Day: April 29, 2024

By Antara Ghosal Singh

On 11 April, the first trilateral summit between the United States (US), Japan, and the Philippines was held in Washington. This was preceded by the first-ever military exercise between the US, Japan, the Philippines, and Australia in the South China Sea on 7 April.

Not very long ago, in September 2022, the US, Japan, and the Philippines held the first “Trilateral Defense Policy Dialogue” and decided to deepen cooperation in areas such as maritime security, humanitarian relief, and disaster response. Again, in December 2022, the US Army and Marine Corps in the Pacific, the Armed Forces and Marine Corps of the Philippines, and the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force held their first trilateral meeting in Tokyo, laying the foundation for regular high-level talks between the ground forces of the three countries. In June 2023, the heads of the national security agencies of the US, Japan and the Philippines held the first Trilateral Security Dialogue, marking a new level for the security cooperation mechanism between the three.

In July and September 2023, the foreign ministers of the three countries met for the first time to advance cooperation on “economic security, development, humanitarian assistance, maritime security, and defence”. In September 2023, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida, Philippines President Marcos, and US Vice President Harris again met to further deepen trilateral cooperation.

Now, the buzz on the Chinese internet is that, in less than a year of holding the first Defense Ministerial Dialogue, the four countries—the US, the Philippines, Japan, and Australia—may now get integrated into a new “quadrilateral security mechanism”. The rapid development of the trilateral ties between the US, Japan, the Philippines and “the linking of the South China Sea–East China Sea dispute and the Taiwan issue” has set the alarm bells ringing in Beijing.

The Chinese assessment is that a centralised and integrated regional security architecture is increasingly taking shape in the Indo-Pacific region, with the US as the core, the quadrilateral security mechanism as the focus, and multiple sets of “mini-multilateral” mechanisms as the supplement.

Hu Xin, Assistant Researcher at China South China Sea Research Institute, in an article in the Guancha.com, argued that in recent years, the US alliance system in the Indo-Pacific region has undergone important changes

1. It has achieved substantial internal integration, in terms of goals, structure, and members.

• In terms of goals, the alliance system formed by the US after World War II had a relatively loose structure and lacked a unified strategic goal. But now, a common strategic threat perception from China has become a common goal binding together the US alliance system.

• In terms of structure, the original bilateral alliance system (between the US and regional states, including Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand) format has been transformed into a “latticework of mini-lateral arrangements” between the US and its various alliance and security partners in the region. This is playing an important role in legitimising the geographical scope of its alliance system in the Indo-Pacific.

• The US is promoting military and security dialogue and cooperation among the member nations (allies/partners) to facilitate better integration, communication and management within its alliance system. For example, countries such as Japan and the Philippines, Japan and Australia, Japan and India, India and Australia, India and South Korea have all established a “2+2” dialogue mechanism between each other’s foreign and defence ministers.

Japan and India have established a “Special Strategic and Global Partnership”; Japan and Australia have formed a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” with Vietnam; Australia and India have upgraded their bilateral relations to a Comprehensive Security Partnership in 2020; in 2022, Japan and Australia have signed the “Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation”. Now Japan and the Philippines are negotiating the signing of a reciprocal troops access agreement.

2. The US alliance system is also undergoing an outward expansion, in terms of involving non-resident nations in regional affairs and incorporating issues beyond the traditional security and defence domain. For example, it is noted with concern in Beijing how the United Kingdom, France, and Germany have been made a party to the Indo-Pacific politics, by encouraging them to establish 2+2 dialogues with the countries in the region, deploying warships or taking part in high-level military exercises, etc.

Apart from that, further adding to China’s challenges, the US alliance system is no longer focused on high-political single issues such as security and defence but is being extended to low-political and diverse functional issues such as economy and trade, infrastructure, supply chains, and new energy. This “cross-disciplinary” nature of the mini-laterals, Hu Xin highlighted, has been further enhancing the intensity and expanse of the US’s “de-Sinicization/de-coupling from China” strategy.

Meanwhile, to counter the perceived strengthening of the US alliance system in Asia, China has intensified its ASEAN outreach. In a symbolic move, Beijing managed to host Indonesia’s President-elect Prabowo Subianto within 10 days of being elected and sought his assurance for the continuation of predecessor Joko Widodo’s friendly policy towards China. Soon after that, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held back-to-back talks with foreign ministers from Lao and Timor-Leste. Wang Yi will soon start a six-day visit to Indonesia, Cambodia, and Papua New Guinea. The hope is to use China’s significant influence on certain AEAN members to restrain the Philippines.

On the other hand, some Chinese scholars are of the opinion that despite the strong posturing on Taiwan as well as the South and East China Sea issue, the US may find it difficult to deliver in actual terms. The reasons are that, domestically, internal political divisions constrain the Congress and internationally, the turmoil in Ukraine, Israel, and the Korean Peninsula is holding it back from directly challenging China. Instead, the US, they argue, will be forced to send Treasury Secretary Yellen or Secretary of State Blinken to keep the talks going and eventually accommodate China’s aspirations to a certain extent. Thirdly, the Chinese side is also hopeful that the uncertainty associated with a possible Trump 2.0 administration may eventually reverse the Biden administration’s gains so far, in terms of strengthening the US alliance system and thereby indirectly benefit China.

For India, as the Line of Actual Control (LAC) situation remains stuck in a stalemate, we must keep a close eye on the developments on China’s other fronts—namely, the South and East China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, so as to leverage them for our interest.

• About the author: Antara Ghosal Singh is a Fellow of the Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation.
• Source: This article was published by the Observer Research Foundation.

By Finn Andreen

Though the Western political class constantly criticizes the “authoritarian” nature of certain nations, one should sweep in front of his own door first, to paraphrase Johann von Goethe. Indeed, Western nation-states and international institutions have for years been gnawing at the freedom and rights of both individuals and businesses.

First, the exorbitant fiscal and inflationary pressures on Western populations should never be considered “normal” or “acceptable”; they are severe violations of property rights in and of themselves. These pressures alone help to explain the economic stagnation and political decadence of Western societies. Additionally, previously unthinkable powers have been given to Western police and security forces, many of them now permanent. Wikileaksand others have revealed the programs of mass surveillance of entire populations that are practiced by unaccountable Western intelligence agencies.

Censorship and propaganda are common practices by governments and mainstream media, not least in Western democracies where control of public opinion is key. But the violation of rights in the West took a dramatic turn with the unprecedented and unjustified confinements of healthy people during the covid-19 pandemic, essentially mandatory vaccination policies, and the other political scandals surrounding these vaccines.

Next on the agenda are further restrictions to the freedom of speech on certain social media platforms. New laws, like the RESTRICT Act (Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology) in the United States and the Digital Services Act in Europe, are undemocratically pushed through, ostensibly to protect the people. However, they allow the Western oligarchic elite to increase its control over society, implement its globalist agenda, and protect itself from brewing dissent.

Yet, in the near future, things are probably going to get far worse. From the alarming potential control of individual lives through the planned digital wallets and central bank digital currencies to the grave economic and social consequences of the “Green deals,” all the alarm bells have been ringing for some time already.

In view of these severe rights violations and threats of further violations, much more pushback from the majority at the receiving end might be expected. True, there are pockets of political disobedience, like the encouraging farmers’ protests in Europe, but these are fringe movements by people who are experiencing firsthand the above-mentioned policies.

There are positive signs of disapproval among the general population, like a measurable loss of trust in both Western mainstream media and political leaders, yet there is no massive opposition to these glaring violations of individual rights. Thus, before asking what conditions are needed for radical political change in the West, it seems necessary to first look at this indifference.

The Neglect of Individual Rights

The Western world was able to produce such inspiring texts as the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen and the US Bill of Rights, both from 1789. Their purpose was to guarantee the protection of individual rights and liberty against state coercion. For more than two centuries, these two documents have played a certain role in restraining the most egregious violations of individual rights by Western governments against their subjects.

It must be noted, however, that these documents have not only been quite “liberally” interpreted but also violated, even openly, on many occasions (e.g., forced conscription and confiscatory taxation to name but two). This is unavoidable when such rights are only protected by the willingness of legislators and judges to adhere to old parchments, however “sacred” they are often pretended to be. Considering the relatively poor protection of individual rights that these documents have in fact provided, it is not surprising that these rights—in particular the most fundamental one, the right to property—can be so easily undermined today.

Arguably, this current brazen violation of rights can happen for several reasons. First, in the prevailing postmodernist culture, the meanings of words are subjective, positivist, and not to be taken very seriously. This is reflected in the current zeitgeist which considers statist intervention as not only acceptable but also a much better means to move society than such “quaint, old principles.” A good example of this is the draconian measures that are planned to be imposed in order to fight “climate change.”

Second, individual rights are usually disregarded by the majority because they are taken for granted. This is the naïve “end of history” conviction, according to which Western “liberal democracies” are the pinnacle of mankind’s moral and political development. It is the idea, common among the good-hearted but politically ignorant, that individual rights no longer need attention because they have been acquired already, once and for all.

There is thus little recognition today in the West that the struggle for liberty never ends. As Benjamin Constant said in a famous speech to the French assembly in 1819, “In order to benefit from the liberty that they would like, the people must exercise an active and constant surveillance of their representatives.” Otherwise, as George Santayana wrote, “Unless all those concerned keep a vigilant eye on the course of public business and frequently pronounce on its conduct, they will before long awake to the fact that they have been ignored and enslaved.” Such words of wisdom have never been absorbed by Western publics.

The Focus on Positive Rights

The third way in which individual rights are undermined is when they are interpreted too widely and thus diluted. This happens when rights are expanded to include not only negative rights but also positive ones, those that the state is expected to enforce. This legitimizes both the state’s growth as well as its coercive and unjust wealth redistribution in order to assure “equality of opportunity,” or worse, “equality of outcome.”

Such thinking permeates Western society today, even in the United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights, which hails positive “rights” such as the right to work, the right to equal pay, or the right to rest and leisure. These are obviously not “rights” in the same sense as the natural right to property, and their enforcement by the state necessarily violates the property rights of others. Indeed, as Murray Rothbard wrote in The Ethics of Liberty, “The very concept of ‘rights’ is a ‘negative’ one, demarcating the areas of a person’s action that no man may properly interfere with.”

As Ever, Education in Liberty

There can be only one result of this multifaceted neglect of individual rights among the majority in the West: the creeping violation of individual rights that is so obvious today. If the principles of natural rights were really taught, instead of the vacuous mantra repeated ad nauseam that “all men are created equal,” then the nefarious agenda of control being imposed by the Western ruling minority would be far more readily resisted.

It is worth remembering that the first sentence of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen states, “Ignorance, forgetfulness or contempt for human rights are the only causes of public misfortunes and government corruption.” Efforts must therefore continue unabated to inform and educate the public about the principles of freedom and the importance of protecting negative rights against constant attempts to violate them.

• Source: This article was published by the Mises Institute

Parti Keadilan’s share of the aggregate vote at general elections has been in decline since the 2013 general election, where the party gained 20.39 percent of the aggregate vote. During the 2022 general election PKR won only 15.74 percent of the aggregate vote. The ailing UMNO gained 100,000 more votes than PKR, obtaining 16.43 percent of the aggregate vote.

PKR’s numerical vote has only gone up by some 180,000 since 2013, not even keeping up with the growth in registered voters over the last decade. Support for PKR is continuing to decline. If current trends continue, PKR may be lucky to hold 20 seats in the new parliament after GE16.

Developing greater support for PKR is a real problem, that few are willing to even talk about. There is a possibility that PKR could fall apart after the Anwar Ibrahim era. No successors or future visons are being nurtured by the party. Future historians may easily be tempted to make the judgement that PKR was only designed as a platform to bring Anwar to power. This is already being said about BERSIH.

PKR’s traditional support base has been disappointed two times now. First between 2018-2020, and secondly under Anwar in 2022. Supporters are seeing that PKR has turned out not to be the reformist party it was made out to be, and even worse, PKR is really a race-based party, rather than a multiracial party.

Yet PKR’s failure to capture the Malay vote is a major factor constraining the party’s growth and appeal. Anwar’s narratives just haven’t won the Malay’s confidence.

The party grassroots are generally unhappy at a time where there should be a crescendo of support for the party. The hardcore of ‘Anwarists’ are becoming disillusioned. This will steadily continue and eat into the spirit of PKR. 

PKR is not bringing the change that many waited 25 years to see.

PKR is failing in its quest to win the hearts and minds of the traditional Malay heartlands. Amanah didn’t rise to expectations, and Pakatan found itself with UMNO, that is looking more like a party from yesteryear. With UMNO, the Najib issue still festers and could become even more destructive for PKR, should Najib be released into home detention.

Anwar with a huge super majority in the parliament could have boldly gone out, worrying about the consequences later. Malaysia really needed some spirit of Gaddafi, Mandela, or even Trump to lead the nation.

The political narratives have got stuck on issues that really aren’t going to change the lives of the Rakyat. They have all just been symbolic fights that really don’t change anything.

Anwar didn’t come out early and outline his vision for Malaysia. People saw through the slick packaging of the ‘Madani’ brand very quickly. Malaysians really don’t know what Anwar’s vision really is. It very much looks just like more of the same, that Malaysians got from previous administrations before him.

Ironically, it may be economic issues and the rising cost of living that costs PKR support. People will just ask themselves the question, were they better off under former administrations, or now under the premiership of Anwar Ibrahim? Statements like poverty has been eliminated in Kuala Lumpur, Melaka and Negeri Sembilan just rubbed salt into the wounds of those who are suffering from low salaries and rising costs of living. This just highlights the lack of empathy PKR in government has for the people of Malaysia.

The DAP that is now the major component of the Pakatan Harapan must be very shrewd to ensure it doesn’t go down along with PKR and UMNO in the next general election. DAP has a strong support base which should keep its parliamentary representation around 38-40 seats. After the next general election, the DAP must find a new place for itself, either in a new government, or out alone once again in opposition. In the next parliament the DAP should be the second largest party in the parliament, and must make a hard decision whether to stay with PKR or go on its own.

If PKR is set adrift by the DAP, it wont last long politically.

The biggest problem for PKR is there is no clear succession line. Rafizi Ramli’s poor performance as a minister has drastically weakened his position. Rafizi cannot claim to be Anwar’s heir apparent. There are very few other names that could be mentioned as potential successors at this time. There is no one out there with a vision for PKR without Anwar. There is the possibility that PKR will not be able to consolidate and rebuild itself after the next election. Anwar may not be happy to become opposition leader once again. PKR may just erode away through subsequent general elections.

PKR has lost its identity now. It must find a new purpose. There may be 1.6 million members on the books. UMNO had 3.44 million members but never received that many votes in any general election.

Perhaps, the long-term decline of PKR will not come through the loss of voters switching to other political parties. Many urban non-Malays the support based for PKR won’t vote for Perikatan Nasional. The decline will come from those who decide not to go out and vote on election day. PKR will die from apathy, rather than the growth in support for other parties.

The coming Kuala Kubu Baharu byelection may go some way into proving or disproving the above hypothesis. Voter turnout figure will be key.

Unfortunately, its Anwar’s own words that are killing PKR.