With China’s economic power on the rise, there is a growing sense among many publics around the world that the global balance of power is shifting and that China already is, or will soon be, the world’s leading power, according to a new survey. The Pew Research Center’s latest Global Attitudes survey found that despite China’s rise in economic power, the People’s Republic is not very popular in Asia, Europe and the United States. As for the US, although the ‘Obama Bounce’ effect of more positive attitudes toward the United States is waning in Europe and China, anti-Americanism in most countries remains much lower than it was during the Bush administration, but remaining consistent in the Middle East. 

Bruce Stokes will present these findings and the expert panel will discuss the insights it provides into an emerging superpower rivalry. In addition they will discuss how these nuances in global attitudes might increasingly shape the security and economic policies of governments around the world.

Reaping the benefits of more than a decade of stability and fast economic growth, Angola increasingly wields global influence. Angola seeks to diversify its bilateral partnerships and improve existing ones, and is well-placed to exert its influence in multilateral fora. 

At this roundtable event, Angola’s Secretary of State for Cooperation, Hon Dr Maria Angela Bragança, will discuss Angola’s international priorities and how Angola is helping to shape key issues of global importance in a multipolar world.

With extensive and diverse engagements across sub-Saharan Africa, China is one among a range of international partners that is evolving its policy and relations with African states. At this roundtable meeting, Ambassador Zhong Jianhua will discuss China’s interests in Africa, the challenges it has faced and how China cooperates with international governments and across sectors in Africa. 

The unprecedented victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Narendra Modi, in India’s general election was a milestone in the recent history of India, leaving a single party with a majority in parliament for the first time in 25 years and the ruling coalition with a clear mandate. Manoj Ladwa, who worked on Modi’s election campaign, will provide his insights into the campaign and assess why it worked so well. 

The panel will consider the policy implications of the election results and, among other issues, provide insights into how this might shape India’s business outlook and foreign policy over the next five years. 

President Barack Obama’s recent visit to Asia has reanimated the debate over what America’s ‘pivot’ to Asia really means. The level of uncertainty over its regional engagement has been heightened by what many in the region, and beyond, consider an inadequate response to the events taking place in Ukraine. Rather than being reassured by the ‘rebalancing’, many Asian allies suspect the United States is becoming a less reliable ally. At the same time, concern is also growing about China’s increasing assertiveness, as demonstrated by recent events with Vietnam.

America’s Asian partners are increasingly exploring new ways to ensure their security, and they will, in time, find different ways to engage with it in the region. Unless the United States is more transparent about its intentions, and what others can expect from it, it is possible that it will be pushed towards a role not necessarily in line with its interests.

President Obama’s announcement of the ‘pivot’ to Asia in November 2011 provoked much debate over what it would mean in practice. It continues to be treated with much scepticism in the region and has raised tensions, with many fearing a military response from China (a fear that, in the eyes of many in the region, has already come to pass).

Allies have also questioned whether American rhetoric is being matched by action. US assets in the region remain strong (additional troops are being rotated in and new partnerships are being formed with the Philippines and others), but America’s will to use them appears less so.

Despite reassurances from Obama during his trip that the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands ‘fall within the scope of Article 5 of the US–Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security’ and that the United States opposes any unilateral attempts to change this, Japan was not reassured. A more ambiguous statement made last year by Secretary of State John Kerry, that the United States ‘does not take a position on the ultimate sovereignty of the islands’, has left many Japanese policy-makers wondering whether the US would ultimately back their country up in a conflict. Again, they look at America’s responses to events in Ukraine, Libya and Syria and wonder what it would be prepared to commit to if China were to try to seize control of disputed territory.

This uncertainty is leading many of America’s principal allies to consider additional ways to ensure their security. There are three main paths available to them: building domestic capabilities, forming ad hoc groupings, and reinforcing established regional groups.

The allies are first looking internally: across the board, defence spending has increased; for the first time, in 2012, Asia surpassed European spending, reaching a total of $310 billion. Countries such as India are expanding their naval capabilities to enhance their power projection and Japan is moving forward a reinterpretation of its constitution to allow a more ‘normalized’ role for its military, one in which it could come to the assistance of allies.

Asia-Pacific states are also looking to engage one another in informal bilateral or plurilateral groupings. Over the past decade, a proliferation of new groups has formed for such activities as strategic dialogue, joint training or operations. Building on their similar values and concerns, Japan, Australia and India, in particular, have been prolific in creating various combinations of partnerships among themselves and the United States. There are also some more unexpected (and potentially valuable) groupings, including that established between China, Japan and South Korea.

Where they are based on similar interests, these informal groupings can be a source of moral and political support, and even perhaps in time more operational support in the security arena. They can also provide a starting point for engaging a wider audience through more traditional regional groups, such as ASEAN and the East Asia Summit – the third option for allies to enhance their security.

These more established groups, while widely dismissed in the West as mere ‘talking shops’, perform a well-regarded function in the region. By supporting the broader web of networks on which states can come to depend, they provide opportunities for debating and managing (or diffusing) regional tensions.

America remains the most militarily powerful nation in the world. Its influence and common interests with its Asian allies will continue to ensure that it has strong sway in the region. Realistically, it will for the foreseeable future remain a necessary partner for its traditional allies, particularly those concerned by China’s growing assertiveness. And it remains in America’s interests to stay engaged. However, as ambiguity about its willingness to act increases, these allies will continue to reach for alternative solutions for managing their security.

While this aligns with the US desire to share more of the burdens of global citizenship, if it wants to remain a key Asia-Pacific power, America still needs its allies to need it. A little more clarity and transparency on its part, even if only stated privately, could start to rebuild trust and confidence, which would serve both America and its allies well. 

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As Nigeria celebrates one hundred years of unity, significant differences – real and perceived – remain between different parts of the country. This event marks the Nigeria launch of the Chatham House Briefing Who Speaks for the North? Politics and Influence in Northern Nigeria. Its author, Dr Leena Hoffmann, will discuss the effects of democratization and pacted politics on northern Nigeria, broader governance challenges, and how relations among decision-makers nationally have evolved.

Attendance at this event is by invitation only.

The US derives significant geopolitical power by issuing the dominant reserve currency. Not surprisingly, China would like to wield similar power and is successfully promoting the use of the renminbi to settle trade. The speaker will argue that the RMB’s chances of becoming a major reserve currency are poor, as financial liberalization, although a necessary condition, is insufficient. China must also earn the unquestioning trust of global money managers. History suggests this takes decades even for a rules-bound democracy, let alone an opaque, unpredictable single-party state.

Nigeria’s prospects, with its rise to international prominence as Africa’s largest economy, are tempered by the many development and security challenges the country faces. While essential reforms in the power and agriculture sectors are underway, such efforts are balanced against the Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast, significant concerns around youth unemployment, and an increasingly contentious political environment in the run-up to the February 2015 elections. 

Dr Doyin Okupe, Senior Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan, will discuss what steps the presidency is taking to address the country’s most urgent challenges, and how the political environment can be managed to overcome tensions that may impede progress.

Africa is now recognized for its vast potential as well as its political influence in international fora, and there has been a growing number of Africa-focused summits, with China, India, the European Union, South Korea and Turkey all hosting such events in recent years. The US has in the past given precedence to bilateral engagements in support of its ‘four pillars’ approach to implementing its Africa strategy. The first US-Africa Leaders’ Summit, held in August, marked a shift towards a complementary continent-wide engagement. 

At this roundtable, Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield will discuss US policy and priorities in Africa and the significance of the summit for enhanced US-Africa relations.

Attendance at this event is by invitation only.

The overarching theme of this event will be Korea’s changing role as a global power and its effect on the country’s relationships, including with the UK and Europe. It will aim to raise awareness of these issues to an audience of key decision-makers, and to encourage experts to think together strategically about areas of mutual interest, as well as practical ways to achieve deeper cooperation. 

Attendance at this event is by invitation only.

This event is held in partnership with the South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo.

In light of China’s economic reforms and a high-profile anti-corruption campaign, the speaker will argue that fundamental political, economic and social shifts have changed the nature of opportunities and risks for foreign businesses in China.

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This past Sunday, incumbent Dilma Rousseff defeated Aécio Neves in Brazil’s presidential runoff election, thus guaranteeing a fourth consecutive term in office for the Workers’ Party (PT). Her slim margin of victory (just over three percentage points) made this the closest presidential election in the country’s modern history, but it was also the sixth consecutive election fought between the PT and the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), which led Brazil in the 1990s.

The PT-PSDB duopoly, firmly in place since the Plano Real stabilization programme in 1994, has provided Brazil with unprecedented political stability. At the same time, it has made it difficult for new actors to gain a foothold in national politics: Marina Silva of the Socialist Party (PSB) failed spectacularly in her bid to establish a third force this year.

Another problem generated by the duopoly is that it oversimplifies Brazilian politics to a competition between two recent legacies. The legacy of the PSDB’s Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2002) was macroeconomic stability, and the legacy of the PT’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-10) was social inclusion. Pointing to resurgent inflation, Neves ran on the Cardoso legacy of sound economic management; pointing to recent social change, Rousseff ran on the Lula legacy of pro-poor policies.

Although this style of campaigning provided useful informational shortcuts to voters, at times it seemed as if Cardoso and Lula were on the ballot themselves. Televised debates verged on shouting matches and were woefully devoid of programmatic details. At a time when Brazil faces a host of policy challenges — anaemic growth, rising prices, creaking infrastructure, corruption scandals, and an alarming credit bubble — this was the most backward-looking presidential campaign in recent memory.

Although both Rousseff and Neves called for national unity in the wake of the close result, there is no doubt that Brazil is a house divided. Since 2006, presidential elections have been characterized by strong regional and class cleavages. The more modern south and southeast regions voted solidly for Neves, while the poor northeast supported Rousseff by a margin of three to one.

Support for Rousseff in any given state or city was closely linked to the percentage of the local population receiving Bolsa Família, the popular conditional cash transfer policy introduced by the Lula government. Meanwhile, firms and investors showed their clear preference for Neves: every increase by Rousseff in pre-election polls led to drops in share prices and increased demand for dollars. Although Neves carried only 12 of Brazil’s 27 states, these 12 states are responsible for 62 per cent of Brazil’s GDP. In her second term, Rousseff will be making course corrections to her economic policy in the clear knowledge that the private sector, especially in the influential state of São Paulo, largely opposed her re-election.

…but the Opposition Advances in Congress

Rousseff will also have to contend with the most complex Congress of modern times. Of Brazil’s 32 registered parties, some 28 will be represented in the 2015-18 legislature, the highest number ever recorded. The largest party, the PT, will control only 14 per cent of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies. Both the PT and its principal coalition partner, the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), lost ground in comparison to their performance in 2010. This means that the ruling coalition in 2015 will likely be reduced from two-third to three-fifths of the lower house, making it more difficult for Rousseff to approve constitutional amendments.

With a larger opposition bloc in Congress and a slim majority in the popular vote, Rousseff’s authority is clearly reduced. Unlike her predecessor Lula, she has only modest prestige and authority within the ruling PT, making it very unlikely that she will be able to promote an unchallenged successor from within the party ranks. Given that she cannot seek a third term, she runs the risk of facing early lame duck status. PT luminaries are already floating the name of Lula, now 69 years old, as the party’s possible candidate for 2018. To avoid sliding into irrelevance, Rousseff will need to name her new economic team (she is expected to make changes at the finance ministry and the central bank) as soon as possible, and to seize the legislative agenda in 2015.

The Path to Political Reform

A major item on Rousseff’s agenda will be political reform. Since the current constitution was introduced in 1988, every successive president has announced major proposals for changing the electoral system and the rules for campaign finance, with a few to reducing corruption and increasing accountability. Almost all of these proposals have died a slow death in Congress, so Rousseff is already advocating a plebiscite in order to preempt the expected foot-dragging by the political class.

One item that will certainly merit attention is the issue of re-election. Consecutive re-election of executives (presidents, governors and mayors) was introduced in 1997 and has revolutionized Brazilian politics. Some 65 per cent of mayors and 70 per cent of governors who attempt re-election are successful, and this has also been true of 100 per cent of presidents (Cardoso, Lula, and now Rousseff). In the past century, there has been only one other instance of three consecutive re-elected presidents in a democracy (Clinton, Bush and Obama in the US).

An end to immediate re-election was a key demand of both Aécio Neves and Marina Silva during the campaign. If Rousseff is sincere about political reform, she may set into motion the repeal of a rule that has greatly benefited her party.

The speaker will argue that President Xi Jinping's accretion of substantial political power has rendered him the most influential Chinese leader in decades. Still, there is much debate over how President Xi intends to wield that power, and to what end. The speaker will seek to deconstruct Xi's understanding of the nature of power, speculating on his likely game plan for his tenure and exploring the implications for China, the region, and the world in the first quarter of this century.

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On 26 January, President Barack Obama joined Prime Minister Narendra Modi as his guest at India’s Republic Day, in a reflection of the huge potential in the US-India relationship. The trip makes Obama the first US president to visit India twice while in office, and comes on the heels of Modi’s visit to Washington last autumn. Nevertheless, the heavily touted ‘transformation’ in bilateral affairs that these summits are supposed to herald is unlikely to materialize soon. Continued, active and deliberate effort by the two leaders could allow the relationship to jump forward, but given competing priorities, this moment seems destined to pass without the major advances many believe are possible.

Since the 2005 breakthrough nuclear deal which brought India into the non-proliferation tent, the opportunities in the bilateral relationship have been loudly extolled. Notably, the countries lack historical closeness − during the Cold War, India led the Non-Aligned Movement but leaned towards the Soviet Union. This means that there is ample opportunity to progress in a number of key areas – but also is indicative of the challenges.

Democracy

It is often said that India is the largest democracy and the United States the oldest. President George W. Bush saw India as a valuable partner in promoting democracy around the region and the world. India’s loud, raucous political system should be a good example of a vibrant democracy. However, India, like China, holds strongly to the primacy of sovereignty and as such has no wish to lead others to build new political systems or to impose them.

Economics and trade

India has a middle class that is, by some counts, larger than the entire US population. However, India’s regulatory system is complex, and its legal architecture slow and unpredictable. After recent Indian decisions such as the 2012 case where retroactive taxes were imposed on Vodafone, American businesses have been extremely wary. Tensions at a governmental level were also raised in America after India collapsed the WTO negotiations last July.

Security

Major strides have been taken in military cooperation, and there is space for more.  During Obama’s visit, the two leaders revitalized their Defence Framework, building on a 2005 agreement and subsequent progress led by then-US deputy secretary of defense Ash Carter. Carter’s likely confirmation as secretary of defense in the coming weeks is probably the brightest spot for the future bilateral agenda. But Indian acquisition processes do not align well with their American equivalents.  And the US is resistant to providing blueprints to technology, which the Indians want, preferring to build at home and sell the equipment on. These misalignments make progress in this area difficult.

Geopolitics

India wants to be considered a regional and global power, and America would dearly like to have India onside, particularly in light of China’s occasional muscle flexing. However, as illustrated by its uncritical stance towards Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its abstention from the 2011 UN Security Council resolution authorizing military action in Libya, India’s view on sovereignty and its historical non-aligned positioning mean that it too often fails to back up the US on divisive issues.

Environment

The environmental debates between India (as a representative of the developing world) and the US (representing the developed) have often been acrimonious, as the two sides take opposing views on where the principal responsibility lies in ensuring growth while limiting the environmental fallout. There are however opportunities in this arena to advance together through technology cooperation. India is the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases (behind China and the US) and has significant and growing energy demands as it works to bring its people out of poverty. If the US and India could find a compromise similar to the recent agreement between the US and China, the impact could be significant both in environmental terms and in the demonstration effect to others.

Unrealized potential

Most of these issues are central to President Obama’s legacy and integral to Modi’s goals of restoring growth to India and putting it at the centre of global geopolitics. They should dovetail well with both leaders’ agendas. But in each case, the challenges, including the institutional bureaucracies, are preventing real breakthroughs.

If this bilateral relationship is to be transformed, Obama and Modi need to not just push their systems, but exert sustained pressure on them to overcome the long-standing obstacles. Unfortunately, given other agendas and historical legacies of distrust, such ongoing attention is unlikely. More likely, the relationship will continue to move ahead, but the huge potential will for now remain unrealized.

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The stunning victory of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in elections to Delhi’s legislative assembly on 7 February is clearly causing reverberations around India’s political establishment, and has been widely interpreted as the end of Narendra Modi’s honeymoon period. While it is not a rejection of the prime minister’s development agenda, it highlights the reality that his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has built previous electoral victories on a divided opposition.  Its implications may well spread far beyond Delhi.

Sensing Modi’s likely ascendency, many Western countries expended energy in courting him in the run-up to last year’s election. For the previous decade, many had ostracized Modi for his response to the 2002 riots that occurred in Gujarat while he was chief minister (CM). The belief that Modi was the likely prime minister, coupled with the desire to strengthen relations with India, as well as the fact that he had been cleared of complicity in the riots in each court case, meant that past concerns were put to one side. Underpinning this recalibration was a belief that Modi was a changed man; the earlier firebrand had transformed into a managerial technocrat, focusing on development issues — providing power to farmers for instance — in Gujarat.

The 2014 general election campaign did little to change that impression. The BJP’s success was built on a promise of development — house-building, access to sanitation and so forth. Progress has understandably been slower than many would have hoped. But the Delhi election does not change the fact that if successful strategies are put in place to begin delivering on promises made by, say, the third year of the current parliament, Modi may well be able to preside over a 10-year transformation of India.

Modi has also been wooing foreign investment. His bonhomie with foreign leaders, whether Chinese or American, is a powerful signal that India is open for business. India’s economic boom in the middle of the last decade was driven in part by positive investor sentiment. The subsequent realization that ‘red tape’ was still an impediment to business helped drive the slowdown. Recreating a feel-good wave could well boost economic growth; if it coincided with better governance, it could even become self-sustainable.

The Delhi election doesn’t change this, either. It reduces Modi’s air of invincibility and will mean that he faces genuine opposition, admittedly from a chief minister rather than in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament. The fact that it is India’s capital will give new Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal much greater prominence internationally than any other CM. But given that both Modi and Kejriwal won landslides on a platform that reflected an aspiration for change rather than a promise for some form of community-based redistribution gives them a (relatively) shared agenda.

If Modi’s vision is to be implemented, it necessarily requires cooperation with chief ministers. Clearly, that is easier if states are BJP-controlled, and BJP-controlled states can be used to test economic reforms. But if a vision is to be India-wide, there has to be some level of cooperation with the majority of states, which do not have BJP governments.

Until the Delhi election, the BJP had been performing strongly in recent state elections. It may well continue to do so and edge closer to a majority in the upper house of parliament, the Rajya Sabha. But one takeaway from both the general election and the Delhi election is that the BJP is far from a majority party. It won a majority of seats in the Lok Sabha with a little over 30 per cent of the vote. Its vote was concentrated geographically, and the opposition was divided. In the Delhi election, it won 32 per cent of the vote. The obvious takeaway is that a divided opposition benefits the BJP. If the economy booms, more parties are likely to want to join hands with the BJP. If it does not, and if the opposition was united (admittedly, a very big if), the BJP will struggle to win two terms.

An alternative takeaway is that the social base of the BJP needs to be widened. The reaction to US President Barack Obama’s recent speech, in which he mentioned the need for religious tolerance, suggests sensitivity towards communal issues. Delhi witnessed a number of small-scale communal incidents — including vandalism against churches — in the run-up to the state election. If such incidents were replicated in the run-up to the Bihar election later this year, the outcome may well be much worse.

Any switch towards a more Hindutva-focused agenda would seem likely to encourage the consolidation of non-BJP parties. A serious outbreak of communal violence while Modi is PM will be bad for India, but also troubling for the West. Having portrayed himself in a presidential manner, Modi would struggle not to take some responsibility.

Thus, sticking with a development agenda must be imperative. The Delhi election should be seen as a blip for the BJP, a demonstration of the value Indian voters place on development and reinforce the need to focus on delivering that development. While voters may be getting impatient, what’s important is where India stands at the time of the next election.

This article was originally published in the Indian Express.

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Long predicted, many observers now think that China has or is about to become more powerful than the United States on the global stage. Joseph Nye will explore the facts behind these beliefs and question if the century of American centrality in the global balance of power is at an end.

LIVE STREAM: This event will be live streamed. The live stream will be made available at 18:00 BST on Tuesday 9 June.

ASK A QUESTION: We will endeavour to ensure that questions are put to the speaker from our online audience as well as from the audience in the auditorium. Questions can be sent in advance via email to questions@chathamhouse.org and during the event on Twitter using #CHEvents.

This event will be followed by a reception.

 

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The speaker will argue that Chinese foreign policy should be viewed as an extension of domestic policy to a degree not seen in other countries. China's foreign policy aims to support domestic growth and employment, must be aligned with nationalist and narratives of ‘rejuvenation’ and the ‘China Dream’, and must help dilute hostile foreign values. The ‘One Belt, One Road’ project, also known as the ‘New Silk Road’, exemplifies this. The speaker will illustrate its origins and development, discuss how it promotes the Communist Party’s domestic agenda, as well as look at (secondary) geostrategic aims and difficulties. Finally, he will look at the lessons for Europe, and why and how this Chinese initiative should be welcomed.

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It has become routine for China’s leaders to use high profile international events as a means of projecting a preferred image of what China stands for and how it will act as  a great power, one that is perhaps now second only to the US in the league table of global powers. So it is no surprise that Xi Jinping has used his interventions at the UN development summit and his address to the General Assembly to showcase China’s growing role as a global aid actor, and to call for greater ‘democratization’ of global governance institutions (or, in other words, a greater role and say for China and other developing countries). China’s alleged and self-proclaimed (and challenged) predilection for peace, a desire to build a ‘new type’ of (vaguely defined) international relations, and support for the UN as the sole arbiter of when sovereignty might possibly be put aside (instead of the US or a coalition of the willing) are also now relatively well-established and rehearsed Chinese positions.

In addition to wielding China’s financial power in support of this national image projection, Xi’s activities also represent a move towards mobilizing discursive power (话语权) as well. To date, and for a number of years, this discursive power has been primarily deployed in a defensive manner, with the aim of denying the supposed universal nature of many of the norms and principles of the international order. These norms, as articulated by both Chinese government officials and some supportive academic scholars, are not universal at all, but merely the product of a small number of Western countries’ histories, philosophies and developmental trajectories. So, in this formulation, while it is important to have a common set of principles and responsibilities as the basis for international interactions, each country should be free to develop its own nation-specific definitions based on its own unique histories and contexts. And it is only these Chinese-inspired definitions and aspirations – of human rights, for example, or development – that China should be judged against.

But this position has changed under Xi, with China’s leaders increasingly keen on promoting Chinese understandings and definitions as the basis for international debates and international action. Hot on the heels of Chinese attempts to take a leading role in defining the basis for global cyber diplomacy,  China is now seeking to shape the way that development is defined and understood – which of course has massive implications for how development, thus defined, might be attained.

Leading on development, missing on security

Xi’s willingness – or should that be desire – to establish Chinese potential global leadership was less apparent when it came to solving the major security challenges of the day. To be sure, there was talk about the need for new ways of dealing with insecurity that recognize the consequences of globalization and that no country can solve problems on its own – including, presumably, the United States. The pledge of more peacekeepers will cement China’s position as one of the world’s major contributors to UN overseas activities, and the promise of a military assistance fund to the African Union shows that Beijing really is an important security actor beyond its own borders. But when it comes to conflict in places like Syria, China seems content to maintain its back seat and allow Russia to take the lead in a crisis that is admittedly some distance from China’s own backyard. Expect a Chinese-led agenda for the G20 summit in 2016 in China that reinforces this differential willingness to assume leadership roles depending on the specific issue at hand.  

So for the time being, the aim seems to be primarily to confirm the idea that China is a new and very different type of great power; one that is a friend and supporter of those smaller developing states and emerging powers that had previously suffered from the asymmetric economic and military power of great powers in the West (or in some cases, still do). As part of this ‘difference’ a second related objective seems to be to establish China as a global leader on development issues.

But simply asserting something does not mean that it is true, and its something of an understatement to suggest that China’s pacific and non-interventionist self-identity has not been accepted by everybody, particularly in East and Southeast Asia. China’s developmental achievements have also been questioned. The response in Beijing to Hilary Clinton’s tweet that it was ‘shameless’ that Xi was co-host of a meeting on women’s rights shows that the defensive nature of Chinese policy remains in place: ‘those in the best position to judge the state of women's issues in China are Chinese people, particularly Chinese women’, according to the foreign ministry. And Clinton’s comments also show that the field of ideas is not being left open for China to do whatever it wants just yet; gaining widespread acceptance for Chinese preferences is not going to be an easy task and will likely face considerable resistance. But the suggestion here is that the world is likely to see a growing Chinese presence over the coming years not just as a global development and aid provider, but also as a putative developer of new global norms.

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Professor Brown will examine how Xi Jinping has consolidated authority since becoming head of the Communist Party in 2012 and explore what his goals are for the future of China. Is Xi trying to cement his own power or protect the interests of the party by guiding it towards a more sustainable rule?

This talk will introduce the key arguments in CEO China: The Rise of Xi Jinping, the speaker’s full-length, English language study of Xi, his background, current position and core beliefs.
 

Parag Khanna will draw on the themes of his new book, Connectography, to explain how the future of geopolitics lies less in determining national borders and territory but more in controlling infrastructure, supply chains and market access.

Khanna argues that new energy discoveries and innovations have eliminated the need for resource wars, global financial assets are being deployed to build productive infrastructure that can reduce inequality, and regions such as Africa and the Middle East are unscrambling their fraught colonial borders through ambitious new transportation corridors and power grids. He will contend that beneath the chaos of a world that often appears to be falling apart is a new foundation of connectivity pulling it together.

This event will be followed by a reception open to all attendees.
 

Much of the focus on China’s 13th Five Year Plan – its centralized and integrated economic guidelines for the next five years – has been on the estimated growth rate of 6.5 per cent, its lowest in recent history. This reflects the so-called ‘new normal’ of China’s development, as President Xi Jinping’s administration describes its aspiration for higher-quality growth in the context of a slowing economy.

But this growth target is an estimate, rather than a pledge. The emphasis on ‘ecological civilization’ – another of Xi’s signature buzzwords, referring to a broad set of approaches environmental protection – is striking. Further, by putting innovation and ‘green development’ at the heart of its ambition to create a ‘moderately prosperous society’, China has sent an important signal: that the country’s strategy for future prosperity in many respects converges with a shift away from its environmentally costly development model.

Environmental goals

The plan endorses a ‘vertical management system’ that will help overcome structural impediments to the local enforcement of environmental laws,  and of its 13 binding targets, 10 relate to the environment and natural resources. In the plan, China commits to an 18 per cent reduction in carbon emissions per unit of GDP from 2015 levels by 2020 and a 15 per cent reduction in energy consumed per unit of GDP from 2015 levels by 2020. It also re-commits to generate 15 per cent of primary energy from non-fossil sources and introduces an important new target of keeping energy consumption below 5 billion tonnes of standard coal equivalent by 2020. Underlining how air quality has become a major driver of energy and climate policymaking, it also promises a 25 per cent reduction in harmful PM2.5 particulates.

In short, the plan suggests that decision makers in China not only take seriously its UN pledge to see a peak in the country’s emissions before 2030, but also that they hope the country will be the leading supplier of low-carbon technologies. Among its non-binding targets are some significant innovation-related measures: to raise gross expenditure on research and development as a percentage of GDP to 2.5 per cent, from 2.1 per cent today; and over the same period to almost double the number of patents owned per 10,000 people, from 6.3 to 12.

Innovation

The document makes clear the principal driver of China’s economy should be innovation, rather than investment. Innovation, says the plan, ‘must be placed at the heart of overall national development’ and ‘integrated into all the works of the Party and the country’. There is emphasis on strategic areas at the ‘frontiers’ of science, ‘mass entrepreneurship’ through new models such as crowd-funding, and digital economy projects – what the leadership likes to call ‘Internet+’ – including around the Internet of Things, quantum computing and big data.  

Under China’s 12th Five Year Plan (from 2011 to 2015), the state focused on a defined number of specific technology goals in its ‘strategic emerging industries’. Renewable energies and electric vehicles, for example, were afforded specific preferential policies. By contrast, the new plan has a greater focus on ‘clean coal’ and hydropower in the energy sector; and while it doesn’t abandon solar and wind, it also suggests greater diversity in its overall approach, with more of an emphasis on reform of the energy sector, developing smart power grids and investing in energy storage technologies such as batteries and fuel cells.

Moreover, innovation in the plan is not framed as simply being about hardware – the commercialization of science and technology. Rather, the text reiterates that innovation should come in many different varieties: ‘theoretical, institutional, scientific and technological, and cultural innovation’. This raises the intriguing and hopeful possibility that the country’s planners recognize some of the challenges and opportunities the public, particularly in the form of newly vocal, engaged and connected urban constituencies, pose in the governance of innovation.

Policymakers – taking ‘social innovation’ seriously – could begin look at the public as technology users, incubators of demand-driven successes, and innovators in their own right. In a context of low public trust around food and agriculture in China, for example, organic cooperatives and ecological entrepreneurs have pioneered supply-chain innovations, typically facilitated by digital networks, to connect farmers with urban consumers looking for safer food. Lower-tech approaches to energy too – such as inexpensive solar water heaters, which garner a mention in the latest plan – have been driven by rural users and supported by local initiatives, rather than central government coordination or subsidies.

These approaches to innovation would present a quite different model than previous central government plans have encouraged. Whether in the plan’s implementation they are harnessed and given support might be critical to meeting China’s environmental goals, as well as its drive to create a more innovative economy and society.

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On the surface, the Indian economy is performing well, and the popularity of Narendra Modi, the prime minister elected on the promise of liberalizing reform two years ago, is holding up. Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has referred to India as a ‘bright spot’ in the slowing global economy. According to them, growth equalled China’s last year at 7.3% and has now taken the lead as the world’s fastest growing economy. Yet some joke that India’s prospects look brighter the farther away you are.

The panel will reflect on Modi’s two years in power and discuss what they think the government got wrong and what they got right. They will question whether India’s resurgence can be sustained into the future, and discuss what this actually means for the prospects of India’s 1.3 billion people, as well as the balance of power in Asia and beyond.

This event is organized in association with the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.

It is tempting to read China's refusal in this case to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal in The Hague as the defiance of an arrogant superpower that views itself as above international law. No doubt many in Manila, Washington and elsewhere are purveying this view. But there is more here than meets the eye.

For decades, Beijing has complained that the global order was forged in an era when China was weak and the rules of the game are rigged against it.

But this lament is more difficult to sustain in relation to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which China helped negotiate in the 1970s and early 1980s. Beijing signed the treaty as soon as it was opened for signature in 1982 and ratified it in 1996.

The Philippines initiated this arbitration against China in 2013 as part of a long-running dispute over rights in the South China Sea, including over the Spratly Islands (known as the 'Nansha Islands' in China) and surrounding maritime areas. 

Under the treaty, China is not obliged to defend the case but this is no bar to proceedings and it remains legally bound by the award. From a legal perspective, its refusal to participate is thus a risky move, all the more so since the ruling is likely to have legal ramifications for China's highly charged maritime disputes with other neighbours such as Vietnam and Malaysia.

It is well known that the legal proceedings launched by the Philippines sparked a contest of ideas in Beijing. Behind closed doors, some Chinese international lawyers argued that China should prove its commitment to the international rule of law by vigorously fighting its corner in the arbitration. The defeat of these liberal voices is usually interpreted as an inevitable effect of the nationalists' grip on power under President Xi Jinping.

In a significant concession to those on the losing side of the argument, however, China published a position paper setting out its objections to the jurisdiction of the tribunal and formally conveyed this to the tribunal which treated it as ‘effectively constituting a plea on jurisdiction’.

This novel form of ‘non-participating participation’ must be seen against the backcloth of a strategic ambition by China to develop a greater mastery of international law. At an important meeting just two months earlier, the Communist Party called for China to strengthen its ‘discourse power and influence in international legal affairs’ and use legal methods to safeguard its ‘sovereignty, security and development interests’.

Our research team at Chatham House has been tracking impressive steps by China to realize this goal, including new government decision-making machinery designed to promote compliance with international law, a hiring spree of international lawyers and new advisory committee for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, promotion of scholarship and efforts to show norm leadership especially in ‘new domains’ of international law such as cyber law, and a training programme to share growing Chinese international law expertise with the global South.

We know from Chinese colleagues that maritime disputes are a major impetus for this drive. For years, the Chinese government has fretted about its low capabilities in the international legal field, compared with other permanent members of the UN Security Council and regional rivals such as Japan. Now, impelled by the need to protect its strategic interests in the South China Sea and elsewhere, it is doing something about it.

It may seem paradoxical in light of its bullish attacks on the Philippines and even the tribunal itself, but China's boycott of the arbitration should also be seen as a manifestation of its low confidence in its own capacities in the realm of international law. Speculation is rife that the leadership lacks faith in its ability to convince the tribunal of the legal validity of its controversial ‘nine dash line’ demarcation of China's rights in the South China Sea.  

In the arbitration and otherwise, China has avoided clarifying the precise legal basis and implications of its ‘nine dash line’ claims while sponsoring a vast industry of academic studies to support its position.

In the meantime, China is playing to its strengths, including its deep pockets, in pursuing an extrajudicial approach. An audacious programme of land reclamation and militarization of atolls and escalating patrols and exercises in disputed territories is a clear effort to alter ‘the facts on the water’. And in recent months it has choreographed statements of political support for its South China Sea claims from a motley crew of states with economic ties to China.

While China's rejection of the South China Sea arbitration is true to form for a powerful state that, like its great rival the United States, is generally ill-disposed towards binding international dispute resolution processes, it is not inconceivable that this approach will give way when China becomes more confident in its ability to play and win at ‘law fare’, as we are already seeing in the context of World Trade Organization disputes. Until then, in time-honoured fashion, Beijing is biding its time, plugging its skills gap and hoping it can shake off mounting reputational damage from its petulant spurning of these proceedings.

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The arbitration between the Philippines and China on the dispute in the South China Sea is coming to an end. The Permanent Court of Arbitration is to issue its decision on 12 July. This meeting will discuss the notable points of the tribunal’s award and the next steps. 

Attendance at this event is by invitation only.

The ruling by an arbitral tribunal of five members based in The Hague was simple and devastating. It declares that ‘China’s claims to historic rights… with respect to the maritime areas of the South China Sea encompassed by the relevant part of the “nine-dash line” are contrary to the [The UN] Convention [on the Law of the Sea, UNCLOS]’. This is a result that Southeast Asia’s maritime countries have long sought. The way is now clear to resolve all the disputes in the region, if the participants choose to do so.

For decades, countries around the South China Sea lived under the shadow of a quasi-territorial claim that no one really understood. What did the U-shaped, nine-dashed line marked on Chinese maps actually mean? In 2009, the Chinese government attached a copy of the map to an official submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf and the region became alarmed. For the first time, it seemed that China was serious about asserting a claim to all the land and water inside the line.

On Tuesday that claim was dismissed as entirely incompatible with international law. Moreover, the Arbitral Tribunal ruled that not one of the Spratly Islands qualifies as an ‘island’. This ruling is at least as significant: it means none of the features in the archipelago are entitled to an exclusive economic zone. Theoretically it should now be simple to resolve all the maritime disputes in the southern part of the South China Sea. The Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and the Philippines can, in principle, draw lines up to 200 nautical miles out from their coasts and agree compromises where they overlap. China is now irrelevant to this process because its nearest coastline is simply too far away.

All the 50 or so features in the Spratly Islands that are naturally above water at high tide would be granted a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea. The resulting settlement would resemble a Swiss cheese: large areas of exclusive economic zone measured from national coastlines punctuated by a few dozen ‘bubbles’ of disputed territory. This would not resolve the disputes about which country is the rightful owner of those ‘bubbles’ but it would settle the maritime disputes in the sea around them.

Of course, there are still wrinkles. Not least is the Philippines claim to the Malaysian province of Sabah in northern Borneo. This means that, for the time being, those two countries can’t settle the maritime boundary between them. They could, nonetheless, agree how far it projects offshore.

The bigger problem will be China’s attitude. Its response to the tribunal’s ruling has been angry but curiously misdirected. State media have focused their ire on questions of territorial sovereignty – even though the tribunal was barred from even considering this subject. China’s territorial claims to the rocks of the Spratly Islands are entirely unaffected by Tuesday’s ruling. There must be separate processes to resolve those questions.

China has many interests in the South China Sea – including defence, trade routes, fisheries and hydrocarbons – so it’s not surprising that it pursues whatever approach it thinks practical in order to protect them. However, the whole purpose of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea was to create an international order that defended the rights of countries to exploit the resources off their own coasts without threat from other states further away. China was a full participant in the negotiations between 1973 and 1982 that created UNCLOS and, at that time, was a strong defender of the rights of coastal countries.

While it may feel that it has lost out from this week’s ruling, China has much to gain from a strong community of regional order in the South China Sea. Most Southeast Asian countries remain alarmed by China’s intentions − which is why, in the past few years, they have been strengthening their ties with the United States and increasing military spending. China’s wider interests would benefit from a de-escalation of this tension. Reassuring its neighbours would give them less reason to rely on the US.

Putting a new maritime order in place, based upon UNCLOS and commitments between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, would be a major step towards this. It would also bring many associated benefits – not least cooperation to protect the region’s fish stocks, which are facing disastrous collapse. The first step is accepting the implications of Tuesday’s ruling.

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President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has responded with an iron fist to last Friday’s failed military coup attempt in Turkey by detaining, dismissing or suspending, so far, 60,000 military officers, police and intelligence officials, judges, teachers, academics and civil servants, and imposing a widespread travel ban and a three-month state of emergency. He is vowing to reintroduce the death penalty, abolished in 2004 as part of reforms required for opening EU accession negotiations.

This uncompromising approach in the post-coup period will have profound negative implications on Turkey’s domestic politics, security and foreign policy in the foreseeable future to the detriment of its stability and prosperity.

Fractured politics

Erdogan’s indifference to the unprecedented political unity against the coup is, regretfully, a missed opportunity to dilute the deepening polarization and divisiveness bedeviling Turkish politics. His determination to use the putsch to consolidate political power in the presidency and to erode or eliminate the secular character of the Turkish state by means of a new constitution will widen the ideological and ethnic divide between, respectively, secular and conservative Turks and Turks and Kurds. Just a few months ago, Ismail Kahramam, speaker of the Turkish parliament and Erdogan ally, exhorted that ‘secularism cannot feature in the new [religious] constitution’.

His policies and rhetoric, in other words, will undermine even more the almost imperceptible presence of ‘interpersonal trust’ in Turkish society - the willingness of one party to rely on the actions of another party – seen as incongruent with a robust polity and cohesive society. According to a 2010 OECD survey Turkey’s levels of interpersonal trust are considerably lower than OECD averages and it stands out among the 20 surveyed countries as the only one where higher educational attainment correlates with lower feelings of trust. That posture can only breed even more discord and mistrust between the different segments of the Turkish electorate and entrench personality-based and top-down politics, the root cause of political turmoil in Turkey.

Diminished state capacity

Turkey’s NATO partners fear that the purges of experienced military and security personnel have the potential to diminish its capability to thwart the threat posed by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other militant groups and to better manage its long and porous borders with Syria and Iraq. Thus far, Turkish authorities have incarcerated nearly one-third of Turkey’s senior military commanders and more than 7,000 police and intelligence officials. This constitutes a major loss of expertise and institutional memory at a time of heightening security challenges. After all, Turkey witnessed 14 bomb attacks over the last year, many of them carried out by ISIS or the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Similarly, the removal of tens of thousands of school teachers, both in private and state schools, university academics and education ministry officials will severely disrupt the provision of adequate educational services to enable future generations to succeed in an increasingly complex global economic environment. This ‘cleansing’ operation did not spare even the elite and renowned state and private universities considered bastions of liberalism and cosmopolitan values in Turkey.

In all probability, the government’s replacements of key staff with less qualified loyalists will rupture the institutional integrity and professionalism of the military establishment and the state institutions. Such a hollowing out process was already underway prior to the coup but post-coup decision-making has greatly accelerated the speed. Sadly, under the best case scenario, it will take Turkey years, if not decades, to restore a modicum of rule of law and public services’ delivery at pre-coup standards to which the Turkish citizenry have been accustomed.

Foreign policy challenges

Erdogan’s endorsement of the death penalty might signal the end of Turkey’s (already nearly non-existent) EU accession prospects and a more troubled relationship with Europe and the US. He was, before the coup, a prickly and challenging partner for the US and NATO to handle, a recalcitrant member of the US-led anti-ISIS coalition and vociferously against the US cooperation with PKK-affiliated Syrian Kurdish fighters targeting ISIS in northern Syria. After the coup, he will probably become more disagreeable to US and European foreign policy and security objectives.

His disagreeability will probably extend to Turkey’s deal with the EU to stem the flow of Syrian migrants across the Aegean Sea and Greece into mainland Europe, which looks increasingly unsustainable. A pugnacious Erdogan may utilize the forthcoming EU refusal to abolish visas for Turkish travellers to the Schengen borderless zone by end-October to wring out more concessions from an Erdogan-sceptical Europe. Despite their exasperation, they should decipher from his rapprochement with Israel and Russia that he tends to compromise with muscular diplomacy as opposed to diplomatic niceties.    

Turkey will be so convulsed and self-absorbed by internal political machinations and its security and military capabilities so compromised that it cannot afford to deploy sizeable assets to promote regime change in Damascus. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian backers are, naturally, the prime beneficiaries while the armed largely Sunni opposition are the biggest losers. Arguably, Assad must now feel very secure in power and confident that he will enlarge his territorial acquisitions at the expense of the Sunni groups. Equally, the Syrian Kurds will seek to strengthen and, perhaps, extend the quasi-autonomous zone along the Turkey−Syria border commensurate with Turkey’s declining influence in the Syrian quagmire.

Europe’s lesson

Turkey is a bitter testimony to the ill-effects of sacrificing progressive values to political expediency, fear and interests. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French president Nicolas Sarkozy demonstrated a lack of strategic foresight by stymying Turkey’s desire to join the EU in 2005. Had the EU engaged Turkey in a credible accession process, however arduous it may have been, the coup would probably have never occurred. Turkish political leaders would have been forced to implement deeper and wider reforms to strengthen democracy, secularism, human rights and a functioning market economy. Instead, Europe is reaping what it sowed: a coup-rattled and more unstable Turkey on its doorstep.

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The field of Indian foreign policy is rich and wide ranging, offering new empirical material across a broad array of topics and relationships. This article reviews three recent books on the subject, with an eye towards evaluating change amid continuity in the pursuit of Indian foreign policy. This scholarship calls out for a new paradigm to understand India’s changing position and actions at global, regional and domestic levels. I argue that Indian foreign policy can and should be seen through the prism of an open border, interdependence framework, wherein both the domestic and global levels are analysed in a linked manner. While the literature surveyed here does not yet offer a new paradigm, some common findings suggest the need for new approaches. We also need to find and use new sources of data and seek ways to measure institutional effects in foreign policy. The task of measurement and theoretical modelling is made more challenging by the need to theorize the linkages across levels and to measure foreign policy variables in different countries simultaneously.