Beijing Exhibiting New Assertiveness in South China Sea

By Jane Perlez

MANILA — In tropical waters off the coast of the Philippines, a standoff between half a dozen Chinese fishing boats, two Chinese law enforcement vessels and an aging Philippine Navy ship recently attracted a lot of attention in Washington, Beijing and other capitals across Asia.

Superficially, the squabble was over some rare corals, clams and poached sharks that Philippine Navy seamen were trying to retrieve in early April from the fishing boats operating in the Scarborough Shoal of the South China Sea until two Chinese Marine Surveillance craft intervened. After two tense days, the Philippine ship — a refitted Coast Guard cutter sent by the United States last year to beef up its ally’s weak defenses — withdrew.

But the stakes were much larger, as the insistent claims ever since of sovereignty over the shoal by both the Philippine and Chinese governments made clear. The incident intensified longstanding international questions over the strategically critical, potentially energy-rich South China Sea that have become more urgent this year as the long-dominant United States and fast-growing China both seek to increase their naval power in the region.

“We’re just pawns,” said Roberto Romulo, a former foreign secretary of the Philippines who argues that China is flexing its muscles in a bid to gain unimpeded access to vast reserves of natural gas and oil believed to be buried under the South China Sea. “China is testing the United States, that’s all it is. And China is eating America’s lunch in Southeast Asia.”

More recently, a senior Chinese military officer even dismissed any legitimate role for the United States in the South China Sea. “The South China issue is not America’s business,” Gen. Ma Xiaotian, the deputy chief of general staff of the People’s Liberation Army, said in an interview broadcast Monday by Phoenix TV in Hong Kong. “It’s between China and its neighbors.”

The general’s statement appeared to throw down a challenge to the Obama administration, which has sought in the past six months to enhance United States military strength around the western Pacific and East Asia, where the South China Sea serves as an essential waterway for not only the United States Navy but also for a large portion of the world’s trade.

From placing Marines in the northern Australian port city of Darwin to increasing military relations with Vietnam, a country with an uneasy relationship with China, Washington has signaled its intention of staying, not leaving.

In the latest sign of its resolve to stand firm on Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea, the administration sent Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta to testify last week before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the need for the United States to ratify the United Nations treaty that is intended to govern the world’s oceans.

China is one of 162 countries that has ratified the Law of the Sea treaty. But the United States has not done so, holding back from formal approval ever since President Ronald Reagan refused to sign it when it was completed in 1982.

A major goal of the joint appearance, administration officials said, was to strengthen the legal hand of the United States so that its navy can be assured the freedom of navigation that the treaty recognizes beyond any nation’s territorial limit of 12 nautical miles.

In contrast, Western diplomats say, China argues that freedom of navigation comes into force only 200 nautical miles from a nation’s coast, an argument that contravenes the Law of the Sea and, if put into effect, would basically render the South China Sea Beijing’s private preserve.

While China may have no interest in blocking shipping in the South China Sea, there is also no doubt that it has begun to project its power in the area. Vietnam, for example, claims that Chinese boats twice sabotaged oil exploration efforts last year by deliberately cutting ship cables in its waters. China said one of the cable-cutting incidents was accidental.

Meanwhile, China is expected to deploy its first aircraft carrier this year.

Two-thirds of the world’s natural gas trade passes through the waters of the South China Sea, according to a report by Yang Jiemian, president of the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies. The sea is the main passageway for oil from the Middle East to China, Japan, South Korea and the rest of Asia.

Now the sea itself is believed to hold a substantial reservoir of energy, with some experts predicting that under the seabed lies as much as 130 billion barrels of oil and 900 trillion cubic feet of gas.

Bree Feng contributed research from Beijing.

“Possibly and hopefully the South China Sea will be a productive energy source,” Xu Xiaojie, a former director of overseas investment for China National Petroleum Corporation, said in an interview. The Chinese Ministry of Land and Resources has done studies on the energy resources in the sea, Mr. Xu said, but detailed results have not been released.

In May, China National Offshore Oil Corporation, which until now has only had the technical ability to drill in shallow water, began its first deep-sea drilling project in an undisputed area of the South China Sea south of Hong Kong.

For China, the South China Sea is an integral part of its history. Days after the incident at Scarborough Shoal, known as Huangyan Island in China, the Chinese Foreign Ministry outlined some of the basic facts as interpreted by China. In 1279, the Chinese astronomer Guo Shoujing was commissioned by Emperor Kublai Khan to survey the seas around China. Huangyan Island was chosen as the starting point for the survey, the ministry said.

Mr. Romulo, the former foreign secretary, recalled that Zhou Enlai, the longtime second-in-command to Mao Zedong, had once pulled out a map to show his father, Carlos P. Romulo, who also served as a Philippine foreign secretary, that the Philippines rightfully belonged to China.

Aside from China and the Philippines, three other countries in Southeast Asia — Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam — make claims to islands in the sea. So does Taiwan.

Most perplexing to some claimants is China’s insistence on what is referred to as a nine-dash map that Beijing says shows its territorial claims. The nine dashes were originally drawn as 11 in 1947, before the Communist victory, and then amended to nine in the early 1950s to bypass the Gulf of Tonkin as a courtesy to the Communists in Vietnam.

By some estimates the nine dashes incorporate about 80 percent of the South China Sea. The line encompasses the Spratly Islands and Paracel Islands, which Vietnam also claims. The two nations fought sporadically over their competing claims in the 1970s and 1980s.

From each land feature within the nine-dash line — some of them little more than small rocks — China claims a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone that it says gives it the rights to the resources there according to the terms of the Law of the Sea.

According to officials here in Manila, China’s line runs inside the 80-nautical-mile stretch of water between Palawan Island and Reed Bank, where a Philippine company says it has found significant deposits of natural gas. The Philippine government of President Benigno S. Aquino III backs a plan to begin drilling off Reed Bank in the next few months.

How China will react is an open question. Nationalist sentiment within China is riding high on the South China Sea, and the government itself seems divided, on tactics at least.

Western diplomats say the Foreign Ministry, while remaining firm, would like to find a solution to the quarrel with the Philippines, perhaps involving joint ventures between companies from both countries. But People’s Liberation Army Daily, the military newspaper, has published strident editorials, stating that China will not stand for the Philippines or any other country claiming what is rightfully China’s.

“If China’s leaders follow the Chinese people, the policy on South China Sea and Southeast Asia will become very militant,” said Shi Yinhong, professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing.

Reflecting Washington’s rising concern about the South China Sea, Mr. Panetta, the defense secretary, plans to deliver what is being billed as a major policy speech on Saturday at an annual conference sponsored by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, based in London, which is bringing together an influential audience of Asian officials in Singapore this weekend.

Others will be paying close attention to what Mr. Panetta has to say as well. After China warned India this year about exploration by an Indian company in waters off Vietnam, the company pulled out, citing technical reasons. But that was not the last word from India.

“The South China Sea,” said S. M. Krishna, India’s foreign minister, “is the property of the world.”

Bree Feng contributed research from Beijing.

Courtesy: New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/asia/beijing-projects-power-in-strategic-south-china-sea.html

Panetta to explain US strategic shift to Asian allies

By David Alexander

WASHINGTON, May 30 (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will brief allies on the U.S. strategic shift toward Asia and will seek to allay concerns that fiscal uncertainty could undermine Washington's commitment to the effort as he begins a week-long visit to the region this weekend.

With the Asia-Pacific region unsettled by renewed tensions over competing sovereignty claims in the South China Sea, Panetta flies to Hawaii on Wednesday for briefings with the head of the U.S. Pacific Command before traveling on to Singapore for the annual Shangri-La Dialogue.

He later spends two days apiece in Vietnam and India, countries that have become increasingly important to the U.S. push for a rules-based regional order that would protect freedom of navigation and trade while resolving conflicts peacefully.

The trip is Panetta's first to the Asia-Pacific area since the Pentagon issued its new strategic guidance in January calling for a shift in focus toward the region, creating "news and buzz" about the concept, a U.S. defense official said.

"What we're trying to do with the swing through Asia is to give a comprehensive account to partners and everyone in the region about what the rebalance to the Asia-Pacific will mean in practice," the official told a news briefing, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Panetta also is likely to address lingering concerns about the U.S. need to reduce its defense budget and whether Washington will be able to maintain its commitment to the region despite soaring deficits.

The Pentagon is under orders to cut planned defense spending by $487 billion over the next decade. An additional round of cuts due in January will take another $500 billion over a decade unless Congress acts to stop the reductions by raising revenue or making cuts elsewhere in the U.S. budget

"One of the things you'll hear the secretary addressing specifically is how the rebalance will be resourced and the commitment of the United States to the Asia-Pacific in the long term," the official said.

The Shangri-La Dialogue brings together senior civilian and military chiefs from nearly 30 Asia-Pacific states to foster security cooperation. Sponsored by the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank, it was first held in 2002 and it takes its name from the host Singapore hotel.

CONCERN IN CHINA

While President Barack Obama's administration insists that the shift in focus is not aimed at any one country, Panetta will have to watch his language in Singapore and Vietnam to avoid heightening Beijing's concerns that the renewed U.S. strategic focus on Asia seeks to contain China's rise as a global power.

"He's going to have to be careful about what he says," said Jonathan Pollack, a China analyst at the Brookings Institution think tank. "It's ... important for the kinds of message that he wants to send, lest there be triggering responses on the part of the Chinese."

Pollack noted that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sparked a spat with China at an ASEAN forum in Vietnam 2010 by pressing the issue of territorial claims in the South China Sea.

While a recently issued U.S. report on China's military power avoided the tendency of earlier documents "toward hyperventilating about China," Pollack said, the strategic guidance released in January heightened Beijing's concerns.

The document lumped China and Iran in the same category as potential U.S. adversaries and also portrayed India as if it were helping to counterbalance China's military power, he said.

"If you are trying to elicit China's involvement to curtail what Iran is doing, to mention the two of them in the same breath, that clearly garners attention on the part of Chinese officials," Pollack said. "So words do count. And ... hopefully he (Panetta) will be careful about what he says."

DEFENSE PARTNERSHIP

U.S. defense officials said the New Delhi leg of the trip was aimed at deepening defense ties with India, which was listed in the strategic guidance in January as a country with which the United States wants to have a defense partnership.

"India is the only country we mentioned specifically in the defense strategic guidance as a partner," the official said. "We're moving to an era in which we think defense cooperation with India is just going to be on a steady roll."

Karl Inderfurth, a South Asia analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the mention of India in the strategic guidance was a signal the United States wants New Delhi's help to build stability in the region.

"India got a shout out in the new strategic guidance that other countries did not," he said. "The United States is looking to India for more than defense trade ... It is looking to India to contribute as a provider of security in the broader Indian Ocean region."

Inderfurth, a former assistant secretary of state for South Asia affairs, said India was evaluating its capabilities and thinking about possible roles, and was interested in expanding defense cooperation with the United States.

New Delhi is likely to do so on its own terms in a way that would ease any concerns from Beijing about an anti-China grouping.

Indian officials will have probing questions for Panetta about Afghanistan, Inderfurth said. India is concerned that a U.S. pullout before Afghan forces are ready to take over security requirements could destabilize the country, allowing it to again become a haven for Islamic extremists bent on spreading their influence in Kashmir.

"They are very concerned that if the U.S. departs and doesn't do it responsibly ... that the Afghan security forces will not be up to the challenge, and that they will be back to a time when a radical Islamic regime is established," he said. (Editing by Philip Barbara)

Courtesy: Reuters.com

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/30/usa-panetta-asia-idUSL1E8GU0CL20120530

Crisis looms over Nepal

Pioneer Editorial

No Government, no Constitution, no Republic

As time ran out on Sunday for Nepal’s Constituent Assembly to produce a Constitution, leading to the body to be dissolved without having finished its task, the country slipped into a period of both political and legal uncertainty. For one, with the dismantling of the Constituent Assembly which also served as Nepal’s interim Parliament, the validity of Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai’s Government has come under a cloud. The UCPN (Maoist) leader has said that he will continue to lead the caretaker Government until a new Assembly is formed after election on November 22. But his proposal has found few takers, with leaders from the other two major parties — the CPN-UML and the Nepali Congress — strongly opposed to the idea of another poll. The is because all Nepali politicians, irrespective of their ideological commitment, are hugely unpopular in the country in these times. Consumed by their own political ambitions, they have spent the last six years bickering with one another instead of guiding Nepal towards peace and democracy. So much so that the Constituent Assembly’s initial two-year mandate had to be extended four times in as many years, until finally, Nepal’s Supreme Court ruled last November that there would no more extensions at the end of the current term, which expired on May 28. It is in accordance with this judgement that Mr Bhattarai dismantled the Constituent Assembly and decided to go back to the people for a fresh mandate. But if elections are indeed held anytime soon, it is highly unlikely that many of these leaders will find their way back to Kathmandu. This explains why the leaders have now approached President Ram Baran Yadav to set aside the election date. They of course argue that the decision was taken in a “unilateral” and “authoritarian” fashion by Mr Bhattarai without factoring in their opinion. Even if this was the case, the dispute is still the result of a fractured body politik.

More importantly, even if an election is held sometime soon, it will essentially be a referendum on the politically divisive issue of federalism. It is over this point of contention that the Constituent Assembly had failed to build consensus. The shape and form of Nepal’s federal structure has been a thorny issue involving both individual political aspirations for the future as well as historical tensions between communities going back centuries. It is a key issue that must be carefully resolved in keeping with aspirations of the various communities, but it must also be done before popular unrest boils down to violence. For that the country’s political elite must come together and literally draw the roadmap for the future. But clearly, that’s asking for too much in the given circumstance.

Courtesy: http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/item/51706-crisis-looms-over-nepal.html

The King is gone, long live the King

By Utpal Parashar, Hindustan Times

Monarchy in Nepal ended four years ago. But the last monarch Gyanendra Shah hasn’t faded quietly into the sunset. The 65-year-old still manages to pull crowds during public appearances and there are many who want him back — as king. Pro-monarchy sentiments are very much alive in Nepal  and the recent failure of the Constituent Assembly, elected after Shah’s ouster, to deliver a new constitution could give royalists a fresh lease of life.

The deposed king is aware of such emotions and keeps making comments expressing concern for the present state of affairs. Now he and his followers have found another medium of expression, courtesy a pro-monarchy website launched recently.

The portal, nepalroyal.com, has become a platform for hundreds of royalists to express their dissatisfaction with the present political set up. It has a message from Shah as well.

“We have created this website for the citizens to express their views on the current situation of Nepal and suggest what sort of future they want to give their children,” the message reads. “As a citizen of this nation, I am concerned about the serious problems that you, I and my beloved nation are facing.”

The site is linked with another site www.nepalkoaawaz.com (Nepal’s Voice). Significantly, it was launched on May 27, the day the CA was dissolved and a day ahead of the fourth anniversary of Gyanendra’s deposition. 

The site seems to have been launched by Manisha Koirala, noted Bollywood actress from Nepal who belongs to the Koirala family of Nepali Congress, the country’s first pro-democracy party. 

“Yes your majesty, we totally agree with you. All Nepalis should come together and realise that if we let the situation be, we, our nation will suffer even further till there is no nation,” she comments.

In his remarks, former PM and member of pro-monarchy Rashtriya Prajatantra Party Lokendra Bahadur Chand thanks Koirala.

Courtesy: http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/Nepal/The-King-is-gone-long-live-the-King/Article1-863711.aspx#.T8bg_xX07_Q.email

Nepal: Eatery in Dark, Israel takes the lead

By Telegraph Nepal

We have come to a conclusion that those who were born blinds can see and feel the pulse beat of the nation in a much more sensitive manner than those who have not to undergo through the traumatic experience of blindness.

Blind men can see. They too can feel the pulse beat of the nation and moreover, they too, though Mother Nature did not provide them with this sensual organ, can understand the deteriorating politics better comparatively. They, above all, are polite. Not arrogant like Nepali leaders. They don’t cheat or create any scandals. This is what we felt last week when we have had a chance to meet some Nepali blind youths who have been running a “Blind Restaurant” under their own collective initiatives. Association pays. 

The entire ambience was not only sympathetic but heart rendering as we the invited ones were housed in a complete dark room and look the Charisma of the Almighty! The Nepali youths, with no eye sight yet traveled to the dark kitchen, yet again dark and the men cooking the Italian dish too were born blinds, and yet smilingly brought the food items through the dark corridors and placed in the table as per the preferences of the invited guests. Not even a slight error could be noticed. Simply great and unbelievable but yet true. The service delivered by the Nepali compatriots  was with an unending smile that it was throughout the stay of the guests, which we could feel during our presence for at least an hour or so, that provided us all with a thought that these Nepali youths have reconciled their fate with what they have with them at the moment but expected sympathies from those with eye sight and appealed through us all to send messages to all those political thugs not to declare Nepal closure in series as such bundhs/strikes have had direct negative impact on their new profession which could certainly be taken as a complete new beginning to live their lives not by begging alms but through their own labor. Labor and that too of this sort must be respected and applauded thus the entire men engaged in this profession deserve deep appreciation in that they have taught lessons to us all, with eye sight intact, that even a blind man can live a dignified life if he or she had the strong will power. These boys who treated us well had this strong determination with them as was evident from the prompt and the well disciplined answers to the questions made to them by some of the guests, a political leader  included, who was found defending himself and his party’s role in the constitution building process. However, the political animal perhaps could now not be seen in the Kathmandu streets for fear of being taken to tasks by the irate public for having gulped over two million rupees as the now dead CA member. Yet he is taken as one of the modest personality inside the entire UML paraphernalia. But will he return the monthly salary? He will never. Modesty has no attachment while the talk is of money.

What was most touching of it all is that when one of the blind attendants said that since they can’t see while traveling in the footpath, they at times fall inside the sewer/potholes and also due to the Babu ram ravaged roads of Kathmandu.  Such incidents have become common for them which could be believed with guarantee as our roads in Kathmandu have been damaged and nobody knows as to how long it may take for the badly torn roads to become fit for those laymen who were not in state loot authority. More so our concern is for those blind youths!

Our wish to send the 601 white elephants to this Blind Restaurant remained only in our minds. It could not materialize for the reasons now known to us all. The idea was to make them aware of how the lives of the Nepali blind youths continues in progress with no qualms, working and accomplishing their duties ( in dark indeed) with dignity and moreover without plundering the State money.

However, we have not lost hopes simply because we have some still kicking and alive in the Nepali political spectrum who have still been looting the state money-the tax payer’s money. Presumably, those who cheated us in the recent past will come to us again with a changed face and political tone. The emperors are coming once again in new clothes.

Finally, our encouragement and best wishes to the Nepali blind youths who have exhibited to the world that a dignified life could be lived even if one has no eye sight. Thanks the Embassy of Israel which took the lead. Hope other friendly embassies too will come to the support of the Nepali blind youths who have a separate chamber at the Imago Dei Restaurant-just opposite to the Eastern gate of the former Royal palace with no bias.  Any act of encouragement to these bubbling Nepali blind boys would mean much to the ones who in effect deserve this. Before we conclude, we wish to make an appeal to Nepali leaders to learn some lessons from these blind youths on how to live an honored life without indulging in any acts of treachery.  Congratulation dear Nepali friends. Your works shall not go unnoticed by the disciplined Nepali society.  Well done the embassy of Israel. Thanks.

Courtesy: http://www.telegraphnepal.com/editorials/2012-05-30/nepal:-eatery-in-dark-israel-takes-the-lead

Will India-China feel Nepal’s spillover effect?

By Telegraph Nepal

Late evening Monday May 28 and early hours on Tuesday May 29, 2012, Prime Minister Baburam met with Indian Ambassador Jayant Prasad and Chinese ambassador Yang Houlan.

To recall, Ambassador Houlan had recently returned to Kathmandu after a long summer vacation.

Both the meetings took place without informing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Poor MoFA!

“In the last three weeks, we have come to know about such meetings through the media,” an unnamed ministry official is quoted as saying by a national daily adding, “We are not aware of PM’s meetings with Indian and Chinese envoy”.

Nevertheless, what transpired during the two separate meetings has not yet been made public by the government but PM Baburam must have sought support from the two neighbors, claim analyst, for the longevity of his caretaker government.

If reports leaking out of PM’s Baluatar residence are to be believed then both the ambassadors are learnt to have expressed similar concerns.

“Nepal’s overly stretched political fluidity could finally have its spillover effect on the neighborhood”, reports quote sources as saying.

Analysts claim that with institution of monarchy replaced by power monger and corrupt India backed Nepali political leadership, the historical equilibrium between India and China has also been disrupted thus the two neighbors suspect each other of having used Nepali leaders against the other which has increased more fluidity in the Nepali political situation. 

The fluid political situation has in turn proved to be favorable for countries in the west to use Nepali land to foment instability in China and keep an eye on India, also claim analyst.

Houlan’s sudden dash to Kathmandu does tell that Beijing is pretty annoyed with the Indian highhandedness exhibited in Nepali politics of late.  But why then Ambassador Houlan was missing from Kathmandu for so long?

India’s ‘men’ overwhelm Nepali political spectrum. Beijing laxity too is at fault.

Tough time for both India and China indeed.

Courtesy: http://www.telegraphnepal.com/headline/2012-05-30/will-india-china-feel-nepals-spillover-effect-

Nepal: So Near, Yet So Far – Analysis

By Ajit Kumar Singh

As Nepal appeared to be in clutching distance of a permanent solution to its long-drawn conflict, it has been plunged, abruptly, deep into political catastrophe.

With the major parties – Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M), Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML), Nepali Congress (NC) and the United Democratic Madheshi Front (UDMF) – failing to reach consensus on just a few unresolved issues on the Draft Constitution, particularly on the restructuring of the state, the final stipulated deadline, May 27, 2012, came and went. The existing Constituent Assembly (CA) has now become defunct. Indeed, almost all the contentious issues, most prominently including the integration of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) cadres into the Nepal Army, had already been resolved.

The 601-member CA, elected in 2008, had been mandated to complete the task of Constitution writing within two years, and to oversee the peace process that began when the conflict ended in 2006. Since then, the major parties reached a number of opportunistic agreements, to keep a tenuous peace process alive, and amended the Interim Constitution, to extend their own mandate beyond the stipulated two year deadline, on four occasions. Following this pattern, on May 22, 2012, the UCPN-M led National Unity Government registered the 13th Constitution Amendment Bill in Parliament, to pave the way for a further three month extension of the CA’s term, in complete disregard of the Supreme Court’s (SC) November 25, 2011, verdict, which stipulated that the CA’s term was being extended for the last time, and the body would cease to exist if the Constitution was not promulgated within the extended term. In its verdict the SC had also asked the defendants to decide the duration of the extension, after determining whether the Constitution would be promulgated through a referendum, or to elect new CA, if the current CA failed in its task. Not surprisingly, on May 24, 2012, the SC, responding to the writs filed against the Government’s move to seek a further extension for the CA, issued a ruling directing the Government not to proceed with the Amendment to further extend the CA’s term.

In a last bid to salvage the CA, on May 25, 2012, the major parties reportedly agreed to promulgate the Constitution by May 27, 2012, while leaving residual disputed issues for the “transformed legislature parliament” to resolve. According to the agreement reached, the draft of the Constitution was to be issued by the CA within the May 27, 2012, deadline, and the parties would agree on the names and the number of Provinces before that.

Regrettably, however, no consensus could be arrived at on the demarcation of Provinces. With no other legal alternative at hand, on May 28, 2012, the Government called for elections to a new CA. Prime Minister (PM) Baburam Bhattarai declared, “We have no other option but to go back to the people and elect a new Assembly to write the Constitution. Though we were unable to promulgate the constitution, we have decided to seek a mandate through elections for a new Constituent Assembly on November 22.” The PM stated, further, that he would be leading a caretaker Government until the elections scheduled for November 22, 2012.

Meanwhile, the NC, the CPN-UML, and some fringe parties, rejected the Government’s decision to hold fresh elections, and called for public protests. The leaders of these parties met President Ram Baran Yadav and urged him not to approve the ‘unconstitutional decision’ of the Government. NC leader Ram Chandra Poudel claimed, “This is part of a Maoist plan to capture power.” Senior CPN-UML leader Bhim Rawal stated that the PM’s move was a breach of constitutional provisions, as there was no provision in the Interim Constitution to hold another CA polls. “We are not opposed to going to the polls, but we cannot endorse the Prime Minister’s unilateral move that violates the constitutional provision,” he argued. “The Prime Minister should have made an attempt to amend the provision of the Constitution before announcing the fresh election by forging consensus,” he pointed out.

The CPN-UML vice chairperson Bidhya Bhandari stated, on May 28, 2012, that her party was no more a part of the Government. Earlier, on May 25, 2012, the NC had withdrawn from the Government, opposing the Government’s May 22 decision to register the 13th Constitution Amendment Bill in Parliament, to pave the way for a further three months extension of the CA’s term.
 

The National Unity Government had been formed on May 5, 2012. While the NC joined the Government on May 6, the CPN-UML, after initial opposition, joined on May 16. Significantly, the National Unity Government was constituted after a Five Point agreement reached between the major parties on May 3, 2012, which stated:

• All members of the incumbent Cabinet will resign and a new Unity Government will be formed within two days, as per the earlier seven point agreement.

• All issues of Constitution drafting, including the state restructuring, form of governance, etc., will be resolved in three days.

• A new Statute for the Constitution will be promulgated before May 27. The present incumbent Prime Minister will leave office before May 27, and a Unity Government would be formed under the Nepali Congress to conduct elections within one year.

• All outstanding work on the peace process would be completed immediately, as per earlier agreements.

• Top leaders of the political parties will hold regular meetings to expedite the Constitution drafting process.

As in the past, the sanctity of this agreement could not be maintained. Though the incumbent Cabinet resigned on May 4, 2012, and a new Government was formed within two days, the Prime Minister’s abrupt call for new elections and his assertion that he would lead the caretaker Government, violates the terms of this last agreement.

Significantly, the issue of federalism has divided the nation. The biggest concern is whether to go for single identity based federalism or multiple identity based federalism. While the UCPN-M and its ally UDMF are in favour of single-ethnicity based federalism, the NC and CPN-UML have rejected their option. CPN-UML Vice Chairman Bam Dev Gautam thus noted that “NC and UML proposed (the) multi-ethnic federal model.” Here, the NC diluted its earlier stand of opposing ethnicity based federalism in toto, arguing that state restructuring should be based on “economic and administrative viability” and on geography. The number, size, naming and mapping of the federal States has also evaded unanimity. While the UCPN and its ally UDMF insist that the 14-state model or 10-state model suggested by the Parliamentary Committee on State Restructuring and the State Restructuring Commission, respectively, should be adopted, the NC and CPN-UML proposed a 11 and 12 States model, respectively. Moreover, the Madheshi leaders reiterated their strong opposition to create multiple provinces in the Terai, and stuck to their long standing demand for a ‘single autonomous Madhesh province’.

This fractious outcome resulted despite the fact that the major parties had already agreed, on May 15, 2012, on an 11-province federal structure. The names of the provinces were to be determined by the elected State Assemblies themselves. The Federal States were to be carved out on the basis of ethnicity, geography and language. The parties had also agreed to constitute a Commission to determine the boundaries of the Provinces and to go for a ‘mixed system’ of governance, with a directly elected President, who would share powers with a Prime Minister elected from the Parliament.

The optimism which had reigned over the peace process since the CA was established, after declaring Nepal a Republic on May 28, 2008, now appears to have evaporated. The Government has put Security Forces on a high alert, as thousands of protestors have come onto the streets. Riot Police are patrolling the streets of capital Kathmandu. Though, there have been no significant reports of violence, till the time of writing, the failure of the Political classes to reach a consensual solution, have jeopardized the tentative peace in the nascent Republic of Nepal.

Ajit Kumar Singh is a Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management

Courtesy: http://satp.org/

Panetta: Asia is the 'project' for new Navy grads

ANNAPOLIS, Md. –  The Pentagon chief said Tuesday building U.S. maritime strength across the Asia-Pacific region will be one of the main projects for the new generation of America's naval officers.

Speaking to graduates at the U.S. Naval Academy, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the U.S. is returning to its maritime roots.

"One of the key projects that your generation will have to face is sustaining and enhancing American strength across the great maritime region of the Pacific," he said.

He told graduates that their work will help strengthen defense ties with China, modernize ties with old allies like Japan and Korea and build new partnerships with countries like Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore.

"America's future prosperity and security are tied to our ability to advance peace and security along the arc extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean and South Asia," Panetta said. "That reality is inescapable for our country and for our military, which has already begun broadening and deepening our engagement throughout the Asia Pacific."

Panetta said the Navy and Marine Corps must lead a resurgence of American maritime presence and power in the Asia-Pacific region and around the world.

" We must be prepared to confront any challenge, but the key to that region is going to be to develop a new era of defense cooperation between our countries, one in which our military shares security burdens in order to advance peace in Asia Pacific and around the world," Panetta said.

Panetta also said the military will protect its investments in cybersecurity, unmanned systems and special operation forces.

"We will ensure our military can confront aggression and defeat any opponent anytime, anywhere," Panetta said.

The Pentagon chief said he departs on Wednesday for Southeast Asia, and he noted he will visit China later this year for the first time as secretary of defense.

"I will tell all of these nations that the United States will remain a Pacific power, and I will tell them why — because of you — because during your careers many of you will be headed to the Pacific," he said.

There were a total of 1,099 graduates, including 877 men and 222 women. A total of 810 were commissioned as naval officers, including 634 men and 176 women. There were 267 commissioned as officers in the Marine Corps, including 224 men and 43 women. Several graduated as officers in the Air Force and Coast Guard.

Panetta also noted the death last week of retired Lt. Cmdr. Wesley Brown, the first African-American to graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1949. He was 85.

The defense secretary cited the academy's diversity, and he noted that some students are gay. This was the first graduating class at the service academy in which gay students could be open about their sexuality after repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy in September.

"You are men and women from every state in the union and 12 foreign nations — rich and poor, secular and religious, black, white, Latino, Native American, Asian, straight and gay. Diversity of this class is a tribute to the life and service of retired Lt. Cmdr. Wesley Brown," Panetta said, bringing cheers and applause from the audience.

Courtesy: The Fox News

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/05/29/panetta-asia-is-project-for-new-navy-grads/

Is the U.S.-India relationship losing steam?

By Brahma Chellaney

WASHINGTON — Was the U.S.-India strategic partnership oversold to the extent that it has failed to yield tangible benefits for the United States? Even as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has just held detailed discussions in New Delhi, an increasing number of analysts in Washington have already concluded that the overhyped relationship is losing momentum.

The skeptics cite two high-visibility issues in particular: India’s rejection of separate bids by Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. to sell 126 fighter-jets, and New Delhi’s reluctance to snap energy ties with Iran. The discussion over these issues, however, obscures key facts.

Take the aircraft deal.  Despite that setback, U.S. firms have clinched several other multibillion-dollar arms deals in recent years. These contracts have been secured on a government-to-government basis, without any competitive bidding.  But in the one case where India invited bids, American firms failed to make it beyond the competition’s first round because they did not match the price and other terms offered by the French manufacturer of the Rafale aircraft and the European consortium that makes the Eurofighter Typhoon.

The most-startling yet little-publicized fact is America’s quiet emergence as the largest arms seller to India. In the decade since President George W. Bush launched the vaunted U.S.-Indian strategic partnership, India has fundamentally reoriented its defense procurement, moving away from its traditional reliance on Russia. Indeed, nearly half of all Indian defense deals by value in recent years have been bagged by the U.S. alone, with Israel a distant second and Russia relegated to the third slot.

Given that India has become the world’s largest arms importer and the United States remains the biggest exporter, U.S. firms are set to secure more contracts in India, which plans to spend more than $100 billion over the next four years to upgrade its military capabilities, including by buying submarines, heavy lift and attack helicopters, howitzers, and tanks.

Now consider the Iran issue. Just as the Indian rejection of the Boeing’s F/A 18 and Lockheed-Martin’s F-16 bids has made big news but the U.S. landing of multiple arms contracts has received little notice, India’s reluctance to publicly support U.S. energy sanctions on Iran has been in the spotlight but not the quiet Indian strategy since the late 1990s to let the share of Iranian oil in India’s energy imports gradually decline — a trend that has seen the importance of Iranian oil supplies for India considerably weaken.

Few in India consider Iran a friend. But given India’s troubled neighborhood, with the country wedged in an arc of problematic states, New Delhi is reluctant to rupture its ties with Iran, its gateway to Afghanistan — the top recipient of Indian aid. India already has paid a heavy price for taking America’s side on some critical issues in its long-running battle against Iran, even though Washington doesn’t take India’s side in its disputes with China or Pakistan.

The Bush administration persuaded India not to conclude any new long-term energy contracts with Iran, and — in return for a civil nuclear deal with the U.S. — abandon its plan to build a gas pipeline from Iran. New Delhi, by voting against Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s governing board in 2005 and 2006, invited Iranian reprisal in the form of cancellation of a 25-year, $22-billion liquefied natural gas deal which had terms highly favorable to India. That deal’s scrapping alone left India poorer by several billion dollars.

Now the U.S. energy embargo against Iran has pushed international oil prices higher, significantly increasing India’s oil bill. The embargo also threatens to undercut India’s import-diversification strategy by making it place most of its eggs in the basket of the Islamist-bankrolling, Saudi Arabia-led oil monarchies that continue to play a role in South Asia detrimental to Indian interests. In fact, thanks to the U.S. embargo against Iran, the swelling coffers of the iron-fisted oil sheikhdoms are set to overflow, increasing their leverage in the region and beyond.

Lost in the U.S. public discussion is an important fact — the declining share of Iranian crude in India’s total oil imports as part of a conscious Indian effort to reduce supply-disruption risks linked with the lurking potential for Iran-related conflict. Since 2008 alone, Iranian oil imports have swiftly fallen from 16.4 percent to 10.3 percent. Given India’s soaring oil imports and search for new sources of supply, the Iranian share is set to decline further, even without India’s participation in the U.S. embargo.

Make no mistake: India shares U.S. objectives on Iran but the exigencies of its regional situation compel it to toe a more cautious line.

The repositioning of the U.S.-India relationship was never intended to be transactional. Rather it was designed as an important geostrategic move to underpin Asian security and serve the long-term U.S. and Indian interests. But even if the relationship were viewed in transactional terms, the U.S. has reaped handsome dividends.

On Iran, the right course for U.S. policy would be to encourage India to continue reducing Iranian oil imports by granting it a waiver from American sanctions law — as Washington has to Japan and nine other countries — and by helping to finance the retrofitting of Indian refineries that presently have a technical capacity to process only Iranian oil.

More fundamentally, just as the Bush administration exaggerated the importance of a single deal with India, contending that the nuclear deal would be fundamentally transformative, it is an overstatement that the U.S.-India relationship today is losing momentum. The geostrategic direction of the relationship is irreversibly set — toward closer collaboration. Even trade between the countries has continued to grow impressively, from $9 billion in 1995 to $100 billion in 2011. While it is too much to expect a congruence of U.S. and Indian national-security objectives in all spheres, the two countries are likely to deepen their cooperation in areas where their interests converge, such as ensuring Asian power equilibrium.

Barack Obama had stroked India’s collective ego by inviting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his presidency’s first state dinner, leading to the joke that while China gets a deferential America and Pakistan secures billions of dollars in U.S. aid periodically, India is easily won over with a sumptuous dinner and nice compliments.

The mutual optimism and excitement that characterized the blooming U.S.-Indian ties during the Bush years, admittedly, has given way to more realistic assessments as the relationship has matured. Geostrategic and economic forces, however, continue to drive the two countries closer. Indeed, Obama’s recent pivot to Asia has made closer U.S. strategic collaboration with India critical.

(c) The Japan Times, 2012.

Courtesy: http://chellaney.net/2012/05/19/is-the-u-s-india-relationship-losing-steam/

Nepal is heading towards chaos

By Deepak Gajurel

As Nepal is a-few hour away from promulgating a ‘new constitution,’ indicators are that this land of Buddha and Pashupatinath is heading towards a renewed violence, probably to an extreme, beyond anybody’s imagination.

The political parties are a complete failure. They themselves have created this mess which seems to become boomerang. It is better that all ‘major parties’ should accept their failure and beg excuse to the nation and the people of Nepal, for their anti-nationalist deeds that they committed during the past six years.

From the international power equation stand point, Nepal has already become a heartland (playground) of proxy conflicts among and between world powers. Nepal is to face a gloomy days ahead.

An in-depth analysis of the current political and strategic situation, with possible future scenario is done in a radio talkshow. The 26-munute long interview was broadcast by Capital FM 92.4 in Kathmandu, on May 27, 2012 (Jestha 14, 2069).

Please click on the following link to listen or download the program in MP3 format (10.4 MB file size).

https://www.box.com/s/49a80dcffaf0618e1f60