President Biden, don’t confuse friends with foes (The Sunday Guardian)

 

The Atlantic is once more the primary focus of attention by the White House, no longer the Indo-Pacific.

There ought not to have been any surprise in the White House that the Heads of Government of Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar (the latest US “major non-NATO ally”) chose to ignore President Joe Biden’s call for a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics and be present besides Presidents Putin and Xi at the opening ceremony. The very capable Royal Family of Qatar, risking its own safety, remains the only GCC power that still backs the Wahhabi International. Perhaps this is why those close to the White House have spared it the criticisms that have been levelled against Al Sisi in Egypt and Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia in particular. Military transfers have been blocked to Egypt and Indonesia, both countries that are seeking to hold at bay extremist groups from entering into positions of responsibility. The UAE cannot therefore be faulted for hedging its bets by joining others in the pilgrimage to Beijing to watch the Winter Olympics taking place in that sprawling city. Given the spasms of disapproval directed at long-term allies of the US, and after the US handover of Afghanistan back to the Taliban in August 2021, relying on Washington’s support in a crisis seems to be too risky a policy to follow. Biden has retrogressed to the past, seeking to return the US to the past, when Cold War 1.0 between Washington and Moscow was ongoing. The Atlantic is once more the primary focus of attention by the White House, no longer the Indo-Pacific. The threat from China? The real enemy is Russia, and remains so within the Biden administration three decades after the demise of the USSR. This when large parts of the former USSR broke off and became independent, with some even getting admitted into NATO, and more eager to. The residual power, Russia, wanted to be an integral part of Europe, despite the bulk of its territory being located within Asia. Other European powers were reluctant to admit Russia into their fold, wary that they would be eclipsed by it. France and Germany had worked out an alliance of convenience between themselves that enabled them to be the most influential force in Europe. Such a bonding was assisted by memories of the fact that during 1940-44, almost until the final months of the war, the co-existence of the German occupiers and the Vichy regime had been a pleasant enough experience, at least for the German side. Besides the Jews and Communists, the rest of French society was treated with friendly condescension by their occupiers. If the German occupation of parts of the USSR had followed the French example, the ferocious resistance by Russian “Partisans” to the barbarous occupation of their land by German forces may not have been as incandescent as it turned out to be. The most important war to the Nazis was that waged against the Jewish community. The atrocities Hitler committed failed to generate enough revulsion among the generals and colonels in Germany. It was the shock and disgrace of looming defeat and occupation by a foreign force that resulted in some of the Wehrmacht officer corps seeking in 1944 to make an end of the Nazi regime. The Japanese military remained obedient to its superior officers to the end of the 1937-45 war.
During wartime Germany, rising privation and imminent defeat failed to spark a popular revolt against Hitler. The reason in the minds of several was fear. Fear of the regime and the cruelties it was capable of inflicting on them. Elsewhere, whether it was Stalin or Saddam Hussein later, the Russian and Iraqi people did not pose an existential challenge to such a duo’s brutal rule, in large part because fear of the regime had become an inseparable companion in the lives of the population. Had it been Hafez rather than Bashar Assad who ran Syria in 2011, it is doubtful that so many citizens of that country would have joined in the NATO-GCC effort to remove him from power. Bashar did not carry with him the penumbra of fear that his father had, although to everyone’s surprise, the Syrian leader showed remarkable spine and staying power during 2013-16, years when it seemed certain that his regime would go the way Muammar Gaddafi’s had in Libya. President Bashar Assad remained in power, and with help from Tehran and Moscow recovered much of the territory that had earlier been lost to fighters backed by the GCC and NATO. In China, the CCP leadership believed that it was not accidental that the dissolution of the USSR gathered irresistible force only after Mikhail Gorbachev sought to fashion a kinder, softer CPSU and a Gandhian version of the Warsaw Pact. Non-violence was the rule in the Russian army, even when there were mass manifestations within Warsaw Pact countries geared towards regime change. Had Viktor Yanukovich been the despot he was depicted as being by the US and allies eager to drive out of office the Russia-leaning President of Ukraine, he may have retained power rather than having to flee his own country. Xi Jinping displays the same ruthlessness against his opponents as Deng Xiaoping did at Tiananmen in 1989. Vladimir Putin, who has seen several US Presidents come and go during his tenure at the Kremlin, has serially imprisoned potential challengers, whether these be in politics or business. As with Xi, Putin would like to deal with past, present and likely future foes in a manner that is devoid of ambiguity, and the opinion of self-professed defenders of democracy be damned. In such a world, friends are carefully kept separate from foes. And within the former, the most consequential get the most attention, a lesson that President Biden still has to learn. President Abdul Al Sisi has sought to keep Egypt secular in the manner intended by a predecessor who too was in the military, Anwar Sadat. In Indonesia, President Joko Widodo has even shown the courage to set up a Holocaust Museum commemorating the massacre of the Jewish people by Adolf Hitler, the first Muslim-majority country to do so. And it would have been a friendly nod from Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman that encouraged some of the Middle Eastern countries to establish diplomatic ties with Israel, yet he faces negative attention both in the US Congress and the Biden administration. After Biden took office, the world has yet to see another Middle Eastern country establish formal ties with Israel. When, as seems the case with the US, a country does distinguish its friends from its foes and conciliates the latter while chastising the former, it is heading for trouble at the hands of its foes, once it has forfeited the support of its friends through clumsy diplomacy.

President Biden, don’t confuse friends with foes 

Roots of the Ukrainian problem (The Sunday Guardian)

 The media may be freer in the US or across the Atlantic than in the PRC, but that does not stop uniformity of reportage of disputatious issues in a monochromal manner. There seems very little daylight between the expressed views of 10 Downing Street or the White House and the position taken by the major newspapers and television channels in the UK or the US on Ukraine. There are quite possibly nearly a hundred thousand troops on the Russian side of the border with Ukraine, but they have been there in that number for years. The objective has from the start been to serve as a deterrent to possible efforts by the Russophobic Ukrainian military to impose their own control over those parts of Ukraine that are Russian-speaking, and which in effect have been treated as alien enclaves by Kyiv. Although they are citizens of Ukraine, governments in Kyiv have denuded them of the assistance that gets extended to the almost fully Ukrainian-speaking parts of the country. There have been credible reports that President Volodymyr Zelensky would like to re-establish the control that the central government had over the Russian-speaking eastern parts of Ukraine before Vladimir Putin intervened to prevent such an expansion of authority by Kyiv. It is obvious that both MI6 and CIA would be aware of this Russian objective, and that the only trigger for another invasion from the east of Ukraine would be the marching of Ukrainian troops into the towns and villages of the Russian-speaking regions, or indications that such an advance was likely to commence. The purpose of the diplomacy of the US, UK and France is to somehow browbeat Putin into promising not to interfere, should Ukrainian forces enter territories where local populations are terrified of such an occupation. The discrimination shown by Kyiv to the Russian-speaking regions has resulted in their having much lower levels of development than other parts of Ukraine. The condition of the population is getting so desperate that the majority of the population may welcome military intervention by Russia. The limited supply of offensive weaponry gifted to Kyiv by many countries in the Atlantic Alliance cannot close the gap between Russian and Ukrainian military capabilities, especially considering that the Ukrainian military would have to fight Russian soldiers in territory that is hostile to those in Ukrainian military uniforms, bringing back in them memories of the discrimination that the Russian-speaking segment of the Ukrainian population has endured since the breakup of the USSR that formally took place in 1991 and continued on the ground into the next year. Just as the unceasing barrage of false information about Saddam Hussein having WMD stockpiles was accepted and amplified by US media in the period prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the portrayal of Putin as a war monger continues even as supplies of petroleum products from the US head towards Europe in the expectation that President Biden will succeed in so twisting the hands of Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany that he will shut down Nord Stream I, not to mention decline to operationalise Nord Stream II, thereby destroying the political future of his party. President Biden has in effect promised to reduce South, Southeast and East Asia’s supply of petroleum products from the Middle East by 40% in order to divert supplies to Europe. An unlikely, indeed fanciful, prospect except apparently to the White House. After having witnessed serial trashing by the Atlanticist powers of agreements entered into by the US and its NATO allies, it is no surprise that President Emmanuel Macron of France had little success in efforts at ensuring that President Putin refuse to intervene in the “internal affairs of Ukraine”, including if the Ukrainian military marches into the Donbas and other eastern territories that are being protected by Russia from such an intervention. Even were he ready to obey Biden’s diktat and surrender the benefits of the Nord Stream pipelines, it is unlikely that the German Chancellor will succeed in persuading Putin to accept conditions that would place him in the same bracket as his predecessors Gorbachev and Yeltsin, who made concessions to the US and its allies that was reciprocated only by more concessions being demanded. Just as the Falklands intervention gave Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher a boost or the taking out of Saddam Hussein made President George W. Bush additional votes, Biden may be calculating that forcing Russia to accept the condition of non-intervention no matter what the Ukrainian military does within its own country may ensure that the Democrats take back the Senate and retain control of the House in the 2022 Congressional races. The good news for him is that President Zelensky seems to have prevailed over the hotheads who sought military assisted central control of the eastern regions up to the borders of Russia, and as long as this is the case, there will not be a war. Unless Putin decides that he has had enough of pinpricks, and marches into the Ukraine to create independent enclaves on the Georgia model. Neither Russian roulette or playing a game of chicken makes sense, yet this seems to be the strategy of those who seek a return to Cold War 1.0 despite Cold War 2.0 already in full swing.MDN

Roots of the Ukrainian problem 

Young India can surpass Middle Income status (The Sunday Guardian)

 

In the Xi-Putin joint statement, much was made of any country’s moves towards security not impinging on those of other countries. This when every day the security interests of India and several members of ASEAN are under threat by the actions of Beijing.

 

New Delhi: Recent actions of the Atlantic Alliance, which construct has once again become the centrepiece of US policy and been embraced by President Biden after effectively downgrading the Indo-Pacific Alliance, have given two choices to President Vladimir Putin. The first is to go the way of his predecessors, Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, who made concession after unilateral concession to demands public and secret from the United States and its European partners. The other is to prevent terminal damage to the Russian economy by further cementing ties with China. CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping is (apparently unlike President Joe Biden) clear about his objectives and what steps are needed stage by stage to achieve them, Xi has eagerly grasped the opportunity to ensure that any US-EU sanctions would in effect have a limited effect on Russia and which would finally bite back the EU and the US in not just economic but in broader geopolitical terms. More US-EU sanctions would further drive Moscow closer to Beijing. Beyond a point, they may present the risk that Putin would believe that there is no longer any point in waiting for better sense to dawn in Washington, London and other European capitals, and go ahead with military measures designed to remove any threat that a Ukraine that joins NATO would pose. The taking back of the Crimea from Ukraine was only the first step. Others would include the securing of de facto independence by those parts of Ukraine that directly impinge on Russian security interests. In their obsession to make kinetically helpless (at least in the conventional sense) Russia, Bill Clinton and his successors in the White House carried out policies that were demonstrably hostile to the overall Russian interest, especially in matters of global influence and security. Barack Obama found out how potent a threatened Russia could be, when the Kremlin sent aircraft and spetsnaz forces to Syria to ensure that GCC and NATO-backed groups were driven back from taking over the country as they earlier had in Libya. A fortunate outcome for NATO, that it lost the game to Russia and Iran, for only in the regions still kept free by NATO of control by the Kurds and the Assad regime do terrorists breed. It was not accidental that the ISIS chief taken out under President Joe Biden lived in that “free zone”, as it is called by the US and the EU. It is indeed a “free zone”, free for Al Qaeda and ISIS terrorists, that is. Or earlier, when overreach on the part of a Georgian President confident of substantive rather than just verbal US-EU backing led to substantial chunks of its territory being torn away from its control by Russia. Given the present trajectory of global events, it may be that in the next decade at most, Kosovo may be at risk of takeover by a joint Serbian-Russian military operation, on the lines of Crimea. Such an outcome would be contrary to the calculations of the same “experts” who have led Biden into the Sino-Wahhabi trap of shifting US focus back to Russia from China. Such a reversal has consequences for Australia, India and Japan, and when Antony Blinken meets his counterparts from these Quad members soon, perhaps they may be straightforward enough to warn him against Biden’s return to the past.

Despite their tough talk of countermeasures and fresh sanctions, not to mention rushing troops to some  newer members, will the major powers in NATO take the unprecedented step of actually going to war with Russia ( assisted by its ally, the PRC) not just in Ukraine, but in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania ? Putin and Xi may decide otherwise. After all, in the 1930s, promises by Paris and London of an immediate and lethal response (including by invading Germany from the west) gave a false sense of security to Poland, giving Warsaw enough confidence to object to a security partnership between Russia, France and the UK that CPSU General Secretary Stalin had understood from the start was necessary to deter another war in Europe on the lines of 1914-19. Of course, such logic was beyond the capacity of the leaders of France and Russia to understand, although there were a few such as De Gaulle and Churchill who did. The people of Poland paid a very heavy price for such a miscalculation by their leaders, and those capitals that were once part of the USSR or the Warsaw Pact, but which are now in NATO, need to factor in the extent of willingness of some of their tough talking partners to actually risk a kinetic war on European soil with Russia, unless they themselves were invaded. And Beijing would want that such a conflict should end in humiliation for the Atlantic Alliance even at great cost to Russia. Such an outcome would be far more preferable to Beijing than any humiliation of Moscow, something that envoy after envoy landing in Moscow forgets while suggesting Gorbachev-Yeltsin models of concessions to the Kremlin.

Aware that the possibility of US-EU sanctions is close to zero, no matter how much Russia is helped by the PRC to stay in the contest, the CCP under Xi Jinping Thought has thrived by adopting policies that suit their interests, even those followed by countries that they regard as obstacles to the path to global primacy. Much of what Xi Jinping Thought carries out in practice (although not always in the words made public) by either the CCP General Secretary or his subordinates is almost identical to the path taken during the 20th century by the US to actualise the same objectives as China is seeking for itself in the 21st. “International rules of the game” were what Washington declared them to be, and in the case of any such restriction, the US exempted itself. This is precisely the course followed by Xi, a day ago in the joint statement that was released after the Xi-Putin meeting, who are the leaders of the two most powerful Eurasian powers, Russia and China. Much was made that any country’s moves towards security not impinging on those of other countries. This when every day, the security interests of India and several members of ASEAN are under threat by the actions of Beijing, while all the while, the claim gets made that “every action (including by the PLA) is intended only for China’s own security”. The CCP is in essence a Han party, which is why the founder of the PRC, Chairman Mao Zedong, backed away from any kinetic action other than token steps against Taiwan throughout his tenure. While Mao’s three immediate successors as CCP bosses continued with the policy of not giving emphasis to the Big Stick, focusing instead on winning over enough hearts and minds in Taiwan such that there would be a voluntary unification with China. Based on the success that Hong Kong was having under Deng’s “One Country Two Systems”, elements of a “One Country Three Systems” solution were being talked about. Soon after coming to power in 2012, Xi abandoned the policy of “One Country Two Systems for the next fifty years”, much to the shock of those in Hong Kong such as Jimmy Lai, who sought greater freedom from CCP modes of governance than had been the case since 1997. In Xi Jinping Thought, there is “One Country, One System”, thereby leaving no scope for anything other than kinetic methods in any effort at capturing Taiwan. This would be a battle of Han versus Han, given that the overwhelming majority of the Taiwanese population is Han, as is the case with the majority of the population of Singapore, both countries that are far ahead of China in per capita terms. Such a superiority in economic achievement goes contrary to Xi Jinping Thought, which holds that the only system of governance suited to the Han people  is that followed under his direction in China. As for “mutual respect and non-interference” in matters relating to foreign countries, the less said about actual practice the better.

International rules of the game were in the past laid down by Washington. Today, they are being increasingly prescribed by Beijing. India refused to accept as a given the first set of rules, and will not accept the second. In the case of first the US and now China, rules that are meant to be followed only by others and never by themselves. Lessons have been learnt by PM Modi and EAM Jaishankar from the behaviour of  the PRC not only since 2017 but since the 1950s. This was the period when Aksai Chin was taken over. The failure of earlier governments to act resulted in great cost in territory and in other ways to India, a fate that the government is eager not to replicate.

 Young India can surpass Middle Income status

White House may cost Democrats US Congress (The Sunday Guardian)

 

The only way out for the US President would be for him to show less caution and more conviction that he means what he says.

Whether welcome or not, Democratic Party candidates for the US House and Senate in the November midterms will be glued to the coattails of President J.R. Biden. Judging by the way in which voters are reacting to the increasing number of missteps by the 46th President on matters of policy, the Biden White House may result in a disaster similar to that witnessed by Barack Obama during his stint in the Oval Office. As with Obama, Biden has sought to reach out “across the aisle”, and in the process convinced many that he has no convictions save the desire to protect his job. Obama chose Wall Street favourites to man key slots connected with the Street, forgetting that he was elected to “be the change that would make the change”. Less progress was made in the matter of racial equity in the US under the two terms of Barack Obama than has taken place just in the first year of a Biden term. Of course, his political instincts being attuned to the fraternity rules of the US Senate than to the scrimmage that democratic politics is, clumsy tactics have been plentiful. That an African-American woman jurist will be his choice for the US Supreme Court is unexceptionable. There are more than a few such individuals, all of whom have gone unrepresented during the entire existence of the US Supreme Court, which has overwhelmingly been a club comprising of males of European extraction. Clarence Thomas may be superficially black, but his judicial pronouncements appear to reflect a mind that may have been in agreement with past Justices such as Chief Justice Robert Taney. This is unlike Thurgood Marshall, who understood lack of privilege and opportunity and reflected that in his judicial pronouncements. A better grasp of politics would have led Biden to check on women jurists of every hue before announcing his pick, which, surprise, surprise, would turn out exactly the way he had promised during the 2020 campaign. Donald Trump erred in choosing the (admittedly capable) Amy Comey Barrett over her Latino rival Barbara Lago. Choosing the latter would have helped him and his party substantially where Latino votes are concerned, as was pointed out in these columns even before the 45th President’s final choice was made public. By publicly declaring that he would choose from only African-American women jurists, Biden’s pick will unfairly have the taint of ethno-based advantage in a context where ethnicity has played a role in so many nominations, including those made by President Trump. Telegraphing his preferences early has resulted in a flurry of condemnation. Some of these have been politically unwise for those who made them, as well as for the Republican Party, such as the unsavoury comments made by Senator Ted Cruz, who has on many issues shown great courage and foresight, including in the matter of dealing with the activities of the Chinese Communist Party. Senator Cruz been a contrast to Senator McConnell, who has sought to give China a free pass by asking for harsh sanctions to be imposed with immediate effect on Russia, thereby fulfilling Beijing’s push to ensure that NATO’s focus remains on Moscow rather than shift to the Indo-Pacific. The Senate Minority Leader joins US President Joe Biden, who seems to have regressed in his geopolitical understanding back to Cold War 1.0 (USSR-US) from the ongoing Cold War 2.0 (PRC-US).
Indications of such a shift towards a CCP-friendly narrative had been present from the start, when he retained Dr Anthony Fauci (of Gain of Function renown) as his principal adviser on the pandemic when it would have been cheaper to taxpayers to have secured similar CCP-prepared conclusions from the WHO. It was forecast by WHO and Dr Fauci that a full lockdown lasting about two weeks would “break the chain” of transmissions of SARS-Cov-2. Such unprecedented measures certainly broke a considerable amount of crockery around the world as a consequence of adopting WHO-recommended measures in efforts to stop the spread of a pathogen that, at its worst, killed less than 3% of known patients. It may be added that SARS-Cov-2 is an affliction where most of the cases are asymptomatic, and hence remain undetected, so that the actual number of patients are much more than what gets recorded. Those (such as this columnist) who gave the initial benefit of the doubt to Biden where the approach to Cold War 2.0 was concerned, seem on track to having their expectations unfulfilled, at least by the present occupant of the White House. The worst losers will be office-holders from the Democratic Party, who would suffer at the polls as a consequence of the unpopularity of their 2020 standard-bearer. The only way out for them, as for the US President, would be for him to show less caution and more conviction that he means what he says, and is willing to work towards actualisation of measures that he promotes in the media. Terrified of the “negative” reaction of the public to FDR’s threat to “pack the court”, in 1937, Biden has been cold to the imperative of raising the strength of the Supreme Court from 9 to 15. Instead, if he were point out to voters the way in which the Roberts court has rewarded money and privilege over the disadvantaged, and ask for a Democratic majority in the midterms sufficient to overturn Republican obstruction to his reforms, his party may not be gasping for breath, as is the case now. In the case of Roosevelt, his tactics worked, and the US Supreme Court ceased from 1937 onwards to remain an obstacle to his New Deal. In contrast, the Roberts court, aware of the lack of interest in change of the White House, is multiplying its one-sided verdicts in a manner that shows that partisanship is strong within the minds of at least five of the nine justices. Apparently tone deaf to political reality, President Biden (and his party) seem unconcerned about the boost that the Islamophobia bill is giving to the Republican Party by the manner in which it deals with only a single faith rather than the spectrum of faiths in the US. Toxic comments against Islam are indeed obnoxious, but so are similar comments against Christians, Sikhs or Hindus. Nor has he understood the importance of the ongoing battle within the Muslim Ummah in favour of moderation, and against Wahhabi radicalism. Hence Biden’s moves, such as the censure directed by Biden appointees towards the reformist regimes in Riyadh and Cairo, both of them also being US allies of long standing. Courage is usually a more potent magnet for votes than an excess of caution, something President Biden needs to consider as he approaches his midterms test.

White House may cost Democrats US Congress 

NEWSBUDGET 2022-23: LIGHT BRIGHTENS AT END OF LONG TUNNEL (The Daily Guardian)

 The 2022-23 Union Budget is among the most important components of the efforts at transformation being attempted by PM Modi, that too at a much brisker pace than was the case during Modi 1.0.

The 2022-23 Union Budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman follows on from her earlier budget. This is by carrying forward several of the changes that have made Modi 2.0 significantly more innovative than was the case during Modi 1.0. Almost as soon as then Chief Minister Narendra Modi spoke of “Minimum Government and Maximum Governance”, a chorus of cries went up, some in writing penned even by those regarded as being his supporters. Big Government had been a part of life in India over centuries, and P.V. Narasimha Rao paid a heavy political price for seeking to reduce that during his years as PM. The foundation of this budget was the philosophy that the Indian citizen is not a child or a criminal, but can be trusted in the manner PM Modi did early in his tenure, when he did away with the need to get documents authenticated by a Gazetted Officer. The problem he faced was the resistance of those steeped in the status quo to accept any dilution of their authority or changes in their procedures. Even in 2015, warnings were given by some that those who opposed the transformation that the PM sought to do while in office were (mostly quietly) active in (a) creating a negative perception of Modi as a divider and not a unifier. Such perceptions (b) were disseminated not so much in India as outside, so as to smudge Brand India and prevent its geopolitical ascent. Efforts were also on to (c) create conditions for panic in the stock markets, on the lines of those that had been engineered during the periods in office of Narasimha Rao and A.B. Vajpayee. The many within the system who favoured a return to the status quo ante before 26 May 2014 portrayed such warnings as “conspiracy theorists”. They were able to retain substantial influence in the governance mechanism even after Modi took charge, and managed to slow change down in several fields where change was essential to progress. This, combined with the popularity of Narendra Modi to prevent such Modi-phobic plans from reaching takeoff speed. During much of his first term, only 20% of his team were (in deed and thought) “Modivian”. About 40% reflected the

hues of the Vajpayee era, and another 40% that of the Manmohan Singh era. Several of those prominent in both these administrations found keystone positions within the Union Government, another reason why in so much of the reform effort of the Prime Minister, the brake was applied much more often across the system than the accelerator. It was a shock to Modi-phobic elements when the BJP improved its majority in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, and even wrested UP back from the Samajwadi Party in 2017 and installed Yogi Adityanath as CM, whose family lives as austere a life as does that of PM Modi. From that time, elements within the political and governance system that were opposed to the changes being attempted by Modi worked on overdrive, although not by enough to succeed in 2019. Their target is now the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, so expect more storms. At least the mountains of food grain that used to be fed to rats in previous times is now being used to give grain to hundreds of millions of citizens under PM Modi, a welcome change, as is the effort to build more storage space and route sale proceeds directly to farmers rather than through middlemen.

The 2022-23 Union Budget is among the most important components of the efforts at transformation being attempted by PM Modi, that too at a much brisker pace than was the case during Modi 1.0. Rather than just look at meeting the revenue targets for the financial year, as was the case with so many past budgets across the decades, it looks at what is needed to enable a glide path towards the status of a Middle Income economy by the close of this decade. The increasing takeover of the digital space over our lives and work has been acknowledged by the Finance Minister, rather than ignored in the manner that previous holders of her position did. More than anything else, it was the danger posed by corrupt elements in the bureaucracy that diminished compliance. The extension of time up to 2 years to ensure that I-T returns are correct is welcome, as are some of the tax concessions listed. Retirees, especially senior citizens, have less security than those still working, and this needs to get reflected in tax rates. Once again, I-T rates have been left untouched, even the surcharges. The rates were introduced during the 1996-97 Chidambaram budget, and inflation has made changes to the purchasing power of the rupee that ought to get better reflected, if not in rates, then in slabs. Perhaps a relook is needed at this. Efforts at assisting the informal sector are needed but in ways not designed to enforce “formality” at the point of a prosecution or penalty notice. Unlike so many budgets in the past that look in the rear-view mirror and not the windshield while fixing the route of travel, this is a budget that accepts that the world has changed, and that India needs to change. Rather than ban crypto currencies and exchanges, thereby driving the industry underground the way Prohibition has handed over the liquor trade to mafias, the proceeds are being taxed, although here as well, there ought to have been slabs based on income accrued, rather than a flat rate. Ease of compliance is half the battle in efforts at increasing the tax base, the other being rates that are not simply predictable, but which reflect purchasing power of rupee values at different points in time. While rates remain static, in other ways compliance is being sought to be eased, such that a time may come when the overwhelming majority of taxpayers do not need a lawyer or an accountant to comply with tax demands. Given the ease of detection through digital methods, a “saral” IT form needs to be the norm. What has been presented on 1 February 2022 is a step in the right direction and needs to go further during Modi 2.0. Too many innovations of PM Modi have been forgotten, such as his switching of the UK-oriented time for presenting the Indian budget rather than adopt a time for the presentation suited to the needs of India.

Whether it be the effort to rectify the inequality in educational access of the underprivileged, especially during the pandemic, or the spread of broadband, this is a budget that accepts the need to design the tax system in a way that reflects present-day conditions. Essential industries such as defence equipment ( now finally being exported in quantity) or semiconductors are being paid attention to. The East India Company complex that fears foreign competition needs to be replaced by steps that would make domestic companies go global, as Finance Minister Sitharaman, under the guidance of Prime Minister Modi, has done. There is finally light clearly visible at the end of the long, unlit tunnel of mass poverty that so many in India have traversed across centuries.

NEWSBUDGET 2022-23: LIGHT BRIGHTENS AT END OF LONG TUNNEL

Xi exultant as Biden goads Putin into invading Ukraine (The Sunday Guardian)

 

To Beijing’s relief, Washington is no longer focusing on the PRC as the principal threat to the US. The Biden White House has resurrected the Cold War 1.0 fixation on Russia (then the USSR) as the primary enemy of humanity and freedom.

 

After much talk about continuing the Obama-era pivot to the Indo-Pacific from its earlier focus on the North Atlantic, NATO seems set on returning to the days of Cold War 1.0, shifting its attention and its capabilities back to the North Atlantic and towards hostility towards Russia. This must occasion sighs of relief in Beijing, now that the NATO powers have abandoned chatter about boxing in the PRC and blocking its further expansionism, once again turning its attention towards Russia in a manner not seen since the days of the USSR. While hardly any country in Asia publicly voices disquiet at such a 180-degree turn by NATO, there is dismay at the way US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in particular are by their actions and rhetoric baiting Vladimir Putin into launching a limited war that would repeat what took place between Russia and Georgia in 2008. In that conflict, parts of Georgia that were majority Russian-speaking were converted by President Putin into independent republics. Adhering to their traditional policy of playing both sides against the middle, the CCP leadership in Beijing has yet to follow its “most steadfast and trusted partner” Russia in recognising the new republics created through the use of Russian forces. Nor indeed, doing anything to annoy NATO, such as by sending senior officials to the two new republics nor even the Crimea. The present focus of Xi Jinping is to dominate the Indo-Pacific. The Atlantic can wait, and the Biden-led return of NATO’s focus, rhetoric and resources back to Russia and the Atlantic suits General Secretary Xi’s plan. Joe Biden, whose character is beyond reproach, may be sincere in his oft-expressed desire to restrain China from further expansionism, but it is clear that concentrating on actualising this vow has yet to take place. Both Beijing and Moscow are working closely together in their own version of transforming (in other words, undermining) democracy in the US. However, despite the Sino-Russian alliance, Beijing and Moscow are not on the same page in the matter of the Obama-era pivot to Asia getting abandoned by his former Vice-President. In such a shift, the partner of the PRC is not Russia but the Wahhabi International, which too welcomes a shift in the post-9/11 focus on its activities past, present and future back to the “threat from the Russian Federation to Europe”. After not just pulling out all US personnel (uniformed or otherwise) from Afghanistan last year while simultaneously halting the logistics assistance given to the Afghan National Army, Biden’s explanation was that it was not political considerations that motivated this surrender to the Taliban, but the imperative of focusing on “standing up to China”. Instead, the Afghanistan surrender may help cost the Democratic Party control of the House and Senate in midterms this year.

 

XI PRIORITISES SINO-WAHHABI ALLIANCE

Not for nothing has Xi Jinping worked hard at strengthening the Sino-Wahhabi alliance, even as he deepens the separate Sino-Russian partnership. To Beijing’s relief, Washington is no longer focusing on the PRC as the principal threat to the US. It is improbable that NSA chief Jake Sullivan did not brief the US President about the linkages between the CCP organs and multiple parts of the Wahhabi International, all of which have long backed the return of the Taliban to power in Kabul. Nor could Sullivan have neglected to point out to Biden that GHQ Rawalpindi had moved from Washington’s sphere of influence into Beijing’s even before President George W. Bush outsourced to that military so much of the US war on the Taliban and its extremist associates in 2001. Bush acted thus oblivious to the fact that almost all the leadership elements of the Taliban worked under the direction of GHQ Rawalpindi, which has protected them from the Benazir-era start of their formation. Overall, it would not be unreasonable to assume that more than a few of the ills plaguing the world have their origins in some self-defeating policies that have been pursued under successive US Presidents. This includes the money handed out to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to make a harmless pathogen deadly through laboratory processes. Or Trump’s 2019 handover of the Kurds in much of northern Syria to R.T. Erdogan despite the White House claiming to support moderates against radicals in the region. It was also President Trump who was instrumental in the signing of the surrender document between the USG and the Taliban at Doha in 2020. In the process, his White House jettisoned the pro-US, moderate Afghan government led by Ashraf Ghani. To this may be added Trump’s withdrawal from a clutch of international and regional agencies, a decision that benefited China immensely. The shadow of such decisions (with which he must have privately disagreed) hangs over a likely front-runner for the Republican Party’s Presidential nomination in 2024, Mike Pompeo. Following in the path of his predecessors, Biden is working at contributing his share to the pile of disastrous Presidential decisions. The most consequential of these may be a decision arrived at during the ninth months of his present term in office. This was to pivot back from the Indo-Pacific to the Atlantic, and from China to Russia. Since then, the Biden White House has resurrected the Cold War 1.0 fixation on Russia (then the USSR) as the primary enemy of humanity and freedom. Where then was the need, some may ask, to desert Afghanistan so ignominiously if the purpose was not what had been stated, keeping the attention on China? Despite outward shows of acquiescence caused by its present dependence on China, the Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin is (along with India led by Narendra Modi) wary of the Taliban, and is working to secure the Central Asian republics in particular against further encroachment by the Sino-Wahhabi lobby. This in a context where major NATO member-states back the active opposition to the existing regimes there. Several such groups, that are opposed by Russia and India, have the backing of the Sino-Wahhabi lobby, whose influence on policy within the Atlantic alliance is substantial.

 

PRC VETO OVER SANCTIONS

It was Bill Clinton, who as President of the US decided to continue to treat Russia as an enemy despite the collapse of the USSR in 1992. He worked energetically towards the “pastoralization” of Russia and he and his successors broke through Red Line after Red Line of Moscow’s security concerns, during the terms in office of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, a situation finally ended by Putin after nearly six years of effort by him at trying to craft a mutually respectful relationship between Russia and the Atlantic alliance. Clinton sought to pastoralize Russia in much the same manner that US Treasury Secretary Hans Morgenthau had from 1942 onwards sought to gain support within the White House for plans designed to convert post-war Germany into an agricultural country. Clinton became the first US President to install the Taliban in power in Afghanistan in 1996, a transfer of authority that was sought to be renewed by Trump in 2020, but which was actualised by Biden only the next year. Not to mention the distinction President Clinton had of doing heavy lifting to promote PRC interests, going even further than Ronald Reagan had in such indulgence. Washington’s largesse to Beijing matched the generosity shown by Taipei and Tokyo towards the PRC across several decades, until the coming to office of the DPP and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe respectively. The success of unceasing efforts of the Sino-Wahhabi lobby in the US and in other key members of NATO to get agents of influence to demonise Russia and give the benefit of the doubt to China became apparent by the different standards employed by Washington where the PRC and the Russian Federation are concerned. Biden has repeatedly affirmed that Russia cannot have veto power even on matters of crucial importance to Moscow’s security, such as the eastward expansion of NATO or looking at placing nuclear-tipped missiles less than four minutes’ flying time from Russia. According to those with insight into the thinking and actions of the Kremlin, it was NATO’s (unreported) moves to bring Ukraine into its fold that was an important factor in Putin’s retaking of the Crimea in early 2014. This happened during the time when anti-Russia elements began their domination of policy in Kyiv. At the same time, neither Joe Biden (nor his newfound friend Boris Johnson) will go anywhere close to even talking about a veto over the many territorial transgressions by China, such as its takeover of the Spratlys from the Philippines (a US ally since the 1939-45 war), or the PLA’s growing chokehold over the Indo-Pacific. There has been no hint of a US or NATO veto even over PLA land grabs that involved Indian territory. Clearly, Biden and Johnson are too respectful of Xi’s predictable reaction to even hint that a Putin-model veto will be imposed by them on the PRC. Indeed, a front runner for the Prime Ministership of the UK should Johnson have to go is Tory grandee Jeremy Hunt, whose links with the PRC are in plain sight although scarcely commented upon. But even with Johnson at the helm, the use of regular troops by the PLA results in only cosmetic responses by 10 Downing Street to such activities, which in scope and number are larger than any made by Russia. Of course, Beijing plays along with the charade of verbal and symbolic arrows from NATO member-states, and “resolutely protests” even the least consequential of such gestures. For domestic audiences, there is the sending of a few naval vessels into a PRC-claimed zone in a manner that makes clear that there will not be the slightest threat to PLA assets situated there, including forcibly occupied islands and territories belonging to other countries, nor even to the many islands artificially built by the PRC. Tellingly, the Colombo office of the US Ambassador to Sri Lanka looks out towards the vast expanse of territory reclaimed from the sea by the PRC, and which in effect is treated as Chinese territory, just as are similar facilities in Pakistan and elsewhere. The lack of any real deterrent action by NATO member-states over the frequent PLA Air Force and PLA Navy forays into Taiwanese sovereign space is wholly unlike the response to any ingress real or imaginary of Russia into Ukraine. Clearly, the Taiwanese and the Russians are treated by capitals such as London and Washington as belonging to a lower class of nation than the Ukrainians or the Chinese are. Although aware that the parts of Ukrainian territory that are of most concern to Moscow are majority Russian-speaking, there has been silence from NATO members about the manner in which Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine are facing discrimination from Kyiv. While Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks loud and long about “illicit Russian money” in the UK, thus far he has been silent about the plentiful flow of illicit Ukrainian cash pouring into London to get washed. Mentioning that may detract from the image that has been crafted for the British public of Ukraine being an exemplar of integrity and tolerance, a saintly country menaced by a devilish neighbour.

 

UKRAINE AN EFFECTIVE DIVERSION

Those around Xi Jinping who may harbour such un-Marxian thoughts as belief in the divine will likely be praying that Putin call the bluff on deterrence of President Biden and his other Russia-phobic allies by doing a Georgia on Ukraine. In this, Moscow would act in accordance with the desire of the ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, by occupying Russian-majority zones through kinetic means and freeing them from control by Kyiv or fear of attack by the 90,000 Ukrainian troops at the border of the Russian-speaking areas of the country. Should Russia be removed from the SWIFT payments system, the impact would fall most heavily on the US dollar, which the whimsicalities of successive US Presidents have made many countries regard as an unsafe currency in which to keep their foreign exchange reserves. Over just two decades, moved along by the efforts of the Sino-Russian alliance, the US dollar comprises about 56% of global financial transactions when at the beginning of the 21st century, the USD share was almost 90%. The calculation in Moscow and Beijing is that once the US dollar loses its perch as the global reserve currency, its value would plummet. Given the number of sanctions already imposed on Russia, any additional sanctions (including exclusion from SWIFT) would have a cascading effect that would cause more harm to the rest of Europe and to the US than to an already heavily-sanctioned Russia. CCP General Secretary Xi may be calculating that as in the case of other countries (such as North Korea) where China has flouted US and EU sanctions, the PRC will get away with flouting US-led sanctions to Russia, as indeed is already taking place. Were it to do otherwise, the Sino-Russian alliance would be in tatters, and the CCP leadership knows this. Beijing apparently remains confident that the monetary rewards to influential US and EU nationals from business and financial dealings with China is so substantial that any chance of a more than cosmetic reaction by the US and its NATO allies to any flouting of Russia-directed sanctions by the PRC is close to zero. Just as some financial institutions in the US have been regarded as “too big to fail”, the PRC is confident that it is too big to sanction. This while expecting that sanctions would fall heavily on India, should New Delhi continue its trade with Russia after fresh sanctions were to get imposed by the US and the EU. Thus far, to the chagrin of the CCP leadership, the Biden administration has refused to fall into the sanctions pit where India is concerned, even in the matter of India’s purchase of Russian S-400 defence systems. Just as Pakistan is useful as a means of diverting the attentions of New Delhi away from the actions of the PRC, Ukraine is seen by analysts in Beijing as being effective in keeping the NATO focus on Russia rather than on China. Meanwhile, skipping over past crossing of Kremlin Red Lines, the US and its Russophobe allies present “snapshots” of the present situation to make the case that Putin is unreasonable, while ignoring the “video” that documents the entire history of such Russia-directed activity by NATO from the period in office of Gorbachev onwards.

 

BIDEN PLAYS RUSSIAN ROULETTE

And it may not only be India that could break ranks with its Russia-phobic security partners where their actions on Ukraine are concerned. Germany bid goodbye to nuclear power, a decision where emotions played a much greater role than common-sense. Should Berlin obey the US and the UK and choke off supplies of gas from Russia, the German economy would go for a toss, such that the Olaf Scholz government would be faced with street protest on a scale dwarfing the Tahrir Square demonstrations in Egypt in 2011. Judging by the way in which the German naval chief was forced to quit simply for speaking the truth in public, it would appear that occasional fiery rhetoric on the PRC of many German political parties is simply that, rhetoric. But a much bigger test than the outspokenness of a naval mind may loom ahead for Berlin, should President Putin be goaded on the Ukraine issue by Washington and London enough to decide that there is little point in absorbing punishment without also getting some reward for the pain. What Kyiv wants is Russia keeping aloof as it pacifies the Russian-speaking eastern regions of Ukraine, and Biden and others are seeking to ensure that by threatening Putin with “crippling” responses to any Russian action, including that designed to protect the lives of the 470,000 dual Russia-Ukraine citizens in the region. Responsibility to protect evidently does not extend to Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Brinkmanship of the kind being shown now by Washington worked for Kennedy during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis but led to the fall of CPSU General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev three years later. That example of what could happen to the boss should Moscow blink must be imprinted in the mind of Geopolitical Grandmaster V.V. Putin. The world needs to brace itself for extremely turbulent weather caused by the attempted intensification of Biden’s pivot from Beijing to Moscow as the primary threat to US interests. This would add to the pain already created in 2020 by the SARS-CoV-2 lab leak and the subsequent adoption by so many countries of WHO-recommended measures (initially adopted by CCP General Secretary Xi) that have cost millions of lives impacted billions more. Russian roulette is not a game that rational individuals play, and hopefully the realisation of this will dawn on the White House before it is too late, and President V.V. Putin decides that he has had enough, that Russia has suffered enough to endure with patience, and that the threat to Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine is too dire for him to restrain his forces from intervening to remove the threat that has been massing on their borders with the rest of Ukraine. In the process of seeking to expand the effective reach of Kyiv, President Zelensky may end up the way his counterpart in Tbilisi had earlier. This is not a movie. This is not a drill. This is for real.

Xi exultant as Biden goads Putin into invading Ukraine

Headwinds may derail Xi’s China Dream (The Sunday Guardian)

 

Xi is fashioning his expansionism through the Japanese method of kaizen.

As much as what is being sought to be accomplished by him and the rest of the Communist Party of China (CCP), Xi Jinping is relying on the long-time propensity of the leaders of major democracies to make wrong strategic choices, and formulate erroneous policies. He expects such self-goals to push the PRC not just to the top of the table in GDP rankings, but to establish first primacy over the global geopolitical landscape. Xi Jinping Thought is a further development of Mao Zedong Thought, with the latter getting modified and adapted to meet the conditions believed within the CCP to be prevalent in the 21st century. The core remains Han exceptionalism, presented as Chinese exceptionalism. It is no accident that the most sensitive slots within the PRC state security establishment in particular are filled with those who are from the Han majority of the population of the country. The others may be given impressive titles, in an effort at obscuring the reality of Han identity being at the core of the praxis of CCP doctrine, but their influence over policy and control over outcomes is scant. There are numerous external commentators who speak confidently of the “resistance” and “inner party crisis” that is brewing within the CCP, and the possibility of such dissidents succeeding in displacing Xi, much the way the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) deposed Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev in 1964, two years after the Cuban missile crisis, in which CPSU General Secretary Khrushchev failed to call President Kennedy’s bluff of launching an all-out war (including with nuclear weapons), were the USSR to station ballistic missiles in Cuba. Aware of the pitfalls that may ensue to his own position at the apex of power in China should a military adventure fail, Xi is fashioning his expansionism through the Japanese method of kaizen, seeking to constantly improve the position of the PRC in a manner that would avoid an all-out conflict, especially with the US. Fortunately for him, the attention of the US and much of NATO seems fixated on Russia, just as was the situation during Cold War 1.0. A conflict involving NATO and Russia in Europe would remove much of the pressure that has been building up against Beijing’s activities in the Indo-Pacific for the next decade, if not more, in an even greater way than the 9/11 attacks of 2001 made President George W. Bush veer away from focusing on the rising challenge posed by China to the Middle East and Afghanistan. The CCP leadership made full use of that opportunity, and by the time Xi Jinping emerged as the ruler of the PRC in 2012, had leveraged policies sufficiently to make it the second superpower, just behind the US in influence and capabilities. By 2015, the term “CCP leadership” covered not the Standing Committee and leading elements in the CCP, but solely the Office of the General Secretary of the CCP. Today, through his security services and the harnessing of technology, Xi has accumulated more personal power than was the case even with Mao Zedong during his years in office as the Great Helmsman of the CCP. Both Xi’s predecessors, Jiang Zeming and Hu Jintao, have clearly retreated into the shadows, perhaps awaiting better times. Within the Han population, Xi Jinping has become genuinely popular for his expansive promise of a future where they will run the globe much as those of European descent did in previous centuries. The General Secretary’s public cashiering and humiliating of princelings and billionaires has further boosted his appeal as a “man of the people”.
Those who believed from the days of the 2011 Arab Spring onwards that control over the streets would succeed in effecting if not regime change, then regime modification, at least in Hong Kong have been disappointed. Having performed its role of gateway to the world during the period of economic modernisation from the 1980s onwards, Hong Kong has lost much of its essentiality to the PRC, as evidenced by the manner in which the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) has in effect become just another Chinese province. More people in Shanghai speak English than in Hong Kong these days, and Beijing controls the HKSAR as completely as it does other parts of the PRC. Mass manifestations of public anger may yet erupt in the future, should there be a catastrophic decline in economic output or defeat in a kinetic conflict, but as yet, the conditions for that seem distant. Rather, there are other faultlines, which presently lurk under the radar, almost invisible, that may in future threaten the hold of CCP General Secretary Xi over the country. These relate firstly to matters of faith. Not just the experience of Russia and parts of East Europe but any catechism would make it clear that Christianity as a theology is antithetical to Communism, even that of the Mao-Xi variety. However, unlike his predecessors Jiang and even more Hu Jintao, Xi appears to be opposed to any form of organised religion, including those that are diluted through the sieve of party control. Unlike in the past, when Buddhism was sought to be showcased as more Chinese than Indian, these days even that faith is facing leaner times. This is creating resentment within the minds of believers, although this mood is still dormant at present. Similarly, belief in democracy as an attractive way of life is percolating through the psyche of the Han people, fuelled by the success of Taiwan in both retaining democracy as well as a healthy economy, Taiwan’s success has come despite vigorous and often overt CCP efforts at undermining that country. More than anything happening elsewhere, the Taiwan example has broadened a longing for democracy that is inconsistent with Xi Jinping Thought. The third faultline facing Xi’s project is factionalism. The severity of the consequences faced by those regarded as unreliable where adherence to the control of Xi over the party and the country is concerned has generated not just fear, but in many a sullen albeit silent mood that is waiting for conditions that would facilitate a largescale eruption of discontent. Much the way those opposed to hyper-authoritarian governments in the past became willing to act as the agents of external forces, there may be a flow of what at the moment is just a trickle of defections from the PRC or within that country, from General Secretary’s project of a China Dream with Xi Characteristics. For Xi, it is All or Nothing, and it will not be long before the shape of the eventual outcome emerges.

Headwinds may derail Xi’s China Dream

India at 75 must exclude violence and its perpetrators (The Sunday Guardian)

 

It is not possible to be a good Hindu, Muslim or Christian without first being a good human being.

The persisting spread of Covid-19 (SARS2), despite extraordinary measures taken by governments to contain it, resulted in a multiplying number of theories about the causes of such increases in caseload. The only factor that goes unmentioned is that the tiny size of the virus and its transmission through the air make it less than certain that most face masks would prevent an infection from an affected individual to another, although social distancing may help block such spread. The problem is that keeping several feet away from other human beings may be a problem anywhere, not just in India but in almost all other countries as well. Across the world, despite governments mandating much of human behaviour (including the suggestion that hands should be kept away from the face), cases continued to rise. And as the curve rose rather than flattened as forecast, more and more scapegoats were found. Depending on what part of the political divide an individual was located in, either the Tablighi Jamaat or the Kumbh Mela was blamed for the spread. 2020 was a year marked by insecurity and fear, with incomes crashing, jobs vanishing and numerous activities banned to flatten a curve that followed its own rules rather than those set by the WHO and adopted by countries across the world. At least in India, 2021 was marked by a much greater range of activity than was the case during the past year. Another Great Indian Lockdown (circa 2020) was avoided. Several state governments imposed curfews, apparently acting in the belief that (somewhat in the manner of mosquitoes) the virus came out towards evening and made itself scarce during much of the daylight hours. In Delhi, malls were shut down once again, while in Gurugram, they were open only until 5pm. That was fine for households where the man or the lady of the house stayed inside the house, but created a problem for those households where both the husband and the wife were working in offices and could not therefore shop at a mall. Compared to the inconvenience and disruption that lockdowns, curfews, closure of businesses and other steps taken caused, were the benefits in terms of a lower Covid-19 caseload proportional to such a cost? More importantly, was there any flattening of a curve that seemed to rise up and fall seemingly on its own volition? Australia, Germany, France, Italy and other countries introduced a new variant of democracy, where the unvaccinated were denied several of the privileges and freedoms of those who had taken two or more jabs of the vaccine. As in 2020 with the lockdowns, India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi once again set a world record by completing first a billion and soon afterwards 1.5 billion Covid-19 vaccinations even as the pandemic raged across the country.
There are repeated cries that Israel is an “apartheid” state that discriminates against some elements in its population. Such accusations come mostly from countries where the Jewish community has been substantially (where not totally) eliminated. India under the present dispensation is repeatedly accused of “genocide against Muslims”, this when there are about 200 million Muslims in India, who are contributing so much to the progress that the country is making. The entity that is loudest in its cries of “genocide in India” and the need for “protection of minorities” is Pakistan, where both the proportion as well as the number of Hindus, Sikhs and Christians have dwindled into insignificance across the decades. Any country which considers itself civilised should ensure that every citizen be treated equally, irrespective of his or her faith, lifestyle, language or diet. The future of India depends on such an ambience being strengthened rather than ignored in the manner that it had been for more than two generations. Of course, any activity or speech that demonstrably promotes violence needs to be dealt with. Overall, the Modi government’s record of Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas is stellar. It is the perceived or actual exceptions that are assisting the Sino-Wahhabi alliance in their project to demonise India and its leadership. As pointed out by former Supreme Court Justice Rohinton Nariman, there seems to be overkill in using sedition laws to lock up cartoonists, comedians and even students on the grounds that they indulged in hate speech. There are, of course, those who target only a single faith rather than others, such as was the case with an artist whose more audacious depictions were solely of divinities of a particular faith. Had he done the same with other faiths, Husain may have been locked up as soon as he entered Qatar. The versatile Husain was never put to any such inconvenience in the country that made him wealthy and famous, India. A comedian who pokes fun only at a single set of beliefs while ignoring others may not be showing freedom of thought but prejudice. Citizens pointing this out, including through social media, would be a better alternative than the colonial practice of filing cases and locking people up. Democracy in India is nearly 75 years old. This is surely time enough for graduating to the standards and practices of a strong and confident democracy. Actions such as sending into exile a writer whose mother lives in, and loves, India would be to repeat the errors made by past governments, including during the 1970s, the period when so many personal freedoms were replaced with state control over both lives and livelihoods. Despite the Erdogans and the Bajwas, the world is changing for the better, what with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia fighting against extremism and the UAE allowing a temple to come up within its territory. It is not possible to be a good Hindu, Muslim or Christian without first being a good human being. And that means accepting those of different beliefs as part of the same cultural DNA and societal dynamic, rather than as the Other, barring the violent and fanatic fringe that seeks to expand at the cost of the moderate.

India at 75 must exclude violence and its perpetrators 

Six months may decide Biden legacy (The Sunday Guardian)

 During his disastrous 2020 re-election bid, President Donald Trump’s most consequential error where the media is concerned was the fact that he was the face of the response of the US government to the Covid-19 pandemic. There were numerous press conferences during which he appeared alongside the Usual Suspects where the Covid-19 saga is concerned—Anthony Fauci, Deborah Birx and others who favoured the PRC-WHO prescription of harsh lockdowns to cure countries of the pandemic. His lack of knowledge of public health was exposed to public view, such as his suggestion that bleach could be injected into the human body. This may take care of the novel coronavirus, but it would also take away the life of the injected individual. President Trump came across as a clumsy clown, and the wry, obviously contemptuous faces of Fauci and his acolytes only added to this perception. All that Joe Biden had to do in order to gain an edge over his opponent was to remain indoors silently contemplating the ceiling of his basement, while Trump faced a battery of less than respectful press persons trying to pass off as an expert in disease control. Most voters were in shock about the extent of Trump’s ignorance of public health, as revealed in numerous press appearances on the pandemic. Ironically, President Trump overall had a better common-sense view of the Covid-19 pandemic than his successor. He sensed early on that lockdowns did more harm than good, and that large-scale lockdowns were ultimately useless in preventing the spread of the pathogen, for which China was so generously funded by the US taxpayer. Gain of Function research designed to convert an otherwise natural pathogen into something deadly for human beings is a crime against humanity, and it is a symptom of the myopia that afflicts human rights movements across the world that this has been ignored by them. Should those in the US who were instrumental in funding such research in Wuhan and possibly elsewhere in China be held accountable for their criminal act, there would finally be accountability for a pandemic that has already plunged hundreds of millions of people into poverty, and millions more into the grave. Joe Biden was elected as the opposite of Trump, yet promptly appointed Trump’s advisor on Covid-19 as his own. That was a vote-killing move, if ever there was one. Another was the manner in which the Presidential Commission set up by Biden in 2021 to investigate the origins of the pandemic came up (at least if public reports are correct) with conclusions that were almost the same as those reached by the WHO, an institution that is not as respected since 2020 as it once was. Judging by its messaging on Covid-19, the WHO functioned almost as a wing of the health authorities in Beijing, parroting their views in supposedly “independent” reports. If the shameful manner of the withdrawal from Afghanistan convinced the US military that Biden was unfit to serve as their Commander-in-Chief, the tepid and wholly inconclusive conclusions reached by the commission that President Biden set up to investigate the origins of Covid-19 seemed to confirm the conclusions reached by many after reports emerged of PRC generosity to Hunter Biden that the 46th President was yet another aficionado of the Chinese Communist Party, a conclusion that is somewhat unfair to a man who has to an extent sought to protect the US and its allies from the rampages that are being orchestrated by CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping. The problem facing Biden is that he is not seen as consistent. On China, his actions are both hot and cold, while he has made Beijing very happy by once again shifting the primary focus of US attention to Russia. Just as 9/11 and the subsequent War on Terror switched the focus of attention in Washington from Beijing, the pandemic has shifted the spotlight from the problems caused by Xi Jinping’s ambitions to the pandemic unleashed from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), a fact that even those elsewhere in the world who have been complicit in the WIV Gain of Function and other bio-hazard experiments are finding difficult to conceal for much longer. Of course, Anthony Fauci has a backer in Joe Biden, who is apparently unaware of the political costs of standing by those in the US who supported such research in the PRC. Although the Covid-19 pandemic has benefitted the CCP substantially in the way it has diverted international attention from its activities, it is not certain that the transmission of the lab-created virus variant from the WIV lab into the community was deliberate. This is in contrast to the initial disinformation fed through the WHO that Covid-19 was not transmissible, and the manner in which flights were permitted to take off from Wuhan and other affected locations in the PRC to international destinations. This single action has led to the evaporation of huge tranches of goodwill within the world for the PRC. President Joe Biden has about six months left to recover his popularity. Should he fail to, the Democratic Party is likely to lose the House of Representatives together with the Senate, which would be a killer blow to the Biden legacy.

MDN

Six months may decide Biden legacy 

Unfreedom of choice the new normal (The Sunday Guardian)

 The publicly funded healthcare system in the United States is monstrously expensive, a consequence of successive US Presidents prioritising the interests of Big Pharma over poor and lower-middle voters. Geore W. Bush did make an exception to this rule when he sourced life-saving medication for HIV from India, but that was for Africa and not for his own country. Thus far, Joe Biden has remained loyal to Big Pharma and refused to boost pharma cooperation between the US and India, despite that being the only route that would enable Obamacare to survive, as it must in a country where income and wealth inequalities are massive, and getting more so by the day. Biden apparently lacks the resolve to take the fight to those opposing some of his signature policies—such as the proposed legislation to improve the quality of the living standards of ordinary US citizens, as well as improve the physical infrastructure across the country. Should the Democratic Party lose the House and Senate to the Republicans in November, that would be the loss of not merely a Biden legacy but the future of the world’s most consequential country for close to a generation. Watching the Republican Party carry out the scorched earth commands of Donald Trump, there is worry that hostile powers may be succeeding in their operations to infiltrate social media platforms to boost fringe opinion and capability in a manner that may, by another presidential term, make the US ungovernable. In a sense, the US is getting divided into what are essentially two countries, with Republican states forming a bloc separate from the states where Democrats are in power. General Secretary Xi Jinping must be delighted. Although Trump caused a few problems for the PRC, overall, the 45th President of the US seems to have assisted Beijing in its drive to attain superiority over Washington, whether it be in Trump’s withdrawal from the TPP or the way in which Trump reduced the post-1945 alliance system into purely money terms. Given the way politics is developing in the US, including through fiddling around with constituency boundaries and making voting as difficult as possible for low-income individuals, he may well win. Self-goals by the Democratic Party, such as the decision by New York to give the vote even to non-citizens, is not helping. Several who would otherwise have voted for Biden’s party may object to such an unprecedented step. Or by criminalizing freedom of expression where religious identity is concerned, but confining that protection to a single faith rather than across the board. Such legislation is at the cost of disregarding the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

In January 2020, the Wuhan lockdown ordered by CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping spurred a number of similar lockdowns across the world, with consequences for the global economy that will take years to mend. Countries such as Sweden that went against such logic were excoriated, although subsequent events showed that trying to live as normal a life as possible during the pandemic did not result in a bulge in deaths. The 2022 lockdown ordered by Xi in Xian and the mass testing of millions of Tianjin residents following a few cases there did not (unlike in the past) lead to an approving nod from the WHO, nor advice from that organisation to countries to once again follow the PRC example where snap lockdowns are concerned. In the US, President Biden has this year refused to repeat the job-killing follies of the past two years. In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not go by the advice of those who had recommended lockdowns, preferring instead to create conditions whereby most activity could take place, albeit with safety protocols such as masks and where possible, social distancing. Should the Omicron scare ebb as a consequence of an overwhelming number of mild cases, even in Australia, voters will begin to free themselves from Covidpanic, especially as so many have been vaccinated. Detaining Novak Djokovic in a manner such that the world champion could not practise his game, nor follow the diet and exercise regimen he needed, is equivalent to an act of “match fixing” designed to ensure that the Serbian not enter the history books by yet another victory in the Australian Open. The way in which technicality after technicality was used by Canberra to punish the unvaccinated Djokovic for coming to Australia has surprised many. Never before, even for diseases much more deadly than Covid-19, and for vaccines far more effective against infection than has been the case with Covid-19, have such penal methods been adopted for the unvaccinated in countries such as Australia, France, Italy and Germany that consider themselves democratic. If each Australian Open player tests negative every day, as can easily be done, why should there be any discrimination? Using the pandemic as the reason, both sides of the Atlantic since 2020 have begun to resemble the PRC. Henry Ford had said that customers could buy “any colour Model T, as long as it was black”. With his unique definition of freedom of choice, the founder of the Ford Motor Company would have felt very much at home in Australia during the Djokovic episode.
MDN

Unfreedom of choice the new normal 

Post-pandemic, towards a healthier, wealthier world (The Sunday Guardian)

 

The more people get vaccinated, the better. However, to penalise those who have thus far not been vaccinated seems a step too extreme.

A visitor to Syria during the early weeks of the “Arab Spring” manifestations of 2011 would have found himself in a surreal situation. Armed guards accompanied visitors, who were of any prominence, for fear of kidnapping by anti-regime elements. In a country where Sunnis predominate, the Wahhabi element within that school had for long carried out a whispering campaign against the Assad family, using the usual trope that they were “un-Islamic”. Boosted by support from states across both sides of the Atlantic who were unhappy at the closeness of the Syrian regime to Iran and Russia, the long-dormant (in public) Wahhabi element made use of the “Arab Spring” to launch street demonstrations against the government that had held sway over the country for so long. Very soon, violence erupted during such manifestations, and the government responded in kind. That gave an excuse for some countries in the Middle East to join hands with the Atlanticist powers to arm, train and fund “freedom fighters”. Not just Alawites but other Shia, as well as Druze and Christians had their throats cut, often in public. Some of these executions were streamed to the world via the internet. These powers had been warned that Tehran and Moscow would not allow Bashar Assad to get ousted in the manner planned, that which took place to Muammar Gaddafi. President Putin, possibly prompted by Prime Minister Medvedev, prodded Bashar Assad to let go the stocks of chemical weapons that his regime possessed, so that there could be a cessation of help from NATO member states to the armed groups seeking to replicate Libya in Syria. When Gaddafi and later Assad surrendered their WMD stockpiles, leading Atlanticist powers saw in this a sign that those regimes were near their expiry date, that they were getting desperate. In reality, because they were stable, the Gaddafi and Assad regimes regarded the giving away of WMD stockpiles as an acceptable risk in the cause of forging a detente with the Atlanticist powers. They wanted not just WMD stockpiles but the collapse of the regimes that they saw as obstacles to primacy in the region. These powers were happy at the prospect of replacing Gaddafi and after him, Assad, with a hotchpotch that would inevitably lead to chaos and human suffering. A former colonel of the Assad regime, who was connected with intelligence operations, defected to Germany. He had expected to lead a comfortable life in that comfortable European country. Instead, he was jailed and is now being put away for the rest of his life in prison for acts that he committed while working for the regime in power in Damascus. Just as Gaddafi’s fate and Assad’s travail post his handing over of chemical weapons convinced other powers seen as rogue by the Atlanticist states to augment rather than hand over their WMD stockpiles, the fate of this Syrian colonel will act to prevent more defections from the Assad government, especially its security services, who could have handed over a treasure trove of information about the inner workings of security and intelligence agencies in Syria. Perhaps a Thank You note should be sent to Berlin from Damascus.
Since the beginning of 2020, the manner in which the Covid-19 pandemic has changed lives has a similarly surreal feel. Each day, sombre warnings are issued by the authorities about the danger posed to human life by the lab-boosted coronavirus that has had the effect of a global war on society. Arts, theatre, cinema and music have either disappeared or gone into hiding, awaiting better tidings. Children stay at home, watching as their parents bicker as a consequence of the scissors effect of rising prices and falling incomes. The very young remain unversed in the benefits of socialization, cloistered as they are as a consequence of restrictions imposed since March 2020. Those in charge thought that SARS2 was the perfect excuse for a host of wrong decisions taken by them, but as the downfall of Donald J. Trump demonstrated, they were wrong.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is among the few leaders who have acquitted themselves well. Modi has learnt from the experience of 2020, and has this year avoided measures such as mass lockdowns. Some state governments have imposed curfews, possibly to curb drunken behaviour and its public consequences rather than out of belief in its effect on public health. When schools are shut, children go out to meet their friends, thereby getting much more exposure to SARS2 than would have been the case, had they been in class. While working online and at home may overall be preferable to working in crowded offices, many are unable to do so, and as a consequence have seen their jobs vanish. Once a single dose of the vaccine was declared to give long-term protection against Covid-19. Then it became two doses, later three and now four. The impact of so many jabs on the immune system remains to be studied. Someone close to this columnist has refused thus far to get vaccinated. She is allergic to penicillin, and at least twice in the past, was carelessly prescribed medication that included penicillin. The effect was terrible, and in the former instance, life-threatening. In several countries, she would not be admitted, despite being free of the novel coronavirus. In many cities in her own country, she can no longer go to a mall or to a cinema theatre. Certainly, getting vaccinated is a good idea. The more people get vaccinated, the better. However, to excoriate and penalise those who have thus far not been vaccinated seems a step too extreme to be classified as reasonable, at least in a democracy. Covid-19 has given governments across the world immense discretion affecting the lives of citizens. Small wonder that there is disappointment on the faces of Covid ayatollahs at reports that the Omicron variant is mild. Their fear is that the pandemic may disappear along with the extraordinary powers that they have accumulated, ostensibly towards the same end. The hope is that the situation following the pandemic will be the reverse. That the world will be healthier and wealthier than when the pandemic started, most likely through an accidental lab leak during the closing months of 2019. Another example of why meddling with nature, including through Gain of Function experiments involving pathogens, is an activity that may sometimes constitute a crime against humanity.

Post-pandemic, towards a healthier, wealthier world

Pakistan’s unending descent into GHQ-caused collapse (The Sunday Guardian)

 

While the military may be content as a consequence of its chokehold over the narcotics trade and the finances of Pakistan, the people of that country are the sufferers.

As long as Pakistan is controlled by GHQ Rawalpindi, “stability” in that country refers to good times for the military, a situation that incentivises them towards intensification of the asymmetric warfare that they conduct in Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India. Not to mention “lone wolf” terrorists of Pakistani origin who have sought to blow up lives across both shores of the Atlantic, given that the West is regarded as the mortal foe of the Wahhabi International. GHQ must restrain itself from assuming overlordship of the state, a situation that has become second nature to its senior officers, given the material benefits such control brings with it. Otherwise, Pakistan cannot be “stable” in the manner that so many well-intentioned individuals across the world seek. To make unilateral concessions that have the effect of merely empowering the military in Pakistan is to continue on the road of GHQ-fomented Wahhabi terror and its principal financier within that country, trade in narcotics. Although Afghanistan is the principal producer of poppy and its derivatives, the Pakistan military is seeking directly and through its proxies within the Taliban to control the flow of opioids into and out of that country, so as to get several times more financial benefit from the narcotics trade than the growers of poppy get in that Taliban-ruled country. Profit from narcotics finances not only hideaway homes in Florida or Scotland but a substantial part of the cost of the covert operations being carried out by GHQ Rawalpindi against multiple targets at home and abroad. This is why there has been no let-up in either the accumulation of funds abroad by those connected to the Pakistan military nor in asymmetric operations, including of a kinetic nature, although influence operations are increasingly getting a higher priority than was earlier the case. Any institution that operates in an environment devoid of checks external to it has a propensity to seek to extend the boundaries that define its activities in an effort to cause greater headaches to its lengthy list of targets. Now that the flow of benefits from Washington to Rawalpindi has lessened, GHQ has turned to Beijing. Their problem is that the PRC represents the quintessential moneylender (or, in less loaded terms, banker). Milton Friedman warned that there was “no free lunch”, and in the same way, there is no free pass given to those individuals and countries who partake of PRC largesse. The moneys given have to be repaid with compound interest, either in the form of currency or in the shape of assets, as country after country is finding out during the hangover after the binge caused by massive loans to fund Belt & Road projects. These are intended for future use and benefit by the PRC, including in most cases the PLA, CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping’s favoured arm of the Communist Party. The rise in scale of PLA deployments in an expanding scatter of locations appears to be motivated by the need to protect assets handed over to the PRC by debtor governments, including from a possible reneging of leases as a consequence of regime change. Of course, should an operationally viable alliance form to oppose efforts to replace US unipolarity with a Sinic version, such countries would have a recourse to turn to, should they seek to recover their assets and territory from control by the PRC.
While the military may be content as a consequence of its chokehold over the narcotics trade and the finances of Pakistan, the people of that country are the sufferers. A cordial relationship with India is indispensable for the economic (and thereby, in substantial part, societal) progress of every country in what is defined as South Asia, a construct that includes Pakistan, despite the efforts of Two Nation ideologues to pass off its history and civilisation as having been transplanted from a Central Asia, Turkey and Iran rather than from the Indus valley. Partition inflicted a grievous wound on the people of the entire subcontinent, mostly on those who live within what since 1947 is known as the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. GHQ Rawalpindi is aware that India does not seek any territory in Pakistan, but only the third of Kashmir that was occupied by Pakistan during 1947-48. Hence the effort at convincing the people of Pakistan that there is imminent danger of losing even the meagre rights and freedoms ordinary citizens have in Pakistan but for a military far bigger than is warranted by threat levels. Across Pakistan, disillusionment is increasing with the military and the country that it has become subordinated to, China. Worse, the Sino-Wahhabi lobby in the US has had its toxicity exposed by the reaction of US voters to President Biden’s inexplicable surrender of Afghanistan to the Taliban. The current President of the US followed during 2021 in the path of his long-time friend Bill Clinton, who did the same in 1996, thereby beginning the chain of consequences of which 9/11 was the most consequential result. After the Afghanistan pullout fiasco, Biden has become wary of the advice peddled by the Sino-Wahhabi lobby, among which is included the recommendation to slash the Trump-imposed tariffs on PRC products, and to once again open the tap of financial and military assistance to Pakistan. A fresh US tilt towards Rawalpindi has not happened. Even the GCC, once a never-failing source of funds to feed the demand of the military and its associated elites for funds, has cooled towards Pakistan, now that Imran has joined Erdogan in efforts to retrieve the ground lost by the Wahhabi International since Saudi Arabia under the Crown Prince turned against its teachings. China may not be a long term alternative to the US, for the reason that the CCP leadership has the same policy that pre-Mughal elites in India had, of hoarding knowledge within a narrow circle. It was only when Prince Dara Shikoh (1615-59) translated some of Sanskrit epics into Persian that many inhabitants of India (who had been deprived of knowledge of Sanskrit but spoke Persian) understood the depth and magnificence of their civilization. Hoarding rather than disseminating knowledge, as took place in the past in India (including during the colonial period) and now in the PRC will cause collapse. Unable to accept and reverse the destructive effects of their hold on power, Pakistan’s military is presiding over a state that is heading towards collapse.

Pakistan’s unending descent into GHQ-caused collapse