Category Archives: Asia-Pacific

The Chinese Communist Party Operates As A “Foreign Terrorist Organization” Per 8 U.S.C. § 1189 

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 8, No. 11, November 2020

The image depicts the Chinese Communist Party flag.

Chinese Communist Party flag. Source: Wikimedia

Terri Marsh, J.D.
Human Rights Law Foundation

Teng Biao, Ph.D.
University of Chicago

The Chinese Communist Party (the Party) was founded in 1921 to defeat the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, through a “violent revolution” and establish a totalitarian communist state. Since its victory in 1949, it has directed a wide range of activities that include the waging of violent suppression campaigns, providing material support to known terrorist organizations and state sponsors of terrorism, abducting foreign diplomats, in addition to the use of forms of “soft” power to export repression through an “increasingly powerful and brutal totalitarianism that is metastasizing globally.” Operating without constitutional support,[1] left to its own devices, it will continue to rewrite international norms and create a new international order in which the rule of law, human dignity, democracy and justice are debased and denied.

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China Celebrates The Anniversary Of Its “Victory” In The Korean War

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 8, No. 11, November 2020

A black and white image depicts Forces of the Korean People's Army celebrate victory on the battlefield. They all have their arms raised on a hill top.

Forces of the Korean People’s Army celebrate victory on the battlefield, 1953. Source: U.S. Korean Military Advisory Group.

William R. Hawkins
Former U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee member

On October 23, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a speech at a major gathering in Beijing to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Chinese People’s Volunteers (CPV) entering the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in 1950. He claimed the purpose of military intervention was to help North Korea resist U.S. aggression. The speech is representative of the kind of propaganda Beijing creates to send messages to audiences both at home and abroad at a time of rising tensions across the Indo-Pacific.

Xi’s speech is not the only event staged to celebrate China’s role in the Korean War. Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, delivered a speech at the opening ceremony of a new exhibit dedicated to the war on October 19. According to state media, Wang’s history ran as follows. On October 19, 1950, as requested by the DPRK, CPV forces crossed the Yalu River to aid the DPRK’s fight in the “War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea” (Beijing’s official name for the conflict). The war lasted until a truce was signed in 1953. A total of 2.9 million CPV soldiers entered the battlefield, and 197,653 died. New films and books are also being released pushing the theme that China was acting to defend Korea from an American invasion, motivated only by a desire to regain peace and stability. Continue reading →

State of War, State of Mind: Reconsidering Mobilization in the Information Age

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 8, No. 10, October 2020

A navy ship is depicted out of the water.

LCDR Robert “Jake” Bebber
USN

Recently, American policy-makers and national security thinkers have begun to recognize that revisionist powers in Communist China and Russia have no interest in preserving the current liberal order, and instead have embarked on a course to challenge and supplant the U.S. as the world’s superpower. However, the United States is not postured to mobilize for long-term strategic competition or war with great powers. American policymakers’ assumptions regarding war preparation, prosecution, and sustainment are not aligned to the emerging 21st Century landscape being dominated by three major trends: advances in understanding of neuroscience, emerging dual-use technologies, and new financial business models.  This report takes a holistic approach toward identifying how war mobilization in the 21st Century will look different from the industrial models of the mid-to-late 20th Century. Looking beyond the Defense Department, it explores economic, policy, social, technological and informational aspects of planning and preparation. It identifies why the intelligence and national security communities are not postured to detect or anticipate emerging disruptions and strategic latency. It puts forward strategies and recommendations on how to grow American power and create new sources of comparative advantage that can be rapidly converted into both kinetic and non-kinetic effects in all domains, not just the military domain.

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Proposal For A Global Indigenous Organization

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 8, No. 9, September 2020

Maori Meeting House Te Hono ki Hawaiki. The image focuses on the roof featuring wooden sculptures.

Maori Meeting House Te Hono ki Hawaiki. Source: Tony Hisgett

Susan Cullen-Wetere
Ngati Maniapoto

Bernard Cadogan
DPhil Oxford University

Indigenous peoples and their protecting nation states in the Western group of nations share a common interest in democracy and the rule of law. The norm between them is a collaborative and fiduciary association that escalates race relations out of the infinite misery of grievance politics, and the cycles of rage characterising other race discourses. Both indigenous nations and their protector nations have an interest in building on the strengths of their Treaty systems, and protection mechanisms, and in excluding foreign interference inimical to the relationships they share.

It is proposed that a global indigenous organisation is formed, as a place of intellectual discourse and debate, much as is Chatham House in London, or Clingendael in The Netherlands. Continue reading →

China: The Struggle for Territory Eclipses Trade

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 8, No. 6, June 2020

Military trucks drive along a closed-off 10-lane highway. Sky scrapers and trees can be seen in the background.

Military parade to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Chinese people’s victory in the Japanese Resistance War and the end of World War II, 2015. The number of tanks in China’s armored forces ranks third in the world. The main battle tanks have the ability to fight under nuclear and night conditions. Source: Press Service of the President of Russia.

William R. Hawkins
Former U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee member

In February 1999, President Bill Clinton opened a major foreign policy speech by  claiming, “Perhaps for the first time in history, the world’s leading nations are not engaged in a struggle with each other for security or territory. The world clearly is coming together.” This was the height of the post-Cold War delusion that history had come to an end and that a new world order had dawned based on a global partnership for economic development. Yet, Clinton knew that this was still a work in progress. In the same San Francisco speech he talked about conflicts in the Middle East, Southwest Asia and the Balkans, the threat of nuclear proliferation, and the need to bring Russia and China “into the international system as open, prosperous, stable nations.” The emphasis, however, was always on economics, a peaceful way to rise within classical liberal theory, transcending political issues and separating wealth from power in an interdependent world.

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