Arctic Enterprise: The China Dream Goes North

Posted on September 16, 2019 by admin

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 7, No. 9, September 2019

The image depicts a ship from above against the backdrop of a sunset.

Arctic Ocean, ship on Barents Sea. Source: Tom Thiel via Wikimedia Commons.

Jonathan Hall
Security and Political Risk Analyst

Until recent years, harsh weather and unmanageable navigation routes have precluded all but the most determined crews from venturing through the Arctic. As climate change continues to take effect, however, warming temperatures are opening up the region to new opportunities. In 2017, for example, merchant ships were able to pass through a shipping lane, known as the Northern Sea Route (NSR), for the first time without icebreaker escort.

The NSR has since been discussed as a logistical windfall that will revolutionize the world of international shipping. The often-cited reasoning is the potential 5,000 mi (8,000 km), or 10-15 days saved in transit, as compared to more traditionally used routes such as the Strait of Malacca, or the Suez Canal. While the NSR is only open three months per year, climatologists predict it will be traversable for 9 months out of the year by 2030, and completely ice free within the next two decades. As these changes are coming into effect, no state seems to understand the geopolitical advantage a strong presence in the Arctic will bring more so than the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Continue reading →

What The Philippines Must Do To Defend Itself From China

Posted on September 9, 2019 by admin

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 7, No. 9, September 2019

A U.S. marine watches as Philippine Marines raise their flag over the naval station against the backdrop of the ocean.

A U.S. marine watches as Philippine Marines raise their flag over the naval station, 1992. Source: NARA & DVIDS Public Domain Archive.

Sannie Evan Malala
West Visayas State University

The Philippines is strategically located in Southeast Asia, at the fault-line between Communist China and the democratic nations of the Americas and Europe. In the north is East Asia, full of wealthy market democracies in increasing conflict with China. To the southwest are countries seeking to defend their exclusive economic zones from China, including Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei. As China’s power grows, the fault-line is widening and trying to straddle the middle will only result in our falling into the chasm. The Philippines must choose a side – subservience to China or joining a coalition of the willing in defense of each country’s independence and democracy from the Chinese hegemon. The Philippines has yet to take advantage of its full potential and has become economically poor and militarily weak, primarily due to corruption, internal armed struggle, and its growing relationship with China. For the Philippines to avoid being a satellite of China, this is what we must do. Continue reading →

Nasif Ahmed: Hong Kong Independence

Posted on September 5, 2019 by admin

The cartoon depicts a man in a construction helmet, alongside others, running from a green blast title "independence".

“Hong Kong Independence”, by Nasif Ahmed.

Continue reading →

As MENA States Grow Increasingly Repressive, Businesses Should Lead Reform

Posted on August 14, 2019 by admin

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 7, No. 8, August 2019

Two women dressed in black are pictured side-by-side looking at documents together. Both wear head coverings.

A business tête–à–tête. Source: Pxhere.

Dr. Ramy Abdu
Founder and Chairman of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor

Nine years after the so-called “Arab Spring” protests swept the Middle East and North Africa, with mostly young people calling for the end of autocracy and respect for their human rights, civil and human rights are more at risk than ever. Governments across the region engage in vicious, factional wars for control (Syria, Yemen, Libya); are more dictatorial than ever (Egypt, Saudi Arabia); or continue to colonize and control populations with fewer means to defend themselves (Israel of Palestinians and Morocco of Western Sahara). When new civil uprisings do occur (Sudan, Algeria), the entrenched elites fight to fend off popular democracy.

Continue reading →

Xi Killed Convergence: the American China Consensus is Gone

Posted on July 26, 2019 by admin

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 7, No. 7, July 2019

Caricature of President Xi Jinping, 2013. Source: Wikimedia commons.

Paul S. Giarra
President of Global Strategies & Transformation

Two open letters to the President on China strategy have appeared recently. The first, “China is not an enemy”,[1] was published in the Washington Post on July 3^rd. The second, “Stay the Course on China: An Open Letter to President Trump”, appeared in these pages on July 18th.[2] The former argued that considering China as an enemy would be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The second posited that we had already turned that corner with China, and that the president should continue with his hard line policies toward Beijing (Full disclosure: the author signed the latter open letter).

There’s more to these letters, but they do not represent an argument; rather, they are a transition from an old conventional wisdom to a new reality. As Nikki Haley wrote in Foreign Affairs last week [3], the theory of convergence with China expressed in the Washington Post letter and practiced in the United States for 30 years has been fully discredited. “Let’s face it: Xi has killed the notion of convergence.”

Why it has taken so long to get to this point will have to be left to the social historians, but the China policy transition now underway has been reverberating throughout the Washington policy community for some time. Continue reading →