Asia
People are not that certain of China’s rise. Majorities or pluralities in only half of the countries surveyed “believe that China will — or already has — replaced the U.S. as the world’s leading superpower.” Sensibly, only minorities believe that the handover has already occurred — 4 to 17% think so, with no clear pattern emerging in countries with larger percentages within this range. Only 8% of Chinese believe that they are already on top.
People in developed countries –and thus likely higher education levels — are more likely to expect Chinese dominance.
Two exceptions set the stage for future clashes of expectations: only 26% of Americans foresee being replaced by China, with 57% doubting that this will ever happen, while 59% of Chinese expect to replace the US, and only 20% are skeptical that this will occur.
(Image copyright FutureAtlas.com — usable with attribution and link.)
Writing in Foreign Policy, Paul Quinn-Judge outlines a scenario in which “the fighters of the Caucasus Emirate link up with their jihadi allies in Central Asia, turning much of the southern rim of the former Soviet Union into a zone of low-intensity warfare.”
He writes that “The absolute worst-case scenario — a gradual linking-up of insurgents in Central Asia with the North Caucasus’ young Islamist fighters — might be remote, but it is now possible. Such a link-up would require at least three factors.”
- “Russia’s policy of blind brutality in the North Caucasus would have to continue, ensuring a steady stream of recruits to the Islamist cause.”
- “The Taliban would have to consolidate along Afghanistan’s frontiers with Central Asian countries such as Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, or Tajikistan, turning the borderlands into safe havens and creating a series of conduits allowing fighters to move from Afghanistan into Central Asia and beyond.”
- “Central Asian jihadists from countries such as Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, or Uzbekistan would have to emerge as a fighting force large enough to exert serious regional pressure.”
As to their likelihood, Quinn-Judge suggests that
- “The first is already happening.”
- “The second is a matter of time.”
- “The third cannot be ruled out.”
China has plans to create a 25-square-mile photovoltaic solar farm. The array would have a two-gigawatt capacity; this could power three million homes, ABC News reports.
Of course, China has announced a lot of sustainability projects that haven’t quite panned out. Still, ABC notes that China is the world’s largest producer of solar panels, and is about to be the world’s largest wind turbine maker.
The first marker for this solar project will be whether the 30 megawatt demo is completed in the next couple of years. The full-scale project’s target for completion is 2019.
Twenty-five square miles is ambitious at the moment, but may come to be seen as just a start. The current National Geographic asserts that the entire US electricity supply could be powered by a solar farm occupying a 100-mile-by-100-mile square (10,000 sq miles). (George Johnson, “Plugging into the Sun,” National Geographic, September 2009, 39) This might seem like a lot, but, by comparison, it is less than a tenth of the acreage planted in corn alone each year.
(PV panel image copyright FutureAtlas.com — usable with attribution and link)
Polling by the Pew Global Attitudes Project show that Pakistani attitudes are shifting. They are far more worried about extremism, and feel less positive about al Qaeda and the Taliban.
- Seventy percent have an unfavorable view of the Taliban, vs. 33% in 2008. On al Qaeda, 61% now hold unfavorable views, compared to 34% last year.
- Nearly two-thirds of Pakistanis — 64% — see the US as an “enemy,” though 53% think improved relations between the two countries are important.
- India is viewed as a very serious threat by 69% of those polled, while 57% see the Taliban this way, and 41% label al Qaeda a serious threat.
- China is viewed positively by 84% of Pakistanis.
- Pakistanis have strong authoritarian impulses: “78% favor death for those who leave Islam; 80% favor whippings and cutting off hands for crimes like theft and robbery; and 83% favor stoning adulterers.”
- Pakistan may have some resistance to fragmentation: “89% say they think of themselves first as Pakistani, rather than as a member of their ethnic group.”
- Pakistanis are not deeply unhappy with their lives, despite poverty, instability, corruption, etc.: “74% say they are very or somewhat satisfied with their overall lives.”
- Only 5% now support suicide bombings targeting civilians “in defense of Islam;” 41% did so in 2004.
Public hostility to the US suggests that it would not take an outright extremist takeover to create a hostile regime in Pakistan. Politicians might find it a rewarding stance in an election, and in office, though economic and diplomatic costs might make this a risky strategy.
(Image courtesy openDemocracy)
Analyst Andrew Bacevich questioned the US strategy in Afghanistan on NPR’s “Morning Edition” today.
We don’t need to fix Afghanistan and the world, he said; we simply need to defend the US. The American interest in Afghanistan is limited to insuring “that Afghanistan does not become a sanctuary for a large number of jihadists plotting attacks against the United States.”
Our current strategy and level of commitment does not reflect that limited interest, he said. The current approach fails “to think seriously about where our interests lie and to think seriously about how much power we have available and where it can most effectively be used.”
As an alternative, “explore the possibility of providing incentives to the warlords to get them to rule their little patch of Afghanistan in ways that keeps the Taliban and especially keeps al-Qaida out. In other words, we would pay them in order to accomplish that for us.”
Present strategy leads to “perpetual occupation,” according to Bacevich.
This alternative strategy could present several issues:
- The warlords are often corrupt and brutal — sometimes as brutal as the Taliban — and backing them could be difficult for Americans to stomach.
- The brutality and oppression of the warlords brought the Taliban to power in the 1990s, and could enable them to triumph again.
- If American aims are limited to blocking hostile jihadists, we might do as well negotiating with the Taliban directly, as some say is inevitable.
(Image courtesy NASA)
A researcher has found that fertility may go up again after countries reach a high level of development.
The pattern has long been that fertility is declining pretty much everywhere, and in the developed world is has dropped below replacement levels — about 2.1 babies per woman — in many countries.
Lower fertility has many societal, economic, and environmental benefits, but rapid fertility drops drive rapid “aging” of a society, with rising ratios of seniors to workers.
According to Rob Stein in the Washington Post, Hans-Peter Kohler found that countries which reach a high quality of life often increase their birthrates. The threshold is a human development index (HDI) of 0.9, which reflects high levels of income, longevity, and education.
Kohler speculates that the key may be social structures and employment situations that enable women both to work and have children. This would explain, he notes, why Japan has not achieved this fertility rebound, given its high level of gender inequality.
Immigration could clearly play a factor, as most developed countries (but not Japan) have greatly increased immigration in recent decades, but Kohler says it cannot account for the full effect — and this would not explain why Canada has not had such a rebound.
Sociologist S. Philip Morgan casts some doubt on the development-driven theory, telling the Post that other factors could be at work, such as ideological changes. (These two ideas are not necessarily contradictory; development is an important driver of ideological change, according to theorists such as Ronald Inglehart.)
(Image courtesy yananine, Flickr)
On “Fresh Air” on NPR, Charles Sennott said today that the US plan for Afghanistan does not look like a plausible route to success.
The US and allied force ratios are not right for a vast, rural country such as Afghanistan, he said.
On the Taliban, Sennott said that its leadership shows a range of outlooks, and some Taliban leaders see the movement’s embrace of extreme policies during its time in power as a mistake.
As for how things will go forward, negotiations with elements of the Taliban are “inevitable,” Sennott asserts, though the organization may not yet have a realistic position to bring to talks.
(Image courtesy NASA)
A Sunni extremist takeover of Pakistan would be an immense threat to the US and hard to counter, Bruce Reidel writes in The National Interest.
Such a takeover
would create the greatest threat the United States has yet to face in its war on terror. Pakistan as an Islamic-extremist safe haven would bolster al-Qaeda’s capabilities tenfold. The jihadist threat bred in Afghanistan would be a cakewalk in comparison. The old Afghan sanctuary was remote, landlocked and weak; a new one in Pakistan would be in the Islamic mainstream with a modern communications and transportation infrastructure linking it to the world.
“A jihadist victory is neither imminent nor inevitable, but it is now a real possibility in the foreseeable future,” he writes. It would require the Taliban expanding eastward, and teaming up with the radical group Lashkar-e-Taiba in the Punjab, assisted by harnessing the grievances of Pakistan’s vast impoverished classes.
A jihadist Suni emirate would face significant internal resistance, Reidel writes, including from Shia, who make up a fifth of the population. To counter potential opposition within the army, the new regime would likely create a parallel military force, like the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
“In the end, we would be left with an extremist-controlled Pakistan, infested with violence, an almost completely dysfunctional economy, harsh laws and even-harsher methods for imposing them, and above all a nuclear-armed nation controlled by terrorist sympathizers,” Reidel suggests.
External effects would be severe:
- Pakistan would increase its influence in Afghanistan, with some of the Pashtun areas all but incorporated into Pakistan.
- Afghanistan would be split between Pakistan-backed Pashtun and their Tajik, Uzbek, and Shia opponents backed by Russia, Iran, and the Central Asian countries.
- Iran and Pakistan would face off in Afghanistan, and support separatists movements. Iran would accelerate its nuclear program in the face of the Pakistani threat.
- India and Pakistan might easily come to blows, with anti-Indian extremists in power in Islamabad.
- Israel and Pakistan would be active adversaries, but Israel would have few options for countering the distant Asian state.
- All Muslim countries would face the prospect of a newly energized radical movement using Pakistan as a support and training base.
- The United States would lack military options, and a blockade would be difficult to carry out and hard to sustain.
(Image courtesy openDemocracy)
A Chinese research group reports that 338 million Chinese are now using the Internet — some 26% of the population.
Despite its restricted state in China, the Internet is still an important driver of expanding freedom. Information circulates much more freely than in the past, and sensitive stories often travel widely before the government clamps down. And those who are determined to get around the so-called Great Firewall can do so.
Though 26% is much lower than rates in developed countries, it still means that the Internet is now well beyond the upper-middle class. The report indicates that usage is spreading in the rural population, driven by rising mobile Internet use.
(Image courtesy openDemocracy — Creative Commons license)
At a USAID seminar today, Dr. Deborah Brautigam of American University said that Chinese companies are beginning to be interested in conditionality standards — benchmarks such as the Equator Principles that are meant to guide global companies toward better handling of social and environment issues in emerging markets.
Chinese companies are often seen as unconcerned with such environmental and social matters in their operations in Africa, potentially undercutting progress toward getting other actors to operate responsibly.
Brautigam said that Chinese companies are beginning to study such principles; publicly traded companies are aware of the reputational risk of being seen as bad actors, and of their potential vulnerability to activism.
Meanwhile, today’s news suggests how far Chinese business has to go. A graft query in Namibia has brought up the name of the son of China’s president, Hu Jintao. The Chinese government has reportedly responded by blocking access to news coverage of the affair — directly contradicting the kind of openness and transparency which global markets will ultimately demand from Chinese business, and which Chinese companies will themselves need to be fully competitive.
(Image courtesy Social Technologies)