Category Archives: Qualitative

5G Fight With China: Politicization Leads to Suboptimal US Outcome

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 7, No. 4, April 2019

The photograph depicts a man wearing a virtual reality headset.

A customer wearing a headset plays a virtual reality (VR) game, 2018. Source: Marco Verch via Flickr.

Anders Corr, Ph.D.
Publisher of the Journal of Political Risk

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced a national 5G auction of large slices (up to 3.4 gigahertz) of the millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum, along with $20.4 billion in subsidies over 10 years for rural connections, on April 12. The plan ignores expert cyber-security advice, has major security, timing, strategic and financial problems, and will not facilitate new competitors in the telecommunications market. The announcement by President Trump and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, likely under the influence of telecommunications lobbyists, was a surprise to most experts and took place with no real public input. The auction of the mmWave spectrum is set for December 10. At the press conference announcing the decision, Chairman Pai thanked Director of the National Economic Council Larry Kudlow and Ivanka Trump for their assistance, with Ms. Trump giving a speech in support of the plan.

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Great Power Political Convergence and UN Reform: Solving the Democratic Deficit

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 7, No. 4, April 2019

Anders Corr, Ph.D.
Publisher of the Journal of Political Risk

The photograph depicts a statue of a gun tied at the end to prevent it from shooting.

A bronze sculpture titled “Non-Violence” by Swedish artist Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd stands to the north of the United Nations Building in New York. It depicts the knotted barrel of a Colt Python .357 Magnum. Reuterswärd designed the sculpture following the murder of songwriter John Lennon. Source: Allan Watt via Flickr.

The international system operates across military, economic, and diplomatic hierarchies of states situated in competing alliances and international organizations. The major powers assert the predominance of influence in these alliances and international organizations, leading to a severe and global democratic deficit. Huge numbers of people, most notably the approximately 18% of the world’s population living in China, and 2% of the population living in Russia, have no democratically-appointed representation at the United Nations or influence in the world’s most important alliance systems.

The global democratic deficit leads to critical inefficiencies and unfair policies. States use unequal access to military, wealth, and knowledge resources to influence international organizations and alliance systems for individual state gains that lead to global inefficiencies and trade-offs where individual major power goals contradict the public good, or the national interests of other states. Perhaps the most dangerous such inefficiency is the rising risk of nuclear war, as countries like the U.S. and China compete to impose their competing visions of the future on the world.

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East Turkistan Needs You

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 7, No. 3, March 2019

East Turkestanis and their supporters demonstrate in front of the White House. They are photographed holding blue and white flags and banners.

East Turkestanis and their supporters demonstrate in front of the White House, calling for US support for an independent East Turkestan, currently occupied by China. The demonstration occurred on November 12, 2018, the anniversary of the founding of the First and Second East Turkestan Republics. Photo: ETNAM

Salih Hudayar
Founder and Political Affairs Officer of the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement 

Few Americans have ever heard of “Xinjiang”. Even fewer have ever heard it called by its proper name (the name its oppressed inhabitants use): “East Turkistan”. This strategically-significant region, my ancestral Homeland, is home to an ethnically Turkic, Muslim population of people called the Uyghurs. On official maps, it borders eight countries, but most Uyghurs will count China and Tibet as separate, independent countries and tell you that it borders ten. And therein lies the issue.

The vast majority of Uyghurs, like the vast majority of Tibetans, don’t see themselves as part of China. They see China as an occupying force, and rightly so. Up until late 1949 — when the Chinese Communist Party invaded the region and overthrew our government — it was an independent Republic. Most Uyghurs feel no connection to Beijing. Imagine for a moment that the United States Army invaded the Canadian province of Alberta. Surely the residents of Alberta would feel no connection to Washington, D.C.

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President Trump Has Authority to Rebuild American Industry: Use the Defense Production Act of 1950

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 7, No. 3, March 2019

William R. Hawkins
International Economics and National

Security Consultant

Two aircraft carriers are photographed from above in the ocean.

The aircraft carriers USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), top, and USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) transit the Arabian Sea. Source: U.S. Navy via Flickr.

President Donald Trump’s trade reform campaign is not meant only to redress the massive deficit with the People’s Republic of China ($419 billion in goods last year, a net figure of how much American money is supporting jobs and production in China rather than at home). His policies have been rooted in national security concerns with a focus on the dangerous transfer of capital and technology that has empowered Beijing’s military buildup and aggressive behavior along the Pacific Rim and beyond. There is concern that the momentum of his efforts is slowing. He delayed elevating tariffs on Chinese goods from 10% to 25% on March 1st to give negotiations more time to reach a deal. But the PRC regime will never curb its pursuit of the wealth and capabilities it needs to replace the U.S. as the world’s preeminent power. It is a long-term economic contest between rivals for the highest of stakes imaginable.

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The Quad of India, Japan, Australia and the US: A Work in Progress

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 7, No. 3, March 2019

Commodore Anil Jai Singh

IN (Retd)

The photograph depicts Indian naval soldiers be led in a tour by a US counterpart. They are all photographed inside what appears to be the naval cockpit.

Members of the Indian navy conduct a tour of Indian Naval Station Hansa to crew members of Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS O’Kane (DDG 77) during a port visit in Goa. Source: U.S. 7th Fleet via Wikimedia Commons.

The recent statement by the Commander-in Chief of the US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Phil Davidson at a press conference in Singapore that the ‘Quad’ or the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between the USA, Australia, India and Japan may need to be shelved was met with a mixed reaction in the regional maritime security discourse. However, this was not a fatalistic view but rather a tacit acknowledgement of the divergent views amongst the Quad partners on certain fundamental issues. He made this statement based on his discussions with Admiral Sunil Lanba, the Chief of the Indian Navy at the recent Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi where Admiral Lanba said that there was not an immediate potential for the Quad.

The idea of a Quad was first articulated by the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during the East Asia Summit in 2007; in the same year he spoke of the confluence of the two oceans – the Indian and the Pacific- and introduced the term Indo-Pacific during an address to the Indian Parliament. The first attempt to shape the Quad was the decision to enhance Exercise Malabar — the annual bilateral Indo-US naval exercise into a quadrilateral construct. However, China understandably expressed strong reservations about this as an anti-China initiative. Australia succumbed but a trilateral exercise was nevertheless held between the US, Japan and India.  For the next decade, while the Quad was spoken of periodically at various fora, very little was actually happening on the ground to give it concrete shape.

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