Relations between the PTM and the
Pakistani authorities remained tense
over tricky issues such as the presence of
armed groups and alleged human rights
violations. And the latest killing has fur-
ther antagonized the already tense envi-
ronment.
Since its emergence in January
2018 as a nonviolent group campaigning
for civil rights, PTM has openly criticized
Pakistan military and its intelligence
agencies, accusing them of human rights
violations in the tribal region. The Paki-
stani authorities, on the other hand,
accuse the PTM leadership of getting
funds from Indian and Afghan intelli-
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
gence agencies.
While the majority of Pakistani poli-
ticians, journalists, and rights activists
bite their tongues and use various meta-
phors when it comes to the military and
its intelligence agencies, the PTM leader-
ship is willing to name names in its alle-
gations of human rights violations in the
name of anti-Taliban military opera-
tions.
The group’s initial demands
included the clearance of unexploded
landmines in the tribal areas, removal of
unnecessary military checkpoints in the
region, compensation for houses and
businesses destroyed and damaged dur-
ing the anti-Taliban military operations,
release of the people picked up by intelli-
gence agencies in the name of investiga-
tions and marked as “missing persons,”
and impartial investigations into extra-
judicial killings in the region.
Thousands from the tribal region
immediately rallied to the PTM call. The
presence of the military and various
armed groups there have curbed free-
doms, including the freedoms of move-
ment, assembly, and affiliation, of the
region’s fiercely independent people —
besides damaging their properties, busi-
nesses, farming, and their social life.
In some estimates, the various
armed groups that came to settle in the
tribal region following the overthrow of
the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in late
2001 had targeted and slaughtered
nearly 2,000 well-known tribal elders or
their family members. They were mur-
dered for their opposition or noncompli-
ance.
Since 2003, Pakistani security
forces have conducted multiple large-
and small-scale anti-Taliban operations
in Waziristan. However, the tribal peo-
ple expressed their reservations about
those operations, mainly because they
always resulted in civilian displacement
and lost lives and property while the
Taliban continued to hold ground and
gain strength.
For more than a decade, the rest of
Pakistan and the world was led to believe
that it is the tribal people who support
the Taliban and their Sharia system,
supposedly because this is in accordance
with tribal customs and traditions. How-
ever, the PTM leadership, the majority of
whom are young men who grew up under
the shadow of Taliban guns, dispelled
that widely-spread perception by
demanding peace and an end to all kinds
of armed groups – whether “good” or
“bad” Taliban – on their land.
The recent dispute that took the life
of PTM leader Arif Wazir apparently
stems from the presence of the same pro-
government armed groups. According to
some reports and accounts from locals,
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
the so-called peace committee members
regulate public life, collect taxes, punish
alleged offenders, and silence govern-
ment critics.
In June 2018, two PTM activists
were injured in a clash with the “peace
committee” members in Wana, the cen-
ter of South Waziristan. Addressing a
news conference in Islamabad soon after
the incident, then-spokesperson for Paki-
stan Inter-Services Public Relations
(ISPR), the military’s media wing,
However, very few
Pakistani television
channels and
newspapers reported on
Arif Wazir’s murder.
Besides, there was no
condemnation of the
attack by any top
government official.
Instead, a malicious
campaign was launched
on twitter against the
Wazir family
Major-General Asif Ghafoor had said
that “peace committee” members were
infuriated by the PTM’s anti-military
and anti-state slogans, which led to the
clash.
The PTM is not the first to raise
objections to the policy of distinguishing
between “good” and “bad” in Pakistan’s
approach to curbing militancy and its
role in the anti-terror war. The United
States, Pakistan’s anti-terrorism ally,
has also been raising objections to the
country’s role in fighting the Taliban.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Hil-
lary Clinton, during her October 2011
visit to Pakistan, famously warned
Islamabad that “you can’t keep snakes in
your backyard and expect them only to
bite your neighbors.” A month before
that, in September 2011, another top
U.S. official, then-chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen,
called the Haqqani Network of the
Taliban “a veritable arm of Pakistan’s
Inter-Services Intelligence agency.”
More recently, U.S President Donald
Trump, in a January 1, 2018 tweet,
accused Pakistan of “lies and deceit” in
its fight against the terrorists that the
United States is hunting in Afghanistan.
But Pakistani authorities strenu-
ously disagreed. Pakistan says it ren-
dered greater sacrifices than any other
country in the anti-terror war. Prime
Minister Imran Khan, in a tweet on
November 19, 2018, said that “no Paki-
stani was involved in 9/11 [terrorist
attacks] but Pakistan decided to partici-
pate in the U.S. war on terror.” Khan
further added that his country suffered
75,000 casualties and over $123 billion
in losses to its economy.
Whatever his political views and his
standing vis-à-vis the government, Arif
Wazir was a Pakistani citizen and leader
of a popular group, not to mention the
cousin of a sitting MP. His tragic death
was caused by unidentified attackers
who also target the Pakistani security
forces and civilians.
However, very few Pakistani televi-
sion channels and newspapers reported
on Arif Wazir’s murder. Besides, there
was no condemnation of the attack by
any top government official. Instead, a
malicious campaign was launched on
twitter against the Wazir family.
This will further alienate the youth
and the people of Waziristan, who
strongly believe that they are being
oppressed both by militant groups and
the state security agencies. This percep-
tion is rooted in years of frustration with
successive governments that failed to
bring a positive change in terms of infra-
structure development, education, civic
facilities, and legal and constitutional
status. For decades, the tribal people
used to be considered as second-class
Pakistanis mainly because their areas
were regulated under the colonial-era
Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR).
Although the tribal districts were
merged into the adjacent Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa in 2018 and the FCR law
was repealed and replaced with the full
sphere of the constitution of Pakistan,
some parts of the tribal region remain
information black holes. The informa-
tion vacuum is keeping incidents of
human rights violations from being
reported in the media. One recent exam-
ple is several protests by the locals, youth
in particular, demanding the extension
of mobile phone 3G/4G internet service
in the region.
The government may not be happy
with some of the PTM statements or
their demands, but there is no denying
the fact that the group’s activists always
remained peaceful during their sit-in
protests over the past two years.
It is high time for the Pakistani
authorities to open a meaningful chan-
nel of communication and dialogue with
the PTM leadership. Cornering them by
gagging their voice in the media will lead
to further alienation that may create
serious problems in the future.
l
Daud Khattak is Senior Editor for Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty’s Pashto
language Mashaal Radio.
June 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 27
PAKISTAN-RUSSIA RELATIONS
Can COVID-19 Draw Pakistan and
Russia Closer Together?
In recent years, Russia and Pakistan have put aside some of their differences.
The coronavirus could accelerate this reconciliation.
By Shahid Hussain
London, United Kingdom
T ies between Pakistan and Russia
date back to the Early Modern
period, when the Muscovite Tsar
Ivan the Terrible and his successor
Alexis I expressed an interest in opening
trade relations with the subcontinent
(including parts of modern-day
Pakistan). After the formalization of
diplomatic relations between the two
nations in 1948, the history of Soviet-
Pakistan, and subsequently Russia-
Pakistan, relations has been
characterized by distrust and mutual
competition. Pakistan’s close ties to
America and the West during the Cold
War, culminating in the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan, meant both countries
continued to view each other with
hostility and distrust. Russia’s
continuing support for India, both
before and after the Cold War, including
its frequent arms deals with New Delhi,
have done little to improve bilateral ties
between Moscow and Islamabad.
However, in recent years, Russia
28 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
and Pakistan have put aside some of
these differences and the COVID-19 pan-
demic could accelerate this process of
reconciliation. In the recent past, natural
disasters have acted as a catalyst for
closer ties. In the wake of the devastating
earthquake in 2005 that ravaged north-
ern Pakistan, Russia was one of the first
to provide assistance to Islamabad.
Shortly thereafter, a Russian trade dele-
gation visited Pakistan and overall bilat-
eral trade rose by $270 million and sub-
sequently by $520 million while Russian
energy giant Gazprom signed a Memo-
randum of Understanding with the Paki-
stani Ministry of Petroleum and Natural
Resources. After the 2010 floods in Paki-
stan, Russia again offered assistance and
humanitarian aid, leading to President
Vladimir Putin’s public endorsement of
Pakistan joining the Shanghai Coopera-
tion Organization. An official visit by
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
to Islamabad soon followed. Aside from
economic and political ties, there was
also an improvement in cultural ties and
the “softer” aspects of diplomacy, includ-
ing the publication of the world’s first
bilingual Urdu-Russian dictionary.
These gradual improvements then led to
the Friendship Drills carried out
between the Pakistani and Russian
armies, a step that would have seemed
impossible a decade before.
Could the COVID-19 pandemic
serve to further cement ties between the
two nations, in the same way other natu-
ral disasters have? Or will some of the
historical problems that have plagued
the relationship in the past continue to
hinder tangible progress in the future?
The answer lies somewhere in between
the two.
The Pakistani ambassador to Rus-
sia, Shafqat Ali Khan, has recently
explored the possibility of purchasing
ventilators from Moscow to help Paki-
stan’s fragile healthcare system deal with
COVID-19. Although he stressed that
Pakistan has no immediate intention to
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
Could the COVID-19
pandemic serve to
further cement ties
between the two
nations, in the same way
other natural disasters
have? Or will some of
the historical problems
that have plagued the
relationship in the past
continue to hinder
tangible progress in the
future? The answer lies
somewhere in between
the two
ask Russia for help, the mere suggestion
that Pakistan may look to Russia for sup-
port is revealing. He also suggested that
if Islamabad were to ask Moscow for help
in tackling the outbreak, “Russia will be
the first country to offer assistance.” In
addition, Khan also expressed his desire
to extend people-to-people contact
between the two nations, including the
possibility of sending more Pakistani
students to Russia to study in prestigious
Russian universities. Meanwhile, the
last Friendship Drill between the two
countries took place just last year, and
after the coronavirus pandemic it is
likely we will see their resumption.
Pakistan’s friendship with Russia
has been and may continue to be
strengthened by its improving relation-
ships with former Soviet countries, par-
ticularly those with strong ties to Putin.
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
In 2019, Pakistan-Belarus bilateral
political consultations took place and a
number of Belarusian companies were
invited to invest in Pakistan’s growing
textile, food processing, and agriculture
sectors. Some of the softer aspects of
diplomacy were also apparent, with
Belarus even commissioning a com-
memorative stamp to celebrate friendly
relations with Pakistan. Islamabad’s
desire to court favor with Russia’s allies
could bring the two countries closer
together, something that may continue
in the wake of COVID-19.
However, it would be over-
simplistic to assume that the pandemic
and Pakistan’s apparent interest in
developing closer ties with Russia to help
fight the outbreak will be enough to
strengthen Islamabad’s relationship
with Moscow. After the previous two
natural disasters, bilateral trade
increased, but is still far below where it
should be. And Russia’s continued sup-
port for its traditional subcontinental
India is not the only
thorn in the side of
Pakistan-Russia
relations. Pakistan’s
continued refusal to
recognize Armenia,
one of Russia’s closest
allies, is another point
of contention between
the two. Pakistan’s
stance on Armenia is
unlikely to change
anytime soon
ally, India, also continues. Just last
month, India’s ambassador to Russia,
Bala Venkatesh Varm, said he expected
Russia’s planned delivery of the S-400
air defense system to be take place on
time despite the global pandemic, some-
thing that will do little to please Paki-
stan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan. Fur-
thermore, Russia is also committed to
supplying India with three more Kilo-
class submarines.
Of course, India is not the only thorn
in the side of Pakistan-Russia relations.
Pakistan’s continued refusal to recog-
nize Armenia, one of Russia’s closest
allies, is another point of contention
between the two. Pakistan’s stance on
Armenia is unlikely to change anytime
soon, and Islamabad’s commitment to
Armenia’s adversary, Azerbaijan, con-
tinues to strengthen. In fact, just this
month, Pakistan’s President Arif Alvi
held talks talks with his Azeri counter-
part, Ilham Aliyev, discussing the possi-
bility of further cooperation in the wake
of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Previous natural disasters have
served to bring Pakistan and Russia
closer together and Ambassador Khan’s
assertion that relations are at their
“strongest point” has a factual basis.
However, Russia’s continuing support
for Pakistan’s historic adversary and
Pakistan’s refusal to recognize one of
Moscow’s closest allies could hamper
bilateral progress. However, if Pakistan
does ask Moscow for help in tackling the
coronavirus, this will not only be reveal-
ing in itself, but will also provide the
opportunity for further mutual coopera-
tion.
l Shahid Hussain completed his undergraduate and master’s degrees at University
College London (UCL) and will be pursuing a Ph.D. at UCL focusing on Early
Modern diplomacy.
June 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 29
TRUMP PEACE PLAN
Gangster Geopolitics
and Israel’s Annexation Plans
The Israeli plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank shows a shocking disregard
for international law.
s US President Donald Trump waves next to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prior to announcing his Middle East plan in Washington on
January 28, 2020.
By Richard Falk
@ rfalk13
T hese are the strangest of times.
On this almost everyone will
agree.
Lives all over the planet are being
torn apart either by the COVID-19 pan-
demic or as a result of its devastating
social and economic dislocations. In
such a moment, it is hardly surprising
that the best and worst of humanity is
being showcased.
Yet what seems worse beyond even
these forebodings is the persistence of
gangster geopolitics in its various mani-
festations.
Intensifying United States sanc-
tions in the midst of the health crisis on
already deeply afflicted countries such as
Iran and Venezuela is one striking exam-
ple. This display of the primacy of geo-
politics is highlighted by its rejections of
numerous high-profile humanitarian
appeals for the suspension of sanctions,
at least for the duration of the pandemic.
30 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
Instead of suspension and empathy, we
find a tone-deaf Washington almost glee-
fully upping its ‘maximum pressure’
policy, perversely grabbing the opportu-
nity to rachet up the pain level.
Another dark tale is the macabre
Israeli dance around the disruptive law-
lessness of the annexation of parts of the
occupied West Bank promised by Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The insistence that any annexation
of occupied Palestinian territory directly
violates fundamental norms of interna-
tional law seems no longer to be taken
seriously. Maybe because of this, Israel is
poised to annex without even attempting
to offer legal justifications for overriding
the widely endorsed and rigidly inter-
preted rule that a sovereign state is not
allowed to annex foreign territory
acquired by force.
This instance of annexation addi-
tionally involves an extreme repudiation
of international humanitarian law as
embodied in the Fourth Geneva Conven-
tion. It amounts to a unilateral move by
Israel to change the status of land in the
West Bank from that of occupied since
1967 to that of its sovereign territorial
authority. And further, such contem-
plated annexation directly challenges
the authority of the United Nations,
which by an overwhelming continuous
consensus regards Israel's presence in
the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and
Gaza as solely based on force and occu-
pation, making any modification
dependent on a prior authoritative
expression of Palestinian consent, which
is hard to imagine ever being given.
The Israeli security
‘debate’
For all these reasons it is not surprising
that even Israeli heavyweights, including
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former heads of Mossad and Shin Bet, as
well as retired army officers are sound-
ing the alarm. Of course, none of this
Israeli internal debate objects to annex-
ation because it violates international
law, rejects UN or European Union
authority, and ignores Palestinian
inalienable rights.
All the objections to annexation
from within Israel are couched by exclu-
sive reference to a variety of concerns
about alleged negative impacts on Israeli
security. In particular, these critics from
within Israel’s national security estab-
lishment are worried about disturbing
Arab neighbours and further alienating
international public opinion, especially
in Europe, and to some extent the critics
worry about weakening the solidarity of
American and European Jews for Israel.
The pro-annexation side of the
Israeli policy debate also mentions secu-
rity considerations, especially with
respect to the Jordan Valley and the set-
tlements, but much less so. Unlike the
critics, the more ardent proponents of
annexation are land claimants.
They invoke a Jewish biblical enti-
tlement to Judea and Samaria (known
internationally as the West Bank). This
entitlement is reinforced by referencing
Jewish deep cultural traditions and cen-
turies of historical connections between
a small Jewish presence and this land
held sacred.
As with Israeli critics of annexation,
supporters feel no need to explain, or
even notice, the disregard of Palestinian
grievances and rights. Annexationists do
not dare put forward an argument that
the Jewish claims are more deserving of
recognition than are the competing
national claims of Palestinians,
undoubtedly because their case is so
weak in terms of modern ideas of law and
the ethics of entitlement.
As has been the case throughout the
Zionist narrative, Palestinian griev-
ances, aspirations, and even the exis-
tence of a Palestinian people is not part
of the Zionist imaginary except as politi-
cal obstacles and demographic impedi-
ments.
At the same time, all along Zionism
has been tactically opportunistic about
disclosing the full extent of its project,
instead focusing on what it could gain
under a given set of circumstances as all
that it wanted.
When one considers the evolution of
the main drift of Zionism since its incep-
tion, the longer-term aspiration of
marginalising Palestinians in a single
dominant Jewish state that encom-
passed the whole of Israel's "promised
land" has never been forsaken. In this
sense the UN partition plan - while
accepted as a solution at the time - is
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better understood as a stepping stone to
recovering as much of the promised land
as possible. In the course of the last 100
years, from a Zionist perspective utopia
became reality, while for the Palestin-
ians reality became dystopia.
Gangster geopolitics
How the prelude to annexation is being
addressed by Israel and the US is as dis-
maying as the underlying erasure of the
Palestinians, who will be cast out as a
restive population to be kept fragmented
and as disunited as possible so that their
resistance and objections can be effi-
ciently muted.
Netanyahu managed to secure
approval for his annexation plan in the
unity government deal with his rival-
turned-coalition-partner, Benny Gantz.
The only precondition for the proposal
he is set to submit after July 1 was con-
forming the contours of the annexation
to the territorial allocations embodied in
the notoriously one-sided ‘Peace to Pros-
perity’ proposal put forward by the
Trump administration.
Even without the disclosure of the
Trump peace plan, US tacit approval for
annexation was hardly ever in doubt. It
follows from Trump’s endorsement of
Israel’s annexation of the occupied Syr-
ian territory of the Golan Heights in
March 2019.
As could be expected, Donald
Trump’s America is creating no friction,
not even whispering to Netanyahu at
least to offer legal justifications or
explain away the negative effects of
annexation on Palestinian peace pros-
pects. Instead, the US Secretary of State,
Mike Pompeo, gave a green light to West
Bank annexation even before Israel for-
malised its claim, declaring provoca-
tively that annexation is a matter for the
Israelis to determine on their own (as if
neither Palestinians nor international
law had any relevance). He added that
the US will convey its opinions privately
to the government of Israel.
In the undisclosed background, the
callousness of the annexation initiative
seems designed to neuter the UN and
blunt international criticism of Israel. It
is expected that the annexation will be
greeted by strong rhetoric of denuncia-
tion from several European leaders and
possibly the presumptive Democratic
presidential nominee Joe Biden, but
unaccompanied by any serious push for
an international campaign to reverse
this taking of Palestinian land.
On the basis of past experience, it
seems likely that after a few days of
media coverage, concerns will subside,
and the world will move on. Even the
Palestinians, discouraged by years of
fruitless waiting, seem to be suffering, at
least temporarily, from a combination of
resistance fatigue and ineffectual soli-
darity initiatives.
Such an assessment is one more
sign that Israeli-US relations are being
managed in accord with ‘gangster geo-
politics’, and without paying heed to
international law or UN authority. It is a
despicable act that sweeps law and
morality aside while political space is
forcibly cleared for land theft.
It follows an incredible pattern of
official behaviour both in the US and
Israel.
First, there is the defiant nature of
the Israeli annexation claim. Secondly,
there is the single qualification that
Israel must obtain a geopolitical stamp
of approval from the US government
before going forward with annexation.
Thirdly, there is the US government's
move to throw the ball back to Israel by
saying the decision to annex is Israel's to
make, yet it will give Israel the benefit of
its private opinion on the matter, pre-
sumably on the tactics of timing and pre-
sentation, without any consideration of
matters of principle.
There is a ghostly melody accompa-
nying this macabre dance. Israel tames
its unilateralism by a gesture of
geopolitical deference, and by this pos-
turing, acts as if the approval of the US
matters as something more than a politi-
cal show of support. The US does not
question the Israeli logic, yet it does not
want to accept responsibility for a public
show of approval. It declares in public
that Israel is free to act as it wishes
although withholding, at least for now,
any public expression of approval or
disapproval with respect to annexation.
Whether this will cause any prob-
lems as the July date approaches is
unlikely, especially as Israel will present
annexation as a partial implementation
of the Trump proposals.
I suspect that the US private mes-
sage will be one of discreet approval,
which Netanyahu will undoubtedly treat
as satisfying the agreement with Gantz.
What stands out here is the arro-
gance of the politics of annexation. Not
only are the rules and procedures of the
world public order cast aside, but the
internal discourse on the transfer of
rights is carried on as if the people most
affected are irrelevant, a kind of ‘internal
Orientalism’. Such is the reality of gang-
ster geopolitics.
l Richard Falk is Albert G Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at
Princeton University and Research Fellow, Orfalea Center of Global Studies. He is
also former UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.
June 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 31
MACROECONOMICS
Corona Crisis and Eurobonds
The Calamity of Germany’s Distorted Perception of Italy.
l The real drama in the euro zone is that of a false German cliché of splurging, wasteful
Italians. It has nothing to do with everyday life in Italy – however, this cliché is in the
process of dissolving the EU.
s Young couple in St. Mark’s Square of Venice.
By Thomas Fricke
@ThomasFricke10
P erhaps this cliché is the result of
many mafia films. Perhaps envy
played a part: envy of Italy’s nice
weather, its great food, its sunshine and
seashores. There must be something in
any case to explain this urge in many
Germans to perpetuate the narrative of
being thriftier, more serious and more
reliable. And of Italians falling severely
short in these regards. Even in the
present crisis, the most dramatic
situation in decades - for which Italy
cannot be faulted, mind you - many an
expert pontificates along these lines.
This German hubris has long been
tragic, but it is particularly so now. Why?
Because for quite some time this same
old, same old has resonated with Italian
reality as eating sauerkraut does with
German eating habits, or the trumpeted
German punctuality with completing
32 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
that new airport of ours in the German
capital with a delay of now more than
3000 days. But at least there is some
humor in these examples.
Not so in the embarrassing dispute
about whether or not Germans want to
participate in Eurobonds to help others
in need – or instead in postulating that
Italy should have started saving sooner.
This may also explain Germany’s reluc-
tance to mercifully support a historic
rescue, as witnessed during this week’s
summit. Europe is on the brink, not
because the Italians are off, but rather a
hefty part of the German perception of
reality is.
If the Italians are to be blamed for
anything at all with regard to their state
finances in a crisis like this, it is for hav-
ing large amounts of old public debts. It’s
just that this has little to do with the cur-
rent realities experienced by Italians
today, but more so with a phase of derail-
ment which occurred in the 1980s. Even
such derailment cannot per se be attrib-
uted to living beyond their means, but in
large part by suddenly skyrocketing
interest rates, as Antonella Stirati from
the University of Roma Tre suggests.
All this happened way back when,
up to four decades ago. So consider this:
If back in 1953 our dear friends from
abroad hadn’t forgiven some of our
debts, we’d still be kicking this can down
the road today. Besides, from its inter-
war experience Germany should know
well where the road leads when a country
is forced to continue paying old debts: In
the end the system toppled in the 1930s,
a prospect which Italy has been facing for
years.
A better way of determining to what
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extent – or if at all – Italians have actu-
ally mismanaged their economy in
recent years is to take a glance at the
development of the current annual state
budget. Since 1992, Italian governments
have been running surpluses in their
budgets each and every year if the inter-
est payments for serving old debts are
excluded. In other words, for 30 years
the state has spent less on its citizens
than what it has collected from them –
with the only exception in 2009, the year
of the global financial crisis. Mind you:
this is exemplary household manage-
ment, dear Swabian housewife.
All this led to catastrophe with the
onset of the euro crisis when government
heads like Mario Monti pushed through
one reform after another in response to
international pressure - in particular
German. Be it a labor market reform, or a
pension reform. Dolce vita? Nonsense.
According to Stirati, investments in Italy
have decreased by 40 percent since 2010
due to these austerity measures. A mas-
sive collapse. Investments in education
are down ten percent. That’s insane.
All in all, real public expenditure in
Italy has stagnated since 2006. In Ger-
many it has, by comparison, increased by
almost 20 percent since then. And that,
dear wise-guys, cannot be justified as an
alleged compensation for previously
having spent too much on the Italians. In
Germany, the state spends one quarter
more per capita on its citizens than in
Italy. This has been painfully felt in these
past weeks.
All this is escalating into an unimag-
inable drama in the present corona cri-
sis. Since 2010 Italian governments have
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cut expenditures on public health,
whereas at the same time in Germany
year after year more money has been
spent per capita. This led to a shortage of
desperately needed hospital beds which
were not available at the outbreak of the
pandemic in Italy and people died who
could still be alive today. This is not the
direct fault of German politicians, true;
however, it is high time to stop this crazy
lecturing – it’s time to start helping solve
this disaster, dear Mr. Schäuble. Or to
perhaps offer “scusi” for a change.
Instead, German would-be sages
are still, even at this time of crisis and in
all seriousness, writing about the Italian
‘addiction to credit’. Another fun fact
perhaps: In hardly any EU country is
private debt in GDP terms as low as in
Italy.
Is anyone still wondering why the
number of Italians wanting to leave the
EU has increased to over 50 percent in
the past few weeks? In order to at least
partly grasp this, picture yourself for a
moment as a person in Milan or
Bergamo who for years has felt these cuts
in their daily lives and who may have just
lost their father or mother due to over-
whelmed hospitals – and who now see
German loudmouths writing articles
about how Italians should have cut back
more on their expenditures in the past.
Sometimes it’s just plain annoying. If I
were Italian, I, too, would be close to
telling them to “piss off!”.
It’s hard to blame the Germans per
se for all this. What’s behind this is
rather a major failing of an old guard of
politicians and economists behaving like
economic popes or exploiting resent-
ments. Those who prefer to stir up old
clichés out of laziness or for whatever
reasons instead of concerning them-
selves with real people and the relatively
simple rules of macroeconomic analysis
and statistics. In this case, it is simply not
enough to recite Italy’s old debt ratio
over and over again.
The fact that Italy’s public debt
increased again after the euro crisis, is, if
anything, the result of excessive auster-
ity efforts. When expenses are cut and
taxes are raised in crisis times things
simply get worse economically, and bud-
gets deteriorate. Government deficits
and debts will be higher than pre-crisis.
This is something any well intentioned
German should be able to grasp. After
all, we are not more dim-witted than
everyone else.
Whilst over the years Hans-Werner
Sinn in an over-interpretation or misin-
terpretation of target balances trum-
peted out the tale of the dreadful South-
ern Europeans, it may have been an over-
zealous fervor, and what do I know, per-
haps a resentment from a lack of compe-
tence (likely not). But then again, isn’t it
odd that even a former chief economist
at the European Central Bank like
Ottmar Issing seems to look past the dry
figures and instead entertain the petty
gossip that Italians want Eurobonds only
to be able to run endless deficits – and all
this after over three decades of Italian
politicians generating surpluses. What
the heck?
Perhaps for Europe to be saved, we
need a new set of German experts. We
shouldn’t waste our good German image
on some of those loudmouths.
We are not in the circus. We are in
the middle of a breathtakingly serious
crisis. With the way things are running
now there will be a further increase of
Italians who are fed up with this Europe,
and who do not want to be told how to
manage their everyday life by people
who obviously have no inkling about it.
It is high time to end this drama –
and be it by employing Eurobonds as a
symbol for the shared destiny we already
have in our common currency. There is
still time for the Germans to get their act
together after these last few botched
weeks.
Otherwise the European Union will
cease to be a union a few years from now.
And in Italy as well as in France people
will come to power who, like Donald
Trump or Boris Johnson, won’t play this
game. The game on which Germany has
been building its prosperity for decades.
l Thomas Fricke is based in Berlin, Germany. Thomas studied Economics and
Politics in Aachen, Germany, and in Paris, where he got a diploma at the Institut
d’Etudes Politiques de Paris and at the Université Paris I – Sorbonne. He was
awarded the Franco-German Prize for Journalism and the Publicist’s Prize of
Germany’s Keynes Society.
June 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 33
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THE FINAL RECKONING
The Crisis of the Liberal
Zombie Order
Since the attacks of 9/11, progressives have endured a series of profound shocks – but
coronavirus looks like a new and more disturbing portent.
By Ross Douthat
@DouthatNYT
F or the liberal optimism that has
been under assault since 11
September, 2001, the
coronavirus pandemic is another
rattling blow. The late-1990s vision of a
world progressing steadily towards
global harmony, towards sunlit uplands
of universal democracy and
technological wonder, has long since
given way to pessimism, anxiety and
crisis. But even more than terrorism and
the Iraq War, the financial crisis of 2008
and the eurozone stalemate, Brexit and
the election of Donald Trump in 2016,
the pandemic of 2020 promises to stall
globalisation, harden borders, freeze
economies, and push the dream of
liberal progress ever further into
history’s rear-view mirror.
Twenty-five years ago the liberal
establishment was embodied by youth-
ful politicians, by Bill Clinton and Tony
Blair in their pre-Iraq, pre-Jeffrey
Epstein flower. Even 12 years ago it was
embodied by Barack Obama, the soaring
36 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
orator and handsome post-racial tech-
nocrat. But in 2020, even if the
coronavirus dooms Trump’s populist
presidency and allows some sort of
establishment restoration in the United
States, it will be personified by Joe Biden
– a reassuringly normal politician in
certain ways, but also the physical
embodiment of political sclerosis,
exhaustion and old age.
But is this exhaustion, the end of
liberal optimism and the discrediting of
its establishment a prelude to the death
of liberalism itself? That is the fear of
many liberal mandarins, who have antic-
ipated the return of the 1930s in every
populist disturbance. It is the hope of
various so-called post-liberals on the
further right and left – who will be citing
the disastrous coronavirus response by
the Western establishment in their
polemics for years to come. And it is the
dream of the liberal order’s rivals,
whether in Moscow or Beijing, for whom
the temporary states of emergency
required by the pandemic will be
invoked to make the case that authori-
tarianism is more prepared than liberal-
ism for the challenges of the future.
There is, however, another possibil-
ity besides a looming liberal crack-up –
that a political order can be exhausted
and sclerotic, its great ambitions fore-
closed and its projects frustrated, and
still continue for a good long while with-
out either real reform or real collapse.
That may well be the fate of the lib-
eral order over the next few generations:
a kind of sustainable decadence, a zom-
bie existence punctuated by periods of
temporary crisis and alarm that contin-
ues indefinitely because all of its plausi-
ble rivals and inheritors have too many
challenges and weaknesses of their own
to effectively exploit its incompetence,
torpor and stagnation.
In his 1904 poem “Waiting for the
Barbarians”, the Greek poet CP Cavafy
imagines a Roman-style city where
everyone expects the Huns to invade at
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any moment. When they don’t arrive,
there is a “sudden restlessness”, a confu-
sion and even disappointment:
And now, what’s going to happen to
us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of
solution.
In the spirit of Cavafy, it is worth
considering why, even after our own
version of a Roman-era plague, the bar-
barians – any force capable of over-
throwing the liberal order and inheriting
its rule – might not be on their way.
Start with the inheritor imagined by
the literary chronicler of Western deca-
dence, Michel Houellebecq, in his 2015
novel Submission – a new Islamic order
that transforms the formerly Christian
West first through mass migration and
then religious conversion. Houellebecq’s
novel is a dreamlike variation on how
grand ideological conflict was supposed
to return after 9/11, according to the
more imaginative Western intellectuals.
Where once fascism and communism
had challenged the liberal order, they
argued, now some kind of Islamic ideol-
ogy would do the same, and the struggle
would happen everywhere: along the
borders between Islamic civilisation and
its neighbours, within Islamic societies
where liberal ideas might yet take root or
be imposed by Western intervention,
and within those European cities where
Muslim immigrants had created de facto
Islamist colonies, islands of extremism
that might yet expand to forge Eurabia.
This post-9/11 vision recognised
something fundamental: that Islam is
not really assimilated to the liberal world
order, that Islamic civilisation is the
West’s most immediately visible Other,
and that the Islamic world’s internal
conflicts are creating lawless zones
where both young Muslims and young
Westerners seek radical alternatives to
an exhausted liberalism.
But those truths are not sufficient to
sustain the larger claims of sweeping
civilisational conflict. Such claims
require an Islamic world that is expand-
ing rather than convulsing, consolidat-
ing rather than being consumed by civil
wars, winning converts within the West’s
elite rather than primarily among its
dropouts, and dramatically exceeding
Western fertility rates rather than con-
verging with them. And all these imagi-
nations are just that: fancies that bear no
relationship to the actual state of the
West’s Islamic rivals.
Houellebecq’s dreamworld does,
though, offer a useful way to think about
the difference between these fancies and
reality. In Submission, a genius Islamo-
French politician forges a Franco-
Islamic imperium that extends south to
encompass North Africa; in our world,
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the EU is struggling to prevent refugees
crossing the Mediterranean from col-
lapsing North African states, building
walls against an Islamic world that is a
threat only because of its dysfunction. In
Submission, Qatari and Saudi
moneymen compete to buy up French
universities and French intellectuals; in
our world, they are bribing Western gov-
ernments, certainly, but they’re mostly
spending money trying to influence the
intra-Islamic civil war next door to their
own fiefdoms.
In Houellebecq’s world, Islam
seduces high-profile academics the way
Marxism and fascism won over portions
of the intelligentsia in the 1940s and
1950s; in our world, with rare excep-
tions, it’s conspicuously not. The various
Islamist experiments are dangerous to
the West but not really seductive to many
Westerners; a few deluded anti-
colonialist writers, such as Michel
Foucault, flirted with Khomeini-ism in
1979, but that affair died quickly, and
today no Western observer visits Tehran
– especially not in the time of the
coronavirus – or Riyadh and announces
that he or she has seen the inevitable
future.
Movements such as al-Qaeda and
Islamic State can exploit Western ano-
mie to seduce and recruit, but their tar-
gets are hapless, marginal, even deplor-
able. There are no Islamist Kim Philbys,
and there is no Islamist analogue to
Alger Hiss (the US government official
accused of spying for the Soviet Union in
1948). And while Muslim intellectuals in
the West sometimes engage in double-
talk about the illiberal aspects of their
faith, there is no Islamic equivalent of
the early-20th century Marxists who
once expected to undo the liberal capital-
ist order from within.
Finally, Houellebecq imagines a
French Islam whose adherents are
numerous enough to build a powerful
Muslim Brotherhood–style political
party in the heart of Europe; in our
world, that scenario is still relatively
remote. Alarmists predicting the West’s
imminent fall to an Islamic successor
argue that although Islamic countries
are not powerful or geopolitically ascen-
dant, it does not matter because Muslims
in Europe are having babies and non-
Muslims aren’t: by simple demographic
momentum, a new Islamic order will
eventually come to Great Britain and
Germany and France.
But while the fertility differential is
real, it is also the case that Middle East-
ern birth rates have been tumbling for a
generation, headed for the same below-
replacement levels as the West. Birth
rates for Muslims within Europe are
higher than for other groups but are drop-
ping steadily as well. And although
assimilation is a serious problem for
Europe – a source of ongoing tension,
violence and political disruption – it is
still a leap from that trend to something
more culturally existential, to some
future that transforms restive minorities
into majorities; and that drives
Islamicisation outside the banlieue and
the ghetto.
Such an intellectual and cultural
revolution could happen: Islam’s
encounter with the secular heir of its
ancient Christian rival is the kind of
strange collision in which unexpected
futures might be forged. But the form of
Islam that could imaginably replace lib-
eralism has yet to be invented.
That said, Islam has certain
strengths that are missing from the sec-
ond possible inheritor, the “illiberal”
form of politics that has gained momen-
tum over the last decade at liberalism’s
expense. For all the weaknesses of
Islamic governments and institutions,
the Muslim world picture does inspire
stringent zeal and genuine belief,
whereas elsewhere in the non-Western
world and the West’s illiberal peripher-
ies, there is a lot more intellectual fraud-
ulence where conviction ought to be.
Take the case of Vladimir Putin’s
Russia, which has lately sought to return
the ideological role that Moscow played
under the czars – as a rallying point for
traditionalists worldwide, and as a reli-
gious-conservative bulwark against
Western liberalism and secularism.
Putin has enjoyed some success with this
gambit: he has admirers among
Europe’s far-right parties, such as
Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement
National in France, authoritarian
friends around the globe, and his inter-
ventions in Ukraine and the US elections
in 2016 have prompted a surge of West-
ern-liberal Russophobia, with talk of
great ideological conflict and a renewed
Cold War.
But as a world-view, a system, an
alternative civilisational architecture,
Putinism is mostly smoke and mirrors.
The Romanovs embodied a real ancien
régime, an order rooted in a deep histor-
ical inheritance even when its days were
numbered. Putinism does not have a
similar justification for its powers, and
following the collapse of Soviet commu-
nism from 1989 and the prolonged doses
of neoliberal economic “shock therapy”
that came after, Russian society is no
more traditional than its more liberal
and democratic neighbours. There is no
legitimate mode of transmission for
Putin’s system once he dies: his succes-
sor will either take power by brute force
or claim (like his predecessor) the
pseudolegitimacy of a rigged election –
June 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 37
even liberalism’s enemies pay tribute to
its norms. Either way, there will not be a
clear alternative to liberalism, only vio-
lence, or parody, or both.
Perhaps there is something embry-
onic within the regimes of various
Putinesque strongmen that could
develop into a serious ideological chal-
lenger to the West. But unlike the
totalitarianisms of the 1930s – or, for
that matter, unlike the Islamic Republic
of Iran or the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia –
none of these regimes has claimed an
alternative source of legitimacy; an alter-
native vision of where sovereignty
resides. In practice “illiberal democracy”
is either liberal democracy with some-
what more nationalism than Western
bien-pensants prefer, or pseudo-
democracy dominated by a dictator who
refuses to admit his authoritarianism.
Let Putin be crowned czar of all the
Russias, let Turkey’s Recep Tayyip
Erdogan revive the caliphate under his
own personal rule, let Poland or Hun-
gary remake themselves as Christian
monarchies, and matters might look
different. But what exists in the so-called
illiberal democracies now is a more
nationalist, or conservative, or degraded
form of what exists in “normal” Western-
liberal countries – a variety of liberal
decadence, most likely, rather than a
post-liberal inheritor.
Nor is this illiberal form of politics
even necessarily new. Set aside his culti-
vation of nationalist and post-liberal
intellectuals, and is Viktor Orbán’s demo-
cratic but one-party-dominated Hun-
gary all that different from the de facto
one-party rule that often characterised
20th-century Mexico, South Korea, or
s Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. Twenty-five years ago the liberal establishment was embodied by youthful politicians.
38 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
Japan? It is not unusual for democratic
systems to produce powerful parties that
bend the rules to keep themselves in
power. Nobody thinks that Mexico,
when it was governed uninterrupted by
the Institutional Revolutionary Party
between 1929 and 2000, represented an
ideological challenge to liberal democ-
racy. For all the anxiety about Orbán or
the Poland’s nationalist Law and Justice
party, the same may be true of eastern
Europe today.
The third possible inheritor to the
liberal order, China, is a more compli-
cated case. In one sense, it is like Russia.
It bills itself as a Marxist-Leninist state
but nobody believes the official rhetoric,
making its formal ideological self-
presentation an exercise in sustained
mendacity. At the same time, the Chi-
nese system does represent something
closer to the form that a post-liberal
order might take: a system where tech-
nocracy is formally elevated over liberal
norms and democratic principles; a sys-
tem promising that a modernised Confu-
cian bureaucracy can deliver growth,
order and technological innovation
more effectively than liberalism.
It is for this reason that, unlike
Islamism, the Chinese system has won
soft admiration among the Western
elite. Though not admirers of one-party
rule, precisely, they are pundits and busi-
nessmen – such as Michael Bloomberg, a
failed candidate for US president – who
are impressed by the way that Beijing
can implement big policy changes with-
out the snarls of democratic debate.(Or
the way that it can shut down an entire
province to contain a viral outbreak that
runs wild across the liberal West.) And
unlike Putin’s Russia, China has enjoyed
a rate of economic growth that is both an
advertisement for its system and a
source of growing global soft power.
Those elites in developing nations – in
Africa especially – who think China’s
one-party meritocracy is a model worth
imitating are closer to constituting a
nascent post-liberal order than the illib-
eral client states of Moscow.
But there is an alternative hypothe-
sis, that in the near future there will be a
kind of convergence-in-decadence
between the world’s rising powers and
the liberal West. In this scenario, growth
and progress outside the West levels off
and political futility increases, and the
afflictions of Western liberalism – prob-
lems of political sclerosis and intellec-
tual exhaustion – wait to greet China
(and India and Brazil, and Turkey and
Nigeria…).
We saw a version of this when
Europe’s economies, which had grown
so rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s, failed
to pass the United States after the 1970s
– when the current era of economic
deceleration began – and instead stag-
nated in their turn. In the same way,
China, India and others might see their
own growth plateau as the easier gains
are made, and the pressures of demo-
graphic decline – of ageing populations
and falling birth rates – begin to make
themselves felt in Asia as well.
And those pressures are likely to be,
if anything, stronger in the economies
that are supposed to dominate the “post-
American world” than they have been in
the developed West. This is because the
demographic transition to low birth
rates has happened more swiftly in many
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s Putin has admirers among Europe’s far-right parties, such as Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National in France.
of those countries – sometimes prodded
along, as in China, by ruthless popula-
tion-control programmes – and created
a situation where the new powers may
grow old before they finish growing rich.
If growth rates in East Asia and
South Asia stall, it’s easy to envisage
more intense versions of the liberal
West’s problems besetting Asian societ-
ies: the loneliness of the middle-aged
and elderly would be worsened by the
relative weakness of the social safety net,
the West’s problem with boys dropping
out of education would be worsened by
abortion-induced male-skewing sex
ratios, leaving millions of “surplus”
young men.
Disappointing growth is hardly a
hypothetical. In Brazil and South Africa,
often touted as potential great powers of
the future, the growth rates of the last ten
years have been indistinguishable from
growth rates in the US and Europe. India
has done better, and the absence of one-
child totalitarianism means that it is not
growing old as fast as China. But in the
last few years, there has been an unex-
pected Indian deceleration, linked in
part to the ham-fisted way that Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s government
imposed currency and tax reforms. The
joke often applied to Brazil, that “it’s the
country of the future, and it always will
be”, recurs with similar countries for a
reason: it is (relatively) easy for poor,
misgoverned countries to grow rapidly
for a time when government policy
improves, but it is a lot harder to acceler-
ate past the pacesetters and into the new
economic territory that a would-be rival
of liberalism would need to do.
Perhaps this will not be true of
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China; if the West’s containment mea-
sures for coronavirus fail while its more
draconian measures work, Beijing may
come through the shock of the outbreak
with the legitimacy of its system intact or
even enhanced – “ahead in the
geopolitical game” as Bruno Macaes
wrote for National Review recently, hav-
ing proven that it can “move as a single
organism” in a way that the decadent
liberal governments cannot.
But even a Chinese success in the
pandemic crisis – and there is a long way
to go before such a judgement can be
made – will not erase doubts about the
ascendant China story. Its growth statis-
tics are remarkable but not entirely
trustworthy. Suspicions fall on the coun-
try’s economic stability since 2015, when
the GDP growth rate fell to 7 per cent
from its once-consistent high of more
than 10 per cent per annum. Some mea-
sures of activity suggest that, in fact, the
real growth rate has been much lower
than the official numbers for the last five
years. Even the official numbers show a
deceleration that is taking China off the
growth trajectory achieved by Japan and
South Korea during the 1980s and
1990s. It is a consequence, the Wall
Street Journal’s Greg Ip suggested in a
recent analysis, of its rapid ageing, its
reliance on state-driven infrastructure
spending and its substantial overhang of
debt.
Meanwhile, China’s police state is
frighteningly effective, but also signifies
internal divisions and fault lines that
might shift destructively should growth
begin to really fail. For the leaders of the
world’s soon to be dominant power,
China’s elite can also appear rather pes-
simistic. Capital flight keeps rising, a
near majority of wealthy Chinese would
like to emigrate according to some sur-
veys, and those who do leave the country
warn of darker times ahead. When Chen
Tianyong, a real estate developer,
decamped for Malta in early 2019, he
published a long manifesto (which
quickly disappeared from the Chinese
internet) describing China’s economy as
“a giant ship heading to the precipice…
Without fundamental changes, it’s inevi-
table that the ship will be wrecked and
the passengers will die.”
If disaster fails to strike, Chinese
power will be greater in a generation
than it is today. But a powerful China is
not the same thing as a hegemonic
China, or a China that is held up as a cul-
tural or political model for the world. If
China ends up as another rich-but-
stagnating economy with a distrusted
elite relying on a surveillance state to
maintain its power, then it will not have
pioneered an alternative to Western lib-
eralism; it will be another case study in
the convergence of liberal democracies,
pseudo-democracies and would-be meri-
tocracies, all becoming de facto oligar-
chies trying to manage stagnation and its
discontents.
The desire of China’s elites – the
very people who seemed poised to guide
the West’s great rival – to leave for New
York and London illustrates another way
in which liberal decadence is well
defended: the Western order is still good
at weakening potential rivals through
recruitment.
The system that we call meritocracy,
with its promise to build an elite by find-
ing the best and brightest in every corner
June 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 39
of society, presents itself as a way to build
the most talented possible upper class,
the most intellectually deserving elite.
The record of the Western elite over the
last generation proves that its claims to
meritocracy are wildly exaggerated. But
even if it is false, meritocracy may still
shore up and protect even an ineffective
elite, because it drains the talent from
the provinces and the peripheries and
deprives potential rivals and potential
rebels of the leaders who otherwise
might challenge its hegemony.
Two types of brain drain sustain this
balance: one global and the other
national. The global brain drain happens
through high-skilled immigration – the
one kind of immigration that still has
something like bipartisan support in the
polarised West; and for good reason, if
you think of it as a process whereby the
skilled professionals or would-be profes-
sionals of Latin America and Africa find
their way to Europe and North America.
In 2012 Ethiopia’s health minister
claimed there are more Ethiopian doc-
tors in Chicago than in their homeland,
to pick a particularly arresting example.
These professionals try to help their chil-
dren find their way into the West’s elite,
while the countries that they leave
behind get remittances in exchange for
losing their natural leadership class to
Western cities.
The efficiency of this global brain
drain is blessed by practically every pro-
fessional economist, but its political con-
sequences are also notable: it is a good
way to make the Western world’s poten-
tial rivals a little bit better off monetarily
but a lot less talent rich, by siphoning
away their most ambitious citizens
through offering them membership of an
elite that they might otherwise supplant.
Something similar happens domes-
tically as well. The most feared “barbari-
ans” in the Western world today are not
invaders from the distant steppes; they
are the Rust Belt “deplorables” voting for
Trump, the gilets jaunes burning shops
on the Champs-Élysées, the Little Eng-
landers forcing their country into Brexit.
A great deal of elite commentary about
the crisis of the liberal order assumes
that these internal rebels might topple
the system from within, that populists
“inside the gates” are now the existential
threat that Western institutions last
faced from the Soviet Union.
But there is little to suggest that the
populist movements are prepared to
wield power in any effective way; their
power, too, is limited by the way that
meritocracy has recruited away the men
and women who in a different era might
have been the working class’s leaders
and the hinterland’s elite. Populists can
fill the streets and sometimes elect prime
40 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
ministers and presidents, but they are
disorganised, poorly led, conspiratorial
and anti-intellectual in a way that under-
cuts their own effectiveness.
They are also vulnerable to con men
and manipulators, and swing wildly
from far right to further left without find-
ing talented leaders or a clear political
programme. From the feckless (and
now, perhaps, disastrous) governance of
Trump to the inchoate protest politics
roiling France, our populist distur-
bances are not exactly transformations,
and the mix of anxieties and aspirations
involved seem querulous, irascible, nos-
talgic – a populism of the Western twi-
light, a reaction to stagnation that’s
stagnationist itself.
Perhaps populists just await the
right combination of the man, the move-
ment and the moment to become agents
of actual regime change in the West. But
it is also possible that meritocracy really
does protect elites from effective chal-
One can imagine a
future shaped by climate
change that is like the
present, but more so.
Every rich place on
Earth would be more
like every other rich
place, likewise every
poor place, and the
national-level political
order would seem like a
fractal of the
international political
order
lenges, and enables even an exhausted
liberal establishment to return, Biden-
esque, to power once the disturbances
are over or once the populists conspicu-
ously fail. This points to a future distilled
by the US intellectual Michael Lind and
his vision of what the later-21st century
might hold if populism is defeated:
The other possibility… is that
today’s class war will come to an end
when the managerial minority, with its
near monopoly of wealth, political
power, expertise and media influence,
completely and successfully represses
the numerically greater but politically
weaker working-class majority. If that is
the case, the future of North America and
Europe may look a lot like Brazil and
Mexico, with nepotistic oligarchies clus-
tered in a few fashionable metropolitan
areas but surrounded by a derelict,
depopulated and despised ‘hinterland.’”
You can create a global version of
the Lindian scenario if you weave in the TIMELINE
most impersonal and apolitical chal-
lenge to the liberal order: climate
change. The more apocalyptic projec-
tions for climate crisis could indeed
U.S.-Russia Nuclear Arms Control
bring about the end of liberal decadence
in fire and flood. But the less apocalyptic 1949 – 2019
possibilities, which are also the likelier
ones, suggest a future in which climate
The nuclear arms race was one of the most alarming features of the Cold War
change is mostly a manageable burden superpower competition between the United States and Soviet Union. Both sides rapidly
for wealthy countries, imposing discom- expanded their nuclear stockpiles, but after two decades, each embarked on efforts to
fort and requiring adaptation, but not
the end of civilisation as we know it. cut down its arsenal. Disarmament efforts picked up speed after the dissolution of the
On the other hand, rising tempera- Soviet Union, but maintaining momentum and confidence in arms control between the
tures have a greater chance of seriously
destabilising poorer countries in the United States and Russia has proved challenging.
global South, Africa, the Middle East and
India. They are more likely to limit eco-
nomic growth, to overwhelm efforts at
mitigation, to encourage yet more of
those regions’ elites to decamp for Lon-
don or Los Angeles, and to kill those left
behind.
In which case, it is possible that
strictly as a matter of Machiavellian self-
interest, unmoored from moral debt or
humanitarian obligation, climate
change will help sustain the zombie lib-
eral order instead of threatening it. A
crisis created unintentionally by West-
ern industrial development could, in one
of history’s cruel ironies, help a decadent
West hold off challenges from its rivals
because it imposes greater ecological
costs on the formerly colonised and
defeated, than on the countries that led
the first industrial wave and began to
warmthe world.
One can imagine a future shaped by
climate change that is like the present,
but more so. Every rich place on Earth
would be more like every other rich
place, likewise every poor place, and the By The KIPS Bureau
national-level political order would Lahore, Pakistan
seem like a fractal of the international
political order.
1949 intelligence assessments at the time had riority is being challenged by Moscow,
There would be an elite that seems August 29, 1949 concluded Moscow was at least three speeding the race to develop the next
interchangeable from country to coun-
try, a restive impotence and a lot of First Soviet Nuclear Test years away from obtaining the technol- generation of nuclear weapons, known
ogy. as thermonuclear, or hydrogen, bombs.
human suffering wherever that elite is
On November 1, 1952, the United States
hated or opposed, zones of chaos and
1952 tests the first of these weapons at
disorder that do not really threaten the
The Next Generation of Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands
metropole, and no nation or civilisation
in the so-called Mike test. The resulting
charting a radically different course. Bombs explosion yields a blast equivalent to ten
That is a picture of what it would mean
million tons of TNT—roughly seven hun-
for the liberal order’s decadence to
dred times the force of the atomic bomb
endure even after the pandemic, and to
that decimated Hiroshima. Moscow
gradually become universal; that is what
tests its first thermonuclear device in
sustainable decadence would mean. s The director of the Soviet A-bomb project,
November 1955.
Why this sudden restlessness, this Yuliy Khariton, and RDS-1, the Soviet Union’s
confusion? Because night has fallen and first atomic bomb.
1957 – 1958
the barbarians have not come. And it is
more likely than you think. Four years after the United States Sputnik Launch and Test Ban
dropped two atomic bombs on Japanese Talks
cities, the Soviet Union explodes its first s A mushroom cloud rises over Enewetak, an
atoll in the Pacific Ocean, during the first test of a In October 1957, two months after test-
nuclear weapon at a test range in hydrogen bomb. The so-called Mike test ing the world’s first intercontinental
Kazakhstan. That the Soviet Union completely destroyed the tiny island of Elugelab. ballistic missile, the Soviet Union
obtained “the bomb” is not surprising, launches Sputnik 1, the first man-made
l Ross Douthat is a New York Times columnist and the author of “The Decadent
Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success” (Simon & Schuster) but the timing of the test is. Most U.S. Concern spreads that U.S. nuclear supe-
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
June 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 41

s A photograph of the Soviet satellite Sputnik I.
satellite to be sent into space. The
advances in technology, which were theo-
retically capable of delivering a nuclear
weapon, startle the U.S. national secu-
rity establishment, bolster Soviet pres-
tige internationally, and feed paranoia in
the U.S. political debate. Sputnik marks
the start of the space race, and the suc-
cessive Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo
space projects that culminated with the
U.S. moon landing in 1969. But this era
of space exploration also launches a new
period of apprehension over fallout from
nuclear testing. In 1958, Moscow calls
for a U.S.-British-Soviet test morato-
rium; talks on a more lasting test ban
begin in October of that year.
1957
IAEA Established
s The opening session of the International
Atomic Energy Agency’s General Conference in
Vienna on October 1, 1957.
In his 1953 Atoms for Peace speech to the
UN General Assembly, U.S. President
Dwight D. Eisenhower calls for the cre-
ation of an international atomic energy
agency under the auspices of the United
Nations. Governments would contribute
fissile material to the agency, which
would “devise methods whereby this
fissionable material would be allocated
to serve the peaceful pursuits of man-
kind,” Eisenhower says. Four years later,
the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) is established in Vienna as a
forum for international cooperation on
civilian nuclear research. The IAEA’s
statute outlines a three-pillar mission:
nuclear verification and security, safety,
and technology transfer. The first IAEA
safeguards system is established in 1961.
1962
October 1962
Cuban Missile Crisis
In October 1962, tensions spike when
U.S. reconnaissance flights reveal Soviet
42 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
s A Russian ship loaded with missiles in Port
Casilda, Cuba, on November 6, 1962.
missile bases taking shape in Cuba. Pres-
ident John F. Kennedy promises a “full
retaliatory response” against the Soviet
Union for a missile attack launched from
Cuba on any country in the Western
Hemisphere, and imposes a naval block-
ade on the island. After heated debates
between high-level U.S. and Soviet offi-
cials, Moscow withdraws its missiles
from Cuba. In exchange, Washington
publicly promises that the United States
will not invade Cuba and secretly agrees
to phase out its Jupiter missiles near the
Soviet border in Turkey.
1963
August 1963
Limited Test Ban Treaty
In August 1963,
the United States
joins the Soviet
Union and United
Kingdom in
agreeing to ban
n u c l e a r e x p l o-
sions in the atmo-
sphere, outer
space, or under
water, and places
significant restric-
s With test bans on the
tions on detonat- horizon, the US steps up
i n g n u c l e a r testing new weapons
devices under- designs, including a
ground. The Lim- series in 1958 known as
Operation Hardtack.
ited Test Ban
Treaty reflects concerns about the dan-
gers of nuclear fallout. A high-speed “hot-
line” connecting the leaders of the Soviet
and U.S. governments is established to
mitigate the risk of accidental warfare.
1968
Nonproliferation Treaty
Signed
s U.S. Ambassador Llewellyn E. Thompson, left,
signs the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as
Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko
watches in Moscow on July 1, 1968.
Cold War brinkmanship and the devel-
opment of nuclear weapons by a growing
number of states lead to calls for an
international framework to prevent
nuclear proliferation and promote disar-
mament. Discussions on a
nonproliferation treaty began at the UN
in 1959; after multiple rounds of drafts,
the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
(NPT) is signed on July 1, 1968. The mea-
sure recognizes the five existing nuclear-
weapons states at the time—China,
France, the Soviet Union, the United
Kingdom, and the United States—and
guarantees other signatories the right to
civilian nuclear technology subject to
IAEA safeguards, but prohibits them
from acquiring nuclear weapons capa-
bilities.
1970
The Decade of Détente
s On June 21, 1973, U.S. President Richard Nixon
and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev pledge to
permanently limit their countries’ offensive
nuclear arsenals.
The 1970s see a shift toward détente,
inaugurating an era of strategic nuclear
arms limitations. The Strategic Arms
Limitation Treaty (SALT) and the Anti-
Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM), negoti-
ated as part of the SALT talks, herald this
new period of cooperation. Yet rhetorical
promises of a less volatile relationship
are challenged by rising geopolitical ten-
sions. Conflicting alliances during the
1973 Arab-Israeli War, or Yom Kippur
War, draw the two powers to the brink of
confrontation. Meanwhile, Washing-
ton’s rapprochement with China stuns
the Soviet leadership, whose ties to
Mao’s regime fell to a new low in 1969,
when Soviet and Chinese troops clashed
on the Amur River.
1979 – 1980
SALT II and the Invasion of
Afghanistan
In June 1979, the United States and the
Soviet Union reach a SALT II agreement
to reduce their production of some types
of nuclear weapons. But in December,
the Soviet Union invades Afghanistan,
starting a nine-year-long war in which
Soviet forces and Afghan communists
battle the mujahideen resistance, which
is backed by U.S. and Saudi funding and
Pakistani logistical support. Following
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
s After seven years of war, Soviet tanks start
rolling out from their forward operating bases in
Afghanistan on October 15, 1986.
the Soviet invasion, U.S. President
Jimmy Carter withdraws the SALT II
treaty from the Senate, and the United
States boycotts the 1980 Olympics in
Moscow. The Soviet Union retaliates by
boycotting the 1984 Olympics in Los
Angeles.
1981 – 1982
Zero Option, START, and
Pershing
In November
1981, U.S. Presi-
dent Ronald Rea-
gan presents the
Soviet Union with
a so-called zero
option, in which
all Soviet and U.S.
intermediate-
range nuclear
missiles would be
removed from
Europe. This was s A Pershing II test
followed by the missile lifts off from Fort
Reagan adminis- Bliss, Texas, in 1983.
tration’s unveiling in June 1982 of the
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or
START, which sought to shrink overall
warhead counts and delivery vehicles to
6,000 and 1,600, respectively. Some
analysts see the treaty’s early iterations
as unfair to the Soviets because they
would have required Moscow to make
greater adjustments to its forces than
Washington. Soviet concerns are height-
ened as the United States and the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
stage the Pershing II missile system in
Western Europe. The system’s range and
accuracy would become a major factor in
Moscow’s decision to pursue the Inter-
mediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
1983
March 13, 1983
‘Star Wars’ Speech
Accelerating a U.S. defense buildup that
started in the final years of the Carter
administration, Reagan announces a
new “Strategic Defense Initiative” to
create a space-based ballistic missile
shield against Soviet nuclear attack. The
program, dubbed “Star Wars” by some,
prompts deep concern in Soviet military
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s President Reagan addresses the nation on
March 23, 1983.
circles, where a growing technological
gap with the West is felt acutely.
1985
Glasnost and Perestroika
s Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev addresses
world leaders at the Kremlin on February 16, 1987.
Mikhail Gorbachev becomes general
secretary of the Soviet Communist Party
in March 1985. He launches a series of
reforms dubbed perestroika (economic
restructuring) and glasnost (openness),
which is marked by new press freedoms
and public debate in the Soviet Union.
U.S. officials, skeptical at first, eventu-
ally recognize Gorbachev as a
transformative figure.
1986
October 1986
Reykjavik Summit
s U.S. President Reagan with Soviet General
Secretary Gorbachev at Hofdi House during the
Reykjavik Summit in Iceland.
In October 1986, Gorbachev and Reagan
meet in one of the most extraordinary
U.S.-Soviet summits ever. The two sides
nearly agree to abolish their offensive
nuclear weapons within ten years. The
deal unravels over the question of mis-
sile defense testing, with the Soviets
favoring a strict interpretation of the
ABM treaty that confined research and
development to laboratories and the
United States arguing for a broad inter-
pretation allowing the development and
testing of space-based missile defense
components. Despite their failure to
reach an agreement at Reykjavik, the
measures discussed are seen as paving
the way for subsequent treaties.
1987
December 8, 1987
Intermediate-Range Nuclear
Forces Treaty
s A Soviet inspector examines a BGM-109G
Tomahawk ground-launched cruise missile prior
to its destruction in October 1988.
On December 8, 1987, Gorbachev and
Reagan sign the Intermediate-Range
Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), agreeing to
elimination of ground-launched, mid-
range nuclear missiles (ranging from
about 300 to 3,400 miles), including the
modernized U.S. Pershing II and Soviet
SS-20 missiles. A breakthrough occurs
when Gorbachev, in a shift from his Reyk-
javik negotiating posture, agrees to de-
link the INF from broader strategic talks,
which includes Soviet efforts to inhibit
U.S. development of the Strategic
Defense Initiative. The treaty is the first
to reduce nuclear arms, as opposed to
setting ceilings, and introduces compre-
hensive verification measures.
1989
End of Cold War, Progress on
Disarmament
s A Soviet inspector examines a BGM-109G
Tomahawk ground-launched cruise missile prior
to its destruction in October 1988.
The fall of the Berlin Wall on November
9, 1989, marks the beginning of the end
of the Cold War, which leads to rapid
progress on disarmament efforts by the
United States and the Soviet Union. On
July 31, 1991, the Strategic Arms Reduc-
tion Treaty (START I) is signed by U.S.
President George H.W. Bush and Soviet
leader Mikhail Gorbachev; it enters into
force on December 5, 1994. START lim-
its the United States and Russia to
approximately 6,000 warheads and
June 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 43
1,600 delivery vehicles each. The treaty
is judged a success; both sides, which
had more than 10,000 deployed war-
heads in 1990, will reduce their arsenals
to well below 6,000 warheads by the
time the treaty expires in December
2009.
1991
Former Soviet Republics
Disarm
s Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and General
Colin Powell speak about reductions in
short-range nuclear weapons.
The U.S. Senate passes the Nunn-Lugar
bill, which establishes the Cooperative
Threat Reduction (CTR) program. The
program will provide financial and tech-
nical assistance to states of the former
Soviet Union to secure and dismantle
nuclear weapons and fissile material
stockpiles; remove thousands of war-
heads from their territories; and employ
nuclear scientists in civilian pursuits.
Since 1991, the CTR program has
received over $5.9 billion in annual
defense appropriations. In May 1992,
the former Soviet republics of Belarus,
Kazakhstan, and Ukraine sign the Lis-
bon Protocol to the START I agreement,
indicating their intention to join the NPT
as non-nuclear-weapons states.
1993
START II Signed but Not
Implemented
s Russian President Boris Yeltsin, right, toasts
U.S. President George H.W. Bush after signing the
START II treaty in Moscow on January 3, 1993.
The United States and the Russian Fed-
44 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
eration sign START II, which is ratified
(with conditions) by the U.S. Congress in
1996. The Russian Duma ratifies the
agreement in 2000, contingent on the
United States upholding the Anti-
Ballistic Missile Treaty. Building on
START I, this latest arms-reduction
effort aims to reduce the U.S. and Rus-
sian strategic force to 3,500 warheads.
1997
March 1997
ABM Treaty Amended
s U.S. President Bill Clinton and Russian
President Boris Yeltsin sign a joint declaration
detailing future reductions in nuclear forces.
To redefine and strengthen aspects of
the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972,
U.S. President Bill Clinton and Russian
President Boris Yeltsin ink a joint state-
ment that delineates between strategic
and nonstrategic (theater) missile
defense systems. Russia ratifies the
agreement in May 2000, but the mea-
sure is never sent to the U.S. Senate. Pres-
ident George W. Bush’s withdrawal from
the ABM in June 2002 renders the
agreement meaningless.
2000
June 2000
Missile Data Sharing
s Russian military officials peer into an opened
silo of an intercontinental ballistic Topol-M
missile at an undisclosed location.
Building on caveats worked into past
arms control agreements, the United
States and Russia propose the creation of
a Joint Data Exchange Center and a Pre-
Launch Notification System, systems
designed to reduce the risk of an inadver-
tent ballistic missile launch based on
false warning of an attack. The proposal
was first floated in September 1998 by
Yeltsin, who suggested the center should
be located “on Russian territory.” Wash-
ington and Moscow sign a memorandum
of agreement on the center two years
after Yeltsin’s proposal. The center has
not yet been built but plans to break
ground continue.
2002
Missile Debates
s President George W. Bush announces on
December 13, 2001, that the United States will
withdraw from the ABM Treaty.
In June 2002, Washington withdraws
from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
President George W. Bush argues the
treaty limits U.S. ability to develop mis-
sile defenses against terrorists and rogue
states. The move angers Russia, which
increasingly views U.S. policy post-9/11
as unilateral. Still, in May 2002, Bush
and Russian President Vladimir Putin
sign the Strategic Offensive Reductions
Treaty, also known as the Moscow
Treaty, promising to eliminate roughly
two-thirds of the two countries’ nuclear
warheads over ten years. Congress
approves the treaty, and it comes into
force on June 1, 2003. Also in May, Bush
and Putin release a joint declaration
aimed at “strengthening confidence and
increasing transparency in the area of
missile defense.”
2007
A Missile Shield Fracas
s A NATO air-defense base in the Czech Republic.
A U.S. plan to place anti-missile inter-
ceptors in Poland and the Czech Repub-
lic angers Moscow, while the Bush
administration says the shield is needed
to defend U.S. and European facilities
against fast-developing Iranian capabili-
ties. Russia sees the shield as a threat to
its forces. During G8 summit talks in
Germany in June, Putin proposes to
jointly develop a missile shield based on
radar facilities in southern Russia and
Azerbaijan. The missile defense tensions
come amid allegations of increasing Rus-
sian assistance to Iran’s nuclear pro-
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
gram.
2009
July 2009
Resetting Relations
s Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Geneva,
pressing the “reset button” in relations between
the countries.
The new U.S. administration of Barack
Obama calls for a reset in relations
between Washington and Moscow to
improve collaboration on a number of
fronts. In July, Obama and his Russian
counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, agree on
a framework that would cut their respec-
tive nuclear arsenals by up to one-third,
to no more than 1,675 strategic warheads
and 1,100 delivery vehicles. Both coun-
tries currently deploy more than 2,000
strategic nuclear warheads across a triad
of land, sea, and air weapons. Also in
July 2009, the two countries sign an
agreement that enables U.S. military
personnel and equipment to cross the
Russian border to support coalition
forces in Afghanistan.
A New Shield for Europe
s Marine Corps General James Cartwright, vice
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, right, and
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates explain
plans for a new ballistic missile shield in Europe.
Building on improved U.S.-Russia ties,
Obama announces the United States will
alter the architecture of its European-
based missile defense system and
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
scratch plans to deploy a permanent
architecture to the Czech Republic and
Poland. The new focus will be to deploy
missile systems onboard ships and,
potentially, land. Russia had long pro-
tested the Bush administration’s
approach and argued the system could
be turned into an offensive capability to
target its own territory. Speculation sur-
faces that the scuttling is an attempt to
convince Moscow to assist Washington
in its efforts to counter Iran’s nuclear
ambition. Obama denies offering a quid
pro quo, but says the revisions are neces-
sary to protect the United States and its
s President Obama shares a toast in the Oval
allies from the growing threat of Iran’s Office with his national security staff on
short- to medium-range missiles. December 22, 2010.
Obama hails Democrats and Republi-
2010
April 8, 2010 cans for coming together to approve the
pact, which he calls “the most significant
START I Successor Treaty arms control agreement in nearly two
Signed decades.” The Russian parliament
approves the treaty in early 2011.
2019
August 2, 2019
U.S. Withdraws From INF
Treaty
s U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev sign the new
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in Prague on
April 8, 2010.
Obama and Medvedev sign an arms
reduction agreement in Prague, replac-
ing the 1991 START I treaty that expired
in December 2009. The so-called New
START treaty commits Washington and
Moscow to limiting proliferation of stra-
tegic offensive arms. The package, which
comes after extensive talks between the
s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announces
that the United States will withdraw from the
two leaders, sets a 30 percent reduction Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
on deployed warheads and lower caps on
deployed and non-deployed interconti- Citing Russian violations, the Donald J.
Trump administration pulls the United
nental ballistic missile launchers, sub-
marine-launched ballistic missile States from the Cold War–era pact that
launchers, and heavy bombers equipped bans mid-range, ground-launched
for nuclear weapons. nuclear missiles. In February, the United
States suspended its obligations under
the INF Treaty after Russia continued to
deny that it possessed a prohibited
December 22, 2010
cruise missile. NATO allies supported
U.S. Senate Approves New the U.S. allegation. The withdrawal
comes amid a series of disputes with
START
During the final days of the 2010 lame- Russia over Ukraine, Syria, and election
interference. Some analysts warn the
duck session, the U.S. Senate approves
the New START treaty in a decisive treaty’s demise could usher in a new
nuclear arms race.
bipartisan vote. It is the first arms con-
trol agreement to be approved by Con-
gress since the 2002 Moscow Treaty.
June 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 45
KASHMIR BIFURCATION
The Story of Indian Democracy
Written in Blood and Betrayal
BJP thinks it is going to Indianise Kashmir. Instead, we will see, potentially, the
Kashmirisation of India.
By Pratap Bhanu Mehta
@pbmehta
T the Congress can never
here are times in the history of a
republic when it reduces itself to
jackboot. Nothing more and
nothing less. We are witnessing that
moment in Kashmir. But this moment is
also a dry run for the political
desecration that may follow in the rest of
India. The manner in which the BJP
government has changed the status of
Jammu and Kashmir by rendering
Article 370 ineffective and bifurcating
the state is revealing its true character.
This is a state for whom the only
currency that matters is raw power. This
is a state that recognises no constraints
of law, liberty and morality. This is a
state that will make a mockery of
democracy and deliberation. This is a
state whose psychological principle is
fear. This is a state that will make
ordinary citizens cannon fodder for its
warped nationalist pretensions.
The narrative supporting a radical
move on Kashmir is familiar. Article
35(a) was a discriminatory provision and
46 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
had to go. Article 370 was not a mecha-
nism for integration but a legal tool for
separatism. The Indian state, despite the
horrendous violence it has used in the
past, has never had the guts to take a
strong stand on Kashmir. The radicalis-
ation within Kashmir warrants a crack-
down. The treatment meted to Kashmiri
Pandits has never been recompensed
either through justice or retribution. The
international climate is propitious. We
can do what China is doing: Remake
whole cultures, societies. We can take
advantage of the fact that human rights
is not even a hypocrisy left in the interna-
tional system. We can show Pakistan and
Taliban their place. Let us do away with
our old pusillanimity. Now is the time to
seize the moment. Settle this once and
for all, if necessary with brute force.
There are kernels of truth to many of
these arguments. The status quo was a
double whammy: It did nothing to
address the well-being of Kashmiris who
have now endured two generations of
what was effectively military occupation.
And it increased the gulf between Kash-
mir and the rest of the nation. So some
movement was inevitable. But the kernel
of truth is being deployed with an
armoury of evil. The solution being pro-
posed is an annihilation of decency. The
fact that these measures had to be done
under stealth, with a tight security noose
and informational blackout is a measure
of the evil of the step taken. This is not
the dawn of a new constitutional settle-
ment, designed to elicit free allegiance. It
is repression, plain and simple, reminis-
cent of the Reichstag or Chinese consti-
tutional ideology that sees federalism as
an obstacle to a strong state and homog-
enous culture.
Think of the proposal’s broader
ramifications. India has betrayed its own
constitutional promises. India has many
asymmetric federalism arrangements
outside of Kashmir. This act potentially
sets the precedent for invalidating all of
them. How can we justify offering
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
s Amit Shah at parliament house.
Nagaland asymmetric federalism but
deny it to Kashmir? Its implication is
that the government can unilaterally
declare any existing state to be a Union
Territory. This is a constitutional first.
We are simply a union of Union Territo-
ries that happen to be a state at the dis-
cretion of the Centre.
There are no political
avenues for protest left.
Most of the so-called
federal parties turned
out to be more cowardly
than anyone anticipated;
stand for any
convictions. Not a single
one of us can take any
constitutional
protections for granted.
Parliament is a notice
board, not a debating
forum
Let us also not put too fine a point on
this. Even if Article 370 were to be
scrapped, the proposal to alter Jammu
and Kashmir’s status to Union Territory,
even if temporarily, is designed to humil-
iate an already subjugated population.
How dare a Muslim dominated state
exist in India? Kashmir can now not even
be trusted to be a state. The optics of this
measure is not integration, it is humilia-
tion, of a piece with subtle and unsubtle
reminders to minorities of their place in
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
India.
Let’s take the argument that this
pain is worth the price, if it actually
solves the problem. But will it? There will
be a sullen peace, militarily secured, that
we will mistake for victory. The very
army, behind whom every patriot now
hides, will now potentially be put in even
more harm’s way: To be used more and
more as the sole basis for keeping India
together. And even if we concede to the
tragic necessity of force, that force can
work only in the context of a larger politi-
cal and institutional framework that
inspires free allegiance, not fear. But
even if Kashmir resigns to its fate, pum-
melled by military might, the prospect of
radicalisation in the rest of the country
cannot be ruled out. There are already
incipient signs of that. The theatre of
political violence will shift. In the context
of the communally sensitive arc from UP
to Bengal and in Kerala, India will seem
more fragile.
For, fundamentally, what this
change signals is that Indian democracy
is failing. It is descending into
majoritarianism, the brute power of the
vote; it will no longer have the safety
valves that allowed inclusion. The feck-
less abdication of the Opposition will
only deepen the sense of alienation.
There are no political avenues for protest
left. Most of the so-called federal parties
turned out to be more cowardly than
anyone anticipated; the Congress can
never stand for any convictions. Not a
single one of us can take any constitu-
tional protections for granted. Parlia-
ment is a notice board, not a debating
forum.
Let us see what the Supreme Court
does, but if its recent track record is any-
thing to go by, it will be more executive
minded than the executive. Kashmir is
not just about Kashmir: In the context of
the UAPA, NRC, communalisation,
Ayodhya, it is one more node in a pattern
hurtling the Indian state towards a
denouement where all of us feel unsafe.
Not just Kashmiris, not just minorities,
but anyone standing up for constitu-
tional liberty.
The larger worry is the fabric of our
culture that is making this possible.
There is a propaganda machinery
unleashed with the media that builds up
a crescendo baying for blood and calls it
nationalism. There is the coarsening of
human sentiments that makes empathy
look worse than violence. There is the
sheer political impatience with any alter-
native. The old Congress system of deal-
ing with these issues appears so decrepit
and corrupt that even a total carpet
bombing of institutions and morality
will be better. There is a kind of cruel
aestheticism in our politics where auda-
cious evil will be celebrated for its audac-
ity, and mundane goods will invite con-
tempt because they are mundane.
These proposals are not about solv-
ing a problem. What is playing out in
Kashmir is the warped psyche of a great
civilisation at its insecure worst. The BJP
thinks it is going to Indianise Kashmir.
But, instead, what we will see is poten-
tially the Kashmirisation of India: The
story of Indian democracy written in
blood and betrayal.
l
Pratap Bhanu Mehta is an Indian academician. He was the president of the Centre
for Policy Research, a New Delhi-based think tank and was the Vice-Chancellor of
Ashoka University from July 2017 to July 2019.
June 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 47
OPINION
Sugar and the Making of a
Rentier Economy
Cleary, the fuel which runs our sugar mills is not competition. It is extraction.
s Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Accountability Shahzad Akbar holds up the inquiry report as he discusses broad findings with the media.
By Dr Adeel Malik and Shahrukh Wani
@AdeelMalikOx @ShahrukhWani
W hile an inquiry on the sugar
sector has been made public
for the first time, the crisis
that necessitated this inquiry is a
recurring feature of Pakistan’s sugar
industry. Rattled by a controversy every
18 months, why is the sugar industry so
prone to crises?
To answer this, we must use a basic
principle of political economy: rent-
seeking. Imagine this: you want to open a
restaurant, but there is a lot of competi-
tion. You want to make more money but
other restaurants, serving better food at
cheaper prices, keep opening up. Along
with other restaurants, you lobby the
government to require all new restau-
rants to have a new licence to operate.
The government sets up a special com-
mittee to issue these licences. You con-
vince them to put you or your friends on
this committee and ask them not to issue
new restaurant licences. The supply of
new restaurants goes down, allowing you
and other existing restaurant owners to
capture the market. The money you
make now isn’t profit, they are rents.
48 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
Rents are fundamentally exploit-
ative: it implies that the business is mak-
ing more money than it would otherwise
in a competitive, fair market. They are
rigging the game in their favour. This is
how our sugar industry works: through
As indicated by the
sugar inquiry report,
the recovery rates are
typically unverified, even
mills in the same region
and using the same
variety of sugarcane
document different
recovery rates
administrative actions rather than the
standard rules that govern a functioning
market. Let’s consider three questions to
illustrate this point.
First, who can open a sugar mill?
You can’t unless you are politically con-
nected and able to obtain a licence from
the government, granted under the pro-
vincial Sugar Factories Control and
Sugar Licensing Controlling Orders.
Punjab has an outright ban on new sugar
mills, in effect since 2003. Existing own-
ers have used their political connections
to path a way around it: rather than
establishing new mills, many existing
sugar mills have successfully sought
permission to set up their “branches” in
other regions.
The result of this has been a high
degree of concentration of the industry
in the hands of a few — nine families own
more than half of the country’s sugar
mills. And, six industrial groups control
half of the total national production.
Three of these six are owned fully or par-
tially by a current (or a former) member
of parliament, who sit on all sides of the
political divide. One is a member of the
current federal cabinet, the second is a
member of the cabinet in all but paper.
Second, how are sugar prices deter-
mined? Normally, the price would be
determined by the interaction of supply
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
and demand i.e. how many people want
to buy sugar and how much sugar can be
Unproductive rents
harm all of us but
benefit a few well-placed
people who use political
connections to restrict
competition and extract
benefits from the
government
produced in a country. Since the demand
for essential food items, such as sugar, is
relatively inelastic (large price increases
have little effect on demand) and pre-
dictable (for example, demand increases
during Ramazan), what happens on the
supply-side is more important for sugar
prices.
One key determining factor in sugar
price is the minimum support price that
is guaranteed by the government to
sugar growers every year to shield them
from income and price fluctuations.
These support prices have increased by
three times during the past decade and
are typically negotiated between millers
and sugarcane commissioners who are
provincial civil servants. The second is
the recovery rate or the amount of output
that can be recovered from a typical
length of sugarcane. These are declared
by sugar mills. As indicated by the sugar
inquiry report, the recovery rates are
typically unverified. Even mills in the
same region and using the same variety
of sugarcane document different recov-
ery rates.
Another factor that impinges on the
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
supply of sugar is when support prices
are announced and when mills start the
crushing period. The former determines
the incentives of the farmers to grow
sugarcane and the latter influences the
available sugar stock in the market. Both
decisions are routinely delayed in ways
that benefit sugar mills. Given greater
bargaining power and control over the
state’s administrative machinery, the
millers exert a disproportionate influ-
ence on how sugar prices are deter-
mined.
The industry also benefits from a
formal lobbying group, the Pakistan
Sugar Mills Association (PSMA). When,
in 2010, the Competition Commission of
Pakistan launched an inquiry into the
sugar industry, the PSMA earnestly went
to the court and got a stay order, derail-
ing the inquiry. Cleary, the fuel which
runs our sugar mills is not competition.
It is extraction.
Third, are there any special privi-
leges provided to this sector? There are
more than we can count, including high
import barriers through tariffs and regu-
latory duties which restrict competition
from foreign producers. But, the clearest
privilege is export subsidies: when global
sugar prices are surging or there is an
excess stock for sugar available, sugar
producers not only get permission to
export but also get subsidies to do so.
This export of sugar is typically followed
by a drawing down of the national sugar
stock, creating the perfect conditions for
a price rise in the domestic market in the
following season.
Unproductive rents harm all of us
but benefit a few well-placed people who
use political connections to restrict com-
petition and extract benefits from the
government. How much does it cost all of
us? Between 2006 and 2010, calcula-
Another implication is
that Pakistani farmers
are moving away from
cotton to growing water-
intensive sugarcane. In
2010, this resulted in
$1.4 billion in terms of
lost exports of cotton
tions done by one of us estimate that
Rs585 billion was transferred from the
pockets of ordinary people to the sugar
industry. This is likely to be much higher
when we consider the costs of broader
misallocation this creates in our econ-
omy. Another implication is that Paki-
stani farmers are moving away from cot-
ton to growing water-intensive sugar-
cane. In 2010, this resulted in $1.4 bil-
lion in terms of lost exports of cotton.
Over time, this rent-seeking has
been institutionalised — whichever
party may be in power, the underlying
vested interests remain the same. In an
efficient economy, firms compete with
each other fairly, lowering prices, inno-
vating, and upping quality. Firms which
can’t, fail; people who work in them
move to other, better-performing firms.
Ask yourself this: when did the last sugar
mill collapse in Pakistan? Take the pro-
tection and subsidies away and see what
happens.
l Adeel Malik is an Associate Professor of Economics at the Department of
International Development, University of Oxford.
l Shahrukh Wani is an Economist at the Blavatnik School of Government, Univer-
sity of Oxford.
June 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 49
MOTIVATION
The coronavirus slayer! How
Kerala’s rock star health minister
helped save it from Covid-19
KK Shailaja has been hailed as the reason a state of 35 million people has only lost four
to the virus. Here’s how the former teacher did it.
s ‘Our clinics for respiratory disease meant we could look out for community transmission’: KK Shailaja, health minister.
By Laura Spinney
@lfspinney
O
n 20 January, KK Shailaja
phoned one of her medically
trained deputies. She had read
online about a dangerous new virus
spreading in China. “Will it come to us?”
she asked. “Definitely, Madam,” he
replied. And so the health minister of the
Indian state of Kerala began her
preparations.
Four months later, Kerala has
reported only 524 cases of Covid-19, four
deaths and – according to Shailaja – no
community transmission. The state has
a population of about 35 million and a
GDP per capita of only £2,200. By con-
trast, the UK (double the population,
GDP per capita of £33,100) has reported
more than 40,000 deaths, while the US
(10 times the population, GDP per capita
of £51,000) has reported more than
82,000 deaths; both countries have ram-
pant community transmission.
As such, Shailaja Teacher, as the 63-
year-old minister is affectionately
50 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
known, has attracted some new nick-
names in recent weeks – Coronavirus
Slayer and Rockstar Health Minister
among them. The names sit oddly with
the merry, bespectacled former second-
ary school science teacher, but they
reflect the widespread admiration she
has drawn for demonstrating that effec-
tive disease containment is possible not
only in a democracy, but in a poor one.
How has this been achieved? Three
days after reading about the new virus in
China, and before Kerala had its first
case of Covid-19, Shailaja held the first
meeting of her rapid response team. The
next day, 24 January, the team set up a
control room and instructed the medical
officers in Kerala’s 14 districts to do the
same at their level. By the time the first
case arrived, on 27 January, via a plane
from Wuhan, the state had already
adopted the World Health Organiza-
tion’s protocol of test, trace, isolate and
support.
As the passengers filed off the Chi-
nese flight, they had their temperatures
checked. Three who were found to be
running a fever were isolated in a nearby
hospital. The remaining passengers
were placed in home quarantine – sent
there with information pamphlets about
Covid-19 that had already been printed
in the local language, Malayalam. The
hospitalised patients tested positive for
Covid-19, but the disease had been con-
tained. “The first part was a victory,” says
Shailaja. “But the virus continued to
spread beyond China and soon it was
everywhere.”
In late February, encountering one
of Shailaja’s surveillance teams at the
airport, a Malayali family returning from
Venice was evasive about its travel his-
tory and went home without submitting
to the now-standard controls. By the
time medical personnel detected a case
of Covid-19 and traced it back to them,
their contacts were in the hundreds. Con-
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
tact tracers tracked them all down, with
the help of advertisements and social
media, and they were placed in quaran-
tine. Six developed Covid-19.
Another cluster had been con-
tained, but by now large numbers of over-
seas workers were heading home to
Kerala from infected Gulf states, some of
them carrying the virus. On 23 March, all
flights into the state’s four international
airports were stopped. Two days later,
India entered a nationwide lockdown.
At the height of the virus in Kerala,
170,000 people were quarantined and
When the outbreak
started, each district was
asked to dedicate two
hospitals to Covid-19,
while each medical
college set aside 500
beds. Separate entrances
and exits were
designated. Diagnostic
tests were in short
supply, especially after
the disease reached
wealthier western
countries
placed under strict surveillance by visit-
ing health workers, with those who
lacked an inside bathroom housed in
improvised isolation units at the state
government’s expense. That number has
shrunk to 21,000. “We have also been
accommodating and feeding 150,000
migrant workers from neighbouring
states who were trapped here by the
lockdown,” she says. “We fed them prop-
erly – three meals a day for six weeks.”
Those workers are now being sent home
on charter trains.
Shailaja was already a celebrity of
sorts in India before Covid-19. Last year,
a movie called Virus was released,
inspired by her handling of an outbreak
of an even deadlier viral disease, Nipah,
in 2018. (She found the character who
played her a little too worried-looking; in
reality, she has said, she couldn’t afford
to show fear.) She was praised not only
for her proactive response, but also for
visiting the village at the centre of the
outbreak.
The villagers were terrified and
ready to flee, because they did not under-
stand how the disease was spreading. “I
rushed there with my doctors, we organ-
ised a meeting in the panchayat [village
council] office and I explained that there
was no need to leave, because the virus
could only spread through direct con-
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
tact,” she says. “If you kept at least a
metre from a coughing person, it could-
n’t travel. When we explained that, they
became calm – and stayed.”
Nipah prepared Shailaja for Covid-
19, she says, because it taught her that a
highly contagious disease for which
there is no treatment or vaccine should
be taken seriously. In a way, though, she
had been preparing for both outbreaks
all her life.
The Communist Party of India
(Marxist), of which she is a member, has
been prominent in Kerala’s governments
since 1957, the year after her birth. (It
was part of the Communist Party of India
until 1964, when it broke away.) Born
into a family of activists and freedom
fighters – her grandmother campaigned
against untouchability – she watched the
so-called “Kerala model” be assembled
from the ground up; when we speak, this
is what she wants to talk about.
The foundations of the model are
land reform – enacted via legislation that
capped how much land a family could
own and increased land ownership
among tenant farmers – a decentralised
public health system and investment in
public education. Every village has a
primary health centre and there are hos-
pitals at each level of its administration,
as well as 10 medical colleges.
This is true of other states, too, says
MP Cariappa, a public health expert
based in Pune, Maharashtra state, but
nowhere else are people so invested in
their primary health system. Kerala
enjoys the highest life expectancy and
the lowest infant mortality of any state in
India; it is also the most literate state.
“With widespread access to education,
there is a definite understanding of
health being important to the wellbeing
of people,” says Cariappa.
Shailaja says: “I heard about those
struggles – the agricultural movement
and the freedom fight – from my
grandma. She was a very good story-
teller.” Although emergency measures
such as the lockdown are the preserve of
the national government, each Indian
state sets its own health policy. If the
Kerala model had not been in place, she
insists, her government’s response to
Covid-19 would not have been possible.
That said, the state’s primary health
centres had started to show signs of age.
When Shailaja’s party came to power in
2016, it undertook a modernisation
programme. One pre-pandemic innova-
tion was to create clinics and a registry
for respiratory disease – a big problem in
India. “That meant we could spot con-
version to Covid-19 and look out for com-
munity transmission,” Shailaja says. “It
helped us very much.”
When the outbreak started, each
district was asked to dedicate two hospi-
tals to Covid-19, while each medical col-
lege set aside 500 beds. Separate
entrances and exits were designated.
Diagnostic tests were in short supply,
especially after the disease reached
wealthier western countries, so they
were reserved for patients with symp-
toms and their close contacts, as well as
for random sampling of asymptomatic
people and those in the most exposed
groups: health workers, police and vol-
unteers.
Shailaja says a test in Kerala pro-
duces a result within 48 hours. “In the
Gulf, as in the US and UK – all technolog-
ically fit countries – they are having to
wait seven days,” she says. “What is hap-
pening there?” She doesn’t want to
judge, she says, but she has been mysti-
fied by the large death tolls in those coun-
tries: “I think testing is very important –
also quarantining and hospital surveil-
lance – and people in those countries are
not getting that.” She knows, because
Malayalis living in those countries have
phoned her to say so.
Places of worship were closed under
the rules of lockdown, resulting in pro-
tests in some Indian states, but resis-
tance has been noticeably absent in
Kerala – in part, perhaps, because its
chief minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, con-
sulted with local faith leaders about the
closures. Shailaja says Kerala’s high lit-
eracy level is another factor: “People
understand why they must stay at home.
You can explain it to them.”
The Indian government plans to lift
the lockdown on 17 May (the date has
been extended twice). After that, she
predicts, there will be a huge influx of
Malayalis to Kerala from the heavily
infected Gulf region. “It will be a great
challenge, but we are preparing for it,”
she says. There are plans A, B and C, with
plan C – the worst-case scenario –
involving the requisitioning of hotels,
hostels and conference centres to pro-
vide 165,000 beds. If they need more
than 5,000 ventilators, they will struggle
– although more are on order – but the
real limiting factor will be manpower,
especially when it comes to contact trac-
ing. “We are training up schoolteachers,”
Shailaja says.
Once the second wave has passed –
if, indeed, there is a second wave – these
teachers will return to schools. She
hopes to do the same, eventually,
because her ministerial term will finish
with the state elections a year from now.
Since she does not think the threat of
Covid-19 will subside any time soon,
what secret would she like to pass on to
her successor? She laughs her infectious
laugh, because the secret is no secret:
“Proper planning.”
June 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 51
LEGAL EYE
Scofflaws at work
Are there better alternatives to devolution of power?
By Babar Sattar
Islamabad, Pakistan
A polity that runs out of the ability
to generate new ideas has no
option but to rehash old and
failed ones. We’ve seen the odd piece
about the presidential system. And now
there is a debate about undoing the 18th
Amendment and how it has reduced
Pakistan to being a confederation.
Given Pakistan’s bitter history of
being broken up in 1971, the 18th
Amendment was certainly the best thing
that could have happened to keep our
federation sustainable. But it is a hard
sell to those who wish to dress up an
authoritarian unitary state as a federa-
tion.
Our constitution envisaged a feder-
ation back in 1973. But we continued to
delay its emergence on one pretext or
another. The reason was simple. Those
who enjoyed power at the center were
loath to devolve it to provinces (just as
those who enjoy power in provinces are
loath to devolve it to local governments).
Are there better alternatives to devolu-
tion of power? After experimenting with
power for centuries, there is general con-
sensus amongst thinkers that the best
possibility of limiting abuse of power is
by distributing it widely.
Our constitution envisages cooper-
ative federalism. But, notwithstanding
52 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
the 18th Amendment, we retain an over-
grown center and insist on fattening it
further. We have read down provisions
of the constitution that require devolu-
tion of power across the three tiers of
government: federal, provincial and
local. It is not just articles of the 1973
constitution that have been rendered
useless, but also new ones introduced by
the 18th Amendment. A centralist model
is so entrenched in our way of being that
we lack the will or the imagination to
look beyond it.
A federal structure is about distribu-
tion of responsibilities and also power
and resources between the tiers of gov-
ernment. But we’ve worked with the idea
that, while control is to be retained by the
center, responsibilities can be delegated
to the provinces. Such a design can’t
work. There has been no debate in Paki-
stan on the size of the federal govern-
ment. We insist on retaining a puffed-up
government at the center despite the
constitutional obligation to transfer
responsibilities and resources to prov-
inces. The obvious complaint then is that
the center is broke.
The constitution endorsed the oth-
erwise odious idea of quotas within the
federal civil service for a fixed number of
years in the interest of affirmative action.
First we continued to extend the timeline
for ending the quota system. At some
point over the last decade the constitu-
tional mandate for quotas ran out. But
we are still continuing with a now uncon-
stitutional quota system. Why? Because
it is just too hard to conceive a polity with-
out an all-powerful central bureaucracy,
even for judges who are required to
interpret and enforce the constitution.
We need affirmative action within
the federal civil service because we
refuse to allow emergence of functional
and incentivized provincial services.
Consider: the elite amongst civil service
cadres are the District Management and
Police Groups. Is DMG not a contradic-
tion in terms? Why should the center
raise, maintain and control services that
run districts or manage law and order?
The constitution doesn’t support a cen-
tral civil service at the expense of provin-
cial services. But we’ve given its text irra-
tional meaning to retain the strings of
control in Islamabad.
BISP is doing some great work. It is
helping the ultra poor remain afloat. But
from a design perspective is it the federal
government’s business to be distributing
cash to those who ought to be dealt with
at the Union Council level? Health is a
provincial subject. If the Covid-19 crisis
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
has highlighted one thing about our fed-
eration, it is that diverse ideas coming
out of provincial headquarters is a good
thing. The much-maligned Sindh in
terms of public health management is at
the forefront of providing leadership and
ideas during this crisis. This is a good
thing.
But despite the 18th Amendment we
have bent over backward to undo its
effect. Consider the Supreme Court’s
jurisprudence over the last few years.
The concurrent list stands abolished but
the SC has somehow found concurrent
legislative (and executive) authority for
the center within the Constitution. In
Sindh vs Nadeem Rizvi, a bench headed
by CJP Saqib Nisar ordered the transfer
of JPMC, NICVD and the National Insti-
tute of Child Health from Sindh and the
Sheikh Zayed Institute from Punjab to
the center, on the basis of reasoning that
is painful to read.
Before this there was the Imrana
Tiwana case. Justice Mansoor Ali Shah
while at the Lahore High Court breathed
life into Article 140A while highlighting
the obligation of provincial governments
to create fiscally and administratively
functional local governments. The issue
related to usurpation of local govern-
ment functions by the LDA and the
bureaucracy running it. This was undone
again by Justice Saqib Nisar at the SC.
He ruled that if parliament really wanted
to create autonomous local govern-
ments, it should have written down
details within the constitution.
Through another judgment by CJP
Nisar (PMDC vs Muhammad Fahad
Malik), the Council of Common Interests
was castrated. The 1973 constitution
created the CCI as an essential coordina-
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
Using fear, hate and
polarization while
employing a narrative
of corruption or
inefficiency or lack of
patriotism in provincial
capitals as fig leaf isn’t
the best strategy for
holding a diverse polity
together
tion platform for the center and the prov-
inces. Since then the legislature has done
nothing to bring it to life, the executive
has taken no steps to frame rules and
procedures to make it a meaningful
forum and you can search all you like but
won’t find a coherent judgment enumer-
ating the scope of its authority. Article
154 that created the CCI is nothing but
dead letter of law.
And yet amidst Covid-19 we hear
detractors of the 18th Amendment fuss
about lack of coordination between the
center and the provinces. What stops the
PTI from making the CCI functional and
useful? We have heard talk about non-
existent local governments as an obsta-
cle to public health management. What
stops the ruling regime (also in charge of
three provinces) from leading by exam-
ple and creating effective local govern-
ments? Just as the APS tragedy led to the
military courts, Covid-19 is being seen as
an opportunity to seek the roll back of
the 18th Amendment.
The real reason for the angst against
the 18th Amendment is the fear that we
are running out of options to fund our
security state. If anything, Covid-19
should have forced an introspection of
our state priorities and use of its
resources. It should have made us recon-
sider whether national security means
citizen security or state security and how
to rationalize the size and functions of
the federal government. But in the land
of the pure, Covid-19 is having the oppo-
site effect. We want to double down and
allocate even more resources to the secu-
rity state.
Our security state is unable to
expand its tax base to mobilize more
resources. It is unable to fix the trade
deficit or nurture business confidence.
And it refuses to right size and limit its
footprint and so it wants transfer of
resources from the provinces to the cen-
ter. Let’s assume the anti-18th Amend-
ment club prevails and is able to coerce
or cajole political parties to rewrite the
constitutional formula for distribution
of resources through the NFC award.
How much more time will that buy our
security state to continue with its unsus-
tainable mode of being?
Drumming up fear of enemies is one
way of centralizing and entrenching con-
trol to keep a tribe together. But using
fear, hate and polarization while
employing a narrative of corruption or
inefficiency or lack of patriotism in pro-
vincial capitals as fig leaf isn’t the best
strategy for holding a diverse polity
together. This is the least we should have
learnt from 1971.
If the center can’t generate the
resources to pursue its agenda and prior-
ities, maybe it should reorder its priori-
ties instead of demanding that the feder-
ating units fund its adventures.
l The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad.
June 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 53
ROYAL BATTLE
NFC: Maneuverings and Equity
The other side of the argument is that the resources allocated from the Federal Divisible
Pool are not sufficient.
By Kaiser Bengali
@kaiserbengali
T he 10th NFC has been constituted
– and the Terms of Reference
(ToRs) of the commission have
set off a roaring controversy. There are
controversies aplenty; however, this one
could be highly costly for the country’s
political health and may threaten to
undermine the foundations of the
federation.
One issue with the 10th NFC ToRs is
the commission’s composition. The NFC
is a constitutional body, with the compo-
sition of its membership specified in the
constitution. Membership includes fed-
eral and provincial ministers of finance
and “such other persons as may be
appointed by the president after consul-
tation with the governors of the prov-
inces”.
Currently, the prime minister holds
the finance portfolio. As such, he is a
member and chair of the NFC. There is
no provision authorizing him to delegate
his powers and functions in this respect
to anybody else. Precedence-wise, the
Sindh chief minister was also the provin-
cial finance minister during the life of the
7th NFC and duly attended all the com-
mission’s meetings. The chief minister of
Sindh has sent a communication to the
54 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
prime minister in this regard.
From 1974 to date, ‘appointment of
such other persons’ has meant one non-
statutory member from each province.
The words ‘consultation with governors’
would also entail appointment of provin-
cial representatives, not a federal one.
However, a battle royal is in the offing
over the interpretation of the constitu-
tional clause. One more controversy to
the many that are already swirling
around. If the current federal argument
carries the day, the NFC’s composition
would become a tool of political expedi-
ency. Its institutional integrity and legit-
imacy would be lost. One more national
institution will bite the dust.
The other issue is the nine-item
agenda as part of the ToRs. The first
three items are as per the constitution.
However, the other six are additions and
include federal expenditures related to
Gilgit-Baltistan, Kashmir, erstwhile
Fata, security, natural disasters, repay-
ment of debt, subsidies, and losses of
state-owned enterprises.
One side of the argument would be
that the NFC has already allocated a
share – 42.5 percent – out of the Federal
Consolidated Fund to the federal gov-
ernment. Accordingly, the federal share
out of the budgeted Rs5.5 trillion tax
revenue in the 2019-20 budget works out
to Rs2.4 trillion.
The other side of the argument is
that the resources allocated from the
Federal Divisible Pool are not sufficient.
That, of course, is a very weak argument.
After all, what is sufficient and when will
sufficiency be achieved? If a precedent is
established today for the provinces to
bail out the federal government, the half
dozen items today can expand to a dozen
tomorrow and more thereafter.
Other more serious questions are
also thrown up. If the principle of the
provinces picking up the tab for the fed-
eral government’s expenditures is estab-
lished, then will they be entitled to ask
for expenditure details for scrutiny?
There are more serious implications,
though. If the provinces begin to pay for
more and more of federal government
expenses, there may be a demand for the
provinces to collect all the taxes them-
selves and reimburse the federal govern-
ment’s expenditures. In the event, the
federal structure will roll on its head. The
federal government’s moves may be
undermining the very theoretical basis
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
of a federation and setting the stage for
creating a de facto confederation.
The 7th NFC Award is of great sig-
nificance as it broke the stalemate in the
inter-provincial distribution formula
and strengthened provincial fiscal
autonomy. However, the award is static
and the tax revenue debate has been
restricted to ‘who can get how much’.
The current debate is also about how the
centre can extract more out of the prov-
inces.
This is a futile and self-defeating
debate. A more productive discussion
can be about how the NFC formulation
can achieve certain desired socio-
economic goals – and one such undis-
puted objective is to render the tax
regime more progressive. As such, the
debate needs to move forward towards
making the NFC distribution formula
advance equity goals.
The basis for resource distribution
between the federation and provinces
and between provinces is the Federal
Divisible Pool, which by virtue of Article
160(3) of the constitution included
income and corporate tax, sales tax,
export duties on cotton, and excise
duties as specified by the president.
Jurisdiction over income tax on agricul-
ture was allocated to the provinces.
In 1991 and 1997, the 4th and 6th
NFC decided to add central excise duties
and import duties, respectively, to the
divisible pool. In other words, all federal
taxes are now included in the divisible
pool. The status of income tax on agricul-
ture has remained unchanged; despite
the fact that the separation of the agricul-
tural and non-agricultural tax bases has
created a tax shelter for the latter tax
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
payees and facilitated evasion.
Taxes impose a burden on those
taxed. The burden can be proportionate
to income or proportionately higher or
lower relative to income. The burden is
termed as incidence and is designated as
progressive if the burden of the tax is
higher on the rich and regressive if it is
higher on the poor. Generally, direct
taxes – taxes on income, wealth, prop-
erty, etc – are said to be progressive and
indirect taxes (sales taxes, customs
duties, excise duties, etc) are said to be
regressive. A tax regime that is progres-
sive is said to be equitable and fair rela-
tive to one that is regressive.
In Pakistan’s case, about 40 percent
of federal tax revenue is accrued from
direct taxes and 60 percent from indirect
taxes. However, over two-thirds of
income tax is collected in advance as
withholding tax is, in effect, indirect in
nature. Thus, if the withholding tax com-
ponent is excluded, the effective share of
direct taxes falls to a mere 12 percent,
with the effective share of indirect taxes
rising to 88 percent. Collection of indi-
rect taxes is relied upon as it is relatively
administratively easy and politically low
cost. Levy of direct taxes is politically
problematic and the government even
went to the extent of abolishing wealth
tax. In other words, Pakistan’s tax
regime is regressive and burdens the
poor significantly more than the rich.
The objective of rendering the tax
regime equitable can be achieved by cor-
recting the currently skewed balance
between direct and indirect taxes and
between agricultural and non-
agricultural income. This objective
requires that the federal-provincial tax
sharing mode provides the centre with
the incentive to prioritize direct tax col-
lection over indirect taxes
The basic proposal is for the centre
to retain 100 percent of income tax – net
of withholding tax component – and
including income tax on agriculture and
share all other tax bases with the prov-
inces. Full retention of (net) income tax
is likely to induce the federal govern-
ment to expend greater effort in collect-
ing tax from the rich, reducing the rela-
tive burden on the poor and, thereby,
making the tax structure more progres-
sive. The transfer of income tax on agri-
culture to the centre will remove a distor-
tion in the tax regime, with marginal loss
to the provinces.
Calculations have shown that if the
non-withholding tax portion of income
and corporation tax, including income
tax on agriculture, is retained entirely by
the federal government and the other
indirect taxes – import duties, sales tax
and excise duties – are distributed
between the centre and provinces in the
ratio of 37.5 percent and 62.5 percent,
respectively, there will be no gain or loss
to either of the two parties. Any future
increase in direct tax collection will be a
net gain for the centre.
The 10th NFC can negotiate the ver-
tical sharing ratio anywhere between the
present 42.5:57.5 and the ‘no-gain-no-
loss’ 37.5:62.5. The adoption of the pro-
posal will entail a constitutional amend-
ment to Article 160(3). Of course, com-
mitment to a higher goal will be called
for.
l The writer was Sindh’s non-statutory member of the 7th NFC and Balochistan’s
non-statutory member of the 9th NFC.
June 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 55
ECONOMICS
Relief & Rehabilitation
How do we make policies and we will need innovative policies to address vulnerability?
By Faisal Bari
Lahore, Pakistan
J
aved is an engineer. He has a good
job. Before the lockdown he was
thinking of working for a couple of
years, saving some money for himself
and for the family and then going abroad
for a graduate degree. Now he is not even
sure if he will have a job next month, and
his family is in dire need of cash. Javed’s
household is not eligible for most of the
social protection programmes that the
government is offering. And they do not
want that help either. Their needs are
different. Javed and his brother have
education and skills. They need jobs.
And they need capital to restart their
father’s business. Without access to
reasonably priced capital, restarting the
business will not be possible. And
without jobs and the business, they will
not be able to pay back loans or ensure a
steady income for the family.
“I have six children. Three are
grown up and were working till before
the lockdown. Three are still school-
going. We live in a two-room house. I
work as a driver. The nine of us, includ-
ing my father who lives with us, have
been cooped up in this place for more
than two months now. My eldest is a
motorcycle mechanic, second one is a
barber and my daughter worked in a
beauty salon. Though the lockdown has
been eased up, my children and I have
not been called back to work. All three of
my children were told, at the start of the
lockdown, that they would not be paid
for the lockdown period as businesses
were closed for that period. My employer
has been paying me my regular salary
and a bit more. This has kept our kitchen
going.”
“It is a very strange situation. Now
that the lockdown is almost gone, I want
my children to get back to work. We need
their income to meet expenses. I have
accumulated some loans over the last
two months and I need to pay these too.
But I do not know if they will get work. I
also worry that if they do get work, will
they get sick? It seems the virus is
spreading now. How will I protect my
children? How will I protect my elderly
father? He is already ill and needs a lot of
support and care which my wife and chil-
dren provide. What will happen to him if
any of my children fall ill?”
56 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
Though Iqbal did not have any sav-
ings, beyond ownership of the two-room
house where he lives, his salary and the
salaries of his three children were
enough to meet all expenses of the nine-
member household. For the last two
months they have been down to just
Iqbal’s salary. And it is not clear if his
children will get their jobs back and
when. They were working in the informal
sector so they do not have any social pro-
tection or access to any other benefits.
They do not even have any paperwork to
prove they had been working before the
lockdown. The household was not ‘poor’
if we go by terms that are most com-
monly used to define poverty or are used
to determine access to social protection
programmes. But the household was
very vulnerable. It was vulnerable to
employment and health shocks. And the
employment shock has led to their fall-
ing into poverty.
Poverty numbers in Pakistan had
come down significantly over the last
couple of decades. The current shock will
change these. Vulnerability, defined
through notions of exposure to risks
from shocks, has remained consistently
high in Pakistan. And this is what is lead-
ing to significant disruption and distress
in the coming months and years. If the
economy does not revive quickly, a lot of
families like Javed’s and Iqbal’s will fall
into poverty. Traditional social protec-
tion tools will not reach such families.
We will have to seek other ways of reach-
ing them.
Iqbal, in his conversation, pointed
out the dilemma clearly. He wants his
children to get back to work as quickly as
possible but he is also concerned about
their health and the health of other
household members in case his children
do go to work. He does not really have
much of an option and will take a risk
with the health and life of household
members if his children do get some
work, but, as a society, do we think that
this a fair risk and cost for low-income
families to bear? The easing of the
lockdown seems to be saying that it is.
The task for government and policy
experts, though difficult, is clear. How do
we make policies, and we will need inno-
vative and new policies, for addressing
vulnerability? The immediate task might
be to stave off hunger, but as we ease
lockdowns, the real task would be to get
the vulnerable back on their feet while
keeping them away from health, employ-
ment and income shocks.
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
WAR ON TERROR
Of Strategic Depth
This is an old story and it always ends badly.
By Aasim Sajjad Akhtar
Islamabad, Pakistan
I n the aftermath of the attacks, the
Taliban apparently denied
responsibility. The theory goes that
there are now more militant Islamist
groups that control swathes of
deep ideology of ‘strategic depth’ is
totally displaced in the Pakistani main-
stream.
By this I mean that the Pakistani
state — and the many ordinary people
have acknowledged historical injustices
in Pakistan, but establishment thinking
has not budged.
Then there is Gilgit-Baltistan where
precious natural resources are appropri-
Afghanistan, including IS. Such matters who live in cities as well as more devel- ated by the state — some under the guise
are notoriously hard to investigate at the oped, central regions — must stop con- of ‘land reform’ — with little concern for
best of times. But the real question is not ceiving of the peripheries as territories to the large and growing population of
which militant organisation orches- be secured and the resources there to be young people who rightfully want both
trated the killings but why violent exploited, while the people of these control over resources and political self-
ideologies of hate continue to proliferate regions remain mere footnotes in the so- determination. Tharparkar is yet
in the name of Islam in Afghanistan, and, called ‘greater national interest’. When another border region in the southeast,
for that matter, in Pakistan as well. these nominally equal citizens ask to be ignored for decades, its largely Hindu
It is an old story but it merits repeat- treated as such, they are subject to vilifi- population swept under the carpet. But
ing here: the genesis and spread of mili- cation and disciplining. This has hap- now that there is coal to be mined, Thar
tant Islam in this region is not a renegade pened dramatically in the case of the is suddenly important? No wonder that
phenomenon, but due to the patronage anti-war PTM in the ex-Fata districts its politically conscious people are suspi-
of the Pakistani state. What was for over the past two years — most recently cious of the state.
decades in establishment circles known when Arif Wazir was shot dead — but This is an old story, and it always
as strategic depth — the simulation of even the Pakhtuns of the tribal districts ends badly. I am as principled an oppo-
Afghanistan as a ‘fifth province’ — dove- are not as disaffected as the long- nent of American imperialism in
tailed with the American, Saudi and, for suffering Baloch. Afghanistan as any other. But doctrines
that matter, much of the Western bloc's Let it not be forgotten that the latter of strategic depth devised by our own
geopolitical designs in the 1980s. And remains Pakistan’s richest province in establishment are no better than those of
then, infamously, things went pear- terms of natural resources. The state the ‘enemies’ we love to hate, both
shaped for the establishment after 9/11 wants Saindak, RekoDiq, Gwadar Port, beyond our borders and within them. No
when Washington turned against its Sui and much more, but it still can’t bring state — and its privileged segments in
erstwhile allies in the name of the ‘war on itself to be answerable to Balochistan’s ‘developed’ regions — can lay claim to a
terror’. politically conscious young people and moral high ground while the people of its
Whether or not strategic depth is explain the scandal of missing persons? own ethnic peripheries are enslaved as
still a cherished ideal within the security Successive governments in Pakistan colonial subjects.
establishment is, many decades later, by
the by. Millions of young people in this
country have bought into the idea that
there can be a ‘good Taliban’ that fights
'foreign infidels' in Afghanistan. But
there can be no more painful indicator of
the ideological engineering that has
taken place within Pakistan than the fact
that logics of ‘strategic depth’ apply to
ethnic peripheries in our own country.
There is, for instance, growing evidence
that militants are increasingly resurgent
in the recently merged tribal districts of
KP that border Afghanistan. How, given
all that has taken place in this country
since 9/11, is it still possible to maintain
the myth of ‘good Taliban’?
Let us be clear: all of the propaganda
in the world does not make for a peaceful
and prosperous country. Pakistan's
body-politic remains amongst the most
fractured in the world. Alienation in the
ethnic peripheries — not least of all on
the border with Afghanistan — remains
acute, and this will not change until the
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June 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 57
WOMEN RIGHTS
Nameless Girls
So-called honour killings are simply mercenary money killings, where women are
reduced to a kind of stock.
By Rafia Zakaria
@rafiazakaria
I t does not seem to matter who they
are — YouTube stars, village women,
city women, older women and
younger women. That they are women
seems to be enough. The emergence of
easily available mobile phone
technology has made things easier for
the murderers; innocuous activities like
clapping or standing about in the open
air can all be invested with transgression
enough to kill.
This time it was the fate of two girls
from a village that lies on the boundary
between North and South Waziristan
tribal districts in KP. The village is called
Shaam Plain Garyom. The video that
made them targets is 52 seconds long
and shows a man recording himself with
three girls. Two of the girls in the video,
aged 16 and 18, have been killed. It is
uncertain whether the third girl is alive.
The two women are suspected of having
been killed by their paternal cousin. He
and another accused have now been
arrested.
According to the police, the video
was shot over a year ago but spread on
social media relatively recently. The
remoteness of the village has made it
difficult for the details of the crime, such
as the names of the two dead women, to
be confirmed. The fact that the village
sits in the heart of the tribal areas means
that there is little information as to what
exactly happened since the time the
video began circulating and when the
girls were killed. Like so many other
truths, this one is likely going to be bur-
ied by the collusion of tribal elders, local
law enforcement and just about every-
one else.
What is known of the facts including
the video that lies at the centre of it
makes it remarkably similar to the case
from Kohistan that emerged in 2012 and
in which male dancers and women clap-
ping at a wedding celebration were simi-
larly marked for murder. Investigations
by the government led only to subter-
fuge, apparently with other women pre-
sented as the murdered women, etc.
That incident set off a round of retalia-
tion and revenge. The most recent casu-
alty of the Kohistan incident was Afzal
Kohistani, who had revealed that the
58 | GLOBAL AGE June 2020
women had been murdered in the blood-
letting saga that saw his own brothers
being killed.
There were publicised arrests, fol-
lowed by the release of some arrested on
bail. It appeared that no one thought the
accused had actually done anything
wrong or that the public deserved pro-
tection from them.
This time will be no different. Those
arrested now, while the country’s out-
rage is hot and heaving, will be released
unceremoniously as soon as it falters –
and attention and outrage, we know,
always, always falters and fades away.
No column or argument or essay can
change this course ahead. I would know;
I have written and screamed out at the
cruelty of so many, all too many, ‘honour’
crimes. Everybody in the country
expects that women will be killed for
whatever made-up reason; everyone
accepts that women will be killed. It is
just the way things are in the country;
even those who can do not bother to raise
their voices.
But while columns and essays can-
not make people care or lift them out of
the apathy that would end the crimes
themselves, they can be used to disabuse
them of the fictions surrounding these
deaths. One of these is the idea that to kill
women in such a way is a product of ‘tra-
dition’. This flawed view holds that it is
some history or custom that held that
women can be done away with every time
they anger this or that man by clapping
or talking or simply existing.
It is in fact modernity and the com-
modification of human beings, particu-
larly women, that has made it seemingly
okay to murder with impunity. The issue,
then, is one of economics rather than
some inchoate tradition. Women repre-
sent capital, which can be exchanged and
traded through marriage. The men who
want to preserve the value of their capital
(and also have a vested interest in reduc-
ing the value of other men’s capital) are
thus incentivised to keep women in their
control, just like they would any piece of
property. Rumours can released into the
air for this purpose sometimes, cell
phone videos at others.
So-called honour killings, then, are
simply mercenary money killings, where
women are reduced to a kind of stock.
Errant women, particularly those who
have the astounding temerity to insist
that they are something other than capi-
tal that men have the right to trade and
spend, have zero value and are therefore
worthy only of being killed. And so, a
culture controlled by men dictates the
death of women.
Times of hardship, such as our cur-
rent and future disease-laden times, are
likely to make matters worse. The capital
at the disposal of men is only going to
dwindle, and in times of want, Pakistan
is likely to care even less if more women
are murdered.
The girls of Waziristan are dead
because of a mobile phone video. There
is no issue of tradition here, only one of
technology and the general social toler-
ance of the murder of women for any
reason and for no reason. Honour kill-
ings will not stop until women are no
longer equal to capital, equal to how
much they can be traded or exchanged
for, and equal to nothing at all if they
develop the courage to insist that they
are actually human beings.
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