Wars are in a disgracefully trivial sense like movies. A lot of bad ones like to re-present themselves in sequels. The sequels are almost always worse than the originals. The same can be said for musicians, who defy every industry expert, every person with a logical brain for that matter, and make a no holds barred comeback. Dmitry Medvedev and his puppet master, Vladimir Putin, probably weren’t listening to the Backstreet Boys last Friday, but the same principal applied. Russia is back, like all countries with malevolent designs, she has unfinished business: a quest for security. As it was for Stalin, and as it was for Ivan the Terrible, so it is for Putin and Medvedev, security for Russia means insecurity for everyone else.
Russia’s invasion of Georgia over the past few days is deeply symbolic of Russia’s re-emergence on the world stage. It was hardly a spur of the moment attack, but rather the culmination of a long period of hatred and provocation. Russia has been in retreat since 1989. The first thing to disappear was its claim on global power and the consonant fantasy that Soviet Communism was ‘the wave of the future.’ Few people still believed this by 1989; indeed many Communists had long since been looking to China, both as a paradigm of economic advancement and as a prototype for smashing dissent. However, the year the wall came tumbling down was the final nail in the coffin for Soviet expansionism, and each of its little puppet regimes fell victim to popular calls for change, and the indomitable human yearning for freedom. Two years later, the Soviet Union itself was a poorly written chapter in human history. Those were the good old days.
Not so anymore. Russia has been aggrieved for a long time now, probably since before 1989, but the Kremlin has had to grin and bear it. This is an uncomfortable disposition for the leaders of Red Square. Firstly, grinning only comes naturally in the Kremlin when someone else is suffering. Secondly, bearing it is hard a state of being for leaders who feel their neighbours are divinely designed to be its vassal states. So having taken a crash course in capitalism and democracy under Boris Yeltsin that was doomed to failure, the Kremlin endured as is its former fiefdoms, one by one, chose democracy, NATO, and for the most of them, the EU.
Russia was not in a position to retaliate. It was naturally bruised having undergone a humiliating collapse- imagine having the wave the history behind you one day, and being history the next. Moreover, its economy in 1992 was roughly on a par with the Netherlands. The great bear of the east was doomed to lie there, wounded in a snare, bleeding on the periphery.
Putin, on the other hand, performed a volte-face. By re-centralising control of Russia’s mammoth energy industry he wrested power out of the hands of the oligarchs, bestowing favour on those who were disposed to him, while arresting or exiling those who criticised him. He virtually abolished local democracy making governorships political appointees. It was standard fare. Curtailing freedom of press and expression came naturally. However, more ominously, Putin gave succour to an array of jingoistic militias who roam the streets of Moscow routinely harassing opponents and foreigners. This provides a snapshot of how the Kremlin uses nationalism as a tool in its game. Anti-Western rhetoric and taking stances such as that taken on Kosovo all serve the same purpose, fanning nationalist sentiment and tightening society.
The Kremlin has been ready to act for a while now but, once again as it was in the 1940s, that office is, as George Kennan famously observed in 1946, utterly responsive to the logic of force. The final straw probably came when Ukraine underwent the Orange Revolution and adopted a pro-Western posture. Its leaders uttered dreams of NATO and EU membership. Russia responded by fomenting unrest in Eastern Ukraine and in Crimea (where support for the government in Kiev is cool) and then by famously cutting off gas supplies to freezing Ukrainians in the dead of winter, after they failed to pay an exorbitant price hike. The main conclusion Russia drew from its schoolyard bullying was not that it was physically able to steal the new kid’s lunch, but rather that the prefects were too busy trying to tame the attractive girls who were smoking. Next Russia flexed its muscles a tad more, this time focusing on an actual EU member. It unleashed a cyber-war on Estonia, yet the rest of the EU seemed to care little, least of all countries like Germany who were keeping warm off Russian gas. Thus the bully learned a new lesson; robbing one of the prefects is fine, so long as a couple of the other prefects receive a share of the loot.
And so the bear turned south, only to find a former Soviet Republic crooning to a distinctly different tune. Waves of protest in 2003 lead to the resignation of Eduard Shevardnadze, Mikhail Gorbachev’s foreign minister who had run Georgia in subservience to Moscow, and saw American educated Mikheil Saakashvili thrust into power with a democratic mandate. Saakashvili was determined to heed the calls of his countrymen and so Georgia radically realigned itself in favour of the West. Troops were put on the ground in Iraq (up to last week Georgia had the third highest contingent of troops there), while NATO membership was openly discussed, and lest anyone doubt Georgia’s pro-Western commitment the Tbilisi airport road was renamed in honour of, the one and only, George W. Bush.
It is said that Putin’s dislike for Saakashvili goes far beyond the borders of policy, and is in fact a deep personal enmity. That only adds fuel to a fire already ablaze. Over the last few days Russia has signalled that it is ready to re-erect its historic sphere of influence. The Kremlin is tired of pro-Western upstarts on its borders. However, the recent crisis has more alarming features than previous ones. The most obvious is the use of brute force. Nevertheless, also deeply disturbing are the parallels with Nazi Germany. The pretext for Russia’s invasion of Georgia was the abuse of Russian people in rebel territories within the Caucasian state. One suspects few people were moved by the expressions of Pan-Slavic sympathy. Not only is it possible that Russia only conferred citizenship on these people so that it could lure Georgia into a trap, the sheer mendacity of the claims were themselves disproven when the Russian army moved beyond the borders of South Ossetia, into Georgia proper, taking cities on the way, bombing Tbilisi airport, and opening up a second front. The Georgian army is retreating, Saakashvili is calling for a ceasefire, yet Ivan keeps on marching, and just today Stalin’s hometown of Gori has been reunited with the Russian Federation.
The onus is now on the West to act. However, in order to so, we would first have to wake up. Whenever the collective might of the Western democracies sees an enemy vanquished it has a habit of taking a nap. The democracies defeated Fascism only to face Communism. Communism virtually disappeared only for Radical Islam to arrive. Now Russia is back, and though the signs have long been displayed, so to have they been ignored. The fundamental flaw of Western outlook has been complacency each time a great and challenging ideology is discredited, but the truth is while fascism and communism were defeated, authoritarianism never was. Russia is back, strong and authoritarian, and this time with the oldest of all ideologies: pure power politics.
Tragically, despite all the bloodshed of the twentieth century, the world is once again starting to resemble a giant game of Risk. The US and Europe have to face this reality, just as they met previous threats. Russia’s re-emergence means it is no longer simply content with supporting tyrants and mini-despots, training the armies of rogue states like Myanmar, or disrupting humanitarian efforts on the Security Council. The bear is once again ready for war. However, as always Russia will respond to force. The only question is will the West stand up for the embattled states, who have embraced its promise, yet inhabit Russia’s projected sphere of tyranny? The EU is too divided it would seem, Britain and Russia are already fighting a little renewed Cold War, Barack Obama is probably wondering why the Kremlin never got the credit crunch memo, John McCain is certain to try and use this to his political advantage and Bush is a lame duck with no mandate. Perhaps the ultimate irony of the Bush years will be Soviet-style tanks rolling down the only street ever likely to be named after the president. One hopes not. But one can be sure that if Russia succeeds in Georgia, it will turn elsewhere in Eastern Europe, each time getting a little closer to the EU. Moldova and Ukraine are certainly on the Kremlin’s list.
So Russia has returned. She has used the Olympics as some sort of cover to launch a policy of re-emergence, re-assertion, re-annexation, and in all likelihood, regime change. Funnily enough, not far away from Georgia, in the Russia city of Sochi, they are busily readying themselves for the 2014 Winter Olympics. Will Western leaders boycott those games? Probably not. One at least hopes that by then the West will have defended small countries who have dared to defy the writ of an oppressive neighbour. Will they? Ivan doesn’t think so.
Monday, 11 August 2008
Tuesday, 5 August 2008
'Closer to Baghdad than Beijing'
The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China, as it is formally known, has many defining characteristics not least the fact that the majority of its people are not Han Chinese, but rather of Turkic Uyghur race and of the Muslim faith. As a consequence, a protracted history of conflict between the Uyghur and the Han people has characterised their relations. However, the Chinese have long since gained the upper hand and Xinjiang remains a region of China. More recently, there had been a rise of furtive tension in Xinjiang as the clamouring for independence from Beijing became greater. Not only has Xinjiang’s existence as part of the People’s Republic of China been maintained through force and oppression, simply put, the majority of the people there do not identify with China and rather see themselves as a Central Asian grouping, both in terms of their culture and traditions, and their faith. Sky News claimed recently that the city of Kashgar, Xinjiang, on the PRC’s western border is closer to Baghdad than Beijing. Whatever the geographical truth behind this assertion, there is certainly a greater cultural connection with the road leading west to the Middle East through Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, then there is with the road leading east to Beijing. Indeed, China’s difficulties with the Muslim people of Central Asia has hardly been a secret before now and is certainly one of the underlying factors that pushed China and Russia closer together over the last decade.
Xinjiang certainly looked more like Baghdad than Beijing today as unspeakable tragedy befell the city. Two Uighur separatists assailed a convoy of unarmed policemen who were jogging near their base. The details are somewhat sketchy though it would appear the attackers drove their truck into the group, stabbing and hacking away at some before launching grenades into the nearby base. So far, the massacre has caused 16 deaths and many more injuries. That the authorities will execute the two men, who were subsequently apprehended, is a near certainty; what it means in the longer term is less clear.
Naturally, with them beginning on Friday, the major elephant in the room is the Olympics. The symbolism of an attack so close to this event was hardly lost on the terrorists in Xinjiang. Nor will it be lost on the Communist Party. Having recently stepped up its anti-terror activities, and deploying the most outrageously over-the-top counter terrorist defence, which includes 100,000 men and surface to air missiles, to Beijing, the Chinese government has been accused recently of inflating the terror threat it claims exists. Their activities also included the execution of a line of dissidents lately, which has lead groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to cry foul. Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher at the latter organisation, said that ‘China is not acting as a responsible Olympics host when it blurs so much of the actual terrorism risk.’
First off, the mere suggestion that China was ever likely to be a ‘responsible Olympic host’ is laughably baseless. Beijing has an air quality so poor it is a genuine danger to the competing athletes. The Chinese government has literally built walls around impoverished and degraded areas in Beijing lest China’s reputation be besmirched by Olympic tourists happening on them. The CCP has rolled back on almost every commitment it made to the International Olympic Committee most notably that foreign journalists would not suffer from internet censorship. In order to ensure that foreign troublemakers could not gain access to the country for the Olympics the borders were tightened to the extent that China is allegedly a harder country to do business in now, than it was before. The reality is not only that awarding Beijing the Olympics was a mistake, not least because of its appalling human rights record, but because every claim as to the benefits of ‘constructive engagement’ and ‘silent diplomacy’ have been utterly discredited, if not absolutely gutted.
However, in spite of this were the Chinese right about the terror threat, and were all those who dismissed it as some phantom designed to allow the CCP exert greater control wrong? On first glance yes, nevertheless, most terrorism experts have never denied that attacks in Xinjiang are a reality not a possibility, but that an attack on Beijing is probably beyond the capacity of the Uyghur separatists. Needless to say, one hopes that to be the case. But on the flip side, the Chinese government now has greater reason to seek to tie separatist movements on its Western border in with international jihadism. To do so would be largely inaccurate and undoubtedly political, though they have already set such a precedent, and have largely been doing just this all along. Though the reach of groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir into Xinjiang has increased, and though some Muslim separatists have received training in Pakistan the links are rather tenuous. Firstly, the cause of those in Xinjiang has not been popularised to the same extent as say Chechnya, Mindanao, and especially not Palestine. Moreover, Islam in Central Asia has undergone an awakening, though it is not the political force it is in the Middle East or South Asia. Ultimately, the issue in Xinjiang is one of self-determination rather than international jihadism. The Chinese government has every right to defend its people, and should do its utmost to ensure no serious links develop between Muslim separatists and the malign world of transnational terrorism. The fear is, however, that painting a picture of such links will only serve as a justification for the CCP to exercise an even heavier hand in Xinjiang. This will only exacerbate the problem.
Even if a terrorist attack took place outside of Xinjiang, and even if it bore the Jihadist hallmarks, any subsequent likening of it to 9/11 or 7/7 would be anachronistic. Essentially, China’s issue with the Uyghur people is about autonomy and oppression, it is not rooted in Al Qaeda philosophy, and it is centuries old. As the Chinese government seeks to defend the tourists who are now thronging into the country and its security personnel from further attacks, it would do well to ponder the causes of the conflict. By using international terrorism as a pretext for a greater crack down in Xinjiang, they would, as already argued, only increase the centrifugal elements within China. As 2008 has shown, those elements are considerable. From political dissidents calling for democracy to Tibet to Xinjiang, countless people are lining up against the Chinese state. The CCP’s response has been a violent one: military deployments and political executions.
Some have been surprised that they have acted in such a manner, especially in a year where the world’s eye is fixed upon them. However, those people have misread the nature of the CCP’s hold on power. The Chinese government is a well oiled behemoth, fundamentally aware of its priorities. It desperately wanted to impress the world with this Olympics, but as its authority was challenged, that priority fell into second place as the reassertion of state authority surpassed it. In the end the classic CCP strategy fell into place as it always does: even with the eyes of the world watching and its people stirring, the CCP knows where its bread and butter is; it will maintain a tight-lipped populace at the expense of international ignominy, the way it always has before.
Consequently, the Olympics have gone from an episode which would herald the arrival of China onto the world stage, a landmark spectacle like no other, to an exercise in damage control. In many senses it’s been a bad year for the Chinese government politically, as conflict in Tibet has given way to strife in Xinjiang, which has had this fallout on the Olympics. Such is life for a state that bullies the crestfallen people who suffer under its remit, and denies them any freedom of expression whatsoever. And such is life for a state with a brutal history of repression and no democratic legitimacy.
The CCP’s response has been disappointingly familiar. In time, China will have to address the wishes of Tibetans, the Uyghur people, all those who want greater expression- those who are uncomfortable in today’s China. Maybe then will it host a worldwide sporting event free from embarrassment, calls for boycotts, and Orwellian censorship (though not, unfortunately, free from terrorism). Meanwhile, casting such dreams aside, China continues to act as an international defender of terrorist states like Myanmar, Sudan and Zimbabwe, under the pretext of national sovereignty; a concept so utterly foreign to millions of its citizens who are denied any shred of autonomy. It continues to bankroll terrorism in Sudan, yet uses terrorism as a pretext to further crack down on legitimate aspirations of national self-determination within its own inflated borders.
Xinjiang certainly looked more like Baghdad than Beijing today as unspeakable tragedy befell the city. Two Uighur separatists assailed a convoy of unarmed policemen who were jogging near their base. The details are somewhat sketchy though it would appear the attackers drove their truck into the group, stabbing and hacking away at some before launching grenades into the nearby base. So far, the massacre has caused 16 deaths and many more injuries. That the authorities will execute the two men, who were subsequently apprehended, is a near certainty; what it means in the longer term is less clear.
Naturally, with them beginning on Friday, the major elephant in the room is the Olympics. The symbolism of an attack so close to this event was hardly lost on the terrorists in Xinjiang. Nor will it be lost on the Communist Party. Having recently stepped up its anti-terror activities, and deploying the most outrageously over-the-top counter terrorist defence, which includes 100,000 men and surface to air missiles, to Beijing, the Chinese government has been accused recently of inflating the terror threat it claims exists. Their activities also included the execution of a line of dissidents lately, which has lead groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to cry foul. Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher at the latter organisation, said that ‘China is not acting as a responsible Olympics host when it blurs so much of the actual terrorism risk.’
First off, the mere suggestion that China was ever likely to be a ‘responsible Olympic host’ is laughably baseless. Beijing has an air quality so poor it is a genuine danger to the competing athletes. The Chinese government has literally built walls around impoverished and degraded areas in Beijing lest China’s reputation be besmirched by Olympic tourists happening on them. The CCP has rolled back on almost every commitment it made to the International Olympic Committee most notably that foreign journalists would not suffer from internet censorship. In order to ensure that foreign troublemakers could not gain access to the country for the Olympics the borders were tightened to the extent that China is allegedly a harder country to do business in now, than it was before. The reality is not only that awarding Beijing the Olympics was a mistake, not least because of its appalling human rights record, but because every claim as to the benefits of ‘constructive engagement’ and ‘silent diplomacy’ have been utterly discredited, if not absolutely gutted.
However, in spite of this were the Chinese right about the terror threat, and were all those who dismissed it as some phantom designed to allow the CCP exert greater control wrong? On first glance yes, nevertheless, most terrorism experts have never denied that attacks in Xinjiang are a reality not a possibility, but that an attack on Beijing is probably beyond the capacity of the Uyghur separatists. Needless to say, one hopes that to be the case. But on the flip side, the Chinese government now has greater reason to seek to tie separatist movements on its Western border in with international jihadism. To do so would be largely inaccurate and undoubtedly political, though they have already set such a precedent, and have largely been doing just this all along. Though the reach of groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir into Xinjiang has increased, and though some Muslim separatists have received training in Pakistan the links are rather tenuous. Firstly, the cause of those in Xinjiang has not been popularised to the same extent as say Chechnya, Mindanao, and especially not Palestine. Moreover, Islam in Central Asia has undergone an awakening, though it is not the political force it is in the Middle East or South Asia. Ultimately, the issue in Xinjiang is one of self-determination rather than international jihadism. The Chinese government has every right to defend its people, and should do its utmost to ensure no serious links develop between Muslim separatists and the malign world of transnational terrorism. The fear is, however, that painting a picture of such links will only serve as a justification for the CCP to exercise an even heavier hand in Xinjiang. This will only exacerbate the problem.
Even if a terrorist attack took place outside of Xinjiang, and even if it bore the Jihadist hallmarks, any subsequent likening of it to 9/11 or 7/7 would be anachronistic. Essentially, China’s issue with the Uyghur people is about autonomy and oppression, it is not rooted in Al Qaeda philosophy, and it is centuries old. As the Chinese government seeks to defend the tourists who are now thronging into the country and its security personnel from further attacks, it would do well to ponder the causes of the conflict. By using international terrorism as a pretext for a greater crack down in Xinjiang, they would, as already argued, only increase the centrifugal elements within China. As 2008 has shown, those elements are considerable. From political dissidents calling for democracy to Tibet to Xinjiang, countless people are lining up against the Chinese state. The CCP’s response has been a violent one: military deployments and political executions.
Some have been surprised that they have acted in such a manner, especially in a year where the world’s eye is fixed upon them. However, those people have misread the nature of the CCP’s hold on power. The Chinese government is a well oiled behemoth, fundamentally aware of its priorities. It desperately wanted to impress the world with this Olympics, but as its authority was challenged, that priority fell into second place as the reassertion of state authority surpassed it. In the end the classic CCP strategy fell into place as it always does: even with the eyes of the world watching and its people stirring, the CCP knows where its bread and butter is; it will maintain a tight-lipped populace at the expense of international ignominy, the way it always has before.
Consequently, the Olympics have gone from an episode which would herald the arrival of China onto the world stage, a landmark spectacle like no other, to an exercise in damage control. In many senses it’s been a bad year for the Chinese government politically, as conflict in Tibet has given way to strife in Xinjiang, which has had this fallout on the Olympics. Such is life for a state that bullies the crestfallen people who suffer under its remit, and denies them any freedom of expression whatsoever. And such is life for a state with a brutal history of repression and no democratic legitimacy.
The CCP’s response has been disappointingly familiar. In time, China will have to address the wishes of Tibetans, the Uyghur people, all those who want greater expression- those who are uncomfortable in today’s China. Maybe then will it host a worldwide sporting event free from embarrassment, calls for boycotts, and Orwellian censorship (though not, unfortunately, free from terrorism). Meanwhile, casting such dreams aside, China continues to act as an international defender of terrorist states like Myanmar, Sudan and Zimbabwe, under the pretext of national sovereignty; a concept so utterly foreign to millions of its citizens who are denied any shred of autonomy. It continues to bankroll terrorism in Sudan, yet uses terrorism as a pretext to further crack down on legitimate aspirations of national self-determination within its own inflated borders.
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