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| February 2007 »
At first glance, a Muslim solution to a Muslim problem is ideal. However, the deep internal rifts between Sunni and Sh'ia have increased widely in recent years, particularly due to sectarian violence in Iraq. Nevertheless, rather than focussing its sights on Iran, the US and its dwindling list of allies would do well to consider the Musharraf-Yudhoyono initiative. Frankly, they don't have any good ideas of their own.
Indonesia, Pakistan seek Muslim Mideast initiative|International News|Reuters.com
Musharraf said action was needed now. "We both felt that the time has come for action and there is no room for complacency, because things are moving so fast, deteriorating so fast," he said.
Yudhoyono said that both Indonesia and Pakistan faced a similar threat from terrorism.
"We have to deal with this threat properly, not only directly combating the act of terrorism, but also addressing the root causes of terrorism," he said.
The two countries are important U.S. allies in the so-called "war on terror", but have differences over some of Washington's policies, particularly in the Middle East.
Someone had to do it. But poor old Shell, stuck between a rock and a hard place with neither the US nor Russia playing ball. They'll be OK.
Shell defies US pressure and signs GBP5bn Iranian gas deal | | Guardian Unlimited Business
Shell has signed an important deal to help Iran develop a major gas field, ignoring growing pressure from George Bush to isolate the country for being part of what he alleges is an "axis of evil".
The Anglo-Dutch group, which is struggling to bring more momentum to its business after being forced to hand over vital Russian reserves at Sakhalin island to the Kremlin, confirmed it had finally reached agreement on various aspects of its "Persian LNG" - liquefied natural gas - project centred on the South Pars gas field...
The move is a bold one by Shell because its arch-rival BP has declared itself unwilling to invest in Iran at a time when the international political climate surrounding the country is so forbidding.
Can Europe Help Tame China’s Environmental Nemesis?
 BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | China admits to climate failings
"Compared with social and economic modernisation, China's ecological modernisation lags far behind," said the research group's director, He Chuanqi.
Damn right. The single most terrifying thing about China is its rampant and relentless self-destruction - a policy which one day could implode with apocalyptic consequences. But what can any of us do about it?
The European Union is China's biggest trading partner: in 2004, trade levels stood at €160 billion. And with financial flows this high, inevitably relations between the two economic giants transcend business alone.
According to liberal and constructivist theorists, the increasing interdependence brought by globalisation brings about a slow but steady ‘diffusion’ of norms and standards across national borders and even continents. The EU itself is a good example of the spread of ideas from country to country, both as a stimulus to and a result of the integration process.
With this in mind, it stands to reason that the EU should be able to ‘diffuse’ its ideas to countries like China. Actually doing so, however, is easier said than done. This paper below looks at how, rather than trying to directly introduce human rights and democracy, Europe can penetrate both China’s economy and its political sphere with ‘green’ values instead.
Download Word file or read main text below. (See Word file for bibliography and footnotes).
Continue reading "Greening the Smoking Dragon" »
Asia Times Online :: South Asia news - India takes a slow road
India's involvement with road-building is bitterly opposed by both the Taliban and its sponsors in Pakistan, as the highway under construction not only will boost Afghanistan's connectivity and trade ties with the outside world, it will also enhance the trade and influence of Iran and India - countries whose relations with Islamabad and the Taliban are hardly friendly. Pakistan fears that with the completion of the highway, India's presence and influence in its neighborhood to the north, ie Central Asia, will increase manifold...
The land route through Pakistan is the simplest way of moving goods between India and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, Pakistan is reluctant to allow India access to Afghanistan via its territory, although such a move would earn it considerable revenue in the form of transit fees. This Pakistani stance has made the land route via Iran into Afghanistan all the more crucial for India. India hopes that the road link through Iran and Afghanistan will open up markets for its goods in Afghanistan and beyond in Central Asia. Hence the Indian interest in completing the Delaram-Zaranj highway...
Since 2003, India and Iran have been cooperating in developing the Chabahar port complex. Chabahar is closer to India than the existing port at Bandar Abbas. Iran has extended huge concessions to Afghanistan to attract it to use Chabahar port rather than the port that Pakistan is developing with Chinese help at Gwadar in Balochistan province.
Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Pakistan's influence in Afghanistan has fallen dramatically and that of India's has grown. None of the projects that India is involved with in Afghanistan undermines Pakistan's influence as much as the Zaranj-Delaram road link. This explains why Indians working on this project are particularly vulnerable to Taliban attacks.
Here, the author suggests that the US and NATO are so keen to keep Pakistan and Musharraf on side that they are even considering making the Taliban "part of the solution". Part of the solution to what exactly? It's complicated... but the long-term problem appears to be Iran. Yet appeasing the Taliban would surely contradict the entire purpose of the War on Terror. What a balls-up.
Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan
...will the cozy US-Pakistan condominium that has been at the steering wheel in the "war on terror" in Afghanistan allow regional powers like Russia (or Iran and India) to mess around in the Hindu Kush? The exclusivity of that condominium has been an integral part of the war through the past five years.
The geopolitics of the Afghan war are seldom talked about, but they have figured throughout at the center of the closely guarded US-Pakistan agenda. For the same reason, very little is heard nowadays about the idea mooted by French President Jacques Chirac at NATO's Riga summit in late November regarding the formation if a "contact group" on Afghanistan comprising countries in the region that have an interest in Afghanistan's stability. The proposed group would have made the conduct of the war more transparent and regional powers would have found such a forum useful.
But Washington has all but smothered the French proposal. Both the US and Pakistan would be horrified if any such contact group took shape and then proceeded to demystify the hunt for the elusive Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
But there are other nuances, too. It appears that the US has broached with Pakistan the issue of "help and assistance" in respect of its standoff with Iran.
International Relations is an immensely complex subject, and in order to stay focus everyone has pare away a few factors now and again. The southern hemisphere is completely off my radar, and I am also frequently guilty of ignoring the 'R' in 'BRIC' too - Russia.
But Russia is definately part of the equation even in these post-Cold War days. Historically a partner of India, while China and the US uneasily applied themselves to Pakistan for geostrategic reasons, Russia is now edging back into India's sphere due to its energy wealth.
The article predicts that by 2020 or so, India's energy needs will treble. So it is competing with traditional rival China for Russian hydrocarbons. The US would also like to court India in order to ensure a regional balance, and is doing so in the shape of nuclear technology. Britain's Gordon Brown also just made a visit, though it was overshadowed by the facile Big Brother controversy.
Ironically, therefore, India is now in a great bargaining position, with suitors on all sides. Bizarre as it may sound, India is the new Pakistan.
BBC NEWS | South Asia | Russia and India's complex friendship
Before leaving Moscow President Putin was keen to point out "the very specific feature of our interaction has to do with the fact that we have moved from the simple paradigm of seller-buyer relationship to jointly work on products".
Russia is trying to tie in India's lucrative arms and energy contracts.
Moscow has reason to act. India has just begun building a new strategic partnership with the United States.
The spur for this was President Bush's landmark deal offering co-operation in civilian nuclear energy programmes. Washington wants to make common cause with India as the world's biggest democracy and a counterweight to rising China. It wants to sell its own nuclear reactors to India and weapons too.
So India's rise means it is being courted on both sides.
Delhi's ultimate aim is probably to secure what it calls "strategic balance" to avoid becoming too closely tied to either Moscow or Washington.
That will mean some hard-nosed bargaining. But it is India that is buying, whether it is energy or arms, and so it finds itself in an unaccustomed but increasingly powerful role as a major economic player, with both Moscow and Washington vying for its business.
A likely successor to President Niyazov of Turkmenistan has emerged in the shape of a former dentist and health minister, the deliciously unpronouncable Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov. By the sounds of it, he is going to be very much a puppet of the security services: we shall see.
However, what is more certain is that the parlous state of Turkmenistan is still a likely spark for tension and instability. Agriculture and the energy industry are in meltdown, and various vultures - not just Russia, but China and India too, are hovering. 'Elections' will be held on 11 February, but whether or not Turkmenistan can be turned around without disintegration and intervention is open to debate.
Turkmenistan's new father | Economist.com
One possible scenario would be for the new president to take Turkmenistan some way along the path followed by Kazakhstan, and make the country more welcoming to foreign investment. Turkmenistan has what are believed to be among the largest reserves of natural gas in the world. BP’s conservative official estimate is 2.9trn cubic metres, but the Turkmen authorities claim gas the true figure is up to 20bn cu metres. Even if reserves are only half this level, Turkmenistan would rank above major gas producers such as Algeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Nigeria.
In recent years, Turkmenistan’s gas output has been around 63bn cu metres per year, the majority of which is exported to Russia and Ukraine. The sanctity of long-term deals was always open to question, as Mr Niyazov tended to renege on agreements once a more lucrative offer was on the table. If the gas sector is to be opened up, Russian capital could face serious competition from Western and Chinese companies, as well as Indian. This in turn would open the question of export routes—whether to the West via the Caspian Sea (from where Turkmen gas could conceivably utilise existing pipelines) or to the East to China (perhaps via Kazakhstan, which is due to complete a pipeline to China around 2009). Any redirection of Turkmenistan’s gas exports could have potentially severe repercussions; for it would deprive Russian monopoly Gazprom of sizeable volumes of gas that it is counting on to meet its domestic supply and export commitments.
 All eyes were on George W. Bush last night, as he delivered his seventh state of the union address:
"For too long our nation has been dependent on foreign oil. And this dependence leaves us more vulnerable to hostile regimes, and to terrorists -- who could cause huge disruptions of oil shipments, and raise the price of oil, and do great harm to our economy.
It's in our vital interest to diversify America's energy supply -- the way forward is through technology."
Duh. A school child could have told you that 20 years ago - I know that because I was that child. So why has nothing been done?
"This war is more than a clash of arms -- it is a decisive ideological struggle, and the security of our nation is in the balance. To prevail, we must remove the conditions that inspire blind hatred, and drove 19 men to get onto airplanes and to come and kill us...
So we advance our own security interests by helping moderates and reformers and brave voices for democracy."
So why do you keep supporting undemocratic regimes while destroying those societies that do want to progress?
"If American forces step back before Baghdad is secure, the Iraqi government would be overrun by extremists on all sides. We could expect an epic battle between Shia extremists backed by Iran, and Sunni extremists aided by al Qaeda and supporters of the old regime. A contagion of violence could spill out across the country -- and in time, the entire region could be drawn into the conflict."
Of course, this is a situation that Bush himself created, but he is right in that failure is no longer an option. The troop surge may well be too little too late, and it's been tried before, but it's better than just walking away.
Full text of the 2007 State of the Union Address here.
Iraq's sectarian strife haunts Pakistan|International News|Reuters.com
As if he didn't have enough to worry about with al Qaeda, the Taliban, jihadi groups fighting the Indian army in Kashmir, and Baluch separatist rebels, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf shudders at the spectre of sectarian strife.
"The Islamic world is heading toward a crisis," Musharraf told university students earlier this month, at a time when the world was aghast over Shi'ite guards taunting Iraq's Sunni former ruler, Saddam Hussein, at the gallows.
"If we don't get our act together, there will be a sectarian catastrophe in the Islamic world," said Musharraf.
Could Pakistan also descend into Iraq-style anarchy? The conditions appear to be there:
Pakistani intelligence channelled funds, covertly supplied by the United States and Saudi Arabia, to hardline Sunni groups to recruit and arm fighters for a jihad, or holy war, against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Simultaneously, the success of the Islamic Revolution in neighboring Iran led to a wave of Shi'ite radicalism in Pakistan that set the scene for a feud with the Deobandi groups that has dragged on for the past quarter century.
I never thought I'd end up the same political street as Will Hutton, celebrated socialist British economist and former editor of The Observer. I'm also a little suspicious of his sudden all-seeing-eye on China, since he spent most of his career writing on purely British or European issues.
However, if figures as respected as Hutton are coming up with assessments like this, then it's time to get very concerned indeed:
Dire straits in the East China Sea | Comment | The Observer
China protests that it wants to continue to rise peacefully and does not want to disturb the current world order. It has renounced Maoism, proclaim Western intellectuals, and its aims are surely are capitalist economic growth not mounting invasions. Thus both its neighbours and the West comfort themselves.
The problem is that China has only partially renounced Maoism; the apparatus of dictatorship and one-party rule remain firmly in place but with no viable ideology to justify it. It is a highly unstable, wasteful and inefficient system which is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. The party's first claim to legitimacy is that so far it has worked. And its second claim to legitimacy is its appeal to Chinese nationalism. It is the custodian of a strong China that keeps foreigners at bay. Jobs and nationalism would be the only two pillars on which Chinese communism could sustain power, Deng Xiaoping told the party after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Deliver those and it might hold off political challenge. It has. Even Chinese history taught in schools plays up the threat from foreigners, eliminates any Chinese atrocities and emphasises the role of the party as China's saviour. Whenever it has suited the party's interest is has turned to nationalism; it raised 46 million e-signatures last year to oppose Japan winning a seat on the UN Security Council.
I'm afraid to say that while his comments on Maoism are a little skewiff, when it comes to nationalism Hutton is dead-on. If there were two things that terrified me about China during my stay there, it was the wholesale and unapologetic destruction of the environment and the unquestioning rise of nationalism, even among the educated elites.
As always, it comes down to the Taiwan question. For Hutton, the satellite shoot-down made it a question of "not if but when". Despite other entries on this blog, I'm not convinced that war is the only option - if anything, the missile test was a show of force designed to demonstrate capability and thus head off actual combat. But as every poker player knows, it just takes one player to call your bluff.
Since 2000 the Democratic Progressive party, pledged to a fully-fledged independent Taiwanese state, has won two presidential elections. Beijing is increasingly concerned that the possibility of recovering of Taiwan is slipping away.
An invasion would be high-risk. There is only operational airspace over Taiwan for 300 fourth-generation fighters; Taiwan has 300. It would take 1,000 landing craft up to a fortnight to move 30 infantry divisions across the Taiwan Strait - all the time exposed to American and Japanese retaliation. But if the US's command and control satellite network could be knocked out, suddenly the risks would be dramatically reduced. On top, the US is increasingly focusing its military effort in the Middle East. All China needs is a fortnight.
Very few in Europe understand the Bismarkian, pre-1914 Europe feel to Asian great power politics. In February 2005, China issued an ultimatum to Japan over its occupation of the oil-rich Senkaku Islands; withdraw or face the consequences, sending a five-strong fleet to the islands. Japan responded by putting 55,000 men on alert. Both sides backed off. But China distrusts renascent Japanese nationalism, especially with Japan's now stated wish to change its pacifist constitution. Asia is a powder keg of competing nationalisms, battles for scarce energy resources and unresolved mutual enmities.
The West is indeed blinded by China's economic rise. Yes, one day democracy may come, but to complacently assume that it will gradually develop without a major crisis is naive to the extreme.
It's increasingly beginning to look like China has the initiative in the Middle East, not the US. The lynchpin is Iran. Can Washington and Beijing cooperate to head off the incipient crisis? China is one of the only actors that might persuade Iran to stop its "flinty tongue" and save it from itself, but wll the US trust it do so?
Asia Times Online :: China News, China Business News, Taiwan and Hong Kong News and Business.
China's Middle East strategy is brilliant. It is a multi-splendored thing. There is great adventure in it insofar as it almost overlooks the so-called non-state actors that one hears so much about in the Middle East - let us say with a dash of Marxian idiom, the "forces of history". China's strategy is cautious, yet pragmatic. It is, arguably, near optimal.
Thus, despite the United States' defeat in the Middle East, China will not take on a condescending attitude toward Washington. On the contrary, this is the time for China to cooperate. If the Bush administration were to work out a withdrawal of US forces from Iraq by manipulating the introduction of a pro-Western Arab military force under United Nations mandate, China would have no problem. China might even counsel Iran to take the bitter pill. China is working hard to expand its influence at the same time with the various Middle East protagonists - Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.
I think we can forget about this 'China's Peaceful Rise' myth. This month's missile test puts things into perspective - any weapon designed to knock out enemy satellites is not a passive defence but an aggressive capability.
Of course, it may not all be bad: Reagan's 'Star Wars' programme arguably sealed the deal for Gorbachev, forcing him to draw down the arms race leading to the ultimate end of the Eastern bloc. And it would also be hypocritical to suggest that Washington is in any way whiter-than-white, since it is not.
But it's also important to consider why China is doing this. It is not, whatever it may say, under any kind of existential threat from its neighbours. Neither the US, Japan or Taiwan have the will or means to do anything nasty to the PRC.
No, as any defence expert will tell you, the system is intended to knock out enemy communications, surveillance and media satellites - which is what you would do in the first hour of an attack on somewhere like, say...
China hails satellite killer - and stuns its rivals in space | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited
The test was especially troubling because it exposed the vulnerability of America's dependence on low-orbiting satellites, which are used for military communications, smart bombs and surveillance. In theory, last week's exercise could give Beijing the capability to knock out such satellites - a realisation that underlay the protests from Washington.
Australia and Canada also voiced concerns; Britain, South Korea and Japan were expected to follow. "The US believes China's development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the spirit of cooperation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area," Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman, said. "We and other countries have expressed our concern regarding this action to the Chinese."
Original Aviation Week release is here. Its conclusion:
Although more of a "policy weapon" at this time, the test shows that the Chinese military can threaten the imaging reconnaissance satellites operated by the U. S., Japan, Russia, Israel and Europe.
The Republic of China also operates a small imaging spacecraft that can photograph objects as small as about 10 ft. in size, a capability good enough to count cruise missiles pointed at Taiwan from the Chinese mainland. The Taiwanese in the past have also leased capability on an Israeli reconnaissance satellite.
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Update: Now that the armchair generals have had some time to digest this, the received wisdom is that the test is less about the capability than the signal of intent. It's a brash invitation to the US to re-open the space race, and a not-so-subtle warning to Japan and Taiwan that China is now the boss and they had better not do anything silly like revive a military element to foreign policy or declare independence.
On the other hand, is it also evidence that the PLA is and will act in disregard of CCP wishes, and is thus a sign of a growing schism within the elite?
USCC report here and Jamestown Foundation report here.
I don't believe in Al Qaeda: that is I don't think there is some kind of unified Islamic terrorist group that can be stopped by any means at the West's disposal. But I do believe that there is such a thing as terrorism inspired by Islamic as well as political objectives, and I do believe that current foreign policy is doing them more favours than anything else.
The problem is that the West is now fighting on two fronts, Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which are bordered by Iran (which can supply oil and weapons). Pakistan is also a grand source of personnel.
Sooner or later, if the West is to 'win', it will have to join these dots - but of course that will only create more of them.
Global terrorism | On the march | Economist.com
Western security officials say the revitalisation of al-Qaeda is partly due to the fact that “the pressure is off” in North Waziristan, a Pakistani tribal region where the army agreed a ceasefire with militants last September. Afghan and NATO commanders complain that the truce has also provided cross-border safe havens for the Taliban. Mr Negroponte called Pakistan an important ally, but also “a major source of Islamic extremism”.
Western officials also worry about what they call “blowback” from Iraq: instead of sucking in would-be suicide bombers on one-way tickets, it could pump out battle-hardened fighters to wage violent campaigns elsewhere. Mr Negroponte said an American pull-out would allow Iraq to replace Afghanistan as an al-Qaeda sanctuary.
 In other circumstances, I would cry 'nationalism' but in this case I'm with the Chinese. To have a Starbucks in the middle of the Forbidden City is indeed sacriligious (though in other senses it was an apt symbol of globalization, and was a warm place to take refuge in Beijing's sub-zero temperatures when I visited in January 2004).
Between the lines, there is a subtext here, that of the growing power of civil society via the Internet. Petitioning is in fact an age-old method used by the Chinese masses to address those in authority. It doesn't always work, of course: the Tiananmen protestors tried petitioning before turning to civil disobedience with the bloody consequences that followed. But they did that because the petition was ignored.
And the web offers opportunities for low-key mass protest petitioning like never before. Taking Starbucks out of the Forbidden City is trivial in itself, as were various recent campaigns against dog licensing etc.. But on the other hand, campaigns against dams and pollution etc. which directly impinge upon local and central government jusrisdiction - have been rather successful. My recent paper on EU-China relations (which will be published here in due course) deals with the grass-roots democracy that the 'non-political' protest movement is engendering.
As the web grows in popularity, the authorities may need to come up with ways to deal with this subtle but effective manifestation of people power. It is only a matter of time before web petitions turn to more serious issues, and if the people see they are being ignored then they can more easily join forces via their Internet networks to try something else.
Starbucks faces eviction from the Forbidden City | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited
The trigger was a blog entry posted on Monday by Rui Chenggang, a TV anchorman, who called for a web campaign against the outlet that, he wrote in his blog, "tramples over over Chinese culture".
According to local media, half a million people have signed his online petition and dozens of newspapers have carried prominent stories about the controversy. "The Starbucks was put here six years ago, but back then, we didn't have blogs. This campaign is living proof of the power of the web", said Rui. "The Forbidden City is a symbol of China's cultural heritage. Starbucks in a symbol of lower middle class culture in the west. We need to embrace the world, but we also need to preserve our cultural identity. There is a fine line between globalisation and contamination.
If I had the collaterol, I'd set up a Chinese restaurant and a chain of KTV parlours. Or invest in a few security companies.
Asia Times Online :: South Asia news - Chinese eye Pakistan's real estate
Gwadar is another area where China's stake in real estate will prove strategic. After the completion of the deepsea port project, Gwadar is likely to emerge as a South Asian business hub and modern investment center. Property in Gwadar is considered a good investment and the speculative trade in real estate is booming there.
Islamabad has plans to establish hotels, motels, playgrounds, boating clubs, theme parks, marinas and other recreation projects in Gwadar. The future port city will be connected to the rest of the country by land, sea and air links. The government has decided to set up a tax-free industrial zone of international standard in Gwadar and it has acquired about 4,050 hectares of land for this purpose. Housing schemes and highrise construction on commercial plots are planned and will be up to international standards.
Officials in Islamabad claim that leading international investors have shown keen interest in Gwadar because of its strategic location and potential for becoming a major transshipment trade center in the region. Chinese companies are likely to invest in real-estate projects in the second phase of the Gwadar seaport project.
Cheers, Muhammed Hanif. Still, this is going to shake up relations between the US and Pakistan even further - not to mention within Pakistan where divisions between the ISI and the army are already a potential source of political tension. Who will be running Pakistan this time next year? Musharraf and the army - or the Taliban-sympathising ISI?
BBC NEWS | South Asia | Mullah Omar 'hiding in Pakistan'
Taleban leader Mullah Omar is living in Pakistan under the protection of its ISI intelligence agency, a captured Taleban spokesman has said...
Asked about Mullah Omar, he says: "He lives in Quetta."
"He is protected by the ISI," Mr Hanif adds, referring to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai made similar allegations last year.
Mr Hanif also alleges that former ISI head Hamid Gul is supporting the Taleban against Afghan and foreign troops.
The ISI was instrumental in backing the Taleban after civil war swept Afghanistan following the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989.
Fantastic. Of course it could all be part of Pakistan-Afghanistan governmental-level tensions, but still, it doesn't help.
Gwadar and oil politics -DAWN - Business; January 15, 2007
China needs Gwadar port facilities for future oil and gas imports. While there is a suggestion in Pakistan that Gwadar should be declared a free oil port, Beijing is reportedly negotiating with Islamabad for around five oil and gas pipelines from Central Asian Republics (CARs).
China has shown interest in a trans-Himalayan pipeline to carry the Middle Eastern crude to western China. It would allow Beijing to reduce the portion of its oil shipped through the narrow and unsafe strait of Malacca carrying up to 80pc of its oil imports. The proposed pipeline would link Gwadar port with China's remote western regions, and it would be partly financed by Beijing.
Energy and emissions are bursting onto the mainstream political agenda in a big way already in 2007. First there was the announcement of an EU common energy policy initiative, and now 16 Asian and Pacific states, including Japan, China and India, are bundling on board.
Of course, both are too little too late, but still, it's better than nothing. It is only through the realisation that energy and the enviornment are common problems that need common solutions that conflict can be avoided, and that has to be a good thing.
BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Asian states sign key energy deal
Read between the lines here. It is not altogether becoming of a departing intelligence chief to launch a political storm, but the signs are that the US is growing increasingly discontent with the Musharraf regime. Yes, it wants a scapegoat, but the signs are that it is deliberately drawing back from the Pakistan regime with it was once so close.
BBC NEWS | South Asia | Al-Qaeda 'rebuilding' in Pakistan
The BBC's James Westhead in Washington says that until now the US has not been so specific about where it believes al-Qaeda's leaders are hiding.
Such a claim will be embarrassing for Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who Mr Negroponte described as a key partner in America's war on terror, our correspondent says.
Afghanistan has welcomed the comments. President Hamid Karzai's chief-of-staff, Jawed Ludin, told the BBC that Afghanistan had long maintained that the Islamic militants operated from within Pakistan, and that Mr Negroponte's statement was refreshing in its honesty.
Not as facetious as it may appear. Though bringing its population under control was a burning necessity, the long-term effects of the one-child policy are only just coming into view. No country has ever attempted anything like this on such a scale before, and in the not-too-distant future the first generation of the policy will be saddled with their elderly parents.
Meanwhile, as any visitor to Shanghai will tell you, the sex industry is booming. It's not just a symptom of wifeless young men, of course, but also of the economic boom on the east coast. With the menfolk heading to the big cities in search of construction work, as often as not women end up migrating to urban areas as sex workers. It's a sad story that will only get sadder as the true implications emerge.
BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Chinese facing shortage of wives
BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Syphilis rates 'soaring in China'
It is becoming more and more obvious by the day that the post-Cold War world is not, after all, multipolar but bipolar. The great powers are the US and China. This is especially obvious when it comes to Middle East affairs, though interests coincide as much as they conflict. Of course, the biggest leveller is energy security - and that's the central objective for Chinese foreign policy.
Chinese foreign policy | A quintet, anyone? | Economist.com
Never mind that China, in the more than four years since it appointed a special envoy to the Middle East, has offered no original ideas. To all sides, it still has much to offer. To oil-exporting countries, China has rapidly emerged since the 1990s as a big customer and investor. Some 45% of China's oil imports from January to November last year were from the Middle East. To countries such as Iran and Syria, eager to check American power in the region, China's veto power at the UN and its shared misgivings about America make it a welcome friend. Refreshingly, China asks no questions about democracy...
China worries about its dependence on American military might for the security of its oil shipments from the Middle East. It is still a long way from being able to project military power over such a distance itself, though a Chinese official was quoted in the state-owned press this week as saying China had the ability to build an aircraft carrier, but had not decided when to do so. China is trying to diversify its sources of energy, buying more from Russia, Central Asia, Africa and Latin America.
But experts predict that China will long remain heavily dependent on energy from the Middle East. So it has little choice but to support efforts to stabilise the region. It may not agree with America's tactics, but will share the same broad objective. Jeffrey Bader, a former senior American diplomat now at the Brookings Institution, a think-tank in Washington, DC, says that China's resistance to American initiatives in Sudan and Iran depends on Russian support for its position. If Russia were to switch sides, so too would China, he argues. It is in no mood to take on America alone.
It could be, though the election will of course be rigged. Yet a quick review of Pakistan's 60-year history will turn up no other leader who has remained in power for seven years, and it has to be said of Musharraf that he has kept a grip on things during an unusually turbulent period. Neverthless, the chances of South Asia's volatility being turned up to the boil this year are pretty high.
BBC NEWS | South Asia | Pakistan's uncertain year ahead
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