CHIEF EXECUTIVE

ABID WAZIR KHAN Editorial

ADVISORY BOARD
SARWAR SUKHERA
I had a Dream!
HASSAN NISAR
KHAN HASHAM BIN SIDDIQUE
DR. ZAFAR JASPAL
HUSSAIN SHAHEED SOHARWARDI

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
DR. SHAHID WAZIR KHAN

DEPUTY EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
SARAH SHAHID WAZIR

EXECUTIVE EDITOR
M. SHAHRUKH

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F
ifty seven years ago at the footsteps of
Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther
King Jr. delivered a speech in the
‘symbolic shadow’ of the ‘great American’
Abraham Lincoln. While recalling the
‘Emancipation Proclamation’ Dr. King gave
his clarion call ‘I have a Dream.’ The dream
was to liberate the Negro from the ‘manacles
of segregation and the chains of
discrimination.’ It was a dream rooted in the
American Dream. Furthermore, it was a
dream to rekindle the extinguishing ‘beacon
light of hope’ for millions of coloured
Americans. Though it seemed that half a
century later his dream would be realized, yet
the Negro flounders in the bog and has been
choked to utter, “I can’t breathe.”
The challenges of survival have become
even more difficult to address owing to the
‘pandemic of racism’, which continues to
haunt humanity like a viral misery. Lawyer
Benjamin Crump said it was "not the
coronavirus pandemic that killed George
Floyd”. “It was that other pandemic," he said,
"The pandemic of racism and discrimina-
tion." The year 2020 had been tumultuous,
chaotic and catastrophic. The year witnessed
a viral invasion treating all and sundry
equally, but men themselves fail to recognize
the principle of equality. Deprivation and
segregation have continued to aggravate the
appalling condition of mankind.
It is a bitter truth that Mr. Floyd's tale
had reverberated the tale of black people in
America. It is a tale of broken promises,
indifferent brutality and callous racism.
What happened to Floyd occurs every day, in
education, in health services and in every
sphere of life. Thousands of coloured men
and women try to get the knee of racism off
their neck. The choking voice of George
Floyd was nothing more but the echo of a
choking race. The same police brutality
which Martin Luther criticized half a century
ago, continues to haunt the lives of the col-
oured community in America. They live on
an ‘island of poverty’ in midst of an ‘ocean of
prosperity.’
The ‘whirlwinds of revolt’ are shaking
the foundations of the mightiest nation. With
the closing of the second decade of the 21st
century, the world is witnessing increasing
creative protests. The tectonic plates of the
class and racial balance are shifting and ush-
ering an age of social earthquakes. Even the
vibrant Emancipation Proclamation
remained dormant for a century; the clarion
of call of Martin Luther remained unheard.
The freedom that had to ring from every nook
and corner of America has taken refuge in
oblivion. The ‘molehills of Mississippi’ are
lamenting the death of Floyd, the ‘Mountains
of Tennessee’ are somber at his demise and
the ‘curvaceous peaks of California’ are
mourning the departure of the son of a soil.
The ‘snowcapped Rockies of Colorado,’
‘heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania,
the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire
and the ‘mighty mountains of New York’
echo with the choking voice of Floyd “I can’t
breathe.’ The faith has been shaken to the
core. Floyd is no more, and his soul mourns,
‘I had a Dream!’

4 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020

globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
Current edition
July 2020

Peace Operations
4 Editorial
I had a dream! 32 Is Pakistan Ready To Crack Down On Afghan Taliban Sanctuaries?
Regional specialists hope that this time around Islamabad will follow through on its words

Diplomacy
34 China Ramps Up Role In Afghanistan Ahead of U.S. Withdrawal
Iran-Pakistan Relations China, more than anyone else, wants to see a harmonious Afghanistan-Pakistan relation and will contribute to any effort that helps improve the
mutual trust and relations between the two sides

8 Iran and Pakistan: Placing Border Problems in Context

Pakistan and Iran always seem to end up on opposite sides of the table, but they continue to try and grow relations Anti-Submarine Warfare
Pakistan-Azerbaijan Relations 36 UAVs Over the Maritime Horizon
Maritime patrolling with UAVs has becoming the norm, allowing manned missions to be dedicated to more mission specific tasks

10 Pakistan and Azerbaijan: Deepening a Mutually Beneficial Relationship

Azerbaijan and Pakistan share an enduring diplomatic relationship, though there are some challenges to the further development of relations Sino-India Clash
National News 41 In Ladakh, India’s problem is bigger than China
In Ladakh, India’s political and military leaders may decide that it is better to swallow the bitter pill of humiliation than to escalate matters with
the 2020 version of Xi’s China. But these leaders do not make decisions based on intelligence reports, or wisdom and the principle of living to
12 Pakistan Jet with 98 Aboard Crashes in Crowded Neighborhood
The pilot was heard transmitting a mayday to the tower shortly before the crash of Flight 8303
fight another day. They make decisions based on how it will play in the peanut gallery of India’s oft-cartoonish mainstream news networks.
This should worry regional and global actors with stakes in India

Baloch Nationalism White Supremacy

14 Pakistan’s ‘Occupied Balochistan’
Drawing parallels with Bosnia, Palestine, and Kashmir, the Balochistan National Party chief accused the state of colonizing the region 44 History and the Pursuit of Ideals
We are witnessing the dialectical clash between the ideals in Trump’s America

India on the UNSC Pakistan Economy

16 What Does India’s Election as a Non-Permanent Member of the UNSC Mean For Pakistan?
Will Islamabad face consequences at the Security Council with India’s membership? 46 The Balancing Act Of Crisis Budgeting
While elaborate figures will not fill an empty stomach, equitably sharing the economic burden can open many doors

Indonesia Economy Survival and Stability

18 Post-Pandemic, Will Bali Rethink Tourism?
After COVID-19, what do Balinese want their island’s ‘new era’ to look like? 48 A Difficult Budget
Both the prime minister and his adviser on finance have shunned proposals calling for even a slight increase in tax rates. They want to continue
with the stimulus approach
Pakistan Coronavirus
Budget (Mini) Bus
22 Pakistan’s Confused COVID-19 Response
Pakistan’s coronavirus fight needs clear public messaging to avert a public health crisis
50 Thoughts on the Budget 2020-21
It is clear that with dwindling exports and falling home remittances, the real challenge in 2020-21 will come from the external account’s front
Indigenous Activism in Asia
Special Report
24 The Pandemic’s Hidden Casualty: Human Rights
For many of Asia’s indigenous peoples, COVID-19 is exacerbating long-standing policies of marginalisation
52 Rethinking Health Spending
Pakistan currently spends an abysmally low amount on its health
Snapshot
After Effects
26 China Is Losing India
A clash in the Himalayas will push New Delhi toward Washington
53 Post-Covid Pandemic
Is family planning on the government’s radar?
Opinion Asia-Pacific
Money During Pandemic
28 India picks a side in the new cold war
It is folly for China to drive its rival into America’s arms
54 What We Know About The Economic Impact Of The Coronavirus And How That Should Guide Policy
There is a lot businesses, families, governments and economists who don’t know about the economic fallout from the spreading virus
Racism
Tribute
30 Birds of a feather: White supremacy and Zionism
White supremacy and Zionism are two of a kind, with both modelled on ethnic exclusion. Therefore, if one opposes exclusion, and the desire for
a racially or religiously ‘pure’ nation, one must oppose Zionism 57 Transcending World Order Regressions?
Nerfin apologetically notes that citizenship is at its roots a distinctively Western experience of societal participation in the shaping of collective life

6 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020

globalagemagazine.kipscss.net globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 7
Iran-Pakistan Relations
Iran and Pakistan: Placing Border
Problems in Context
Pakistan and Iran always seem to end up on opposite sides of the table, but they continue
to try and grow relations
By Shahid Hussain
London, United Kingdom
P akistan’s border with Iran has
always been a porous one. There
are no major mountain ranges or
complex river systems separating the
two countries and the Balochistan
region, which straddles both nations, is
largely dry and arid. For most of their
shared history, ancient Persian kings,
Mughal emperors, and Safavid shahs
traversed the common border,
spreading Persian influence beyond the
Indus river into modern day Pakistan
and India. Despite its porous nature, this
border, combined with regional disputes
and a complex system of alliances, could
act as a barrier to Islamabad’s
relationship with Tehran. However, a
closer analysis of the situation reveals
that despite frequent clashes along the
border, Pakistan-Iran relations can
continue to grow.
In the wake of an attack against Paki-
stani military personnel close to the
Iran-Pakistan border that killed six Paki-
stani soldiers last month, the country’s
army chief, General Qamar Bajwa, urged
his Iranian counterpart, General
8 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020
Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, to take
action against local militias operating in
Iran, which he blamed them for carrying
out the attack. While it is possible to
detect frustration in Bajwa’s tone, both
sides concluded their call by pledging to
work together. They also vowed to
enhance security along their common
border. This pledge is nothing new. Last
year, Pakistan and Iran agreed to form a
Joint Rapid Reaction Force. The aim of
the force is to coordinate border security
and ensure neither country can be used
as a base for insurgents, particularly
local militias in Balochistan, which have
been running a long campaign for inde-
pendence from both Pakistan and Iran.
Despite their common cultural heri-
tage, Pakistan and Iran have had differ-
ent aims in the region. In the mid-1990s,
Iran supported the Northern Alliance, a
confederation of ethnic Uzbek, Tajik,
and other groups in Afghanistan, while
Pakistan backed the Taliban, led by
tribal chief Mullah Omar. Furthermore,
Iran’s close ties with India, including its
economic links with New Delhi and joint
infrastructure projects, have always ham-
pered efforts to deepen relations with
Islamabad. In addition, the general sys-
tem of alliances across South, Central,
and West Asia is complex and dynamic.
Unfortunately for Pakistan and Iran,
they always seem to end up on opposite
sides of the table. Iran’s close ties to Rus-
sia and India, combined with Iran’s
friendly relationship with Armenia (just
last month, both countries were discuss-
ing the importance of a new power line
connecting the two nations), place it
squarely at odds with Pakistan’s regional
policy in Central and West Asia, which
centers on close ties with Turkey and
Azerbaijan (which has a long standing
territorial dispute with Armenia over the
Nagorno-Karabakh region).
Why is it then that despite these
geopolitical differences, the killing of six
Pakistani soldiers, and frequent issues
on both sides of the border, the Pakistani
military are continuing to adopt a concil-
iatory tone toward Iran and are keen to
talk about “common” security?
The answer could lie in a surprising
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
s Last year, Pakistan and Iran agreed to form a Joint Rapid Reaction Force to coordinate border security.
announcement made late last year. In
August 2019, the Indian government
under Prime Minister Narendra Modi
revoked Article 370, a special article that
allowed Kashmir certain freedoms and
significant autonomy. Naturally, India’s
actions sparked outrage in Pakistan and
People-to-people
contacts between the
two countries have also
continued to grow, with
significant numbers of
Pakistani Shia pilgrims
travelling to Iran
across the wider Muslim world. Iran’s
supreme religious leader, Ayatollah
Khamenei, issued a surprisingly strong
statement against India, condemning
what he called the “oppression and bul-
lying of Muslims in the region.” While
Khamenei did mention Iran and India’s
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
close relationship, his stinging rebuke of
Modi’s actions were music to
Islamabad’s ears, particularly given that
Iran has frequently maintained a deli-
cate balancing act between Pakistan and
India over Kashmir.
Furthermore, Iran’s economic rela-
tionship with India isn’t all it seems.
Despite both countries jointly develop-
ing the Chabahar Port on the Persian
Gulf and a simultaneous network of rail
links in southern Iran, bilateral trade
between the two has fallen markedly,
with some estimates suggesting it has
dropped by almost 80 percent between
April and November 2019. India’s warm-
ing relationship with the United States,
Iran’s enemy, is also acting as a barrier to
Indo-Iranian relations. Perhaps this
complex web of factors could explain
why Iran was so willing to condemn
India’s revocation of Article 370 and why
the Pakistani military, including Bajwa,
are still talking about common ground
and shared aims.
People-to-people contacts between
the two countries have also continued to
grow, with significant numbers of Paki-
stani Shia pilgrims travelling to Iran. In
addition, three Iranian airlines operate
direct flights to Pakistan. It is also
important to recognize the importance
of this relationship for the wider region.
Iran and Pakistan could use their rela-
tionship to mediate in regional conflicts.
Iran’s ties to Armenia and Russia, and
Pakistan’s close relationship with
Azerbaijan and Turkey, mean both coun-
tries are well placed to mediate between
Yerevan and Baku over the long-
standing Nagorno-Karabakh issue. Both
nations also have an important role to
play in ensuring stability in neighboring
Afghanistan. Recently, Islamabad and
Tehran, alongside Moscow and Beijing,
expressed their desire to see a negotiated
settlement between the Afghan govern-
ment and the Taliban, while also pledg-
ing to provide medical assistance to
Afghanistan in the wake of the
coronavirus pandemic.
In essence, the Pakistan-Iran rela-
tionship is both complex and important.
The attack on Pakistani military person-
nel in Balochistan and Pakistan’s
attempts to build bridges with Iran must
be viewed against a backdrop of recent
events, including Khamenei’s criticism
of India over Article 370. Whilst the phys-
ical border may no longer be able to facil-
itate the exchange of ideas and influ-
ences, perhaps officials from both sides
can continue to strengthen an important
relationship between two countries that
straddle Asia and the Middle East.
July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 9
Pakistan-Azerbaijan Relations
Pakistan and Azerbaijan:
Deepening a Mutually Beneficial
Relationship
Azerbaijan and Pakistan share an enduring diplomatic relationship, though there are
some challenges to the further development of relations
By Shahid Hussain
London, United Kingdom
D uring the 16th century, the
Mughal Emperor Humayun,
who ruled a significant part of
the subcontinent, wrote a letter to the
Ottoman Sultan, Suleiman the
Magnificent, complimenting him on his
military, literary, and religious
achievements. The same Humayun also
fostered close ties with the Safavid
Empire, an Iranian dynasty that ruled
territories stretching from Georgia to the
Arabian Sea. It is little surprise then that
two of their respective successors,
Azerbaijan and Pakistan, share an
enduring diplomatic relationship.
Last month, in a phone call with his
Pakistani counterpart, Azerbaijan’s Pres-
ident Ilham Aliyev expressed his deep
concern at India’s perceived human
rights violations in Kashmir, stating
“Azerbaijan considers Pakistan its close
friend” and will “continue to support it”
at every forum. Unsurprisingly, Pakistan
reciprocated Aliyev’s comments, allud-
10 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020
ing to Islamabad’s support for Baku in its
long-standing dispute with Armenia
over Nagorno-Karabakh, a small enclave
in the Caucasus that has been the scene
of frequent conflict between the two
states.
The two leaders also discussed the
coronavirus pandemic and shortly after,
Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Pakistan, Ali
Alizada, visited a medical center in
Islamabad. Alizada was pictured donat-
ing medical masks, food parcels, and
other equipment. While the gesture may
be small, the message, timing, and sym-
bolism of Aliyev’s statement and
Alizada’s actions are clear: Azerbaijan is
one of Pakistan’s closest (and possibly its
most enduring) allies among the former
Soviet states. The close relationship is
based on shared experiences and mutual
benefit.
The similarities between the two
countries are striking. Not only do they
have a shared Persian-Turkic history
(both have been part of the Ancient Per-
sian, Turkic Timurid, and Iranian
Safavid Empires), but they also have
similar cultural, religious, and
geopolitical outlooks. Baku State Uni-
versity has a well-established Urdu
branch, teaching Azeri students the
national language of Pakistan, while an
online Azeri news agency recently
launched in Pakistan. Both Pakistan and
Azerbaijan are largely Muslim countries.
Islamabad and Baku also have legitimate
concerns about sectarian violence and
militant Islam taking hold in their coun-
ties, particularly given Pakistan’s prox-
imity to Afghanistan and Azerbaijan’s
porous northern border with Russia’s
Dagestan.
Perhaps because of this, their
geopolitical outlook is also similar. Both
countries have been careful to avoid
being drawn into regional conflicts, par-
ticularly in Syria and the wider Middle
East. In addition, Baku has a delicate
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
balancing act to play in Syria, seemingly
stuck between anti-Assad Turkey to its
west and pro-Damascus Russia to its
north. Baku’s relationship with Istanbul
is well documented, particularly given
Turkey’s own dispute with Armenia and
its subsequent support for Azerbaijan’s
claims over Nagorno-Karabakh. How-
ever, Baku cannot risk alienating Russia;
its trade with Moscow increased by
almost 23 percent in the first seven
months of 2019. Just last month,
Azerbaijan’s president was speaking
fondly of Azerbaijan-Russia ties and
s The Ambassador of Azerbaijan to Pakistan Ali Alizada visited the Sundas Foundation in Islamabad, and provided them blood bags, medical masks, food
boxes and gifts on behalf of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation of Azerbaijan.
their shared sacrifice in the Great Patri-
otic War, as World War II is known in the
states of the former Soviet Union. Paki-
stan’s situation in Syria is similar, as it
finds itself diplomatically sandwiched
between two countries (Saudi Arabia
and Iran) that have different aims in
Syria and the wider region.
It is clear from President Aliyev’s
recent statement that Pakistan and
Azerbaijan have a strong bilateral rela-
tionship, but where do they go from here
and can an already strong relationship
continue to deepen? One area they can
develop further is in the military sphere.
In 2018, members of the Pakistani
Armed Forces actively discussed mili-
tary and defense cooperation, culminat-
ing in Baku expressing an interest in
purchasing Pakistan’s new JF-17 Thun-
der fighter jet. The JF-17 is a joint enter-
prise between Pakistan and China and
Baku’s expression of interest in the JF-17
Thunder also hints at another possible
benefit of Azerbaijan’s Pakistan policy,
namely, utilizing its bilateral relation-
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ship with Pakistan to cement ties with
Islamabad’s “all weather ally,” Beijing.
Late last year, Azerbaijani Deputy
Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev
expressed his support for China’s flag-
ship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI),
explaining how Azerbaijan’s own Baku-
Tbilisi-Kars railway can facilitate “at-
tractive” and “more reliable shipping”
between China and Europe. Pakistan is
also a major player in the BRI project and
is well placed to facilitate closer diplo-
matic relations between Baku and
Beijing. Pakistan can also help
Azerbaijan’s accession to important
regional bodies, including the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization. In return,
Azerbaijan’s unwavering support for
Pakistan is essential for Imran Khan’s
government and Baku’s repeated
attempts to raise the Kashmir issue are a
PR coup for Islamabad.
Furthermore, Pakistan’s other Eur-
asian ally, Turkey, also continues to
express its support for Islamabad. Just
prior to the coronavirus epidemic, Turk-
ish President Racep Tayyip Erdogan
declared there was no difference
between the struggles of the Turkish War
of Independence and the contemporary
situation in Kashmir. Turkey is an
important ally of Pakistan and
Islamabad’s ties to Baku, Ankara’s long-
term ally, will only strengthen the Paki-
stan-Turkey-Azerbaijan axis.
However, for all their shared aims,
warm words and “brotherly love,” there
is no denying the two countries face sev-
eral hurdles. Recently, Azeri business
groups expressed a desire to expand eco-
nomic ties with India, stating
Azerbaijan’s industrial parks could work
closely with Indian companies to help
New Delhi extend its economic influence
in the agriculture, pharmaceutical, and
leather industries. Furthermore, for all
their expressions of common interest,
both culturally and geopolitically, there
are no direct flights between Pakistan
and Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan’s national
carrier, AZAL, did run a service between
Baku and the Pakistani port city of
Karachi, but it was discontinued in the
mid-2000s. In stark contrast, in 2019,
AZAL opened up a new route to India’s
capital, New Delhi, something that is
bound to raise eyebrows in Islamabad.
There is an age-old adage that
money talks and there is no denying that
the economic pull of India, the world’s
fifth largest economy, is significant for
Azerbaijan. In 2018, Baku’s trade with
New Delhi was around $922 million. In
comparison, its trade with Pakistan was
a mere $10 million, and this imbalance is
unlikely to change anytime soon. Bilat-
eral trade between Azerbaijan and Paki-
stan also raises further questions about
the actual strength of their current rela-
tionship. However, their mutual support
for each other over territorial disputes, a
shared geopolitical outlook, and the pos-
sibility of leveraging each other’s bilat-
eral relationships means for the foresee-
able future at least, Azerbaijan will
remain one of Pakistan’s most enduring
former Soviet allies.
l Shahid Hussain completed his undergraduate and master’s degrees at University
College London (UCL) and will be pursuing a Ph.D. at UCL focusing on Early
Modern diplomacy.
July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 11
National News
Pakistan Jet with 98 Aboard
Crashes in Crowded Neighborhood
The pilot was heard transmitting a mayday to the tower shortly before the crash of
Flight 8303
s Volunteers look for survivors of a plane that crashed in residential area of Karachi, Pakistan, May 22, 2020. An aviation official says a passenger plane
belonging to state-run Pakistan International Airlines carrying more than 100 passengers and crew has crashed near the southern port city of Karachi.
By Adil Jawad
Karachi, Pakistan
A jetliner carrying 98 people
crashed Friday in a crowded
neighborhood near the airport in
Pakistan’s port city of Karachi after an
apparent engine failure during landing.
Officials said there were two survivors
from the plane but also found at least 57
bodies in the wreckage.
It was unknown how many people
on the ground were hurt as the Pakistan
International Airlines jet, an Airbus
A320, plowed into an alley and
destroyed at least five houses.
The pilot was heard transmitting a
mayday to the tower shortly before the
crash of Flight 8303, which was flying
from Lahore to Karachi and carrying
many traveling for the Muslim holiday of
12 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020
Eid al-Fitr.
Video on social media appeared to
show the jet flying low with flames shoot-
ing from one of its engines.
The plane went down about 2:39
p.m. northeast of Jinnah International
Airport in the poor and congested resi-
dential area known as Model Colony
between houses that were smashed by its
wings. Police in protective masks strug-
gled to clear away crowds amid the
smoke and dust so ambulances and
firetrucks could reach the crash site.
As darkness fell, crews worked
under floodlights, and a portable
morgue was set up. The Sindh provincial
health department said it had recovered
57 bodies, while PIA chairman Arshad
Malik said finding all the dead could take
two to three days.
Pakistan’s civil aviation authority
said the plane had 91 passengers and a
crew of seven. The A320 can carry up to
180 passengers, depending on how its
cabin is configured.
At least two people aboard survived,
according to the health department,
revising an earlier statement that three
were alive.
Local TV stations showed video of a
man on a stretcher they identified as
Zafar Masood, the head of the Bank of
Punjab. Malik later confirmed that
Masood survived the crash.
At least three people on the ground
were injured.
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
Malik announced an investigation
into the crash, adding that the aircraft
was in good working order.
Pakistan had resumed domestic
flights earlier this week ahead of Eid-al
Fitr, which marks the end of the holy
month of Ramadan. Pakistan has been in
a countrywide lockdown since mid-
March because of the coronavirus, and
the airline has been using social distanc-
ing guidelines on its flights by leaving
every other seat vacant.
Southern Sindh province, of which
Karachi is the capital, is the epicenter of
the virus infections in Pakistan. The prov-
ince has nearly 20,000 of the country’s
more than 50,000 cases.
A transmission of the pilot’s final
exchange with air traffic control, posted
on the website LiveATC.net, indicated he
had failed to land and was circling to
make another attempt.
“We are proceeding direct, sir — we
have lost engine,” a pilot said.
“Confirm your attempt on belly,”
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
the air traffic controller said, offering a
runway.
“Sir, mayday, mayday, mayday,
mayday Pakistan 8303,” the pilot said
before the transmission ended.
In one of the radio communications,
at least one exchange from the flight
sounded like a warning alarm was
sounding in the cockpit.
A resident, Abdul Rahman, said he
saw the jet circle at least three times,
appearing to try to land before it crashed.
Prime Minister Imran Khan
tweeted: “Shocked & saddened by the
PIA crash… Immediate inquiry will be
instituted. Prayers & condolences go to
families of the deceased.”
Science Minister Fawad Ahmed
Chaudhry said this year has been a “ca-
tastrophe — just survival is so difficult,”
with the pandemic and now the tragedy
of the plane crash.
Most of the passengers were head-
ing home to celebrate Eid-al Fitr, he said.
“What is most unfortunate and sad
is whole families have died, whole fami-
lies who were travelling together for the
Eid holiday,” he said in a telephone
interview in the capital of Islamabad.
The flight from the northeastern
city of Lahore typically lasts about an
hour and a half.
Airworthiness documents showed
the plane last received a government
check on Nov. 1, 2019. PIA’s chief engi-
neer signed a separate certificate April
28 saying all maintenance had been con-
ducted. It said “the aircraft is fully air-
worthy and meets all the safety” stan-
dards.
Ownership records for the Airbus
A320 showed China Eastern Airlines
flew the plane from 2004 until 2014. The
plane then entered PIA’s fleet, leased
from GE Capital Aviation Services.
Perry Bradley, a spokesman for GE,
said the firm was “aware of reports of the
accident and is closely monitoring the
situation.”
Airbus said the plane had logged
47,100 flight hours and 25,860 flights as
of Friday. The plane had two CFM56-
5B4 engines.
Airbus said it would provide techni-
cal assistance to investigators in France
and Pakistan, as well as the airline and
engine manufacturers.
“We at Airbus are deeply saddened
by the tragic news of flight #Pk8303,”
tweeted Executive Director Guillaume
Faury. “My thoughts and those of my
Airbus colleagues, go to the families and
loved ones affected. In aviation, we all
work hard to prevent this. Airbus will
provide full assistance to the investigat-
ing authorities.”
July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 13
Baloch Nationalism
Pakistan’s ‘Occupied Balochistan’
Drawing parallels with Bosnia, Palestine, and Kashmir, the Balochistan National Party
chief accused the state of colonizing the region
s Troops of Pakistan para-military forces patrol in the troubled area of Dera Bugti in Balochistan province of Pakistan, Jan 30, 2006.
By Kunwar Khuldune Shahid
@khuldune
I n a scathing speech in the National
Assembly on Wednesday,
Balochistan National Party (BNP-
M) Chief Akhtar Mengal asked that the
province that he represents be declared
“occupied Balochistan” if the state wants
to continue its abuses in what is
currently a “no-go area” spearheaded by
“death squads.”
Announcing his party’s departure
from the federal government coalition
led by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf
(PTI), Mengal underlined that the cur-
rently ruling party is the latest in a long
list of culprits to have backtracked on its
vows for Balochistan since 1948.
Without naming the military,
Mengal castigated the crackdown in
Balochistan, and the growing number of
missing persons, which has reduced the
locals to mere “bloody civilians.” Draw-
ing parallels with Bosnia, Palestine, and
Kashmir, the BNP chief accused the state
of colonizing Balochistan, rendering the
blood of the Baloch “less worthy than
tomatoes.”
“You can think about Kashmir when
14 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020
you get it, what you have in hand is slip-
ping away,” Mengal said, alluding to the
separatist movement in Balochistan.
Mengal’s speech came during
National Assembly deliberations on the
federal budget, which saw Balochistan’s
provincial share slashed in the National
Finance Commission transfer.
Balochistan’s seven-decade-old
grievances with Pakistan range from
being denied a fair share in the prov-
ince’s own resources to a continuum of
military operations. Baloch nationalists
maintain that the province was militarily
usurped in March 1948, against the will
of the locals. The growing ethno-
nationalism in Balochistan saw insur-
gencies in the late 1950s and 1960s.
The 1973–1977 conflict, launched
under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, reaffirmed
control over the province’s riches, and
reinstated centralized political control in
the aftermath of the separation of East
Pakistan in 1971 – which, like
Balochistan, saw an ethno-separatist
movement against misappropriation of
resources and military occupation.
The ongoing dirty war in
Balochistan exploded following the turn
of the century under Pakistan’s military
ruler Pervez Musharraf, with the 2006
killing of nationalist leader Akbar Bugti
sparking the most gruesome wave of
Baloch insurgency.
Over the past decade and a half,
thousands of Balochs have gone missing,
if not tens of thousands. The exact num-
bers are unknown owing to complete
control over information exercised by
the state.
On Saturday, two senior journalists
became the latest to go missing in
Balochistan. In April, the dead body of
Sajid Hussain Baloch, editor-in-chief of
Balochistan Times, was found near
Uppsala, Sweden, with Reporters With-
out Borders (RSF) maintaining that his
death could be linked to his work.
Between 2007 and 2015, 29 journal-
ists were killed in Balochistan. Mean-
while, the mainstream media is only
allowed to run the military’s press
releases as part of its coverage on
Balochistan.
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
As a result, one story that wasn’t
covered last week was that of a Baloch
woman, a mother of three, who killed
herself after giving up on the protracted
fight to find her missing brother.
Similarly, many other families –
Parallel to the military
abuses, resulting in the
growing number of
missing persons, is the
center’s unabated
stranglehold over
Balochistan’s resources.
This is exemplified by
the Balochistan town
Sui, which has supplied
gas to the entire country
over the decades, but is
still not getting any of
the daily 800 million
standard cubic feet of
natural gas that it
produces
most of them unheard and unseen –
await the return of their loved ones, dead
or alive. The state, however, continues to
either deny the existence of many miss-
ing persons, or lumps them in an unde-
fined category of “terrorists.”
Mama Qadeer, the activist who ini-
tiated Voice for Baloch Missing Persons
(VBMP) and launched a 2,800 kilometer
march from Quetta to Islamabad five
years ago, leads regular protests in front
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
of the local press club. Qadeer says that
at least 47,000 Balochs have gone miss-
ing since 2000, the figure also quoted by
the Human Rights Commission of Paki-
stan in its latest report.
Parallel to the military abuses,
resulting in the growing number of miss-
ing persons, is the center’s unabated
stranglehold over Balochistan’s
resources. This is exemplified by the
Balochistan town Sui, which has sup-
plied gas to the entire country over the
decades, but is still not getting any of the
daily 800 million standard cubic feet of
natural gas that it produces.
Balochistan, which still supplies
almost a quarter of Pakistan’s total gas,
this year faced the worst gas shortfall in
history amid plummeting winter tem-
peratures. After decades of the center’s
control over their gas, the Baloch now
have similar apprehensions vis-à-vis the
Reko Diq gold and copper reserves.
After long having raised alarm bells
over “Punjabi” hegemony, Baloch
nationalists are deeming the growing
influence of Beijing in the area as bona
fide “Chinese colonization.”
With Beijing calling the shots on the
much touted $62 billion China-Pakistan
Economic Corridor (CPEC), the nation-
alists maintain that one occupier is being
replaced with another looking to exploit
Balochistan’s rich resources and its
geopolitical significance. The deep-
water port at Gwadar holds the
geostrategic key to CPEC, connecting
Eurasia, South East Asia, South Asia,
and Africa with the much peddled Belt
and Road Initiative (BRI)
It is poetic injustice that CPEC is
wrapped around a corridor of estrange-
ment that connects Xinjiang and
Balochistan, which
still supplies almost a
quarter of Pakistan’s
total gas, this year faced
the worst gas shortfall
in history amid
plummeting winter
temperatures
Balochistan. To the native populations,
CPEC might as well be a multibillion-
dollar graveyard for the aspirations of
the two subjugated territories.
Baloch nationalists are now issuing
stern warnings over growing Chinese
influence in Balochistan. Local militant
outfits like the Balochistan Liberation
Army (BLA) are targeting Chinese con-
sulates and luxurious hotels in Gwadar.
Instead of managing to curb the
growing Baloch militancy, which has
also targeted civilians, the Pakistan
Army has long used Balochistan’s vola-
tility to serve its strategic interests, with
the large swathes of uninhabited land
bordering Afghanistan and Iran provid-
ing havens to many jihadist groups. It is
similar to the military’s duplicitous secu-
rity policies in the former Federally
Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on
the Afghan border.
The military has also historically
kept check on Baloch separatists by
deploying groups like Lashkar-e-
Jhangvi (LeJ), which have now over-
lapped with the Islamic State’s (IS)
South Asia factions. The LeJ and IS,
meanwhile, have collaborated to devas-
tate the religious minorities in
Balochistan, especially the local Shia
Hazara and Christian populations.
In his meeting with the Hazara pro-
testors in 2018, Army Chief General
Qamar Javed Bajwa conceded that sec-
tions within the military have collabo-
rated with jihadist outfits in Balochistan
in the past, owing to a “mindset that has
existed” for decades.
As far as Balochistan is concerned,
the colonialist mindset of the military,
and its selected band of politicians,
remains well and truly there. And now
with Baloch insurgency intensifying in
recent weeks, and echoes of “occupied
Balochistan” resonating in the National
Assembly, Islamabad and Beijing have to
consider giving locals due right to their
own resources – or spend a significant
chunk of Balochistan’s riches just on
continuing the military occupation.
l Kunwar Khuldune Shahid is a Pakistan-based correspondent for The Diplomat.
He’s also a member of 101Reporters, a pan-Asia network of grassroots reporters.
His work has been featured in The Guardian, The Independent, Foreign Policy,
BBC, Haaretz, Arab News, Courrier International, Le Monde, Daily Beast, The
Telegraph, MIT Review, among other publications.
July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 15
India on the UNSC
What Does India’s Election
as a Non-Permanent Member of the
UNSC Mean For Pakistan?
Will Islamabad face consequences at the Security Council with India’s membership?
By Umair Jamal
@UmairJamal15
O
n June 17, India became a non-
permanent member of the
United Nations Security Council
(UNSC). Last year, India’s candidature
received undisputed support from all
countries in the 55 member Asia-Pacific
Group for its bid to secure the seat for a
two-year term in 2021-22.
The development is particularly
significant for Pakistan, as the country
faces diplomatic challenges from India
at the United Nations.
For decades, India has sought the
permanent membership at the UNSC. To
reach this goal, India has used its non-
permanent status as a stepping stone to
prepare a bid for the permanent candi-
dacy. In the past, India has held the same
position seven times. For years, New
Delhi has worked closely with the so-
called G-4 group, with Brazil, Japan, and
Germany, to push for structural reforms
within the UNSC.
UNSC reform has been considered
necessary for decades. Experts believe
that a lack of reforms has produced a
“highly unequal and inefficient” Security
Council. “The five permanent members
(P5) – Britain, France, United States,
Russia, and China – possess permanent
seats and have the privilege of the veto
whilst the status of non-permanent mem-
bers is low,” notes a study. The current
structuring of the UNSC converges most
of the power to the P5, while non-
permanent members of the council have
been “relegated to a role of rubber-
stamping.”
Still, India’s election as a non-
permanent member for another two-
year term helps the country’s in its
attempt to push for the association’s
reforms and solidify its image as a major
power that should be accommodated by
the permanent members of the assem-
bly.
India’s attempt to find a permanent
place at the UNSC has always been
opposed by Pakistan. Over the past few
decades, the matter of the UNSC’s
expansion has generated a range of con-
16 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020
troversies. The dispute involves individ-
ual stakeholders and regional blocks that
compete for different positions and
interests. For its part, Pakistan has per-
petually viewed the situation from an
India-focused lens. Pakistan sticks
strongly to the view that if India is to
become a permanent member of the
UNSC, it should also attain the same
position.
For Pakistan, the implications of
India as a permanent member of the
UNSC can be huge. If such an outcome
emerged, Pakistan’s efforts to engage the
UNSC over the issue of Jammu and Kash-
mir (J&K) could be undermined. Paki-
stan considers UNSC interventions in
J&K as a win for its attempt to make the
issue an internationally recognized dis-
pute. Moreover, Pakistan’s nuclear pro-
gram can also come under greater scru-
tiny. For instance, India which is a per-
manent member of the UNSC, can
demand that Pakistan give up its nuclear
weapons, sign the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty, and put in place an
effective regime to contain terror financ-
ing. In effect, from Islamabad’s perspec-
tive, India as a permanent member of the
UNSC can become a threat to Pakistan’s
core security and diplomatic interests.
To Pakistan’s benefit, the issue of
UNSC expansion is larger than the Paki-
stan-India difference and involves sce-
narios that have global implications.
Going forward, Pakistan would either
want the international community to do
away with the system of permanent seats
altogether or become a member itself if
India is offered the position.
In the past, Pakistan itself has been
elected as a non-permanent member of
the UNSC seven times. In part, Paki-
stan’s attempt has been in response to
India’s search for the same position mul-
tiple times. Last year, Pakistan sup-
ported India’s candidacy at the Asia-
Pacific Group for another two-year term
partially because Islamabad has been
given similar support institutionally.
The current government in Pakistan has
defended its support for India’s non-
permanent member candidacy as “a rou-
tine affair” that doesn’t harm
Islamabad’s interests.
In Islamabad, some analysts hold to
the view that as long as Pakistan has
China’s support, India is unlikely to
become a permanent member of the
council. Outside the permanent mem-
bership parameters, India and Pakistan
have held the same posts multiple times
which elevates Islamabad’s status to that
of New Delhi at the committee. Thus,
Pakistan shouldn’t be worried about
India’s non-permanent member status
at the council.
Islamabad is planning to file its next
candidature for another non-member
seat in 2025. If elected, it would be Paki-
stan’s 8th round at the council.
For now, Pakistan is content with
the fact it has been at the council for the
same duration that India has been.
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
Indonesia Economy
Post-Pandemic, Will Bali Rethink
Tourism?
After COVID-19, what do Balinese want their island’s ‘new era’ to look like?
By Julia Winterflood
@jwinterflood
A s one of the world’s top travel
destinations, the impact of
COVID-19 on the Indonesian
island of Bali has received intense media
scrutiny — and speculation. After foreign
arrivals and transits were temporarily
suspended on March 31, by mid-April
most international media coverage had
shifted from stranded tourists to those
seeing out the pandemic in paradise.
Dozens of stories detailed luxury
lockdowns and quiet beachfront
retreats. After Sky News interviewed a
British family spending their lockdown
“watching the sunset and playing in a
paddling pool,” Indonesians began to
push back, including award-winning
investigative journalist Febriana Firdaus
who tweeted: “Can we just stop publish-
18 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020
ing stories on the matter of the tourist
gaze? This is so wrong at many levels of
journalism.”
With 235 confirmed cases, 121
recoveries, and four deaths at the begin-
ning of May, Bali did not emerge as the
coronavirus hotspot that contagious
disease experts had predicted. Rather, it
had one of the lowest fatality rates in
Indonesia. At the same time, however, it
has been widely reported that Indonesia
has had one of the lowest per capita test-
ing rates in the world, with Bali being no
exception. As Indonesia’s total number
of cases increased steadily — and the
much-cited Reuters report of record
high burials in Jakarta did the rounds —
stories of Bali’s “mysterious immunity”
caused consternation for Indonesian
public health experts and journalists
alike.
On May 12, President Joko “Jokowi”
Widodo praised Bali’s provincial govern-
ment for its handling of the outbreak,
attributing the “success” of containment
efforts to the island’s 1,493 desa adat
(traditional villages). From meting out
“social sanctions” like push-ups for
those who violate nationwide mandatory
mask use to taskforce members in tradi-
tional masks denying entry to those
attempting to access closed areas, the
efforts of local authorities, both creative
and standard, have been widely cele-
brated.
After Jokowi’s stamp of success,
foreign media began focusing on Bali’s
timeline for reopening, but official esti-
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
mates varied. Three days after Jokowi
praised the Bali government and the
traditional village system, the secretary
of the Tourism and Creative Economy
Ministry, Ni Wayan Giri Adnyani, said in
a statement that the Ministry was plan-
ning to “revitalize destinations” in select
parts of the country, including Bali,
between June and October, while partial
reopening “may begin” in October.
On the same day, the head of the
Indonesian Hotels and Restaurants Asso-
ciation’s Badung Regency chapter, I
Gusti Agung Ngurah Rai Suryawijaya,
told the ABC that Bali would “hopefully”
reopen in July. Minister for National
Development Planning Suharso
Monoarfa, echoed this projection on
May 28, announcing that “we expect Bali
will be ready to open for business soon in
July.”
Many are concerned
about environmental
sustainability and
preserving the natural
beauty of their island,
which, prior to the
pandemic, drew
increased volumes of
tourists annually
Predictably, dozens of media outlets
jumped on the July reopening period,
while others opted for far less click-
worthy October. For Gustra Adnyana,
co-owner of a library cafe in Ubud, the
contrasting timeframes only fueled his
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
skepticism of the reports. “It isn’t clear
lately,” he said. “It makes me doubtful of
the accuracy of the media.”
As the squall of articles on when
tourists could return to their favorite
resort island intensified, so did the
severity of adjectives used to describe the
impact of COVID-19 on Bali’s economy.
As James Guild writes in New Mandala,
“some of the more sensationalist [news
items] tend to privilege the perspective
of foreigners or use somewhat alarmist
language to push a narrative of impend-
ing disaster.” He also notes discrepan-
cies in reports of the percentage of tour-
ism’s contribution to Bali’s GDP. Al
Jazeera pegged it at 80 percent, while
Coconuts Bali quoted the deputy chief of
Bank Indonesia’s Bali office, who put it
between 54 and 58 percent. The latter is
in line with the Central Statistics
Agency’s 2019 figure of 55 percent,
which Guild cites.
“For me,” he writes, “this idea that
Bali will die without tourists comes
uncomfortably close to a White Savior
narrative, implying that local people
have no choice but to hunker down and
endure this crisis until foreigners start
showing up again to rescue them. Such
framing strips Indonesians of their
agency in rising to meet this challenge,
something they are quite capable of
doing and have done many times
before.”
Community-led initiatives to help
the nation’s most vulnerable groups with-
stand the pandemic — such as Donations
for Transwomen Bali and Pasar Rakyat
Bali — receive significant local coverage,
but expat-founded charities tend to
attract more international media atten-
tion. A similar sentiment was expressed
by Shane Preuss in The Diplomat, who
pointed out that “what the Australian
media has missed is the resilience of the
Indonesian people.”
He also points out that in the 2019
Legatum Prosperity Index, Indonesia
ranked fifth in the world for social capital
and first for civic and social participa-
tion, with the highest levels of volunteer-
ing of any country. In the 2018 Charities
Aid Foundation (CAF) World Giving
Index Indonesia also ranked first for
frequency of donating and volunteering.
Meanwhile, Eve Tedja, an associate
editor of a gourmet and lifestyle publica-
tion, believes that when it comes to local
perspectives, foreign media coverage of
COVID-19 in Bali is “very lacking.” She
contends that “if there is more coverage
about real issues as opposed to Bali’s
‘mysterious immunity,’ maybe journal-
ism can become the motor to create the
necessary change.” Tedja feels that the
“only genuine voice of Balinese perspec-
tives” is independent community-based
journalism portal Bale Bengong, which
“allows us to speak our often unheard
and most often, reluctantly voiced, opin-
ions.”
Putting the Health of
Balinese First
At the end of May, Bali Governor I
Wayan Koster quashed speculation on
when Bali would reopen, stating there
were no plans to restart the tourist
industry in the near future. As reported
by Kompas, Koster has insisted his gov-
ernment is putting the health of the
island’s population first. After a recent
July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 19

increase in local transmissions, bringing
the total number of confirmed cases as of
June 10 to 608 with 409 recoveries and
five fatalities, he has reemphasized the
ban on large gatherings of any kind,
ordered tourist sites to remain closed,
and urged residents to be more cautious.
The Indonesian Tourism and Cre-
ative Economy Ministry has declared
that when travel restrictions are eased,
Bali will be the pilot location for the Min-
istry’s Cleanliness, Health, and Safety
(CHS) program. The program will be
rolled out across the archipelago’s top
travel destinations as part of Indonesian
tourism’s transition to the “new nor-
mal,” although Bali’s Deputy Governor
Tjokorda Oka Artha won’t be using this
term. “In the context of Bali, I don’t call it
the new normal, I call it the new era of
Bali, which will change the paradigm of
tourism in the future,” he said during the
Indonesia Tourism Forum tele-
conference on May 15.
So what do Balinese want their
island’s “new era” to look like?
Many are concerned about environ-
mental sustainability and preserving the
natural beauty of their island, which,
prior to the pandemic, drew increased
volumes of tourists annually. In 2019,
international arrivals grew 3.6 percent
from the previous year to 6.3 million,
according to the Central Statistics
Agency’s Bali office.
Putu Evie, a dancer, dance teacher,
and member of Trash Hero Indonesia,
believes the CHS program’s hygiene and
sanitation protocols will need to address
the issue of waste and single-use packag-
ing. “The public still believes single-use
plastic is the answer to maintaining
cleanliness and hygiene, so there must
be a change in mindset first. Whether we
want to or not, with this pandemic, we
must learn to confront this problem.”
Although the island has long suf-
fered from alarming amounts of plastic
waste on land and in its seas and water-
ways, confronting the crisis has only
become a major government focus in the
20 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020
last two years, according to Andre
Dananjaya, a co-producer of Pulau
Plastik, a collaborative campaign tack-
ling single-use plastic in Indonesia.
Environmental preservation is also
a priority for Ayu Gayatri Kresna, a tradi-
tional chef in Bengkala Village, North
Bali. She feels that the island “needs to
consider returning to quality tourism,
where guests appreciate and participate
After the massive
decline in tourism
caused by COVID-19,
which many say is worse
than the downturn after
the 2002 Bali bombings
and the 2017 Mount
Agung volcanic
eruptions combined,
Koster has declared that
developing other sectors
of the economy, such as
agricultural exports,
will now be a
government priority
in preserving the sustainability of
nature, culture, and traditions.”
Cultural tourism should be one of
the foundations of Bali’s new era, says
Jero Mangku Istri Alas Arum, who was
ordained as a Hindu priest at the age of
eight in Batur, northeast Bali. “There is a
cultural and spiritual sanctity that we
must maintain in Bali. When this is pro-
tected, tourism will be sustainable.”
Ida Bagus A. Gangga, a member of
the Desa Adat Dawan COVID-19
taskforce in Klungkung on the island’s
southeast coast, believes there should be
equal focus on the health and safety of
the population as there is on the environ-
ment. Similarly, I Gusti Krishna
Aditama, who works for a national char-
acter-building association, says “the
environmental aspect needs close atten-
tion, because this is where we work and
live. If the environment is destroyed,
where will we live?”
In a similar vein, hotelier Bagus Ari
Saputra asks, “Do we want Bali to essen- Rejoicing Years of Glory With 1500+ Civil Servants and Counting...
tially be a playground, or theme park,
where people from the outside come in The Largest CSS Preparatory Network in Pakistan
and have fun in a plastic space designed
for their entertainment, or do we want it
to be something that serves the people
who live here, who in the end are respon-
Morning, Afternoon & Evening Sessions
sible for managing the development on
the island and the preservation of its
culture and natural resources?” Bagus
admits, however, that “in the end, money
talks, and custom decides which places
proliferate or prosper, so it will always be
a dance between local landowners,
developers, and business owners on the
one hand, and the tourists who come
here on the other.”
Wulan Saraswati, an author and
Indonesian language teacher for inter-
national students, believes “we need to
stop looking at Bali only as a source of
foreign exchange, as if Bali only comes
from foreigners who bring money. Why
don’t we also look at the other potential
that lies within Bali itself?”
After the massive decline in tourism
caused by COVID-19, which many say is
worse than the downturn after the 2002
Bali bombings and the 2017 Mount
Agung volcanic eruptions combined,
Koster has declared that developing
other sectors of the economy, such as
agricultural exports, will now be a gov-
ernment priority.
Purpose-Built CSS Campuses
This is welcome news for 24-year-
old specialty coffee farmer and processor
I Kadek Ari Darsana in Pelaga, Central
Bali, who has also worked as a tour guide.
NEW Library
“For young Balinese who are worried
about the stability of a career in tourism,
I think farming is an answer.” Ayu
CAMPUS Cafeteria
Sudana, also a young specialty coffee AT
farmer and processor, shares his opti-
141 UPPER MALL
mism: “Coffee is a great option as no mat-
ter what happens in the world, people
Permanent Help-Desk Facility
will still drink coffee.”
As the island’s tourism industry
remains dormant, I Made Ady Wirawan,
PIONEER Free Global Age Magazine
head of Udayana University’s School of
Public Health, notes the most likely tour-
ists will be Balinese themselves. “This is
a good time for Bali to prepare itself.”
CAMPUS Discount on CSS Publications
AT
When the island does reopen, he
urges that “the new era or new normal
must be in parallel with government
12 AIBAK BLOCK GARDEN TOWN
efforts to increase capacity in testing,
treating, tracing, and isolating cases.”
PURPOSE BUILT CAMPUS: 141-Upper Mall Lahore.
Tel: 042-35757747 Cell: 0313-4437562 UAN: 03-111-999-101
PIONEER CAMPUS: 12 Aibak Block, Garden Town (Near Mughal-e-Azam Hall), Lahore.
Tel: 042-35941921 Cell: 0311-4345337 UAN: 03-111-999-101
l Julia Winterflood is a writer, editor, and translator based in Indonesia.
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 21
Pakistan Coronavirus
Pakistan’s Confused
COVID-19 Response
Pakistan’s coronavirus fight needs clear public messaging to avert a public health crisis
s Muslims offer Eid al-Fitr prayer as they maintain a social distance in an open area in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, May 24, 2020.
By Daud Khattak
@DaudKhattak1
W ith over 108,000 COVID-19
cases, Pakistan has passed
the official count in
neighboring China, the country first hit
by the novel coronavirus. Officially
projected figures suggest positive cases
in Pakistan could reach 125,000 by June
15. Yet thanks to the government’s
contradictory public messaging, a
majority of Pakistanis still haven’t
registered the danger.
The pandemic, if it continues to be
underplayed by the government, may
pose a formidable challenge for Prime
Minister Imran Khan’s leadership —
along with causing a serious health crisis
in a country of 220 million people with a
weak healthcare system.
It has been 100 days since Pakistan
registered its first coronavirus case. But
the government has yet to come out with
a unified statement and an orderly policy
to inform, educate, and protect the
masses. Instead, the public tends to fol-
low dangerously fatalist and supersti-
tious approaches rather than paying
22 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020
heed to science and health experts.
I have been closely covering the
coronavirus outbreak in Pakistan by
directly speaking to ordinary people,
from the country’s tribal region border-
ing Afghanistan to the port city of
Karachi. One common theme emerges:
many people live in a state of denial and
disbelief.
A section of society, mostly under
the influence of religious propagandists,
believe that COVID-19 is a conspiracy
hatched by non-Muslims to keep believ-
ers from worshiping at mosques and
following their religion. Similar misin-
formation surrounds the polio virus;
propaganda that the polio vaccine is a
ploy to make “Muslim men infertile” is
one of the major reasons that polio still
exists in Pakistan.
Maulana Tariq Jameel, a leading
religious scholar in Pakistan and public
face of the missionary Tablighi group,
told a gathering that COVID-19 is the
result of the “wrongdoing of women.”
“When a Muslim’s daughter prac-
tices immodesty and the youth indulges
in immorality, then Allah’s torment is
unto such a nation,” the highly acclaimed
cleric said in a televised address while
sitting side-by-side with the prime min-
ister. Jameel later retracted his remarks,
but the damage was done.
Even among those who accept the
existence of coronavirus, some are under
the impression that the virus can not
touch Muslims. There is a narrative that
the disease is God’s wrath against the
“infidels” for their “immorality.” This
section of the society, again under influ-
ence from religious propaganda,
believes that Muslims are immune to
COVID-19 because they wash their
hands and faces five times a day while
performing ablution before each prayer.
Yet another section of the society —
mostly those coming from rural back-
grounds and the lower middle class —
presumes that reporting their symptoms
to a hospital or a health worker means
certain death. They believe that the gov-
ernment is trying to show more fatalities
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s Well-known cleric Maulana Tariq Jameel has made a disturbing assertion that Covid-19 has been unleashed on humanity because of the ‘wrongdoing of
women’. During a televised prayer, the maulana condemned women for dancing and for how they dress, saying these “immodest actions” have brought the
Almighty’s wrath upon the country.
in order to collect money from interna-
tional aid agencies and donor countries.
This is a rapidly spreading conspir-
acy theory with unclear origins. The
most obvious reason for the spread of
this conspiracy theory is the govern-
ment’s unclear and ambiguous public
messaging.
The public disbelief has its roots in
the government’s unclear statements
from the very beginning. Pakistan’s cen-
tral leadership, instead of chalking out a
unified strategy, tried to score political
mileage by coming out with the usual
bravado.
One of the first public messages was
an Urdu language phrase that translates
as “fight instead of fearing coronavirus.”
This provided enough ground for the
common people to respond frivolously to
the deadly virus.
Prime Minister Khan’s speeches
downplaying the nature of the menace,
and his government’s flipflopping
announcements – a lockdown, a smart
lockdown and finally no lockdown, all
without flattening the COVID-19 curve
— further deepened the disbelief among
the people.
The prime minister’s statements
partly reflect his personal views about
the global pandemic and partly emanate
from his contempt for his political rivals.
When the government of Sindh, the only
province run by the opposition Pakistan
People’s Party (PPP), started amassing
praise in the local and international
media for its strict COVID-19 measures
while Khan’s central government was
still dragging its feet on imposing a
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lockdown, Khan was quoted as saying
that it was the “elites who locked down
the country.”
At the outset of the outbreak in
December 2019, Khan’s government
remained unresponsive as the novel
coronavirus started taking its toll in
China, Pakistan’s northeastern neighbor
and close economic and political part-
ner.
Later, dozens of returning Shiite
pilgrims were quarantined at the Paki-
stan-Iran border in Balochistan when
the virus was first detected in February
2020 among those returning from visits
to the shrines in Iran. Many of the
returnees, however, were released with-
out a proper health check.
In March, the government of Punjab
province allowed a congregation of
devout Muslims, the Tablighis, in the
city of Lahore. Over 100,000 people
attended from across Pakistan, along-
side devotees from around 40 countries.
Both the Shiite pilgrims who
returned from Iran and the Tablighis
later turned out to become the main
agents of spreading the virus to other
cities.
Health experts across Pakistan are
the only segment ringing alarm bells
about the threat and have been asking
for a strict lockdown. But their voice was
often drowned out by official confusion,
the economic woes of the business com-
munity, and calls from clerics asking
believers to return to mosques for con-
gregational prayers.
In the month of May, as doctors
were issuing passionate appeals to the
government and the public to pay heed
to their warning calls, prominent reli-
gious scholars gathered to tell believers
that the lockdown does not apply to
mosques. It was the latter who prevailed.
Khan, in his June 5 televised
address to his so-called Corona Relief
Tiger Force volunteers, said that “it is
important to ensure people follow the
SOPs [standard operating procedures,
referring to precautionary measures]
because we can’t go back to lockdown;
this country cannot afford it.”
A few days later, on June 8, Pakistan
recorded more than 4,500 coronavirus
positive cases for a third straight day,
raising the threat of an exponential
growth in the number of cases.
Days before Khan’s speech, an offi-
cial report of Pakistan’s Punjab govern-
ment had suggested that “no workplace
and residential area of any town is dis-
ease-free” in the city of Lahore. The same
report estimated that total cases in the
city at over 670,000.
Pakistan now has the 16th highest
number of coronavirus cases in the
world, but the government’s public
messaging and decision making have yet
to assume a clear direction.
One may sympathize with Khan
while he speaks of the woes of the labor
and daily wage class being hit by a com-
plete lockdown, but, as health experts
suggest, opting for the economy over
people’s lives may result in serious
health crisis for the country. Clarity in
public messaging could limit, if not fully
stop, the spread of the disease.
July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 23
Indigenous Activism in Asia
The Pandemic’s Hidden Casualty:
Human Rights
For many of Asia’s indigenous peoples, COVID-19 is exacerbating long-standing policies
of marginalisation
s An indigenous man speaks during a rally to mark World Water Day outside the office of the Manila Waterworks and Sewerage System in metropolitan
Manila, Philippines on March 22, 2019.
By Carmina Flores-Obanil
@RightsinDevt
T he lush forests of the Sierra
Madre mountain range, on the
Philippine island of Luzon, have
been home to the Dumagat-Remontados
indigenous peoples for centuries. But
their ancestral lands are now under
threat.
In this area, the Philippine govern-
ment is planning to build the Kaliwa
Dam, despite environmental concerns
and opposition from local indigenous
communities at risk of being displaced
and losing their livelihoods. In 2009, the
Dumagat-Remontado – with the sup-
port of the Save Sierra Madre Network
Alliance (SSMNA) – had successfully
stopped the construction of the Laiban
mega-dam through a public campaign
and legal actions. But under President
Rodrigo Duterte, the project was scaled
down and last year it secured a dubious
environmental compliance certificate
and a $211.2 million loan from China
Exim Bank.
24 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020
Since then, militarization in the area
has increased. Community leaders have
been “red-tagged” and falsely accused of
belonging to the rebel group New Peo-
ples’ Army (NPA). “Under the guise of
suppressing the armed rebellion, the
military keeps attacking indigenous peo-
ples, who are caught in the crossfire
despite complete lack of evidence for the
accusations against them,” said Conrado
Vargas, a local community leader and
coordinator of the STOP Kaliwa Dam
Network (SKDN).
When the pandemic hit, the situa-
tion became even worse, as the heavy
presence of police and the military due to
the lockdown made it doubly hard for the
local people to move freely in their land.
In March, a member of the Dumagat-
Remontado community was abducted
and physically abused while in custody.
As denounced by the SKDN, this was the
latest episode in a context of continuous
violence, unreasonable use of force,
threats, and harassment by the military.
The case of the Dumagat-
Remontados is not unique. Across
Southeast and South Asia, indigenous
peoples and local communities – who
were already severely impacted by devel-
opment projects such as dams, agribusi-
ness, or mining activities – are now fac-
ing additional challenges due to the
COVID-19 emergency.
“In Nepal, those who violate the
lockdown have been arrested. But there
is insufficient information about
COVID-19 for indigenous peoples, as
materials have not been translated into
the different local languages. This fact –
coupled with police arrests – has raised
indigenous peoples’ fears about the dis-
ease,” said Durga Yamphu, from the Law-
yers’ Association for Human Rights of
Nepalese Indigenous Peoples
(LAHURNIP).
Moreover, despite the lockdown,
many companies have even expanded
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their operations. In the Ratanakiri prov-
ince in Cambodia, while local indigenous
peoples were sheltering at home because
of the pandemic, the Vietnamese rubber
company Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL)
cleared hectares of land and bulldozed
two sacred mountains, wetlands, tradi-
tional hunting areas, and burial grounds.
“My people believe in the spirits that
inhabit the forests and mountains. Now
that the company has cleared our moun-
tain, we have no place to pray and the
spirits will be very angry with our villag-
ers for allowing this to happen,” said Sev
Suen, a community representative from
Kak village.
The areas cleared were among those
designated to be returned to the
Ratanakiri indigenous peoples, as estab-
lished in 2015 through a mediated agree-
ment. In 2019, however, HAGL had uni-
laterally pulled out of the mediation pro-
cess, which was then re-opened this year.
But the promise of a fair agreement was
short-lived.
“This clearance of land already des-
ignated for return is the latest of many
acts of bad faith. The damage it has
inflicted on these communities adds
insult to injury, and it calls into question
whether HAGL is truly committed to
resolving this long-standing dispute,”
said Eang Vuthy, executive director of
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
Equitable Cambodia.
Across Southeast Asia, communi-
ties who live in areas impacted by devel-
opment projects have been denouncing
the double standards applied by their
governments. While daily wage earners
in the informal sector were forced to tem-
porarily stop working and lost their live-
lihoods, many business and extractive
activities were allowed to carry on.
“While we are observing quaran-
tine, the government has continued issu-
ing mining permits. And communities
we are working with also reported an
increase in illegal mining activities, con-
ducted especially by Chinese companies.
This has led to increased tensions, add-
ing to the emotional and psychological
burden of communities under quaran-
tine,” said Jaybee Garganera from
Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM), a national
coalition of organizations fighting
destructive large-scale mining in the
Philippines.
Moreover, in many countries the
lockdown was used as a pretext to fur-
ther curtail freedom of expression, of
assembly and of protest, exacerbating
the risks – including threats, attacks,
criminalization and retaliations – that
activists often face.
“In Mongolia, we have seen the
police stopping any attempt to voice a
protest, even when it was just one or two
persons doing live streaming, and people
have even been detained without court
orders,” said Sukhgerel Durgunsen,
director of Oyu Tolgoi (OT) Watch.
In the Philippines, on April 6
Rolando Pulido – chairman of Didipio
Earthsavers’ Multipurpose Association
(DESAMA) – was arbitrarily detained
while trying to stop the illegal mining
activities of Oceanagold Mining Corpo-
ration. Some indigenous Tuwali women
who had joined the peaceful barricade
were also injured by the police.
Yet, despite increased risks and
restrictions, activists and local commu-
nities are finding new strategies to orga-
nize themselves and to keep fighting for
their rights, both offline and online.
“As mothers and women, our effort
to volunteer as activists in the front line
is difficult, but we want to be there.
When we go to the barricade to monitor
who goes in and out of our community,
we clothe ourselves with prayers. We are
fearful but we also know it’s our respon-
sibility to continue this struggle,” said
Myrna Duyan, a Tuwali leader from
Bileg Dagiti Babbae, who has been bat-
tling against gold-copper mining in
Brgy, in the Philippines. Her story was
among those shared in the “Communi-
ties Take Back Spaces” campaign,
launched by ATM and LILAK (Purple
Action for Indigenous Women’s Rights).
The Asian Indigenous People Pact
(AIPP), a network of 47 indigenous peo-
ples’ groups in 18 countries, has also
been gathering testimonies and docu-
menting how their members are dealing
with the pandemic. Moreover, it has
established a response network that
helps weed out misinformation, lessen-
ing fear about COVID-19 among indige-
nous communities, and it coordinates
relief operations through community-
level health protocols that also include
traditional rituals.
“When spiritual ceremonies are
performed to enforce village lockdowns,
it is not to invoke fear but to call forth our
spiritual conviction and courage to face
the unknown. These are rituals used for
healing and saving lives,” said AIPP Sec-
retary General Gam Shimray.
The COVID-19 pandemic is laying
bare all the challenges that vulnerable
and marginalized communities were
already facing, and the unequal and
unjust system we are living in. But it is
also showing the resilience of these com-
munities, who continue to be vocal in
their struggle for human rights.
l Carmina Flores-Obanil is the Asia Regional Coordinator of the Coalition for
Human Rights in Development, a global coalition of around 100 social move-
ments, civil society organizations, and grassroots groups working together to
ensure that development is community-led and fulfills human rights.
July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 25
Snapshot
China Is Losing India
A clash in the Himalayas will push New Delhi toward Washington
s The cremation ceremony of an Indian soldier killed in a border clash with China, Maner, India, June 2020.
By Tanvi Madan
@tanvi_madan
A
t a seaside summit in southern
India in October 2019, Chinese
President Xi Jinping and Indian
Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged
to take relations between their two
countries to “greater heights” in the next
year. The Asian neighbors—which
together contain over a third of the
world’s population—promised to work
more closely in 2020, the 70th
anniversary of formal ties between the
two nations. Officials outlined 70 joint
activities, ranging from trade and
military delegations to academic studies
of ancient civilizational links, all
intended to strengthen Sino-Indian
cooperation.
But instead of deeper ties, 2020 has
highlighted the growing rivalry between
China and India. Since early May, Chi-
nese and Indian troops have been facing
off at multiple points on the remote, rug-
ged, and often disputed border between
the two nations. The situation escalated
on June 15 when Chinese and Indian
soldiers clashed in the Galwan Valley. At
least 20 Indian soldiers died in the skir-
mish, along with an unknown number of
Chinese troops (China has yet to disclose
any casualty figures). According to the
26 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020
Indian government, China precipitated
the fighting by seeking to change the
status quo on the boundary, advancing
into or hindering Indian patrols in terri-
tory that both countries claim. Chinese
officials, meanwhile, blamed India for
instigating the violent face-off.
The border dispute between China
and India caused a full-fledged war in
1962, and it has been a constant source of
friction since then. Still, last week’s vio-
lence is a serious escalation. The skir-
mish resulted in the first fatalities along
the Sino-Indian boundary in 45 years. It
also demonstrated that despite New
Delhi’s and Beijing’s cooperative efforts,
their relationship is a fundamen-
tally—and increasingly—competitive
one that can spill over into conflict. This
bloody clash in the Himalayas, in other
words, could have wider implications for
geopolitics in Asia.
SOURCES OF TENSION
Over the last two decades, China and
India have deepened their diplomatic
relations. They have strengthened their
economic ties; held meetings at the high-
est levels; and participated together in
regional institutions such as the Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank and
multilateral organizations such as the
BRICS grouping of Brazil, Russia, India,
China, and South Africa. China is India’s
second-largest trading partner, and Chi-
nese investment in India has grown from
a negligible amount a few years ago to
around $26 billion of current and
planned investment today, including in
the technology sector. Recent years have
also seen a greater number of Indians
traveling to study in China and more
Chinese tourists visiting India.
But these signs of greater coopera-
tion cannot mask the growing competi-
tion between the two countries. Over the
last decade, the long-running boundary
dispute has flared up at Depsang in 2013
and at Chumar in 2014, with the two mili-
taries also involved in a 73-day standoff
at Doklam in 2017. In each case, India
accused China of trying to unilaterally
change the territorial status quo by
advancing troops and establishing a per-
manent presence in positions they were
not supposed to occupy. Other unre-
solved issues continue to bedevil the
bilateral relationship, including the pres-
ence of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan refu-
gees in India (which rankles China),
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Indian officials believe
that China seeks to
stymie India’s ambitions
on the international
stage by blocking its
membership in
organizations such as
the Nuclear Suppliers
Group and the United
Nations Security
Council. China, in turn,
worries that greater
Indian coordination
with the United States in
multilateral institutions
such as the Financial
Action Task Force, the
United Nations, and the
World Intellectual
Property Organization
will threaten Chinese
interests
China’s control of the waters of the
Brahmaputra River (a source of concern
for India), and what New Delhi sees as an
unbalanced economic relationship.
Moreover, New Delhi feels increas-
ingly encircled. Not only has Beijing
strengthened its close ties with India’s
longtime rival Pakistan but China has
also expanded its presence in other
South Asian countries, including Ban-
gladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, as well as
in the wider Indian Ocean region. For its
part, Beijing has looked askance at
India’s growing closeness not just to the
United States but also to Australia,
Japan, and some Southeast Asian coun-
tries. Chinese officials worry about India
joining U.S.-led efforts to balance
against China.
At the level of global institutions,
Indian officials believe that China seeks
to stymie India’s ambitions on the inter-
national stage by blocking its member-
ship in organizations such as the Nuclear
Suppliers Group and the United Nations
Security Council. China, in turn, worries
that greater Indian coordination with
the United States in multilateral institu-
tions such as the Financial Action Task
Force, the United Nations, and the
World Intellectual Property Organiza-
tion will threaten Chinese interests.
“A WATERSHED
MOMENT”
Increased friction along the disputed
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border was, to some extent, expected.
Over the last decade, India has built up
infrastructure—including roads and
bridges—near the boundary to try to
match similar Chinese efforts. But the
current standoff differs from the three
previous clashes of the Xi era in scale as
well as intensity. Whereas previous skir-
mishes occurred in a single location, this
one erupted almost simultaneously at
multiple locations in the western sector
of the Sino-Indian border and at one in
the eastern sector. This round of clashes
also saw the deployment of a greater
number of troops, and far more aggres-
sion, on both sides than in previous skir-
mishes. Satellite imagery and local
reports suggest that China and India are
sending reinforcements to the region
following the clash.
The violence of June 15 has the
potential to mark what some analysts
have called “a watershed moment” in the
China-India relationship. Not only did
the fighting result in the first fatalities
along the border since October 1975 but
it made clear that the existing boundary
agreements and protocols are not work-
ing. It also suggests that Chinese and
Indian officials don’t have the same view
about which stretches of the border are
settled and which remain contested.
Beijing is now claiming sovereignty over
the Galwan Valley, an area that had not
been a flash point since 1962. This
impasse worryingly echoes the middle to
late 1950s, when Indian Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru believed the boundary
issue to be settled but eventually learned
that the Chinese side did not accept the
status quo, leading to a series of events
that sparked the 1962 China-India war.
Chinese and Indian officials are
currently engaged in dialogue at the mili-
tary and diplomatic levels to ease ten-
sions, but de-escalation may not be
straightforward. After the loss of so
many soldiers, a furious Indian public
will make it harder for Modi to accept a
change in the status quo along the
boundary. But to restore the status quo
prior to the Chinese military movements
in May, India needs either to convince
Beijing to remove its troops from multi-
ple points or to dislodge the People’s
Liberation Army by force from the dis-
puted areas.
The clash in the Galwan Valley
might lead Indian policymakers to take a
hardened approach to China. The Indian
readout of a June 17 call between the
foreign ministers was much firmer than
the Chinese one. It noted that
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar told his
counterpart Wang Yi that “this unprece-
dented development will have a serious
impact on the bilateral relationship.”
Since then, an Indian official bluntly
noted that it would be “ridiculous” to
expect no economic or other repercus-
sions. Reports of changes to procure-
ment guidance to India’s telecom sector
to exclude Chinese companies might be
intended as signals, but they also offer a
hint of what might come next.
A HARDER LINE
The standoff will likely weaken the posi-
tion of those within the Indian govern-
ment who seek more engagement with
China or argue that stronger economic
ties would ease political strains. Many
erstwhile advocates of these softer
approaches have now adopted a more
assertive stance. Public sentiment
regarding China, already turning sour
owing to the spread of the novel
coronavirus, has deteriorated further as
details of the brutality of the killings of
Indian soldiers in the Galwan Valley
spread in Indian media. Calls for a boy-
cott of Chinese products quickly fol-
lowed news of the clash.
This latest skirmish has made clear
that New Delhi has to make some critical
choices. At home, the government could
feel compelled to improve Indian mili-
tary capabilities and border infrastruc-
ture, which will require the diversion of
resources away from development
spending. In addition, Indian officials
will now aim to reinforce relations with
other regional and global powers to bal-
ance against a more assertive China.
New Delhi and Washington will likely
grow closer. Concerns about China’s
behavior in large part drive U.S.-Indian
relations, alongside an Indian belief that
the United States is “indispensable” to a
global balance of power. But there will be
some hesitation in New Delhi about putt-
ing all its eggs in the American basket.
Indian officials worry about Washing-
ton’s reliability and the consistency of
U.S. policy toward China. They will also
not want to irk Russia, a key source of
military equipment and one of the few
Indian partners that might have some
influence with China.
There remains the distant possibil-
ity of India and China reaching a new,
more effective agreement or modus
vivendi. A serious border confrontation
in 1986–87 led to a landmark visit to
China by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in
1988 and the subsequent forging of new
boundary agreements. But such a posi-
tive outcome seems unlikely for now.
And even if a new agreement material-
izes, the rancor of the past few weeks
ensures that India will doubt China’s
commitment to future pacts. New Delhi
will warily watch its mountainous north-
ern border for any sign of Chinese
aggression.
July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 27
Opinion Asia-Pacific
India picks a side in
the new cold war
It is folly for China to drive its rival into America’s arms
By Gideon Rachman
@gideonrachman
T he Sino-Soviet split was a critical
moment in the cold war. A Sino-
Indian split could be just as
crucial to the “second cold war” that
seems to be developing between the US
and China.
Until now, the Indian government,
led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi,
has tried to avoid choosing sides in the
fast-developing antagonism between
Washington and Beijing. But a parting of
the ways between India and China now
seems inevitable following last week’s
border clashes between the two nations’
armies, which left at least 20 Indian sol-
diers dead and an unknown number of
Chinese casualties.
Mr Modi has met President Xi
Jinping of China several times since
becoming India’s leader in 2014 and has
made five visits there. As recently as last
October, the Indian and Chinese leaders
held a friendly summit, after which Mr
28 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020
Modi hailed “a new era of co-operation
between our two countries”.
The mood in New Delhi is now very
different. Whatever happened high up in
the Himalayas, Indians feel assaulted
and humiliated by China. On Friday, Mr
Modi held emergency meetings with
leaders of the Indian opposition — a
remarkable development in itself, given
the extreme partisanship of Indian poli-
tics today.
There is now near-consensus in the
Indian policymaking elite that China is a
hostile power and that India’s only feasi-
ble response is to move closer to the US
and to Asian democracies, such as Japan
and Australia.
Despite Mr Modi’s efforts to build a
close relationship with Mr Xi, Indian
anxiety about the rise of China has been
growing for years. Indians have watched
nervously as China has built up a special
relationship with Pakistan — a country
India has fought multiple wars with. The
expansion of Chinese influence in neigh-
bouring states such as Sri Lanka,
Myanmar, Bangladesh and Nepal has
also gone down badly in New Delhi.
India signalled its displeasure by refus-
ing to send a top-level delegation to
China’s Belt and Road forums in 2017
and 2019.
But while the China hawks in New
Delhi have been gaining in influence,
there remains a dovish school that has
long argued it is not in India’s interests to
get sucked into an American effort to
“contain” China. In part, this reflects the
legacy of history. During the original
cold war, India pursued a policy of non-
alignment and was, in reality, often
closer to Moscow than Washington. As a
country of nearly 1.4bn people, India is
understandably determined to forge its
own path and maintain strategic auton-
omy. There are also sound economic
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
arguments for trying to maintain a good equidistance between the US and China, Indian intellectual, close to the Modi
relationship with China, which is India's is now likely to be abandoned by India. government, observed pointedly last
second largest trading partner.
Any thought of trying to maintain
There are even hints that India may con-
sider a formal alliance with the US. One
week that one reason China might feel
free to kill Indian soldiers — but not Japa-
nese or Taiwanese troops — is that Japan
and Taiwan are sheltering under a US
India needs to rid two misjudgments on border
situation
security umbrella.
Donald Trump’s hostility to the
American alliance system makes it
Chinese and Indian troops were engaged in a serious physical clash in Galwan highly unlikely that the US president
Valley on Monday. The Indian side said three Indian soldiers were killed. The Chi- would consider extending a security guar-
nese military confirmed that clashes between the two sides have led to casualties, antee to India, at least, not without con-
but did not release the exact figures. siderable financial inducement. But an
This has been the most serious clash between Chinese and Indian soldiers so administration led by Joe Biden, his
far. Indian media reported this is the first time since 1975 that soldiers died in bor- Democratic rival in November’s presi-
der conflicts between the two countries. dential elections, might well jump at the
India has been building extensive infrastructure facilities along the border,
idea of a formal alliance.
and forcibly built part of the facilities in the Chinese side of the Line of Actual Con- In recent years the US has become
trol regardless of bilateral divergences over the border disputes. The two sides more overt in its efforts to woo India, as a
went into repeated physical clashes as Chinese soldiers tried to stop their Indian balancing force to a rising China. In
counterparts. 2018, the US military renamed its Pacific
The arrogance and recklessness of the Indian side is the main reason for the command, the Indo-Pacific command
consistent tensions along China-India borders. In recent years, New Delhi has and India’s increasingly close military
adopted a tough stance on border issues, which is mainly resulted from two mis- ties with the US has been reflected in
judgments. It believes that China does not want to sour ties with India because of arms purchases, port visits and joint
increasing strategic pressure from the US, therefore China lacks the will to hit military exercises. An intensification of
back provocations from the Indian side. In addition, some Indian people mistak- that co-operation, in co-ordination with
enly believe their country's military is more powerful than China's. These Japan and Australia, looks inevitable.
misperceptions affect the rationality of Indian opinion and add pressure to India's Indians are wary of further direct
China policy. confrontations with China in the Hima-
The US has wooed India with its Indo-Pacific Strategy, which adds to the layas. But they may try to challenge
abovementioned misjudgment of some Indian elite. In 2017 when Indian troops Beijing on other fronts by working with
crossed the line and entered the Doklam area to openly challenge China's territo- allies in the Indian Ocean and the South
rial sovereignty, their craze was caused by such arrogance. Such an aggressive China Sea. India is also likely to make
posture has won praise from the Indian public, which means that the Indian elite's more concerted moves to lessen its eco-
mentality toward China is unhealthy and dangerous. nomic dependence on China. The
China does not want to clash with India and hopes to peacefully deal with chances of Chinese telecoms company
bilateral border disputes. This is China's goodwill, not weakness. How could Huawei being awarded contracts to
China sacrifice its sovereignty in exchange for peace and bow to threats from New build a 5G network in India now seem
Delhi? vanishingly small.
China and India are big countries. Peace and stability along border areas matter to Should China care? Beijing’s con-
both countries as well as to the region. New Delhi must be clear that the resources frontational posture suggests the Chi-
that the US would invest in China-India relations are limited. What the US would nese have discounted the dangers of any
do is just extend a lever to India, which Washington can exploit to worsen India's Indian retaliation. China knows that its
ties with China, and make India dedicate itself to serving Washington's interests. economy is nearly five times the size of
The gap between China's and India's strength is clear. China does not want to
India’s and that its military has more
turn border issues with India into a confrontation. This is goodwill and restraint firepower. The Chinese may even have
from China. But China is confident in the situation at the border. It does not and
judged that now is a good time to put
will not create conflicts, but it fears no conflicts either. This policy is supported by India in its place when the country is
both morality and strength. We will not trade our bottom line with anyone.
stricken by the coronavirus and the US is
The clash in the Galwan Valley this time has led to casualties on both sides, distracted.
indicating China-India border tensions, amid constant frictions, may spiral out of
In the aftermath of last week’s bor-
control. We notice that the leadership of the two militaries has exercised restraint der clashes, the Global Times, a national-
after the incident, indicating that both sides would like to handle the conflict
ist newspaper in Beijing, wrote, in an
peacefully and not let the conflict escalate. It is noteworthy that the Chinese side editorial, that India should learn from
did not disclose the number of casualties of the Chinese military, a move that aims
this incident and cannot rely on Wash-
to avoid comparing and preventing confrontational sentiments from escalating. ington for support and succour.
We would like to see tensions in the Galwan Valley subside. It is hoped that
In the short-term, that might well
the Indian side can strengthen management of frontline troops and engineers, be right. Over the long-run, China
and adhere to the consensus reached between the leadership of the two militaries.
should be worried. The four largest econ-
It will benefit both sides if the situation cools down, and it needs the efforts of both omies in the world, ranked by purchas-
Chinese and Indian frontline troops.
ing power, are China, the US, Japan and
On the China-India border issue, the Chinese public should trust the govern- India. All four nations are intensely con-
ment and the People's Liberation Army. They will firmly safeguard China's territo-
cerned by the balance of power in the
rial integrity and maintain national interests when dealing with border conflicts. Indo-Pacific region. It is folly for China
China has the ability and wisdom to safeguard every inch of its land and will not let
to drive India into America’s arms.
any strategic trick meet its end.
Courtesy Global Times (Editorial June 17, 2020)
Courtesy The Financial Times
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 29
Racism
Birds of a feather:
White supremacy and Zionism
White supremacy and Zionism are two of a kind, with both modelled on ethnic
exclusion. Therefore, if one opposes exclusion, and the desire for a racially or religiously
‘pure’ nation, one must oppose Zionism
By Nada Elia
Palestine
s The Israel flag and the Confederate-battle flag hung outside a house in Wise County, Virginia, 2016.
A confederate flag appeared in an
apartment window in
Manhattan’s East Village in New
York City last week, and the neighbours
were outraged. A few pelted it with
stones, calling it a hate crime. Many said
it did not belong in such a diverse city.
What few seem to have noticed is
that the flag was raised right alongside
an Israeli flag, sharing the same window.
Clearly, the unnamed occupant under-
stood the similar ideologies behind
white supremacy and the state of Israel,
which hinges on government-
sanctioned Jewish supremacy.
The New York resident displaying
both flags is not alone. One image that
has gone viral on social media, after
being first posted on Twitter by a Chris
30 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020
Arnade, shows a house in a rural setting
also flying a Confederate flag just above
the Israeli flag.
But the reasoning behind the link-
ing of the two symbols - white supremacy
and Zionism - is far from torturous. The
two are not strange bedfellows, but
rather natural allies. Both represent a
desire to establish and maintain a homo-
geneous society that posits itself as supe-
rior, more advanced, more civilised than
the “others” who are, unfortunately,
within its midst, a “demographic threat”
to be contained through border walls
and stricter immigration law. American
fascism, then, is holding up a mirror to
Zionism.
Richard Spencer, the de facto leader
of the “alt-right” white supremacist
movement in the US, lucidly articulated
that argument when he answered a
reporter on Israel’s Channel 2, who
asked him about the chants of “blood and
soil” which his followers were declaim-
ing at the Charlottesville rally in Virginia
earlier this month.
Spencer explained that, logically,
Zionists should “respect” his views: “...
an Israeli citizen, someone who under-
stands your identity, who has a sense of
nationhood and peoplehood, and the
history and experience of the Jewish
people, you should respect someone like
me, who has analogous feelings about
whites. You could say that I am a white
Zionist – in the sense that I care about
my people, I want us to have a secure
homeland for us and ourselves. Just like
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
you want a secure homeland in Israel”.
This was not the first time Spencer
has compared his supremacist views
with Zionism. In December 2016, he
argued with a rabbi that Israel does not
accommodate diversity.
“You come here with a message of
radical exclusion. My tradition teaches a
message of radical inclusion, as embod-
ied by Torah,” Rabbi Matt Rosenberg of
Texas A&M University told Spencer,
before offering: “Would you sit down
and study Torah with me and learn
love?”
“Do you really want radical inclu-
sion into the State of Israel?” Spencer
replied. “Jews exist precisely because
you did not assimilate to the gentiles… I
respect that about you. I want my people
to have that same sense of themselves.”
Rosenberg was left speechless, unable to
effectively rebuke Spencer.
Capitalising on this understanding
of similar ideologies, a website actually
sells “friendship pins” with the Confed-
erate flag and the Israeli flag crossing
over.
Anti everyone
This is not to suggest that fascists, neo-
Nazis, and white supremacists “like”
Jews. There is no misinterpreting or
minimising the hateful anti-Semitism of
blood-curdling chants such as “Jews will
not replace us.” Indeed, racists tend to
dislike anyone and everyone who is not
from their community, and white
supremacists in particular are not only
anti-Semitic, but also, obviously, anti-
Black, anti-indigenous, anti-Latina,
Islamophobes, homophobic and misog-
ynist.
The “national history” fascist rallies
celebrate is one of the dispossession of
the Indigenous people of this continent,
alongside the enslavement of African
Americans. The immigrants they would
have their government deport come
mostly from Latin America, as well as the
Arab and Muslim world. Yes, racist
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
whites are once again proudly proclaim-
ing their heinous anti-Semitism. But
with their embrace of Israel, they are
also, indirectly, confirming that anti-
Semitism and anti-Zionism are com-
pletely different worldviews.
One, anti-Semitism, is a blanket,
indiscriminate hatred of people simply
for who they are, by accident of birth.
The other, anti-Zionism, is grounded in
the political conviction that a system of
racial supremacy is wrong, regardless of
who is engaging in it. Indeed, anti-
Zionists fully understand that, with tens
of thousands of churches in the US and
around the globe supporting Israel,
there are actually more Christian than
Jewish Zionists in the world. Many of
those Christian Zionists are also white
supremacists.
This unfortunate moment in Ameri-
can history, then, should present us with
the opportunity to disentangle anti-
Semitism from anti-Zionism. It’s a dis-
tinction activists for Palestinian rights
have long been arguing, yet one that
keeps getting blurred by official remarks
that criticism of Israel’s policies is a
thinly disguised form of Jew hatred.
The intentional equation of anti-
This unfortunate
moment in American
history, then, should
present us with the
opportunity to
disentangle anti-
Semitism from anti-
Zionism
Zionism with anti-Semitism has ham-
pered justice for Palestine and the Pales-
tinian people for way too long, and serves
to censor criticism of Israel, but also,
more importantly, seeks to shut down
actual organising to put an end to Israel’s
multiple violations of international law.
Anti-Semitism is
rampant within neo-
Nazi, ‘alt-right’ and
fascist communities,
even as they celebrate
Israel, precisely because
it is a model of ethnic
exclusion, while anti-
Zionist organisers are
engaged in broad anti-
racist organising
Thus we see that the legislative
efforts to criminalise BDS, the global
campaign of Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions on Israel until it respects the
human rights of the Palestinian people,
are presented as measures to stem anti-
Semitism.
If we are to gain anything from this
critical moment, we absolutely must
seize the opportunity offered us by white
supremacists to foreground the similari-
ties between fascism and Zionism. It is
incumbent upon us to point out that
anti-Semitism is rampant within neo-
Nazi, “alt-right” and fascist communi-
ties, even as they celebrate Israel, pre-
cisely because it is a model of ethnic
exclusion, while anti-Zionist organisers
are engaged in broad anti-racist organiz-
ing, as we ally with African-Americans,
Indigenous people, immigrants, and the
hundreds of thousands of Jews who are
also critical of Israel.
The anti-fascist moment in the US is
also a moment for Zionists to reconsider
their support for any state that is
founded on ethnic cleansing and
exclusionary practices. Yes, white
supremacy and Zionism are birds of a
feather, whose flags can and do fly
together. Therefore, if one opposes
exclusion, the aspiration to a racially or
ethnically or religiously “pure” nation,
one must oppose Zionism.
Americans are speaking of a “mo-
ment of revelation,” one in which the
historical undercurrent of white
supremacy is surfacing again, because it
is sanctioned by the present administra-
tion. Such a “moment” of revelation has
been happening for many years in Israel,
whose government is embracing ever
more discriminatory measures, leading
the UN to name the law of the land for
what it is: apartheid, a crime against
humanity. It is imperative to expose and
denounce both.
l Nada Elia is a Diaspora Palestinian writer and political commentator, currently
working on her second book, Who You Callin’ “Demographic Threat?” Notes from
the Global Intifada. A professor of Gender and Global Studies (retired), she is a
member of the steering collective of the US Campaign for the Academic and
Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI)
July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 31
Peace Operations
Is Pakistan Ready To Crack Down
On Afghan Taliban Sanctuaries?
Regional specialists hope that this time around Islamabad will follow through on
its words
s General Qamar Javed Bajwa, left, met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul on June 9, 2020.
By Abubakar Siddique
@sid_abu
I n a visible attempt to jump-start
talks between the Afghan
government and the Taliban,
Pakistan’s powerful army chief General
Qamar Javed Bajwa visited Afghanistan
amid the coronavirus pandemic that is
taking a mounting toll on the
neighboring countries.
As in similar leadership meetings in
the past, both sides reiterated coopera-
tion and Pakistani support for peace in
Afghanistan during the June 9 meetings
between Bajwa and Afghan leaders.
“Both sides discussed the peace
process and Pakistan’s support for the
process,” an Afghan presidential state-
ment noted. “They also discussed that
the soil of the two countries would not be
used against each other.”
The statement noted Bajwa’s sup-
port for “independence, and the republi-
can and democratic [political system] in
Afghanistan.”
In Rawalpindi, a city adjoining
Islamabad where the Pakistani Army is
32 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020
headquartered, the public message also
reiterated cooperation.
“[The Afghan] president was appre-
ciative of the role being played by Paki-
stan for [the] Afghan peace process,” the
military’s public relations office wrote on
Twitter on June 8. “Both sides discussed
current developments in the Afghan
peace process, necessary steps to facili-
tate [the] Afghan-led and owned peace
process and facilitation of trade and con-
nectivity.”
But apart from the rather vague
pledge of not letting their soil being used
against the other, the two sides have not
mentioned, let alone agreed, on a frame-
work to tackle the most contentious
issues that have defined and dominated
their bilateral relations for decades.
The first is the issue of Afghan
Taliban sanctuaries. Since the emer-
gence of the Taliban movement in
Afghanistan in the 1990s, the Islamist
movement has largely been seen as a
Pakistani ally and even a proxy. Follow-
ing the demise of the Taliban regime in
late 2001, Afghan and Western officials
have flagged the Taliban’s sanctuaries
and support network in Pakistan as the
number one impediment to defeating
the insurgency inside Afghanistan that
now controls one-third of the country’s
rural areas.
Some Pakistani leaders have
attempted to rationalize Islamabad’s
support for the Taliban by projecting the
group as a bulwark against archrival
India’s influence in Afghanistan.
Islamabad also accuses Kabul of sup-
porting remnants of Pakistani Taliban
factions and Pashtun and Baluch ethno-
nationalists.
This is why all previous efforts to
bring together Afghan leaders and Paki-
stani generals in the hopes of reconciling
Kabul and Islamabad have mostly ended
in mutual recriminations.
But Washington appears to be bank-
ing on a different outcome this time
around as Bajwa’s public pledge of sup-
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
s Members of a Taliban delegation, led by chief negotiator Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, leave after peace talks with Afghan senior politicians in Moscow,
May 30, 2019.
porting the Afghan peace process came
days ahead of peace talks between the
Afghan government and the Taliban.
The talks are set to begin three
months later than scheduled in the Feb-
ruary 29 agreement between the United
States and the Taliban. The agreement
has created a framework for the with-
drawal of American troops and peace
talks between the Taliban and leaders
and factions supporting the current gov-
ernment and political system, formally
called the Islamic Republic.
“Ambassador Khalilzad expressed
his appreciation for the role Prime Min-
The agreement has
created a framework for
the withdrawal of
American troops and
peace talks between the
Taliban and leaders and
factions supporting the
current government and
political system,
formally called the
Islamic Republic
ister Imran Khan and General Bajwa are
playing in support of peace in Afghani-
stan,” a statement by the U.S. Embassy
in Islamabad noted after U.S. peace
envoy Zalmay Khalilzad met with Bajwa.
“The two agreed peace in Afghanistan
offers an unprecedented opportunity to
advance security, connectivity and
development for the region.”
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
Regional specialists hope that this
time around Islamabad will follow
through on its words.
“By supporting a negotiated
[Afghan] settlement, Pakistan is not
giving up its investment in the Taliban,”
said Barnett Rubin, a former U.S. gov-
ernment adviser. “It is cashing it in,
though at a lower profit than it originally
hoped for.”
He says Islamabad is unlikely to
move against the Taliban sanctuaries
without a peace agreement among
Afghans.
“If and only if the political agree-
For nearly a quarter-
century, the Pakistani
Army has [had] too big
an investment in the
Taliban to give up
ment between the Islamic Republic of
Afghanistan and the Taliban provides for
demobilization and repatriation of
Taliban fighters, including those in Paki-
stan, Pakistan will help implement the
agreement and move against any who
resist it,” he told.
Rubin says Islamabad is still
unlikely to crack down on the Afghan
Taliban as part of a pressure campaign.
“That is clearly in the interest of Paki-
stan, and Pakistan is sincere about pur-
suing its national interest,” he noted.
But many in Afghanistan and some
in Pakistan remain skeptical.
“After bringing the Taliban to the
negotiating table and midwifing the
U.S.-Taliban deal, Pakistani generals are
quite relieved as U.S. pressure has sub-
stantially decreased,” Afrasiab Khattak,
a former Pakistani lawmaker, noted in a
recent op-ed. “For nearly a quarter-
century, the Pakistani Army has [had]
too big an investment in the Taliban to
give up.”
Asfandyar Mir, a South Asia secu-
rity specialist, is also skeptical. “The
Taliban were and remain Pakistan’s
political actor of choice, and I expect
Pakistan to support them through the
intra-Afghan negotiations in the same
way as in the last 16 to 17 years,” he told.
Mir, a postdoctoral fellow at the
Center for International Security and
Cooperation at Stanford University,
noted that Islamabad might change its
approach to the group once it joins the
Afghan government as a result of the
peace process. He says this could trans-
form from “covert sanctuaries and mate-
rial aid to more formal mechanisms of
facilitation for Taliban leadership and
rank-and-file at a political and military-
to-military level.”
However, he argues, a lot still
depends on how Washington
approaches the issue. “Does it want Paki-
stan to dismantle Taliban infrastructure
during intra-Afghan negotiations?” he
asked. “From the public pronounce-
ments of Khalilzad, this is unclear.”
The litmus test of Islamabad’s
intentions may come in how it delivers
on more short-term goals. It could prove
skeptics and critics wrong by helping to
deliver a lasting cease-fire as representa-
tives of Kabul begin long-delayed peace
talks with the Taliban this month.
July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 33
Diplomacy
China Ramps Up Role
In Afghanistan Ahead of U.S.
Withdrawal
China, more than anyone else, wants to see a harmonious Afghanistan-Pakistan relation
and will contribute to any effort that helps improve the mutual trust and relations
between the two sides
s Afghan President Ashraf Ghani with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Kyrgyzstan in June 2019.
By Mustafa Sarwar
@Sarwar_mmustafa
A s the United States and its allies
begin what looks like a final
drawdown of their forces from
Afghanistan, China appears to be
expanding its role and influence in the
country.
Beijing is actively enhancing con-
tacts and possibly building robust rela-
tions with the Afghan government in
Kabul and the Taliban, visibly pushing
for a reconciliation between its long-
standing ally Pakistan and Afghanistan.
China is underpinning its diplomacy
with the prospects of greater trade and
investment in the impoverished country.
Arif Sahar, an Afghan security
expert based in London, sees China pur-
suing some major objectives in Afghani-
stan in the possible post-U.S. withdrawal
period.
34 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020
“Afghanistan’s large natural
resources could only be effectively
exploited by near neighbors rather than
distant neighbors because of the
geopolitical and logistical require-
ments,” he told Radio Free Afghanistan.
“China is also signaling that it is the only
country in the region with the financial
and economic capabilities that can be
relied on as a trustworthy partner.”
Based on leadership statements and
actions, Sahar also says Beijing is
actively pursuing a close relationship
with the Taliban. While China has
declared its support for the Afghan peace
process, it is also keen to protect its secu-
rity interests by reaching out to the
Taliban. A remote region in northeastern
Afghanistan is connected to the north-
western Chinese region of Xinjiang,
which is home to unrest and violence
that Beijing views as a major threat.
Such interests have prompted
China to attempt to cultivate a more
robust relationship with Afghanistan.
Over the past several weeks, senior Chi-
nese officials have reached out to Afghan
counterparts.
“As a neighbor and friend of
Afghanistan, China respects the Afghan
people's choice of their own develop-
ment path and stands ready to continue
to support, mediate, and facilitate the
peace and reconciliation process in
Afghanistan and further play its con-
structive role,” an April 27 statement by
the Chinese Foreign Ministry said after
Foreign Minister Wang Yi telephoned
his Afghan counterpart Mohammad
Hanif Atmar.
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
“China, more than anyone else,
wants to see a harmonious Afghanistan-
Pakistan relation and will contribute to
any effort that helps improve the mutual
trust and relations between the two
sides,” the statement quoted Wang as
saying.
Beijing has also offered to host a
dialogue between Kabul and Islamabad
“to push forward cooperation among the
three countries.”
Afghanistan is part of Beijing’s
mask diplomacy amid the coronavirus
pandemic that originated in China. The
country has dispatched much-needed
medical supplies including face masks,
protective gear, and ventilators to
Afghanistan to fight the COVID-19 out-
break.
Beijing ditched its past policy of
avoiding Afghanistan when most NATO
troops withdrew from Afghanistan in
2014. It then attempted to become the
biggest business investor in Afghanistan
when Chinese companies announced
billions of dollars’ worth of investments
in copper mining and oil exploration.
Chinese companies have been involved
in Afghan infrastructure and develop-
ment projects and, significantly, Beijing
has extended some development aid and
security assistance to Afghanistan.
On the diplomatic front, China sup-
ported reconciliation in Afghanistan.
Beijing hosted informal meetings
between the Taliban and Afghan govern-
ment representatives and welcomed
public visits by senior Taliban leaders
such as Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. It
supported the process that resulted in an
initial peace deal between the United
States and the Taliban on February 29.
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
But Beijing’s low-key investment
approach didn’t appeal to Washington.
In November, Alice Wells, the recently
retired acting assistant secretary of state
for South and Central Asia, voiced criti-
cism of China’s role in Afghanistan
“China is not a provider of any sig-
nificant grant assistance. It has invested
or it has laid claim to a copper mine, a
significant copper mine, but has never
developed the copper mine,” she told a
think tank audience in Washington. “I
haven’t seen China take the steps that
would make it a real contributor to
Afghanistan’s stabilization, much less
stitching it back into Central Asia and the
international community.”
Sahar, however, says China is pur-
suing an aggressive foreign policy not
only to thwart the West but also to
undermine its neighbor and regional
rival, India, in Afghanistan. In recent
years, New Delhi has emerged as a close
strategic partner of Kabul.
A Pentagon report in January tried
to explain the new Chinese approach.
“China believes regional stability
will improve its access to trade markets,
weaken western regional influence, and
counterbalance India’s role and strategic
expansion in the region,” the report said.
“China is seeking to become more
involved in intra-Afghan talks.”
The report highlighted that China
has widened its relationship with
Afghanistan “toward a greater emphasis
on political and military engagement.” It
said the relationship “was largely con-
fined to economic matters before 2015.”
The Pentagon also attempted to
identify Chinese security objectives in
Afghanistan. “China is primarily con-
cerned that Uighur militants transit
through the Afghanistan Wakhan Corri-
dor, which borders China’s Xinjiang
Province,” the report said. “China pro-
moted counterterrorism and economic
integration between Afghanistan and
Pakistan.”
Local officials in northeastern
Badakhshan Province, where Wakhan is
located, recently claimed many Uighur
fighters are present in the province. But
the Taliban have rejected such claims.
Valey Arya, an Afghan commenta-
tor based in London, says the Chinese
effort in Afghanistan is part of its larger
push to utilize its economic, military,
diplomatic, and intelligence power in its
immediate neighborhood.
“The withdrawal of coalition forces
from Afghanistan, stability in the coun-
try, and a government which is friendly
with Pakistan are other foreign policy
goals of China,” he said, arguing that
these objectives are informed by
Beijing’s close strategic alliance with
Islamabad.
But he sees China unlikely to
assume the role held by the United States
and its allies in Afghanistan. “It’s very
unlikely that in the near future China will
have the will, mechanisms, and
resources of providing aid to other coun-
tries in the same way that Western
democracies did,” he noted. “China does-
n’t have that kind of tradition.”
Sine late 2001, Washington and its
allies have recreated an Afghan state by
providing hundreds of billions in aid and
helping Afghans resurrect and sustain
key institutions. Beijing, however, seems
more likely to pursue its own interests.
July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 35
Anti-Submarine Warfare

UAVs Over the Maritime Horizon

Maritime patrolling with UAVs has becoming the norm, allowing manned missions to be
dedicated to more mission specific tasks

s Elbit Systems has found some traction in the airborne maritime patrol and surveillance market with its Hermes 900 UAV.

several UAV’s including the Hermes 900
to explore the feasibility of supporting
search and rescue (SAR) operations. The
MCA will commence evaluations from
West Wales airport within 2020, while
the maritime missions will be conducted
within the Aberporth military training
s Beihang UAS is offering an improved version of the shadowy in-service BZK-005 medium altitude long endurance reconnaissance UAV for export. area.
One of the main objectives, accord-
By Jr Ng ing to MCA officials, will be to validate
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia the effectiveness and safety of UAVs and
pave the way for Civil Aviation Authority
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has
introduced a new ASW capability to its
Heron MALE UAV family. The company
said it has developed a new sonobuoy
dispensing system (SDS) and a magnetic
anomaly detector (MAD) which enable
air vehicle to detect and track subma-
rines in both shallow and deep waters.
These new payloads complement
the Heron’s primary surveillance sensor,
the IAI ELTA E/LM-2022U maritime
radar which is lighter and more compact
(nm) of water from a cruising altitude of
20,000 feet (6,100m)
“The use of UAV-mounted ASW
capabilities offers significant advantages
over conventional manned aircraft,
including longer mission time, persis-
tent monitoring of sonobuoys, and cen-
tralised operation of surveillance over
very large areas,” the company stated.
According to IAI, the radar – which
it claims can detect and classify “all
types” of surface targets from large ves-

A
irborne maritime operations
such as anti-submarine warfare
(ASW), intelligence,
surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR)
and patrol missions have typically been
the province of multi-engine aircraft
specifically designed for extended
overwater operations or commercial
platforms modified for such operations.
However, the means of acquiring
and maintaining adequate fleets of such
manned platforms remain beyond what
some Asia Pacific countries – including
maritime states with large economic
exclusive zones (EEZs) and contiguous
waters to secure – can field by their
respective air and naval forces and mari-
time security agencies.
As a result, there is a growing
requirement for affordable alternatives
to conventional ISR and maritime patrol
aircraft (MPA) which the unmanned
aerial vehicle (UAV) industry hopes to
address with medium- and high-
altitude, long endurance (MALE and
HALE) platforms with their long range
and loiter capabilities as well as their
inherent to carry multiple sensor pay-
loads simultaneously.
At the other end of the spectrum are
smaller fixed-wing and vertical take-off
and landing (VTOL) UAVs, which are
also gaining favour as shipborne ISR
assets that can be readily deployed to
extend a surface vessel’s detection range.
MALE UAVs
Israel’s Elbit Systems has developed a
maritime patrol mission suite for its Her-
mes 900 UAV, which can comprise a
synthetic aperture radar (SAR) such as
Leonardo’s Gabianno T200 X-band
radar, a stabilised electro-
optical/infrared (EO/IR) turret and elec-
tronic surveillance systems.
According to Elbit’s specifications,
the Hermes 900 has a maximum take-off
weight (MTOW) of up to 2,600lb
(1,180kg) and can carry 660lb (300kg) of
mission equipment. This includes up to
550lb (250kg) of internal stores in its
2.5m-long payload bay, which the com-
pany believes to be among the largest
available for its class.
Elbit Systems has also stated that its
Universal Ground Control Station
(UGCS) can simultaneously control two
Hermes 900 UAVs to maximise asset
utilisation and manpower, while reduc-
ing overall operating costs.
The Hermes 900 has met with a
recent string of successes in Europe. For
instance, the European Maritime Safety (CAA) permission to operate these sys- version of the E/LM-2022 system sels to low radar cross section (RCS)
Agency (EMSA) has been used to provide tems in unrestricted airspace. already deployed aboard MPAs around boats using inverse-SAR mode – can be
maritime patrol services to on a daily the world. According to IAI, the E/LM- complemented by electronic support
rotation since April 2019, with Iceland Heron Fishes for Subs 2022U can cover up to 150 nautical miles measures (ESM) and communications
being the first country to take advantage
of this service. According to Elbit Sys-
tems, the Icelandic maritime authorities
are using the eastern Egilsstaðir airport
from which the UAV – modified to with-
stand the North Atlantic Ocean’s strong
winds and icy conditions – can cover
over half of the country’s EEZ.
The Hermes 900 has also found
regional traction with at least two of the
nine air vehicles – ordered under a $153
million package that includes other
UAVs such as the Hermes 450 and Sky-
lark – already delivered and undergoing
local testing and integration by the Phil-
ippine Air Force (PAF).
Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana
told media that the Hermes 450 and Her-
mes 900 UAVs are expected to be oper-
ated from airbases in Palawan province
facing the South China Sea as well as in
the southern province of Mindanao.
More recently, Elbit Systems
announced in February that it has been
contracted by the UK’s Maritime and
Coastguard Agency (MCA) to supply s In 2013, Japan’s Ministry of Defense released image and the track of the Chinese BZK-005 Strategic Surveillance UAV flying over the Diaoyu Islands.

36 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020

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July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 37
s China’s CASC is developing a heavy fuel engine version of its popular CH-4 UAV and eyeing regional requirements for affordable maritime patrol. It has
also integrated a belly mounted synthetic aperture radar seen here.
intelligence (COMINT) systems to moni-
tor electromagnetic signatures and cue
the radar to the presence of vessels and
human activity.
“The ELM-2022U can spot subma-
rine periscopes and snorkels from a
great distance,” the company added,
noting that the UAV would engage its
SDS and loiter over an area to receive
and process acoustic signals generated
by deployed sonobuoys, cross referenced
with data from its MAD probe, radar,
and EO/IR sights. The intelligence is
then transmitted to a shore-based con-
trol centre or a ship’s combat informa-
tion centre (CIC) using satellite commu-
nication (SATCOM) or direct line-of-
sight (LOS) datalinks.
IAI is also highlighting how Heron
UAV mission control modules, including
stabilised directional antennas and
SATCOM terminals, can enable naval
vessels to take over control of in-theatre
UAVs to as part of their organic sensor
net to boost situational awareness.
The Chinese Perspective
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is
widely seen to be one of the leading
regional developers of maritime-specific
UAVs, having deployed such platforms
operationally for at least a decade. For
instance, the interception of a Chinese
air vehicle – since identified to be the
MALE-class Beijing University of Aero-
nautics and Astronautics (BUAA) BZK-
005 – by Japan Air Self-Defense Force
(JASDF) combat aircraft over the East
China Sea on 9 September 2013 provided
the first glimpse of the People’s Libera-
38 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020
tion Army Air Force (PLAAF’s) emerging
long-range unmanned maritime surveil-
lance capabilities.
According to the Japanese Ministry
of Defense (MoD), the JASDF aircraft
tracked the UAV heading towards the
Miyako strait between Okinawa and
Miyakojima islands before the air vehicle
performed a short circular patrol about
92nm (170km) shy of the waterway
before returning to China.
The indigenously developed BZK-
005 UAV – also known as the Changying
(Long Eagle) – is understood to be the
standard long-range reconnaissance and
electronic intelligence (ELINT) platform
for the PLAAF as well as the PLA Ground
Force (PLAGF) and PLA Navy (PLAN).
According to Beihang UAS, the com-
mercial arm of BUAA, the distinctive
airframe of the BZK-005 comprises a
main fuselage that incorporates a top-
mounted satellite communications
antenna fairing, with swept back mid-
mounted wings that support twin
tailbooms.
Company specifications, the BZK-
005 has maximum take-off weight
(MTOW) of 2,755lb (1,250kg) and offers
a payload carrying capacity of 330lb
(150kg). The UAV is powered by a rear-
mounted piston engine that drives a two-
bladed pusher-propeller that enables it
to attain a claimed maximum level flight
speed of 107kts (200km/h) although it
typically cruises at speeds between 64-
97kts (120-180 km/h) up to its ceiling of
24,000ft (7,300m). Operational radius
is believed to exceed 1,000 nautical miles
(1,850km) when equipped with
SATCOM datalinks.
Beihang UAS is quoting a flight
endurance of 40 hours when the BZK-
005 is configured as a maritime ISR plat-
form with a chin-mounted EO/IR sensor
turret, although it has also been sighted
over the years with a chin-mounted SAR
system along with a belly mounted
EO/IR turret, or studded with
COMINT/ELINT antennas.
The company launched an export
variant called the BZK-005E in late
2018, which features a higher MTOW of
3,300lb (1,500kg) and improved pay-
load capacity of 815lb (370kg) and is
understood to feature a more powerful,
three-bladed propulsion system. It has
also developed the TYW-1, a strike-
capable version of the BZK-005 with
four underwing hardpoints that can be
used to mount weapons.
The state-owned China Aerospace
Science and Technology Corporation
(CASC) is likewise developing a new
heavy fuel engine (HFE)-equipped vari-
ant of its Cai Hong 4 (Rainbow 4, or CH-
4) MALE UAV for potential maritime
operations, noting that such propulsion
configurations can offer extended on-
station loiter while reducing mainte-
nance workloads.
The CH-4 has been acquired by mili-
tary forces in the Middle East and even
Southeast Asia, with the Indonesian Air
Force (TNI-AU) set to receive as many as
six conventionally powered air vehicles
along with associated ground control
equipment and mission systems. At least
two examples have already been deliv-
ered as of October 2019.
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
s Schiebel is offering its S-100 vertical take-off and landing UAV with a new heavy fuel engine and wide area sensors such as the PT-8 Oceanwatch.
VTOL UAVs RAN’s 12 Arafura-class offshore patrol VTOL UAV.
vessels (OPVs), the first two of which are According to Schiebel, the UAVs
Regional interest in VTOL UAVs has also
being built by ASC under the direction of will be deployed in 2020 to the Pak
taken off largely due to a growing
prime contractor Lürssen. Phase 2 will Phanang district in the southern Nakhon
requirement to equip new naval and
select another UAV type to equip the Si Thammarat province, as well aboard
even maritime security vessels with an
nine future BAE Systems Hunter-class RTN frigates to support land- and sea-
organic and readily deployable offboard
frigates. based ISR operations. The company said
sensor platform to aid situational aware-
The RAN’s S-100 UAVs are believed it will supply the UAVs and effect tech-
ness and/or targeting.
to be equipped with L3Harris Wescam’s nology transfer via its local partner, the
Unlike shipborne fixed-wing UAVs
MX-10 EO/IR payload, which can sup- Bangkok-based MoraThai Defence Com-
such as the Boeing-Insitu ScanEagle
port up to six sensors simultaneously pany.
system that must be launched by a cata-
including high-definition daylight and Switzerland’s UMS Skeldar is also
pult and recovered via an arresting cable
thermal cameras. It can also be equipped looking to leverage on its recent suc-
or net (which potentially limits their
with an eye-safe laser rangefinder to aid cesses with the Canadian Armed Forces
recovery envelope), VTOL UAVs typi-
targeting. and the German Navy with its V-200B
cally require much less deck space and
To boost the S-100’s maritime sur- VTOL UAV to secure its first customer in
are therefore easier to operate from
veillance capabilities, Schiebel has inte- the Asia Pacific.
smaller vessels.
grated Overwatch Imaging’s PT-8 The latest V-200B platform has a
Austria’s Schiebel has gained a foot-
Oceanwatch wide-area maritime sur- MTOW of 518lb (235kg) and features a
hold in the region with its S-100
veillance payload which is designed to 4m long pod and boom fuselage with a
Camcopter platform, which has been
detect small or distant objects. Accord- two-bladed main rotor measuring 4.6m
acquired under the Australian Depart-
ing to the latter, the PT-8 system in diameter, a belly mounted payload
ment of Defence’s (DoD’s) Navy Minor
employs a purpose-built multi-camera bay and fixed twin-skid undercarriage.
Project (NMP) 1942 programme aimed
gimbal with onboard artificial intelli- The V-200B features a lighter propul-
addressing a shipborne UAV require-
gence (AI) software that automatically sion system that provides up to 22lb
ment by the Royal Australian Navy
detects and tracks objects of interest. (10kg) in weight savings, which can be
(RAN).
Schiebel announced in November applied to either increase its endurance
The S-100 has a MTOW of 440lb
2019 that it has secured a deal to supply or payload capacity.
(200kg) and features a two-blade main
an undisclosed number of S-100 UAVs to For the maritime mission, UMS
rotor with a diameter of 3.4m and
the Royal Thai Navy (RTN). Skeldar has integrated Sentient Systems’
streamlined carbon fibre monocoque
“Following an extensive competi- visual detection and ranging (ViDAR)
pod and boom fuselage. According to
tive tender process, Schiebel was payload, which is a persistent wide-area
company specifications, the UAV can
awarded its first contract with [Thai- maritime sensor that automatically
carry up to 110lb (50kg) in stores along
land], which was signed by Schiebel’s detects objects on the ocean surface and
with 110lb (50kg) of fuel and is under-
CEO Hannes Hecher and Admiral provides the operator with detailed imag-
stood to offer a six-hour endurance when
Prachachart Sirisawat, director general ery and location coordinates of surface
carrying a 74lb (34kg) payload, although
Naval Acquisition Management Office, objects. According to Sentient Systems,
this can be extended to 10 hours with an
and authorised by [the] Commander-in- the ViDAR offers a 20nm (37km) wide
external fuel tank.
Chief of Royal Thai Navy Headquarters search swath, equating to over 13,360
This effort is expected to lead on to
in Bangkok,” the company said, noting square nautical miles of cover in 12 hours
Project Sea 129 Phase 5 Stage 1, which
that the S-100 will be the service’s first at a speed of 60kts (111km/h).
will field a suitable UAV aboard the
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July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 39
Sino-India Clash

In Ladakh, India’s problem is

bigger than China
In Ladakh, India’s political and military leaders may decide that it is better to swallow
the bitter pill of humiliation than to escalate matters with the 2020 version of Xi’s China.
But these leaders do not make decisions based on intelligence reports, or wisdom and the
principle of living to fight another day. They make decisions based on how it will play in
the peanut gallery of India’s oft-cartoonish mainstream news networks. This should
worry regional and global actors with stakes in India

By Mosharraf Zaidi
@mosharrafzaidi

F or India, the trouble in Ladakh is

much more serious and profound
than what meets the eye. The
reported bludgeoning to death of at least
20 Indian soldiers in a conflict with
soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army
of China is of course, as serious a
disruption in China-India relations as
one can remember. The wider South Asia
region, and the world community at
large needs to do everything they can to
urge restraint and calm between these
two Asian giants.
But the problem in Ladakh for India
is much more profound than simply
being overwhelmed by the onslaught of
Chinese muscle in the Himalayas. As
Indian mourns its fallen soldiers, it also
exposes the slow but unmistakable undo-
ing of two decades of the meticulously
managed arc of India’s strategic trajec-
tory, in the region and around the world.
The last time India suffered an
embarrassment of the kind that it has
experienced in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley
in the past week was over twenty years
ago in the mountains of Kargil, at the
hands of the Pakistan Army. The Kargil
conflict that ended in the summer of
1999 was the last major conflict Indian
soldiers faced in the Himalayas. That
conflict eventually consumed Pakistan’s
political system, leading to the over-
throw of then prime minister Nawaz
Sharif in a military coup, but it also left
all of India in a daze: How could this hap-
pen to India? How could India be so lack-
ing in preparation?
Those exact same questions echo
through the hallowed halls of India’s
South Block, where its foreign policy,
national security personnel and political
leadership converge to protect and
enhance India’s place in the world. As
the flag draped coffins of India’s soldiers
killed in Ladakh began to stream
through the television news channels, it
was those same questions about the

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July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 41
 The Kargil conflict
came as a major surprise
to India, and was widely
seen as a major
intelligence failure. The
Kargil Review
Committee that
Subramanyam chaired
recommended a wide
array of measures that
would strengthen India’s
ability to anticipate,
respond to, and counter
the hostile actions of its
enemies. Many of those
recommendations were
immediately
implemented, and some
were aligned with a
broader shift in how
India’s government was
structured that had
begun in the early 1990s
and picked up pace by
the turn of the century
standoff against China once again: How
could this happen to India? How could
India be so lacking in preparation?
When India’s political leadership
sought to answer these questions after
the Kargil conflict in 1999, it reached out
to a man known as K Subramanyam.
Subramanyam died in 2011, but is
widely seen by India’s friend and foe, as
the architect of the strategic arc that
India has followed since the turn of the
century. Among Indian strategists, he is
considered a hero. For good reason,
Indian’s strategic trajectory has been on
a constant upward curve since 1999. This
curve has a number of moving parts,
42 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020
from India’s new intimacy with the
United States, to its economic muscle, to
its success in burying its brutal actions in
Kashmir beneath an avalanche of cul-
tural and economic power. But at the
core of this curve is something much
more prosaic and uncomplicated: it is
the long-standing Nehruvian principle
of a strong and capable Indian republic.
The Kargil conflict came as a major
surprise to India, and was widely seen as
a major intelligence failure. The Kargil
Review Committee that Subramanyam
chaired recommended a wide array of
measures that would strengthen India’s
ability to anticipate, respond to, and
counter the hostile actions of its ene-
mies. Many of those recommendations
were immediately implemented, and
some were aligned with a broader shift in
how India’s government was structured
that had begun in the early 1990s and
picked up pace by the turn of the century.
One of the outcomes of the Kargil Review
Committee was a more coherent means
of collating military and civilian intelli-
gence.
The Committee recommended the
establishment of a range of organiza-
tions and institutions whose overarching
singular aim was to maximize and
streamline the availability of high quality
information for India’s decision-makers.
Among the only major recommendation
of the Committee that was not imple-
mented in the years following Kargil was
the creation of an office of Chief of
Defence Staff, who would be the single
point of contact for the Indian prime
minister on defence matters. The Indi-
ans call the principle behind the need for
this office, jointmanship.
In the years that followed Kargil,
India has grown both economically and
in stature as a regional and global power.
While the country faced many national
security crises over the two decades since
Kargil, none was deemed to be so blatant
and explicit a military embarrassment
for India as the Ladakh standoff with
China has turned out to be. One of the
most vital questions that has emerged in
the aftermath of the deaths of India’s
soldiers in Ladakh is the question of prep-
aration, and inevitably, of jointmanship.
Prime Minister Modi has done a
number of things differently than his
predecessors when it comes to national
security. First, he appointed a National
Security Adviser with a well earned repu-
tation as a hawk, especially on India’s
relationship with its neighbours. Ajit
Doval has been the Indian NSA since the
beginning of PM Modi’s first term, and
has now been in office for six years.
Second, he picked a non-politician,
(and until recently, superstar diplomat),
as his new foreign minister at the start of
his second term last year.
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar is seen by
many as one of the most central figures
in Indian foreign policy over the last two
decades, helping first negotiate India’s
nuclear deal with the US, then helping
shape India’s economic relationship
with China, and then helping broker
India’s strategic romance with the
United States (Jaishankar also happens
to be the son of the father of Indian stra-
tegic thinking, the aforementioned K
Subrahmanyam).
Third, after two decades of delays
and resistance, PM Modi finally over-
ruled everyone and everything to estab-
lish the office of Chief of Defence Staff.
The rubber stamp for this new office was
a committee chaired by none other than
his NSA, Mr. Doval.
As India searches for answers about
how China was able to mobilize a major
troop presence in the Galwan Valley in
Ladakh, or how India was unprepared to
provide aid or relief to its injured sol-
diers in the aftermath of the brutal vio-
lence between Indian and Chinese sol-
diers in the Galwan Valley, the question
of jointmanship will reverberate most
loudly and urgently. Between the most
powerful and capable NSA in India’s
history, a most suave and sophisticated
foreign minister, and a newly appointed
Chief of Defense Staff that seems per-
fectly aligned with his boss, how could
India’s massive national security infra-
structure fail to pick up the intelligence
that led to the Galwan Valley deaths?
The answer to this question may lie
not so much in the weakness of the
Indian republic and its structures. K
Subrahmanyam and his Kargil Review
Committee colleagues designed the
Indian response from the vantage point
of the world they lived in. Governing by
“Like” and “RT” was not part of that
world.
India has been blindsided by China
in Ladakh not because there is anything
missing in the Indian republic’s arsenal
of organizations, offices and individuals.
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
It has been blindsided because it is now
(and has been for several years) gov-
erned by the metrics that politicians,
The more vexing
problem India faces, that
most other democracies
currently do not, is the
problem of religious
extremism. A rabid,
angry and hostile
religiously tinged
discourse of Hindu
supremacy colours all of
Indian politics and
public discourse today
bureaucrats and soldiers (in India, and
in most democracies around the world)
now measure themselves by: how will I
look on Facebook? How will this play on
Twitter? Will they like me more?
The more vexing problem India
faces, that most other democracies cur-
rently do not, is the problem of religious
extremism. A rabid, angry and hostile
religiously tinged discourse of Hindu
supremacy colours all of Indian politics
and public discourse today. Combined
with the governance via social media
metrics, this spells disaster for the metic-
ulously designed and beautifully exe-
cuted strategic arc that has made India a
darling for its Western and non Western
allies in the last two decades.
Act I of this disaster was the Balakot
strike that PM Modi ordered in February
2019—India ended up begging its allies
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
to hand over an Indian Air Force pilot
who was shot down by Pakistan. Act II of
this disaster was India’s attempt to
annex Indian-administered Kashmir on
August 5, 2019. Act III is Ladakh—an act
that is the natural consequence of the
August 5th annexation. All of these acts
of aggression expose an India that,
despite having material, structural and
institutional capacity, cannot cash the
cheques of bravado that it keeps signing.
In its faceoff with China, India has
entered a dark alley with little to no way
out. It has committed itself to an aggres-
sive and expansionist policy in which it
regularly makes ridiculous territorial
claims over vast swathes of Pakistan,
Nepal, Bangladesh and China. Its run-
away religious extremism problem
means that its carefully cultivated client
patron relationship with a country, Ban-
gladesh, gets swept aside in mere min-
utes when Dhaka is faced with a wave of
anti Muslim propaganda across the
Indian political landscape. Its governing
by Tweet problem means that every
genie that has been unleashed by irre-
sponsible and divisive political rhetoric
must be followed by more of the same.
In Ladakh, India’s political and mili-
tary leaders may decide that it is better to
swallow the bitter pill of humiliation
than to escalate matters with the 2020
version of Xi’s China. But these leaders
do not make decisions based on intelli-
gence reports, or wisdom and the princi-
ple of living to fight another day. They
make decisions based on how it will play
in the peanut gallery of India’s oft-
cartoonish mainstream news networks.
This should worry regional and global
actors with stakes in India.
Buried in the morass of the Galwan
Valley conflict with China are deeper,
more worrying questions about how
information is processed and acted on
the Indian republic. Despite putting in
place the final piece (the office of CDS) in
the range of tools needed to sustain
India’s defense and national security,
intelligence warnings about China’s
growing troop buildup in Ladakh were
either ignored or not acted upon in a
timely fashion.
India’s NSA reportedly visited the
head of the Indian Army’s 14 Corps (the
corps that was established after the
Kargil conflict, to prevent another sur-
prise). In that visit he warned the Gen-
eral managing that corps of the impend-
ing tensions with China that he would
need to manage. Despite these warnings,
Indian troops had no weapons when
hostilities with the Chinese crossed boil-
ing point.
When India was embarrassed like
this the last time, in Kargil in 1999, it
established new structures, organiza-
tions and offices and began a trajectory
of sustained success and growth. But the
cause of the failure of intelligence and
jointmanship today is not one of a lack of
structures, or offices, or people. It is one
of a lack of decency and humility in India
mainstream.
Unless the Indian people put a stop
to this, further humiliation may be in
store. An embarrassed and unstable
India is good for no one. Much now
depends on the wisdom of the Indian
people. They must resist the
juvenilisation and radicalization of their
society, their politics and their republic.
India is a better country than Narendra
Modi and his associates are allowing it
be.
July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 43
White Supremacy
History and the Pursuit of Ideals
We are witnessing the dialectical clash between the ideals in Trump’s America
By Tahir Kamran
@TahirKamran1
H istory is just a catalogue of
success stories, is what people
usually tend to assert with an
excessive measure of certitude. History
has been written at the sheer will of the
powerful and it does not reflect the voice
of the meek and the marginalised.
Certitude and definitive conclu-
sions are no longer in vogue in the disci-
pline of history. Countless half-truths
and subjective inferences and opinions
mostly flesh out the skeleton of this
branch of knowledge. Now the scope of
history has gone beyond kings and bat-
tles, social, cultural, and intellectual
histories have changed its contours and
configuration.
Thus, as a discipline history has
ceases to be a catalogue of success stories
of the powerful. It is no longer the saga of
the collision of swords and spears but
dialectics of ideas, thoughts and ideals.
Imam Hussain (peace be upon him) was
defeated on the battlefield, but history
has vindicated him and not his adver-
sary. How do we explain that conclu-
sion? The imam was fighting for a cause
(or the ideal) and his adversary for the
sustenance of power.
44 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020
Tipu Sultan is yet another example.
If in the annals of Indian history, some-
one met the fate of a Greek hero that was
Tipu. He lost the battle at Seringapatam
but the ideal of freedom that he cher-
ished gathered strength even after his
defeat. It is not the success in the physi-
cal sense but the ideals that an individual
sets for him-/herself to achieve is what
perpetuates one’s name in history. The
propelling force for the history is the
‘ideal’ and the earnestness in the quest to
achieve that ideal.
Somehow the personalities, who
aspired to achieve the ‘ideal’ but couldn’t
despite the struggle and the sacrifices,
have far more traction and acknowledge-
ment in history than many conquerors
and emperors.
When I looked into the life histories
of people like Socrates, Jesus Christ
(peace be upon him), Gautam Buddha
and in modern history, Napoleon
Bonaparte and Karl Marx, it seemed to
me that their lives were not success sto-
ries as such.
Socrates was condemned to death
for the ‘perversion’ that he was allegedly
disseminating among the youth of Ath-
ens. But his impact on the history of
ideas is far more pervasive than many
kings and queens put together.
Buddha renounced worldly power
and pelf to pursue his amorphous ideal
to attain the nirvana. At the time of his
death, he had a handful of devotees. But
the ideal that he cherished and dissemi-
nated remains alive to this day.
Today, Napoleon is among the most
prominent individuals not solely
because of his conquests but largely
because of his legal and educational
reforms which impacted much of the
modern world.
Jesus Christ (peace be upon him)
represented the weak, the voiceless, and
the outcast, and sought to ameliorate
their lot and extend them care and kind-
ness. His firm belief in the truthfulness
of his ideal made him willing to sacrifice
his life. That turned him into a historical
figure. It is for this reason that the Chris-
tian creed is one of the most popular in
the world.
George Washington and Abraham
Lincoln are the two most revered presi-
dents of the United States of America
simply because they thought beyond
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
Karl Marx is unique in
some ways. Throughout
his life, he struggled
with marginal success
but because of what he
professed, he was one of
the most renowned
individuals in the
human history. Almost
half the world in the
second half of the 20th
century embraced his
ideology
power politics. What brought them a
secure niche in the world history are the
ideals and their firm belief in the veracity
of those ideals.
Karl Marx is unique in some ways.
Throughout his life, he struggled with
marginal success but because of what he
professed, he was one of the most
renowned individuals in the human his-
tory. Almost half the world in the second
half of the 20th century embraced his
ideology. The question that arises from
what we have so far discussed, is not very
easy to answer.
The ideal that Alexander pursued
was antithetical to what Diogenes
believed and practiced. What kind of
ideal does history vindicate and
endorse? Obviously imperialism, nazism
or fascism, too, were very potent ideals of
sorts, pursued by powerful individuals
who seemed to have full faith in what
they thought and practiced.
The ideals which have greater reso-
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
nance across the temporal divides, are
the ones constituting muted or sup-
pressed aspirations of the majority, liv-
ing in a certain territory. A close reading
of human history may reveal that social
afflictions like poverty, disease and emo-
tional stress are made excruciating by
the elite when they deny the underprivi-
leged the right to express the agony
plaguing their lives.
Prophets, reformers and philoso-
phers vindicated by history usually have
their fingers on the pulse of the muted
majority. These ‘eternal souls’ give
expression to the suppressed aspirations
of the people. They also use those aspira-
tions (or feelings) as nuts and bolts for
the ideals that they formulate. These
formulated ideals secure for them per-
manence in the annals of history.
Importantly, ideals that are race
bound or specific to a certain geography
can attract people temporarily, but such
ideals don’t have lasting value. That pri-
marily was the reason that fascism and
nazism failed to achieve their targeted
objectives, and history has condemned
these ideologies for their detrimental
role in human history.
Lastly, no single ‘universal’ ideal,
like Hegel’s absolute idea or world spirit,
works at all times. Every epoch has an
ideal specific to its own exigencies. Simi-
larly, ideals do vary with spatial differ-
ence, too.
We are currently witnessing the
dialectical clash between the ideals in
Trump’s America. Co-existence of multi-
ple ideals and freedom for their adher-
ents to express them is what, one may
aver, history is moving towards. It is not
the power or the pelf but the ideals, rep-
resenting the muted majority across race
and geography. The only context that
such ideals may have is ‘class’. It is
extremely important for Pakistani lite-
rati to think on these lines; they should
have clear ideals and the freedom to
express those. The best thing would be
for the ideas to be predicated in terms of
‘class’.
l The writer is Professor in the faculty of Liberal Arts at the Beaconhouse National
University, Lahore
July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 45
Pakistan Economy
The Balancing Act Of
Crisis Budgeting
While elaborate figures will not fill an empty stomach, equitably sharing the economic
burden can open many doors
By Dr Rafi Amir-Ud-Din
@rafiamiruddin
W hen the PTI government
took charge in 2018, many
Pakistanis, in general, and
the youth, in particular, had great
expectations from the regime. Ignoring
suggestions from certain quarters, the
outgoing PML(N) government
presented the 2018-19 budget.
The PTI government moved quickly
to present its ‘mini-budget’ to show its
vision. Many believed that the new bud-
get would have a radically different focus
concerning the long-standing economic
problems of the common man. PTI sup-
porters expected special treatment for
the poor and oppressed whose needs
they said were put on the back-burner by
the two mainstream parties representing
the ‘status quo’.
These people were disappointed to
see that the first two budgets of the PTI
government turned out to be routine,
46 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020
run-of-the-mill affair, with nothing “rev-
olutionary” about them.
Come 2020, people had even higher
expectations from the budget. People
expected some relief measures to help
them pass through the debilitating
effects of the Covid-19 crisis as
unscathed as possible. Ordinary people
(and not-so-ordinary public sector
employees) have once again been disap-
pointed by the budget.
Among many factors that denied the
government any space to design a rea-
sonable relief budget, the Covid-19
stands out conspicuously. This year, too,
they had to make the budget in the
shadow of the IMF diktat.
The latest episode of Pakistan’s tryst
with the IMF started in the middle of
2019. PTI entered the corridors of power
after years of hurling accusations at the
previous governments of indulging in
corruption and emptying the national
exchequer. It was shy initially of making
a request to the IMF for funding because
Imran Khan had been condemning the
previous regimes for making Pakistan
subservient to the dictates of the IMF.
The government tried instead to
seek help from friendly countries like
China, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. How-
ever, when the economic problems
became too hard to handle, it turned to
the IMF.
In July 2019, the IMF approved a
39-month extended arrangement under
the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) for $6
billion. The Fund-supported
programme also sought to coalesce addi-
tional support from multilateral and
bilateral creditors in excess of $38 bil-
lion. The express purpose of the EFF-
supported programme was to reduce
Pakistan’s economic vulnerabilities and
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
generate sustainable and balanced
growth, focusing on a decisive fiscal con-
solidation to reduce public debt and
build resilience.
Wh e n t h e arrang e me nt w as
approved on July 3, 2019, $1 billion was
immediately disbursed to Pakistan. The
remaining amount had to be phased over
39 months, subject to four quarterly
reviews and four semi-annual reviews.
The conditionalities at the heart of
the IMF programme were a multi-year
revenue mobilisation strategy to
broaden the tax base and raise tax reve-
nue. The provinces were also supposed
to support the consolidation effort by
following the best practices of public
financial management. Under the agree-
ment, Pakistan has to ensure a flexible
market-determined exchange rate and
put in place a tight monetary policy to
correct fiscal imbalances, rebuild
reserves and keep inflation low. Other
mandated policy measures included
redress of structural weaknesses in the
energy sector and improvement in the
governance of state enterprises.
Responding to Pakistan’s request in
the wake of monumental economic chal-
lenges posed by Covid-19, the IMF
approved a $1.4 billion emergency loan
through its Rapid Financing Instrument
(RFI). An expected $1.5 billion relief in
the shape of delayed repayment of loans
to bilateral creditors is in the offing.
It may be noted that the $1.4 billion
RFI is not part of the ongoing IMF
programme. The IMF has also cancelled
the approval of the second review of the
programme scheduled on April 10. The
Paris Club of creditor nations has also
suspended the debt service payments
from Pakistan as part of the G20 debt
relief deal. Despite all this, Pakistan has
$12.73 billion of external debt repay-
ment obligations in the fiscal year 2020-
21.
People’s expectations from the bud-
get 2020-21 need to be assessed against
the backdrop of the havoc wreaked by
coronavirus as well as its economic vul-
nerability predating the Covid-19 pan-
demic.
The federal budget 2020-21 suffers
from serious contradictions. The tax
collection target is Rs 4.96 trillion, which
is 27 percent higher than the Rs 3.91 tril-
lion in the previous year. This projection
is based among other factors on the pro-
jection that the economy would grow at
2.1 percent, and inflation would remain
stable at 6.5 percent.
Collecting this amount appears to
be an uphill task for a variety of reasons.
First, the performance in the previous
year is a stark reminder that only three
months into the pandemic could land the
economy in negative growth territory.
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
How the national accounts committee
released contradictory figures about the
actual growth rate casts a spell of uncer-
tainty on the veracity of the reported
figures.
What if, God forbid, coronavirus
continues to haunt Pakistan throughout
the next fiscal year. According to the best
guess, it would require a miracle to
restrict the level of negative growth to
the previous year. The economy is being
It is not the power or
the pelf but the ideals,
representing the muted
majority across race and
geography. The only
context that such ideals
may have is the ‘class’.
It is extremely important
for Pakistani literati to
think along these lines
pummeled by lockdowns, a sharp
decrease in the consumer demand
caused by unprecedented levels of unem-
ployment, and decreased foreign
demand for the exports.
The government expenditure is
increasing, partly because of a weaker
The PTI government
has injected substantial
cash into its Ehsaas
Emergency Cash
Programme. Around 12
million vulnerable
families were given a
lump sum amount of
Rs 12,000 to hedge
against hunger
national currency and partly because of
an urgent need to keep the fledgling
health sector afloat. A sizable social
spending devoted to vulnerable eco-
nomic groups under the Ehsaas
programme is required. The fiscal deficit
may thus reach double digits.
A high fiscal deficit would put Paki-
stan in a more vicious debt trap. In the
current budget, debt servicing is Rs 2.7
trillion against a net federal revenue of
Rs 3.7 trillion (after taking out the share
of the provinces). The defence expendi-
ture is Rs 1.66 trillion.
As regards the running of the civil-
ian government, it would cost the
national exchequer Rs 476 billion. The
pension bill, including the civilian and
defence components, is Rs 470 billion.
Given the large expenditures, the
government has absolutely no way to
undertake substantial relief for the sec-
tions of society which are most vulnera-
ble to the Covid-19 onslaught. The good
news is that the government has doubled
the health expenditure from Rs 12 billion
in the previous year to Rs 25 billion in the
current fiscal year. The sad part is that
despite an unprecedented strain on the
public health system, the expenditure on
health is just 0.4 percent of the budget
expenditure.
The unenviable position of the gov-
ernment begs another question. What
could have been done given the hard
times? Following the Covid 19 crisis,
most governments have tried to cushion
the impact of Covid-19 by providing stim-
ulus packages.
The relief packages at the global
level has reached $8 trillion. The PTI
government has injected substantial
cash into its Ehsaas Emergency Cash
Programme. Around 12 million vulnera-
ble families were given a lump sum
amount of Rs 12,000 to hedge against
hunger.
Given the resource limits, Pakistan
may have to explore some unique ways to
restructure the economy. This could
include the adoption of new technolo-
gies, focus on innovation, and empower-
ing the country’s citizens by boosting
their skills.
Documenting the economy is an
important area. In the past, several
efforts have been made to document the
economy without much success. How-
ever, efforts to digitise the economy
might face least resistance in these
extraordinary times because of the gen-
eral concern that currency notes are a
potential source of Covid-19 infection.
Substantially cutting the policy
rates is a time-tested tool for an eco-
nomic turnaround. The State Bank of
Pakistan has brought down the policy
rate from 13.25 percent to 8 percent. It
may be noted that the reduction in the
policy rate in other countries of the
region has been higher.
The current policy rate in Malaysia
and Indonesia is 4.50 percent, in India
4.40 percent, in China 3.85 percent, in
South Korea and Thailand 0.75 percent,
in Japan -0.10 percent, and in USA and
Euro Zone zero percent. Business lead-
ers in Pakistan believe that bringing the
policy rate down to 5 percent is impera-
tive to revive business activities.
Pakistan is undeniably in one of the
most challenging phases of its life. While
elaborate figures will not fill an empty
stomach, equitably sharing the eco-
nomic burden can open many doors.
l The writer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at COMSATS
University Islamabad, Lahore Campus
July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 47
Survival and Stability
A Difficult Budget
Both the prime minister and his adviser on finance have shunned proposals calling for
even a slight increase in tax rates. They want to continue with the stimulus approach
By Khaleeq Kiani
@KhaleeqKiani
A
s the government prepares to
present its second budget on
June 12, its economic team is
trying to push through the simplification
of the tax regime, ease of doing business
and Covid-19 response as cross-cutting
themes.
It would be a tough call indeed as
every segment of the population — from
government servants to the armed
forces, from labourers to employers and
from the poor to big businesses — wants
a helping hand amid the economic con-
traction.
For a change, provincial cash sur-
pluses may not be available to the centre
this year after almost a decade. The reve-
nue shortfall of almost Rs1.6 trillion is
too big and has already slashed the pie.
The four provinces had promised
together about one percent of GDP as
surplus to the centre this year out of their
joint share of over Rs3.25tr, which now
appears compromised around Rs2.2tr.
Next year will be no different given
the continuation of the Covid-19 impact
at least in the first half. As the current
fiscal year will be concluding at a record
9.5pc fiscal deficit, the outlook for 2020-
21 can be anything but hunky-dory. The
48 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020
for additional revenues in difficult mar-
ket conditions and correct wrongs in the
energy sector.
In his 2012 budget speech, Dr
Shaikh had lamented that even after the
injection of Rs1.25tr in five years the
power sector remained a source of con-
cern. Since then, another trillion rupees
have gone down the same drain and the
circular debt has monstrously moved
past Rs2tr again. Its financing and limit-
ing subsidies remain central to the sur-
vival of the IMF programme.
Simultaneously, revenues remain
the central challenge. A depressed econ-
omy can hardly afford more tax burden.
After quite some time, the Federal Board
of Revenue (FBR) appears to be not in
the driving seat — it is not as much the
adjudicator of its own cause as it used to
be. With support from some heavy-
weights in the prime minister’s think
tank on the economy, economic minis-
survival and stability will, therefore, be cation of actually limited resources to
the key challenge in the next fiscal year. keep the budget deficit at a minimum
Still, the premier’s adviser on level that is acceptable to the Interna-
finance and revenue, Dr Abdul Hafeez tional Monetary Fund (IMF) to pull
Shaikh, wants the next year budget to be through a troubled programme would be
a “simple policy document” rather than a interesting to watch. The overall debt
“horrible story”. Various assumptions profile is heading north and has its own
for subsidies, grants and support to the long-term consequences.
In the fire-fighting budget amid the Covid-19
gloom, Dr Shaikh’s manoeuvring capabilities will
tries — finance, industries and com-
be put to test. Like his previous stint as head of the merce — keep on challenging the taxa-
economic team, he remains an outsider to the PTI’s tion proposals.
rank and file. Yet he has to put back on track the Dr Shaikh has repeatedly pushed
back taxation files that suggest increased
reform agenda, reinvigorate the privatisation tax compliance cost and insisted to the
programme for additional revenues in difficult extent of irritation the ideas relating to
the simplification of businesses rather
market conditions and correct wrongs in the
than business strangulation. The reve-
energy sector nue policy themes are generally coming
up from the think tank, the World Bank,
vulnerable are still changing and so are In the fire-fighting budget amid the the National Tariff Commission and tax
the savings on account of interest pay- Covid-19 gloom, Dr Shaikh’s manoeuv- consultants so that the FBR is relegated
ments as monetary policy finally takes an ring capabilities will be put to test. Like to the role of an implementing agency
accommodating stance — an over five his previous stint as head of the eco- instead of policymaker.
percentage points’ cut is estimated to nomic team, he remains an outsider to For example, a lot of debate is still
have a cumulative Rs265 billion cushion the PTI’s rank and file. Yet he has to put going on about how to limit the number
so far. back on track the reform agenda, rein- of taxes to five or six, which are high reve-
How Dr Shaikh succeeds in the allo- vigorate the privatisation programme nue-yielding instruments instead of 40-
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
It is in this background
that at least 2,000 tariff
lines are expected to see
total abolition or a
substantial cut in
additional customs and
regulatory duties on raw
material and
intermediary goods used
by export sectors. It has
been acknowledged that
there was no need for a
new tax – all taxes were
already in place and will
start accruing as soon as
businesses resume
operations
45 taxes and duties with questionable
cost-benefit ratios.
In this context, the minimum tax
regime of the FBR is now in question. It
promised guaranteed revenue flows, but
is leading businesses to show losses
through double book-keeping for tax
evasion. Enforcement mechanisms,
therefore, are also coming under scru-
tiny now.
At the same time, no ministry,
agency or stakeholder wants to be
tutored on budget making, fiscal, mone-
tary and revenue strategy and yet have to
mould their stances because members of
the think tank and private revenue
experts have direct access to all power
corridors even though the traditional
revenue advisory commission could not
be operationalised this year.
Both the prime minister and his
adviser on finance have shunned pro-
posals even for a slight increase in tax
rates because of the economic downturn
and want to continue with the stimulus
approach. Dr Shaikh, Dr Ishrat Husain,
Shaukat Tarin and Razak Dawood have
called into question the number of taxes
like customs duty, additional customs
duty and regulatory duty. They are
instead building pressure for the
enforcement side to check smuggling
and effectively recover collections from
bottlers, cigarette suppliers and similar
consumer goods of which contraband,
duplicate and substandard products
flood the markets.
It is in this background that at least
2,000 tariff lines are expected to see total
abolition or a substantial cut in addi-
tional customs and regulatory duties on
raw material and intermediary goods
used by export sectors. It has been
acknowledged that there was no need for
a new tax – all taxes were already in place
and will start accruing as soon as busi-
nesses resume operations.
On this, the economic team is also
banking on bridging the 50pc tax gap —
the difference between potential and
actual collection — through the enforce-
ment mechanism with expert advice
from the private sector. A 15-20pc suc-
cess could add Rs400-500bn in addi-
tional revenue without new measures.
For this, capacity-based taxation for
traders and small businesses across the
country is under review.
Courtesy The Dawn
July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 49
Budget (Mini) Bus
Thoughts on the Budget 2020-21
It is clear that with dwindling exports and falling home remittances, the real challenge
in 2020-21 will come from the external account’s front
By Dr Kamal Monnoo
@KamalMonnoo
A s Pakistan’s moves towards its
Fiscal Budget 2020-21, likely to
perhaps be the most difficult
since its inception, ironically the
national economic management seems
to be in complete disarray. An absence of
economic leadership, lack of
coordination amongst various
ministries, no clear-cut vision or
direction to take the economy forward
and the sheer inability to proactively
deal with looming economic issues
seems to rule the roost – a game of
shadows on who really is in-charge! If
one was to ask for an organogram on the
basis of which Pakistan’s economy is
currently managed, one is sure the
government itself would struggle to
provide one.
A web of ministers, advisors, special
advisors, consultants, friends, tigers, etc.
who – what to talk about working in tan-
dem underneath a controlling authority
– are in fact a bunch of individuals on the
loose, operating in an environment of
disconnect, holding portfolios non-
commensurate to respective abilities,
overlooking multiple posts that either
50 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020
bear no intra portfolio synergies or in
some cases simply victims of neglect
owing to frequent changes in persons
managing those portfolios, resulting in
an inefficient management structure
that in essence fails to clearly identify
where the authority ultimately rests.
In the process no one truly feels
responsible and is willing to take the
blame in case of a mishap, be it be an air
crash, a sugar price debacle, IPP over-
sights, a pest/locust attack, mishandled
or expensive borrowings/deposits, nego-
tiating of an ill-conceived front-loaded
IMF programme that borders on coer-
cion rather than support – the list goes
on. As if this confusion and uncertainty
was not bad enough, the appointments
or human resource choices seem even
more intriguing. Whatever happened to
the lofty claims of merit, track record,
finding the best experts and appointing
only those personnel who have their
interests aligned at home instead of
abroad?
Anyway, back to the budget, where
people are beginning to get concerned
about what really is in store and on
whether this economic team is even capa-
ble of grappling with the kind of eco-
nomic challenges that face Pakistan
today? The negative effects from the
COVID-19 pandemic are already begin-
ning to unravel tangibly whereby now it
is quite evident that growth is going to be
negative (may be to the extent of –ve1.50
percent), Pak Rupee is once again begin-
ning to slide, domestic consumption has
slumped by almost one-third resulting in
reduced revenue collection by almost an
identical percentage, and pressure on
the external account is building due to
rapidly falling exports and home remit-
tances. Just to put things in perspective,
exports month-on-month in a year to
year comparison fell by about 70 percent
in the last two months and nearly 30
percent foreign Pakistani workers offi-
cially reported that they have lost their
jobs, something which is bound to
adversely affect home remittances in the
coming months.
Given our young population and a
high population growth rate, Pakistanis
need almost 2.50 million new jobs every
year, something that can only be catered
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
to by hitting a growth rate of +7 percent.
However, on the contrary, it appears that
even by conservative estimates nearly
1.20 million jobs instead stand eroded
since January 2020 to date.
Naturally, the budget needs to be
structured in a way that it incorporates
the desired outcomes. To start with, the
revenue side will have to be prudently
rationalised, meaning the collection
target needs to be adjusted in accordance
with market shrinkage. Given that eco-
nomic activity is likely to shrink by at
least one third, a realistic revenue collec-
tion target for 2020-21 correspondingly
should be at best 4.0 trillion rupees. For
any additional needs the government
will have to resort to borrowings, as its
public spending is bound to swell amidst
these difficult times, having already
announced a pandemic support package
of PKR1.0 trillion in the coming year.
More importantly though, a rupee saved
is a rupee earned and this is where the
prime focus of this budget should be.
With CPI inflation on the decline (re-
ported at nearly 8.50 percent in May
2020) the most logical thing would be to
reduce the interest rate to at least 6 per-
cent if not more. As the government is
the largest borrower in the economy in
any case, this step alone will give the
national exchequer a fiscal space of
around Rs1500 billion. Combine this by
any savings that the government can
manage by giving a long-awaited haircut
to its own size and the revenue outlook
for Budget 2020-21 already starts to look
quite promising.
An unprecedented drop in oil prices
is yet another area where the govern-
ment could create extra fiscal space. For
example, an approximate decline of
around 25 percent in global oil prices
gives Pakistan a fiscal space of around $4
billion annually – the drop in global oil
prices has been much more. However,
care needs to be taken in not passing the
entire benefit to the public and to instead
use it wisely, i.e. not to have the advan-
tage squandered in private consump-
tion, but to instead use it productively on
targeted export sectors to improve their
global competitiveness, plus to some-
what bridge the government’s own fiscal
deficit. And it is in this context that the
government’s recent decisions on read-
justing its ST borrowings to Kibor+0.70
percent and on further reducing domes-
tic petroleum prices by another 9 per-
cent, just bely any logic – Pakistani pub-
lic already pays only about half of what
the Bangladeshis and Indians do for
petrol and allied products like kerosene
and diesel.
The other major savings could come
from fixing the State-Owned Enterprises
(SOE). Pakistan’s second largest expen-
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
However, make no
mistake that for any
economic turnaround the
delivery has to come from
the private sector and the
government can only be a
facilitator and this is why
it is important that the
budget in its finance bill
correctly accounts for or
allocates any stimulus
and operational
facilitation measures
accordingly. It is clear
that with dwindling
exports and falling home
remittances, the real
challenge in 2020-21 will
come from the external
account’s front
diture is incurred on meeting the losses
from the Public Sector Enterprises like
PIA, the Pakistan Steel Mills, power sec-
tor and Pakistan Railways, with deficits
collectively now close to 1.5 trillion annu-
ally. Either there should be a clear
roadmap to privatise the SOEs or an inno-
vative out-of-the-box solution should be
evolved to turn them around. From a
practical perspective, in wake of con-
stant political challenges to sell them,
perhaps a good compromise would be to
give them out on a 10-20 years manage-
ment lease.
However, make no mistake that for
any economic turnaround the delivery
has to come from the private sector and
the government can only be a facilitator
and this is why it is important that the
budget in its finance bill correctly
accounts for or allocates any stimulus
and operational facilitation measures
accordingly. It is clear that with dwin-
dling exports and falling home remit-
tances, the real challenge in 2020-21 will
come from the external account’s front.
The current situation on Pakistani
exports is rather precarious. In April
2020, overall exports declined by almost
70 percent and even the numbers in May
2020 are not any better. Just to give an
idea that within the national export base
the textile sector alone lost 65 percent in
April clocking $404 million against
exports of $1,1139 million in the same
month of previous year. The industry
accounts for nearly 67 percent of
national exports, 12 percent of GDP and
40 percent of industrial employment,
which essentially means that this down-
turn in foreign exchange inflows is likely
to have serious implications in the com-
ing days, both on the trade deficit equa-
tion and on unemployment.
The key for us is in this budget
would be to plan on specific or pertinent
sectors when configuring our stimulus
basket: Measures that do not require
dole outs in the shape of capital from the
government (since it is low on cash in
any case), but instead are based more on
policymaking. In this context the most
obvious policy measure that immedi-
ately comes to mind are: i) Rationalising
the coercively high sales tax rate, which
is currently crippling the markets by
stifling business transaction. Pakistan’s
sales tax (or value added tax), at 17 per-
cent is amongst the highest not just in
the region, but also globally. This, if
brought down to 5 percent, along with
the restoration of zero-rating in the five
main national exports sectors, can go a
long way in not only helping exports, but
also in perhaps boosting government’s
projected revenues (for 2020-21)
through enhanced economic activity, ii)
Increasing the national ceiling of export
refinance available to the exporting
firms whereby all firms can enhance
their post shipment limits, iii) This
enhancement will only be effective if the
multiple of exports to refinance is
instead dropped to 1:1 for 2020-21, and
iv) Reducing the interest rate on export
refinance to 3 percent.
The trouble though is that we keep
on reacting to issues when it is already
too late, whereas, economic manage-
ment is all about a proactive and a holis-
tic approach in which the answers are
one liners, but instead embedded in a
gradual process of policy reforms that
lend confidence to investors and the mar-
kets. And this is precisely what this
upcoming budget should ensure. To give
a message that the government will
endeavour to maintain a stable eco-
nomic environment without any
upheavals, that it will not indulge in any
irresponsible borrowing programmes
that distort the markets and crowd out
the private sector, that the national cur-
rency will be defended to protect peo-
ple’s wealth and to aid long-term
sustainability on development and
growth, provide for the much needed fair
allocations on health, education and
food security in order to effectively com-
bat inequality and poverty, and last but
not least, devise a transparent economic
decision making structure – a Manage-
ment 101 lesson – sound economic gov-
ernance requires a sound management
structure, something that this govern-
ment desperately needs to quickly put in
place for any of its efforts to bear fruit.
July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 51
Special Report
Rethinking Health Spending
Pakistan currently spends an abysmally low amount on its health
By M Farhan Majid
@M_FarhanMajid
T he fe de ral g ove rnme nt is
expected to present the annual
budget for the fiscal year 2020-
21, its second federal budget, in the
parliament on June 12. A government’s
budget decisions affect not only the size
of the pie but also how equitably the pie
is distributed, including whether the
poorest members of society have
opportunities to enhance their freedoms
and wellbeing. In the midst of the
current pandemic, it is all the more
important that the next budget be
developed so that the country is not only
better prepared to deal with the expected
wave of increasing cases of Covid-19. But
we also need to take this as an
opportunity for introspection on its own
misplaced priorities that have long
ignored public health investments.
Pakistan currently spends an abys-
mally low amount on its health. In Paki-
Health directly affects
labour productivity but
indirectly education,
personality traits and
skill development are all
affected by health.
According to the Lancet
Commission on
Investing in Health,
health investments in
low and middle income
countries like Pakistan
can produce economic
benefits that would
exceed the costs of
investment between 9
and 20 times
52 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020
stan, for instance, government spending
on health per capita was $42 in 2014.
Current health expenditures (public and
private) as a percentage of GDP were a
meager 2.90 per cent in 2017 according
to World Bank data. In contrast, Afghan-
istan spent 11.78 per cent of its GDP on
health in 2017. A 2017 Lancet study ana-
lysed the different sources of funding for
healthcare services in 184 countries,
including Pakistan. The study found that
economic development plays an impor-
tant role in predicting health spending
for Pakistan, but perhaps an even more
important predictor for future heath
spending for Pakistan would be re-
prioritisation of government spending
on health.
There are two issues which I would
like to highlight. First, it is critical that
the entire budgetary process be made
more transparent. Given the public
nature of budgets affecting wellbeing of
all concerned, it’s important that bud-
gets be made transparent and inclusive
so that perspectives of not only different
provinces and businesses are heard, but
civil society, academics and health pro-
fessionals are also heard. In 2019 (cover-
ing fiscal year 2018), Pakistan scored an
abysmally low score of 28/100 on the
Open Budget Index, placing us 93 out of
117 countries. Even Afghanistan and
Nepal had scores of 45 and 41 in 2019,
respectively. The country’s budget trans-
parency score, reflected on the Open
Budget Index, assesses the public’s
access to information on how the central
government raises and spends public
resources. A transparency score of 61
(out of 100) or higher indicates a country
is likely publishing sufficient material to
support informed public debate on its
budget. Pre-budget statements, mid-
year reports, year-end reports and audit
reports need to be not only prepared but
also publicly released in a timely man-
ner.
Second, we need to reevaluate the
way we think about health itself. In mod-
ern economies, there is no security with-
out health investments. In the interest of
national security, among other reasons,
we should invest more in capacities for
the detection, prevention and response
to infectious diseases like Covid-19.
From this perspective, it’s all the more
important that the federal government
coordinates the response for Covid-19
with the armed forces as well as the prov-
inces, reflecting such coordination in its
budgetary allocations for defence and
NFC award.
Moreover, as I highlighted in my
2019 TEDx Talk, Busting Myths about
Health and Wealth, there is no wealth
without health. Modern economies are
built on skilled labour. Health directly
affects labour productivity but indirectly
education, personality traits and skill
development are all affected by health.
According to the Lancet Commission on
Investing in Health, health investments
in low and middle income countries like
Pakistan can produce economic benefits
that would exceed the costs of invest-
ment between 9 and 20 times. One hopes
that the next budget will re-prioritise
health spending. By investing in health
through a health sensitive budget, Paki-
stan would not only be saving lives and
promoting human rights, it can also fur-
ther its economic interests strategically
for a safer, healthier and wealthier Paki-
stan.
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
After Effects
Post-Covid Pandemic
Is family planning on the government’s radar?
By Zofeen T. Ebrahim
@zofeen28
T
he Covid-19 pandemic may have
spared many women from
directly getting infected, but in
many ways it has exacerbated the impact
on their sexual and reproductive health.
Giving birth already comes with its own
set of risks but during the Covid-19
pandemic the delivery process is
complicated manifold.
Many have to face a difficult deci-
sion — whether to give birth in a hospital
setting or opt for a home birth. The for-
mer comes with the risk of infection, the
latter may mean limited equipment if the
delivery turns into a medical emergency
— bleeding after giving birth is one of the
leading causes of maternal deaths in
Pakistan.
The United Nations Population
Fund looked at three sexual and repro-
ductive health services affected by the
pandemic in 14 countries including Paki-
stan: births assisted by skilled
healthcare providers, including mid-
wives; births taking place in health facili-
ties; and access to contraception. All the
countries surveyed have high maternal
mortality ratios — over 100 deaths per
100,000 live births.
Even if things were fairly good,
there would still be a 20 per cent decline
in the use of the three key services, lead-
ing to a 17pc increase in the maternal
mortality ratio, or 25,493 additional
deaths this year alone. But if things were
bad, it would mean a 50pc decline in the
use of services, leading to 43pc increase
in maternal mortality, or 68,422 addi-
tional deaths.
Experts agree the pandemic may
lead to a significant increase in maternal
deaths mainly due to reduced access to
contraceptive services. Already the use
of contraceptives by Pakistani couples is
low as is the discontinuation rate.
About 45pc of women in Pakistan
who use any of the modern methods of
family planning (FP), get their supplies
from a government health or an FP facil-
ity. A sizable proportion, particularly
those in urban/semi-urban areas, get
their supplies from NGO-run clinics,
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
Lady Health Workers (LHWs) or directly
from pharmacies (condoms and oral
pills).
When the government announced a
lockdown in April, FP services were the
first casualty and women were unable to
get either supplies, or antenatal or deliv-
ery care. This was particularly true for
rural women relying on government
facilities. With a disruption in FP ser-
vices, it is not hard to imagine a spike in
unexpected pregnancies, unsafe abor-
tions, pregnancy-related complications
and maternal deaths.
The country’s population, already
increasing at an annual rate of 2.3pc, will
double in less than 35 years to 440 mil-
lion by 2055! If FP services and supplies
remain disrupted, the economic burden
of a runaway population will increase.
It is imperative that the government
consider the provision of women’s
reproductive health as an essential ser-
vice and ensure the population welfare
department’s FP centres are not only
opened, but that they also have an ade-
quate number of service providers and
supplies.
The country has a huge brigade of
LHWs and community midwives that
are the main providers of FP information
and modern contraceptives. But they
seem reluctant to make house visits for
fear of getting infected by the
coronavirus. The fear is not unfounded.
The government must find innovative
ways and train them to carry out their
work in the present circumstances. For
instance, instead of entering homes,
interactions can be conducted at the
doorstep.
But before that, these front-line
workers, some of whom will be providing
antenatal and post-natal care as well as
delivery services, need to be equipped
with proper personal protective equip-
ment (PPE). Because of the risk they are
exposed to, they should also be provided
incentives to encourage them to con-
tinue their services.
No doubt, over the years, LHWs
have been burdened with many tasks
that they had not signed up for initially,
but given that they have built up trust
and made inroads within the communi-
ties they work in, it may not be a bad idea
to use their services for mass awareness
about Covid-19. They can be trained to
advise their clients on containment
strategies, explain what isolation and
quarantine mean, and dispel myths and
misconceptions, while addressing
stigma associated with the infection.
It is also a good time to set aside
differences and for the federal and pro-
vincial governments to come together,
partner with the private sector and seek
support of donor organisations such as
UNFPA, WHO and Unicef in terms of
technical assistance or to get uninter-
rupted supplies of medicines, equipment
and PPE for healthcare providers.
If this pandemic has taught us one
thing it is to think out of the box. There is
huge potential in digital technology. This
may be an opportune time to train
healthcare providers in telemedicine.
Already quite a few women doctors have
returned to work using the telehealth
platform and this may open up a new
world for scores of others like them.
l
l
l Zofeen T. Ebrahim is a freelance journalist based in Karachi.
July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 53
Money During Pandemic no longer travel and go out. Supply chain measures to support the supply-side if
disruptions idle manufacturing plants. those effects devastate strategic indus-

What We Know About The Warehouse workers are becoming ill and
increasingly worried about getting ill.
Health-care workers on the front lines of
tries or excessively worsen the demand
side effects, for instance, by a concentra-
tion of hotels and restaurants in tour-

Economic Impact Of
the virus could become infected and
need to self-quarantine.
The health and safety of the popula-
tion remain the highest policy priority.
ism-dependent regions. But any bailout
effort will have to come with strong
strings attached, so that the aid helps
workers and not the top.

The Coronavirus And How That
Should Guide Policy
There is a lot businesses, families, governments and economists who don’t know about
the economic fallout from the spreading virus
By Christian Weller
T he coronavirus is spreading
@Prof_CEW quickly around the globe.
Governments, businesses and
families respond to the pandemic in
unprecedented ways, massively and
necessarily disrupting the economy in
the process. Policymakers are now
considering or already taking quick,
large steps to both ease the health care
challenges and stem the economic pain.
Here are seven things we know about the
economy and economic policy that
l should guide the design of additional
Christian Weller is an economist focusing on retirement security, wealth
inequality and economic policy. He cares about how people handle economic risks
policy steps:
and whether policies to address these risks can help reduce inequality. His
research appears both in academic publications and as policy reports for Washing-
ton think tanks. He is a professor of public policy at the University of Massachu-
setts Boston and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, Washington,
DC.
1) This is first and
foremost a health care
crisis
The underlying cause of the economic
slowdown is a global pandemic. The
spread, and thus the economic impact of
the virus, are highly unpredictable. But it
affects people in all countries, states and
localities to some degree.
The pandemic also hurts almost all
industries, turning the health care chal-
lenge into an economic one. People can
Congress and the administration need to
make sure that sufficient diagnostic,
protective and therapeutic equipment
are available. Policymakers also need to
make sure that economically vulnerable
health care workers and health aides in
particular, do not have to choose
between work while sick and staying
home. They will need paid sick leave as
well as paid medical and family leave.
This will mean expanding already
enacted protections, so that the self-
employed also receive benefits.
2) The demand side of
the economy is primarily
hurt
Most of the economic disruptions affect
the demand side. People can no longer
go to work and often lose their jobs and
incomes as businesses shutter their oper-
ations. Businesses are holding off on
investments amid the growing uncer-
tainty. And, exports will inevitably falter
as other countries are taking similar
actions to slow the spread of the virus.
There will be some limited supply
side effects. Businesses will fail as they
lack customers and cash to sustain them
for extended periods of time. Small and
medium sized businesses, especially in
low-margin industries such as restau-
rants, will be among the ones most
acutely hit by the economic fallout.
Any economic intervention needs to
primarily focus on boosting the demand
side of the economy. This means replac-
ing incomes, especially among lower-
income and middle-income families.
They are more likely to work in affected
industries and they are less likely to have
sufficient savings to tide them over
weeks or even months of income losses.
Congress will also have to consider
3) Uncertainty over the
economy reins high
There is a lot businesses, families, gov-
ernments and economists who don’t
know about the economic fallout from
the spreading virus. The depth, length
and regional dispersion of the economic
decline are largely unknown. Nor is it
clear whether measures taken now to
contain the spread of the virus will be
effective.
This uncertainty exacerbates the
economic fallout. Businesses are pulling
back, not just because they have no cus-
tomers, but also because they don’t know
how much worse it will get. Families are
cutting spending in part because they are
worried about drastic drops in their
incomes. These reactions to the unknow-
able risks exacerbate the economic down-
turn.
The federal government can
address this massive, widespread and
growing uncertainty. It has the ability to
quickly spend large sums of money wher-
ever problems rapidly rise. At this point,
Congress and the President need to
clearly signal their willingness to under-
take any steps necessary to stop an eco-
nomic freefall, no matter where the prob-
lems occur and how long they will last.
4) States and local
governments will quickly
feel the fallout from the
pandemic
State and local governments are at the
front lines of the current crisis. Many
people in their communities will have to
quickly rely on public services. And, local
businesses such as restaurants, hotels,
and event venues are shuttered for the
time being, reducing employment, jobs
and tax revenues. And, many of these
effects will vary from state to state, from
city to city, and even from neighborhood
to neighborhood. Finally, states and
localities often do not have the where-
withal to commit to supporting their
local businesses and families to any
meaningful degree. The current crisis
puts state and local governments in an
untenable position, where they may be
forced to choose which parts of their
communities will get help and which
ones won’t.
Congress needs to provide sufficient
fiscal support to states and localities and
design such assistance with enough flex-
ibility for localities to address the most
pressing needs where and when they
emerge.
5) The fallout from the
pandemic highlights the
problems of massive
economic inequality
Income and wealth inequality are at or
near record highs. Generally, lower-
wage workers, Black or Latinx families,
those with less education and rural
households have fewer economic
resources – incomes and wealth – than
higher-income workers, whites, those
with college degrees and families in
urban areas.
These inequities now create untena-
ble vicious cycles for many families.
Lower-income workers tend to not only
have lower pay, but also fewer benefits
such as health insurance and paid sick
leave. Many lower-income workers now
face a heightened chance of getting
infected, losing their jobs and incomes,
and getting stuck with large health care

54 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020

globalagemagazine.kipscss.net globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 55
bills. But those same families have few
savings to fall back on, are already mire
in costly consumer debt thus could
quickly fall further behind in paying
their bills. Worse, many of these families
need to actually rely more on their own
savings than higher-income, more finan-
cially secure families, because they have
less access to public benefits such as
unemployment insurance.
Any help from Congress thus needs
to be progressive, targeting the largest
benefits to those most in need. Expanded
paid sick leave, paid medical and family
leave, and unemployment insurance
benefits are a first step to boost incomes
where this help is most needed. Policy
responses also need to account for the
fact that many of the most vulnerable
have few savings by, for example, insti-
tuting moratoriums on student debt, car
loan, and credit card payments.
6) Focusing on the
stock market sends the
wrong signal
The stock market has gone through mas-
sive gyrations over the past few weeks.
Investors have oscillated from panic to
euphoria and back to panic. President
Trump and his advisors have often
expressed more concern over what is
happening on Wall Street than what is
happening to families. Yet most Ameri-
cans own few or no stocks on Wall Street.
The financial market ups and downs
have little immediate impact on them.
Boosting the stock market will do little to
their current and future financial health.
Worse, focusing on stabilizing or
even rescuing Wall Street will create
massive problems for average Ameri-
cans. Giving broad tax breaks to corpora-
tions that already sat on large amounts of
cash is an inefficient use of money. Many
of them will survive the downturn with-
out a short-term cash infusion. And
many CEOs will feel empowered by the
rhetoric on saving the stock market to
prioritize profits and shareholders by
squeezing workers now and during a
recovery. This is exactly what happened
after the stock market crash of 2001 and
the Great Recession. Congress and the
56 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020
administration need to be ready to avoid
a repeat.
Importantly, Congress should pro-
vide only targeted and limited relief to
businesses and simultaneously ensure
that workers benefit from such assis-
tance before shareholders and CEOs do.
7) The reach of the Fed
is limited
The Federal Reserve has aggressively cut
interest rates to zero. Lower interest
rates will have little effect on the econ-
omy, at least in the short-term. Key
interest rates for mortgages and busi-
ness loans were already low. And, other
interest rates such as those for student
loans, car loans and credit cards have
regularly remained impervious to
changes in the federal funds rate, the key
monetary policy tool used by the Federal
Reserve. Moreover, businesses are not
hurting for capital to invest, at least for
now. Large corporations already had
massive amounts of cash on hand total-
ing more than $4.7 trillion, which was
more than ten percent of total corporate
assets, by the end of 2019. Companies
had the money to invest, they just Tribute
decided not to. At this point, the uncer-
tainty over the economic outlook will
likely stymie business investment and
there is little that low interest rates can
Transcending World Order
Regressions?
do to stop that.
The same is true for would-be home
buyers. Worries about their paychecks
will overshadow the benefits of lower Nerfin apologetically notes that citizenship is at its roots a distinctively Western
mortgage payments. And, the Fed’s
interest rate cuts will do little for the experience of societal participation in the shaping of collective life
interest payments on the more than $4
trillion in consumer credit. Lower inter-
est rates from the Federal Reserve are
helpful in the current situation by lower-
ing the costs of credit for those who still
want to and can borrow, but that effect is
likely limited.
The Federal Reserve has also
increased liquidity. It has already rein-
troduced two programs used during the
last crisis to ensure that banks and cor-
porations have sufficient liquidity to
execute all short-term deals. The Fed will
continue to monitor and support credit
markets, so that they don’t seize up.
These moves help and will continue to
make sure that credit market problems
don’t exacerbate rapidly deteriorating
economic conditions, but it will do little
to push economic growth upward.
The ball is now in fiscal
policymakers’ court as monetary policy
has done as much as it can in this situa-
tion. Large fiscal interventions that allow
federal, state and local decision makers
to address the economic problems where
they appear will be necessary. This will By Richard Falk
allow governments to quickly address California, United States
the immediate health care challenges but
also the quickly escalating economic
fallout.
N ot long ago I reread a wonderful
essay written by my friend Marc
Nerfin thirty-five years ago, and
published with this enigmatic title,
“Neither Prince nor Merchant–Citizen:
tem.”
It is suggestive that Nerfin defines a
citizen by what someone does by way of
action, either singly or collectively,
rather than as a formal status conferred
undertakings along these lines around
the world. Similarly, my assessment of
neoliberal globalization that is negative
about what I identify as ‘globalization-
from-above,’and rests hope upon the
An Introduction to the Third System, by the decree of the state. He also potential transnational mobilization of
1981.” The essential position taken by observes that to be part of the Third Sys- movements in the spirit of ’’’another
Nerfin is that neither the sovereign state tem is to forego any ambition to exercise globalization’or ‘globalization-from-
nor the economic order is oriented state power or to participate in the global below.’It is a perspective that also insists
toward a humane and sustainable economic order. In other words, citizen- that it is the creativity of people acting
future, although both nodes of power ship implies autonomy of action and within the confines of civil society, not
remain necessary for the organization of aspiration, but it is not reduced to the the projects of state and market, that
life on the planet. ideology of liberal individualism that possess emancipatory potential given
For Nerfin what can alone produce tilts international human rights in West- our historical circumstances. [See Pred-
an emancipatory politics is the further ern civilizational directions, which atory Globalization: A Critique(1999)]
mobilization of what he labels as ‘the would weaken its universalist claims. Nerfin also apologetically notes
third system.’ Nerfin offered this defini- This orientation has definite that citizenship is at its roots a distinc-
tion: “Contrasting with governmental ideational links to the commoner move- tively Western experience of societal
power and economic power —the power ment that has been conceptualized in the participation in the shaping of collective
of the Prince and the Merchant—there is writings and activism of David Bollier life, and other civilizations are fully
an immediate and autonomous power, [See e.g. Bollier, Think Like a Com- expected to have their own ways of vindi-
sometimes evident, sometimes latent: moner: A Short Introduction to the life of cating participation as the basis of an
people’s power. Some people develop an the Commons (2014)] who envisions a experience of positive belonging to a
awareness of this, associate and act with positive human future on the basis of larger human collective. Aside from
others and thus become citizens. Citi- joint action by individuals, groups, and these nuances, the central claim is that
zens and their associations, when they communities that seek lives and liveli- only the peoples of the world, acting
do not seek either governmental or eco- hoods independent of state or market, spontaneously, collectively, and purpos-
nomic power, constitute the third sys- pointing to an upsurge of cooperative ively, can achieve the sorts of transfor-
globalagemagazine.kipscss.net globalagemagazine.kipscss.net
July 2020 GLOBAL AGE | 57
mations that human survival and ecolog-
ical sustainability depend upon. It is this
clarification by Nerfin that establishes
illuminating affinities with the work and
ethical engagements of Bollier, Johan
Galtung, Robert Cox, Stephen Gill and
many other thinkers who have freed
themselves from the blinkering percep-
tions of global issues and world order as
set forth by the ‘realist’mainstream, that
is, those out of touch with reality, accu-
rately and humanely conceived.
In rather profound ways, what
Nerfin wrote more than three and half
decades ago is more relevant to our cur-
rent situation than when it was written.
At the time, although the world was cer-
tainly imperiled by the Cold War, featur-
ing a menacing nuclear standoff, preda-
tory forms of capitalist expansion that
were unperturbed by the persistence of
mass misery or by the bloody interven-
tionism that accompanied the sunset
wars of the colonial era. At that time,
compared to the dismal present, there
were sources of normative promise and
widespread hope, not least of which were
the collapse of European colonialism
and the liberation of hundreds of mil-
lions formerly captive in the global
South.
The United States provided a par-
tially benevolent leadership in world
affairs, which while uncomfortably mili-
tarist, was still alert to the shared need
for multilateral diplomacy and global
lawmaking, as well as supportive of the
United Nations so long as its limits were
understood as limited, that is, not
designed or empowered to challenge
Western geopolitical maneuvers. Simi-
larly, capitalism, still wanting to gain
moral advantages in its rivalry with
socialism, created social protection sys-
tems for much of its population, which
while far from adequate, did introduce
some degree of empathy into the dog-
eat-dog life of a market driven society
generating ever wider gaps of wealth and
income.
When we consider the present, the
situation of prince and merchant seems
dismal by comparison. The United
States exhibits an authoritarian, dema-
gogic, and plutocratic leadership style
that repudiates multilateral diplomacy
even on the most vital of global chal-
lenges. Without even attempting to offer
reassurances, Trump champions a law
free sovereignty that is unapologetically
dedicated to maximizing its national
wealth and influence on a purely self-
interested basis. This insular conception
is backed up with escalating government
investments in military capabilities. The
avowed intention is to achieve a new
form of global military dominance that
will last forever.
58 | GLOBAL AGE July 2020
Such a dark vision was set forth
unabashedly by Donald Trump in his
recent speech to the UN General Assem-
bly that provoked far more derisive
laughter than applause, although tears
might have been more appropriate.
Trump’s regressive geopolitics are cou-
pled with the simultaneous launch of
protectionist trade wars and private sec-
tor deregulation that encourages the
continuing plundering of the planet, the
further dismantling of domestic social
protection structures, while being
denialist or dismissive with respect to
the grave multiple ongoing challenges of
global warming, genocidal strife, mas-
sive human displacement and migra-
tion, expanding pockets of extreme pov-
erty, and renewed threats of famine.
Yet it is not just a matter of this
American populist embrace of what
seems like a pre-fascist agenda at home
and a disastrous retreat from engage-
ment internationally, but structural
trends along nationally distinctive yet
globally convergent lines. Almost every
large country is beset by right-wing
ultra-nationalist leadership that mobi-
lizes its base of support by finding scape-
goats within its borders to account for
mass frustration and anger, and favors
walls to flaunt its exclusionary political
will, epitomizing a callous rejection of
migrants fleeing combat, destitution,
and despair. Such moral callousness is a
sure sign of a fractured humanity and
declining civilization. This global pat-
tern signifies structural imbalances that
have led to enraging levels of inequality,
which results in stagnancy or worse for
the multitude, while showering unprece-
dented wealth on tiny economic, often
corrupt and criminalized elites.
Whereas Nerfin could invest his
hopes in the creativity and visionary
potential of people organized for funda-
mental change, we now have reasons to
fear that the manipulation of democratic
passions for the sake of order and ven-
geance will make a woefully inadequate
system of world order even worse. The
recent Brazilian elections are indicative
of what we need to fear and oppose—an
unqualified demagogic candidate, Jair
Bolsonaro, known for his expressions of
homophobia, hatred toward minorities,
and harsh campaign promises to drain
violently the swamps of government of
its corrupt elements triumphs over tra-
ditional social democrats and even mar-
ket oriented conservatives.
In this respect, we need to question
whether and how the energies of the
Third System, commoning, and global-
ization-from-below can be redirected
toward emancipatory goals in ways that
have mass appeal. If not, we must look
elsewhere to meet the vital challenges of
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this bio-ethical emergency when orga-
nized global society seems distracted
from such time-urgent policy priorities
as climate change, genocide, and
nuclearism.
To be fair, the Nerfin and Bollier
perspectives do not expect media manip-
ulated mainstream citizenries to provide
the emancipatory energies needed. They
are more reliant on accelerating detach-
ment of persons and groups from these
central organizing systems of state and
market, finding free space to envision
and enact alternatives in local settings
that are indifferent, or even hostile
toward conventional coding classifica-
tions of nationality, ethnicity, and reli-
gion. Perhaps, such exploratory commu-
nities are civil society’s incubators for
civilizational transformations that will
usher in a planetary civilization guided
by human interests and planetary real-
ism when it comes to the global agenda
and by local governance with respect to
the daily life of communities. Even if this
is so, the world order crises that are
threatening human and non-human
futures with catastrophe pose immedi-
ate challenges that cannot depend on the
long temporal rhythms of axial transfor-
mation, which may last for centuries.
Humanity is now facing challenges that
need restorative responses within
decades if tragedy is to be avoided.
Nerfin recognized that while eman-
cipation was a Third System undertak-
ing, the organization of global complexi-
ties still required responsible action by
prince and merchant. In this respect,
there is no escaping the imperatives of
turning the tables on right-wing popu-
lism and predatory capitalism if the
human species is to find the time, space,
and imaginative energies to fulfill the
vision and potential of ecological
humanism, the only ethos that can build
credible hopes for the further unfolding
of the twenty-first century, which future
historians are likely to perceive as the
threshold of a new phase of world his-
tory.
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