Salta al contenuto

A (new) revisionist history of early modern China

Evelyn S. Rawski, Early Modern China and Northeast Asia. Cross-border Perspectives, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2015, 339 pp., (ISBN 9781107471528)

Early Modern China and Northeast Asia. Cross-border Perspectives represents the culmination of a long research work dedicated to the study of Chinese history through a new perspective that goes beyond national histories, while the general trend has been so far to accept the parameters of Chinese nationalist historiography which considers it in a linear way which revolves around the Central Plain (zhongyuan), the cradle of Chinese culture, and its original inhabitants, the Han Chinese. Central in the book is the concept of «decentering China», which is intended to examine Chinese history «from the perspective of the periphery, and not the core» (p. 1), arguing that it was the interaction between borderlands and Central Plain that worked «as the dynamic engine behind the long-term development of China’s imperial function» (p. 225). By doing so, Evelyn Rawski challenges the conventional notion that sees the Chinese history as a linear narrative, centered on the Central plains and the Han culture, asserting that since the sixteenth century China’s history can be better understood by framing it in the wider regional context of Korea, Japan, Jurchen/Manchu and Mongol.

From this perspective the author rejects Chinese history’s interpretation which sees it in terms of an «encompassing and engulfing strength» that sinicizes all who come under its influence, but brings forward the point of view according to which Chinese history has been significantly affected by a multitude of extrinsic forces with which it has interacted over the centuries. In this way she contributes to discarding the conventional view that Korea and Japan were subordinate actors within a Chinese world, while they were in fact strictly interrelated. One of the main strengths of the book lies undoubtedly in the impressive language skills possessed by the author – Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Manchu (one of the two official languages of the Qing state) – and the subsequent masterful use of a staggering array of sources in these languages (pp. 10-14). These include both archival sources – the Veritable Records for the Ming Dinasty, the Veritable Records for the Qing Dinasty, the Veritable Records of the Korean Choson Dinasty and primary sources in Japanese concerning the invasion of Korea from Toyotomi Hideyoshi, among the others – and an abundant secondary literature in both Asian and Western languages, as revealed by the extensive bibliography at the end of the book. The importance of reading and comparing numerous sources (beyond the Chinese ones) resides in the fact that it «provide(s) valuable information that was censored or edited out of Chinese texts, and reveal other views that are absent from the diplomatic correspondence between states» (p. 14), thus offering divergent interpretations from orthodoxy, represented by Chinese history that has long enjoyed the «hegemony of inscriptions».

The book is articulated in five chapters grouped in two parts, preceded by an introduction and followed by a conclusion, a substantial epilogue and an extensive bibliography. Part I provides an overview of northeast Asia’s role in Chinese history, and thus of China’s position in regional and world history, while Part II focuses on the crucial issues of culture and identity, encompassing what Victor Lieberman calls «politicized ethnicity», i.e. the «cultural practices created by elites that simultaneously affirmed their shared civilization roots and their uniqueness» (p. 105). The first chapter places northeast Asia with respect to China’s core region in the Central Plain and argues that the creation of Korean and Japanese states was the result of an «intense interaction with other entities on the steppe and the Central Plain» (p. 21). The author divides this long history of interaction in three phases. The first, which lasted until the rise of the Tang (618-907), saw the early formation of autochthonous states on China’s northeast frontier, that interacted more intensively with other polities at the periphery than with China’s core region; the second, which followed the decline of the Tang, witnessed an important shift in power to northeast Asian states – Khitan Liao, Jurchen Jin, Mongol Yuan – that used their military advantage to defeat regimes based in the Central Plain and ruled large empires composed by both nomadic and agrarian subjects. The third phase began with the arrival of Europeans in maritime Asia, an event which disrupted and eventually shifted the power balance among these states. In particular, Korea and Japan began to behave as confident players, and eventually challenged the traditional sinocentric world order (p. 55).

The second chapter deals with the transformative new practices adopted by China and Japan through cross-border commercial activities and multi-state competition between 1550 and 1650. After providing an account of the invasion of Korea by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1592 and the rise of the Jurchen/Manchu in the first half of the 17th century, the chapter focuses on the consequences of the increasing trading exchanges initiated with European traders, colonizers, and missionaries, which contributed to «make the 1550-1650 period ‘early modern’» (p. 62), and favored the adoption by the Qing state and Japan of «the perspectives of early modern European states» (p. 101). At the same time, the growing of the territorial awareness, and the rising of the cultural boundaries delineating national self-images, contributed to make intellectuals in China, Korea, and Japan increasingly willing to articulate their distinctive national identities in the 17th and 18th centuries, as argued in Part 2.

The third and four chapter are more connected as they analyze Japan and Korea’s adaptations (and resistance) of the Chinese model. While the former is specifically dedicated to state rituals, which aimed at «legitimat[ing] political systems and creat[ing] symbolic communities» (p. 105), reflecting each state’s desire to assert its specific identity; the latter provides a new perspective on the aversion of Chinese Confucian practices, with special reference to the contrast between Chinese patrilineality and Japanese/Korean bilateral kinship. In both cases the author reveals the existence of similar tensions between indigenous traditions and Chinese (Confucian) norms. A special attention deserves the fifth chapter that looks into the discourse of civilized (hua) and barbarian (yi) propounded at first by Chinese, and adopted later by Korean and Japanese, in order to clarify how elites in the 17th and 18th centuries resolved identity issues.

According to the Chinese scholar Li Dalong, the historical origins of the Hua-Yi discourse in China date back to before 221 BCE (p. 191), while the term huaren (people of Hua, meaning the «core group», i.e. the civilized and educated people) seems to have appeared in 229 CE, in the text Zuo Zhuan (Zou Commentary), to which Rawski refers without explicitly mention it (p. 192). The concept of Huaren was used to distinguish China (the Zhongguo, the Middle Kingdom), which was identified with civilization, from any other reality. From the early texts emerges that the Chinese would consider all those who did not belong to the world of Chinese culture to be «hardly human». Starting from the northern dynasties period (220-589 CE), Chinese writings include many passages describing the Yi as persons without culture, sometimes likening them to «jackals and wolves», «animals», rather than humans (ibid.). In more recent times, the term Yi was a prefix commonly found in references to Englishmen, and in general to all foreigners, in Qing documents.

Interestingly, while the Qing rulers asserted that «Heaven chose a ruling house on the basis of virtue, not ethnicity» (p. 222), Koreans and Japanese in contrast cited the barbarian origins of the Manchu to reject the political legitimacy of the Qing, thus asserting their own view of the Asian world order (p. 222-3). Finally, the Epilogue scrutinizes some historical understandings that still complicate contemporary China’s relations not only with its northeast Asian neighbors – taken the struggle between PRC and the two Koreas over the historical ownership of Gaoguoli/Koguryo as an example – but also with the minority people living within its territorial boundaries that contributed to build Chinese civilization, whose role has yet to be totally recognized by Chinese historiography.

The book offers some interesting clues to understand how Chinese interpret their own history – which directly affect contemporary interstate relations –and the way through which Chinese see themselves. The perspective of «de-centering» China proposed by the author is remarkable and very reliably founded. But «the final product» contains some passages difficult to understand and in general is not easy to read, especially for non-experts. That said it is an outstanding book whose reading/study should definitely be recommended.

 

Reconsidering Tokugawa Japan: Finding Christians where they should Not Be

A Christian Samurai. The Trials of Baba Bunkō. William J. Farge, SJ-Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 2016, pp. XXV/300.

At least since George Elison’s Deus Destroyed: The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan was published by Harvard University Press in 1973, historians of early modern Japan have been inclined to accept Elision’s thesis that the Catholic mission to Japan that started with St. Francis Xavier, SJ in 1549 ended in failure. By 1640, Japan was a «closed country» (sakoku) where the long arm of Western culture could no longer reach. The most creative of historians in this tradition turned to a search of the «closed country» period for the indigenous cultural foundations for Japan’s subsequent revolution and modernization in the late nineteenth century. A recent, and more direct, study in the Elison line is Kiri Paramore, Ideology and Christianity in Japan (Oxon: Routledge, 2009) that argues that the anti-Christian placards posted in every village and town in Japan for over two hundred years were not really about Christianity (which had been exterminated) but were more generalized efforts to ensure ideological purity among Confucians and Buddhists. We should have known better. It is a recognized fact that after 1865, 50,000 Japanese Catholics began to emerge from centuries of underground existence. Where did they come from, if Christianity had been wiped out and Deus destroyed in the early seventeenth century?

Now, along comes William Farge with an answer, and it is an answer that should revolutionize how historians think about the Edo Period (1603- 1868). Farge introduces us to Baba Bunkō (1718-59), a samurai who was a vociferous critic of corruption among high officials. That much has long been known among Japanese scholars, although truth be told, Baba has not been widely known among scholars of Japanese history outside of Japan. But what previously has not been known at all is that Baba was a Catholic whose criticisms were grounded in his Catholic values and who was ultimately executed, not for his political statements, but for the capital crime of being a Christian. What makes Farge’s discovery so significant is that, while there are a few known cases of hidden Catholics in eighteenth century Japan, they were all peasants and fishermen in far-flung rural areas. In contrast, Baba was an educated samurai and a well-known critic working in the heart of the capital city, Edo.

A Christian Samurai unfolds over the course of ten closely argued chapters. The first chapter «Deus Restored» is a direct rebuttal of the Elison thesis, providing first a critical review of the idea of missionary failure and then introducing us to the major biographical facts pertaining to Baba. The second chapter presents an overview of Christianity under the Tokugawa regime, pointing to historical examples of Christians who surfaced during the «closed country» period, presenting evidence that the threat of actual Christianity was taken seriously by leading intellectuals like Miura Baien (1723-89), and introducing compelling quotes from Baba’s own writing that speak positively about Christianity. It also introduces one of the most compelling pieces of evidence for Baba’s own Catholic faith—his argument that the banner of the 1637 Shimabara (Christian) Rebellion depicts «the body of a person» (p. 33). In fact, there is no natural person depicted on the Shimabara banner; it boasts the image of a consecrated host and chalice, something only a Catholic would call «a person».

Chapters three and four present close readings of Baba’s social and political criticism. Farge does an excellent job of showing Baba’s creative literary skill in using metaphor and analogy to make his points, particularly referring to certain «monsters» that prowl the land. But as Farge notes, Baba’s purpose is not mere frivolity or entertainment. Rather, «his purpose is to elicit a deeper awareness of the realities behind the external appearances of officialdom and to expose the criminality behind the façade of decorum and virtue perpetrated by members of the samurai class» (p.50). One cannot help but wonder if Baba was particularly sensitive to these hidden realities among the officials precisely because he too had to live a hidden life (as a Catholic). Chapter four relates the pivotal case of the corrupt daimyō Kanamori Yorikane. It was Baba’s criticism of Kanamori that led to his own arrest and execution. But as Farge points out through a careful review of legal precedent on similar cases of political satire, no one had ever been executed for the crime of political criticism, and many of those accused of such acts were treated quite leniently by the magistrates. In chapter five, Farge puts Baba’s political and social dissent in broader historical context, pointing out that dissent was actually quite widespread and tolerated in the eighteenth century. Why then was Baba dealt with so differently from others?

In chapter six, Farge draws from Baba’s writings to show that with Neo-Confucianism in decline, a period of moral relativism had given Baba the opening to make his Catholic criticisms. Chapter seven compares and contrasts Baba’s writings with the genre of gesaku writing to argue that it is anachronistic to interpret Baba’s writings from a later distinction between «fiction» and «non-fiction» writing. Baba’s writing used fictional techniques to present criticism of actual people and events. Chapter eight looks at Baba’s criticism of the Yoshiwara pleasure quarters. Here, Farge notes that Baba exhibited an unusual sympathy for the courtesans themselves while Asia Maior 2016 478 reserving his harshest criticisms for the elite who frequented such places, particularly hypocritical Buddhist monks. Chapter nine follows several of Baba’s writings on the moral decline of his day, and Farge concludes that Baba had a prescient sense of the inevitable collapse of the regime due to the corruption of its moral foundations. The tenth and final chapter steps back and offers rather modest reflections about whether and how Baba can be located within the «Christian literature» of eighteenth century Japan. The key problem is that no baptismal certificate would be available to settle the issue of Baba’s faith, since Catholicism was illegal and intensely persecuted. When positive evidence is not available, the objective historian must turn to whatever circumstantial evidence exists, either in support of or against a proposition. In this spirit, Farge looks at the nature of the values Baba expressed in his writings, and he finds that Baba’s last work, «A Collection of Useless Grumblings» (1758) provides «clear evidence not only of Christian influence but also of his own Christian beliefs and convictions» (p 231). Finally, the volume concludes with a 33 page translation of Baba’s «An Album of One Hundred Monsters», an invaluable text, beautifully translated, for anyone who wants a detailed picture of the social and political history of eighteenth century Japan.

This book offers a great deal to anyone interested in Asian history, the history of Christianity, political and social satire, or comparative political thought. This would be a solid work of historical scholarship even without the valuable translations and the amazing original discovery that Baba Bunkō was a Japanese Catholic when there was not supposed to be any Christian in Japan. But above and beyond the particular argument about Baba as a Catholic, Farge gives us a powerful criticism of ideologically- driven approaches to history that place bias and personal presumptions ahead of objective fact. The best conclusion here is that offered by Farge himself: «The historian must now abandon the traditional pre-conceptions and assumptions that have been erroneously projected onto the history of Christianity in Japan in the Tokugawa period» (p.238).

 

The Worlds of Words of the Ibis trilogy by Amitav Ghosh

Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies, London: John Murray, 2008. 471 pp. (ISBN 978-0-7195-6895-4 hb).
Amitav Ghosh, River of Smoke, London: John Murray, 2011. 522 pp. (ISBN 978-0-71956-898-5 hb).
Amitav Ghosh, Flood of Fire, London: John Murray, 2015. 616 pp. (ISBN 978-0-7195-6900-5 hb).

When Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies was published in 2008[1] as the first volume of what has by now become the much acclaimed Ibis trilogy, a ten-year-long research project, it was clear that a monumental work, and a literary masterpiece of our times was being shaped. The Italian translators, Anna Nadotti and Norman Gobetti, who worked on the manuscript versions, were the first to take the challenge of translating the work into a South-European language. They found themselves confronted with an unexpected surprise. Even to professional translators as they are, accustomed to translating Indian-English authors or cosmopolitan, transnational writers, the linguistic inventiveness of that first volume was certainly a lesson in English linguistics.

What was to become the «Chrestomathy»,[2] one of the precious documents the outstanding character of Neel compiles in the novel, was also a compendium of guidelines for the translators, who had been advised by the author neither to use a glossary at the end of the novel, nor footnotes, nor italics, for English in its 19th Century varieties had become a new language in the novel (American, French-English, Zubben language, British English, Bengali, Hinglish). It is a creative language, but real, bizarre but practical, difficult to pronounce but pragmatic. It is also the language out of «A Laskari Dictionary Or Anglo-Indian Vocabulary Of Nautical Terms And Phrases In English And Hindustani (1882)». The translation of the whole trilogy – as has been noticed – is a case study, which deserves special attention in the field of translation theory and practice, and translation studies more generally.[3]

The lascars were sailors who «came from places far apart, and had nothing in common, except the Indian Ocean; among them were Chinese and East Africans, Arabs and Malays, Bengalis and Goans, Tamils and Arakanese. They came in groups of ten or fifteen, each with a leader who spoke on their behalf» (p. 13). Thus, Zachary, the black man from Baltimore, who took sail as a carpenter on board the Ibis, has to learn a completely new language from Serang Ali, the head of the lascars: «resum» instead of «rations», «malum» instead of «mate», «serang» for «bosun». And he has to memorize a new shipboard vocabulary. As for syntax then, sentences are not less mysterious to him: «‘Serang Ali wife-o hab make die,’ came the answer. ‘Go topside, to hebbin. By’mby, Serang ali catchi nother piece wife’…» (p. 15).[4] It is self evident that the trilogy announced itself as one among the best sea epic narratives in the wake of the best American and English literary traditions of Melville and Conrad, but also of the best postcolonial tradition represented, for instance, by Derek Walcott.[5] The schooner Ibis with white-Afro-American Zachary on board is not dissimilar from the schooner Flight with «a rusty head sailor with sea-green eyes, that they nickname Shabine, the patois for any red nigger», in the poem by Derek Walcott, «The Schooner Flight».[6]

Thus, in a few pages the Ibis sails from Baltimore to Cape Town to Calcutta, and the story steers to the mainland in Bihar, India, where a widowed woman, the visionary Deeti, complains because «now, with the sahibs forcing everyone to grow poppy, no one had thatch to spare» (p. 26): «Came the cold weather, the English sahibs would allow little else to be planted; their agents would go from home to home, forcing cash advances on the farmers, making them sign asámi contracts. It was impossible to say no to them» (p. 27). In this simple way, and as if indirectly, Ghosh produces criticism and precise accusations towards British imperialism. The plot is set in 1838, the imposition of monocultures, or «cash crops» as they are called, is already common practice of colonial capitalism as well as the basis of – in the specific case, the monopoly of opium cultivation and trade – an Empire of narco-trafficking.

Deeti will be one of a group of men and women, coolies, who sign contracts as indentured labourers to be transported to Mauritius on board the Ibis. They compensate for the loss of black African slaves subsequent to abolitionism. On board the Ibis, there are also Kalua, a giant of a man who had helped Deeti’s flight from what would have been her sati, her immolation on her husband’s funeral pyre, together with other men and women, and two convicts: a Chinese young man and opium addict, Ah Fatt, and an Indian nobleman, Neel, the Raja of Raskhali, who had experienced the humiliation of having his crime tattooed on his skin, nakedness and body search, beatings and mistreatments in a British penal colony. Both the prison island and the opium factory of Ghazipur are described with the vividness, detailed mimetic realism and historic accuracy of Dickens’s or Balzac’s best pages, but also as Foucauldian panopticon-like institutions of surveillance and punishment. Yet, the friendship, solidarity and sense of piety which is soon established between the two convicts, in spite of linguistic, social and cultural differences is among the most moving chapters of Ghosh’s trilogy. Similarly, the small community of neo-slave-like workers who inhabit the dabusa of the ship, including a young French botanist, Paulette, becomes an ideal society of migrants, among whom castes and social differences are abolished, thanks to a voyage that marks the rebirth of these people in a bond of brotherhood and equality that makes them, as Deeti says: «jahaz-bhai and jahaz-bahen to each other; all of us children of the ship» (p. 328); sons and daughters of the maternal womb of the ship, delivering them across the Kalapani, the Black Water, to a new life in a new land. «This vessel was the Mother-Father of her new family, a great wooden mái-báp, an adoptive ancestor and parent of dynasties yet to come» (p. 328). Indentured labour as an hypocritical form of legal slavery, based on five-year contracts is criticised by Ghosh as one of the immoral colonial practices, for it was based on fraud and false promises to illiterate people, girmitiyas, for they signed girmitis, agreements, although they could neither read nor write. On the other hand it is viewed as a possibility to erase the caste system and as an opportunity to start a completely new life elsewhere, free from social and religious constraints. The first volume of the trilogy, which denounces how «British rule in India could not be sustained without opium» (p. 106), closes on a mutiny on board, where Kalua, the convicts and three sailors manage to flee after the killing of a guard and both the ship and the lifeboat are caught in a tempest that disperses them. Interestingly, it closes on a surprising note, the journey of enslavement becomes for all the characters a journey of liberation, for Paulette more than once sets herself free through transvestism, first as an Indian woman in spite of her European ancestry, then as a man. The gomusta, Baboo Nob Kissim meets his other gendered identity on his voyage and changes sex midway, thanks to a hilarious epiphany that testifies the author’s mastery of the comic register. Zachary passes for a white person and erases his racialized identity, thanks to the sea with its symbolic fluidity and metamorphic power, thanks to the journey which traditionally is also a descent into one’s soul, and thanks to the ship-as-mother which delivers the lot to a new life. This experience of rebirth is similar to Wilson Harris’s interpretation of the Limbo dance as a rite mimicking the experience of the Middle Passage of the black slaves travelling from Africa to the Caribbean. It had its origins in the overcrowded slave ships, where the dancer transformed himself into a spider-like figure, mimicking the dismemberment of communities, families, relations and, at the same time, the re-combination of the torn limbs in a new life, a new land and a new form. Similarly, the myth of the trickster, the Spider Anansi survived the crossing of the Ocean in the form of legendary fables, that took roots also in the Americas. Thus, the trauma of the passage is overcome and leads to a re-generative life full of creative possibilities.[7]

The first chapter of the second volume of the trilogy, River of Smoke (2011),[8] mirrors the first chapter of the first volume, for Deeti is a protagonist also here. She is now a charismatic leader of her community on Mauritius Island and speaks a French-English patois. This is due to the fact that now her owner/master is a Frenchman, and she speaks a bit like Paulette. She paints scenes from her life and of her family on the walls of a cave, a sort of graffiti or rock-paintings. There, she also establishes a shrine for her pujas and asks her son to complete the final picture, in order to leave a trace of the migrants’ passage on that land. Most of the other characters have by now reached the doors of the Chinese Empire. Therefore, the language shifts to Chinese-English or pidgin. Most of the British and Indian merchants’s ships are stuck at the mouth of the Pearl River, between Hong Kong and Macau, unable to proceed further inland, towards Canton. With this volume the reader is stuck, too. This stasis has the purpose to conjure up China and put it in the foreground as a new geo-political theatre of colonial aggression. Thus, we indulge at the mouth of the river in contemplation of all that China discloses, including its language. Foreigners are not allowed into the interior and foreign women are not admitted even in Fanqui Town, the foreign quarter in Canton, where the outposts of Western commercial enterprises are set (the thirteen factories/hongs). This is the case with Paulette, the French woman, who travelled on the Ibis dressed in a sari, and who tended the botanical gardens of Port Louis at Mauritius for a while, disguised as a man, until her identity was revealed and she was invited to take care of a boat-garden by the British botanist Fitcher Penrose. The history of botanical gardens runs parallel to the history of the opium trade, for import of rare plants and flowers to embellish European collections was well on its way. This second volume includes historical characters: major botanists, like Pierre Poivre, Sir Joseph Banks, the scientist who accompanied Captain Cook in his explorations and who became curator of the Kew Gardens in England, and Napoleon. The latter, while in exile at St. Elena, receives two merchants on their way from China to Europe and asks to be informed about the British fortunes in the East. Napoleon is quite satisfied when he hears that the British are having troubles in smuggling their opium into China and takes leave from the two visitors by saying: «What an irony it would be if it were opium that stirred China from her sleep» (p. 166). This chapter allows the author to summarise some important facts for the benefit of Napoleon Bonaparte’s knowledge, but, actually, for the readers’ sake, too: «demand for Chinese tea has grown at such a pace in Britain and in America that it is now the principal source of profit for the East India Company. The taxes on it account for fully one-tenth of Britain’s revenues. If one adds to this such goods as silk, porcelain and lacquerware it becomes clear that the European demand for Chinese products is insatiable. […] there was an immense outpouring of silver from Britain. This indeed was why they started to export Indian opium to China. […] now the supply can barely keep pace with the demand. It is in principle a clandestine trade» (pp. 164-165).

Similarly, through a narrative stratagem and the insertion of some letters, Paulette – and the reader with her – is informed of what happens in Canton and is even led into the forbidden Chinese gardens. She is at anchor in Macau and, since she is a woman, travelling inland is impossible for her. Luckily, a former Indian friend of hers, the son of a Calcutta famous painter, is now sailing to Canton. When she briefly meets him, she manages to entrust him with some botanical drawings in order to collect information about a mysterious and rare flower. Soon, he starts sending her detailed letters about the life of westerners in the Chinese city of Canton. His letters are very similar – in tone and style – to Marco Polo’s accounts: they are full of realistic details and marvel. He tells her about the riots, subsequent to turmoil due to the outlawed opium trade; he describes the factories with their flagpoles (Dutch, English, American…) and the Chamber of Commerce, finally, he describes the life of the city and its shops and markets and buildings. In this way, the reader is taken by hand to Canton through those epistolary chapters.

The figure of the painter becomes crucial at this stage in the plot. He is fond of Italian painters, but he is also an expert in perfect reproductions. His visits to Canton, to the painters’ studios which unfold their secrets – the paper scrolls, the stencil technique, the équipe work, the thinnest brushes – strike him as an epiphany: «Should my epic painting be a scroll instead? (Of course I would have to find a fitting name for it, since an ‘epic scroll’ does not sound quite right, does it?) But is it not a stroke of Genius? Events, people, faces, scenes would unroll as they happened: it will be something New and Revolutionary – it could make my reputation and establish me for ever in the Pantheon of Artists» (p. 262).

Perhaps here, the author is speaking through the voice of the painter, creating a metanarrative authorial interrogation. Amitav Ghosh is interrogating himself about the best way of representing his own Comédie humaine. His experiments with the historical novel, the epistolary genre, and the film-like alternation of chapters about the parallel lives of the various protagonists – the migrants, the botanists, the painters, the merchants, the soldiers – are meant to be both paintings with an in-depth central perspective reminding of the Renaissance (in the individual chapters) and a Chinese scroll, an epic canvas, a Medieval tapestry as a whole (the three volumes).

The third volume, Flood of Fire (2015),[9] opens once again with Deeti, who receives the letters written by the painter Chinnery, and a canvas, representing the destruction of Canton by an immense fire – an event that is still to happen. The plot moves back to India, to both Bombay and Calcutta, where the wives of the merchants have lived separate lives. Mrs Burnham, for instance, after securing a job as a carpenter to Zachary, who had cleared his name at a trial where he had to answer about the accident occurred on the Ibis, makes him the victim of her sexual whims. Thus, the novel acquires a touch of the libertine plot, more typical of 18th Century plays and novels, but also shows how class privilege could allow colonialists to control both the soul and the body of subalterns. Mrs Shireen Bahram, once informed that her husband died in China and left a male son there, although shocked and surprised because of his completely unsuspected double life, is convinced to start on a journey to Macau with the excuse to claim back a reward for her husband’s confiscated opium. Kesri, a sepoy who had enrolled with the British army, experiences both humiliations and moments of glory in the army. His personal story helps the author to introduce the life in the army into a colonial international context, their uniforms, their hierarchies, their training and barracks life, their pipers and drummers. The language is again a deluge of lexical particularities and informative military jargon. However, Kesri learns about his sister Deeti’s sad destiny, the killing of her husband and mother-in-law, her eloping with a lover, all actions that undermine Kesri’s reputation. In the meanwhile, in China, after the accidental death of Bahram, Neel, the ex-convict now free, loses his job as munshi and becomes official translator and interpreter for Chinese authorities. Thus, his journal takes the place of Chinnery’s letters from Canton. The year 1840 opens with news about possible military actions in China by the British, who are determined to ignore the ban on opium trade and to make their way into the interior of the Chinese Empire, in the name of a new divinity: Free Trade. Rumours of war soon spread in India, where the sepoys are on the alert and the colony is meant to sustain major financial and military efforts. The third volume promises action, yet its pace is slowed down by the number of characters who produce interlocked as well as separate plots that occupy very short alternate chapters.

While the first volume of the trilogy was about departures (from India), diaspora, family dismemberment (Deeti abandons her daughter, Paulette abandons her adoptive family), and exile, the third volume is about arrivals (in China), attempts at family reunions (fathers and sons, wives and husbands, lovers). In particular, the figure of Zachary, once again sailing on a ship and destined to be a free, independent opium merchant in China, also becomes a catalyst and through his adventures, we as readers meet one by one all the protagonists of the first volume, for the Ibis has shaped their life collectively and their individual destinies are for ever intertwined. The new year 1841 begins with a war. With a relatively small – yet, very powerful – flotilla of warships the British manage to take the Chinese by surprise. Their cannons and firearms easily pulverise bastions, walls and fortresses, while the sepoy army surrounds the enemy from behind and slaughter and massacre are thus granted. It is clear that the role of the sepoys is fundamental, yet terribly disturbing to the Chinese, who do not understand why the sepoys from India are attacking them. The war is also something new in history. The war-lords are not the London politicians, but rather rich and powerful British merchants with financial interests in the possibility of opening the opium market in such a vast territory as China. Now, the Ibis is part of the expedition, it transports both opium and soldiers. Thanks to lucky circumstances Zachary is its captain, and he also makes a fortune by selling opium on the Chinese black market. The new Commissioner for the Southern Provinces signs an agreement by which the island of Hong Kong passes under British sovereignty, and huge sums of money are promised as a reward for the opium that had been confiscated to British and Indian merchants. Nevertheless, in the hope to solve the matter through diplomacy, the Chinese authorities only manage to accelerate the British attacks. They are forced into a “flood of fire” that lasts more than one year, and ends under a hurricane that completes the apocalypse of total debacle. Those who do not die under the fire, die because their destiny has been accomplished. The last chapters of this war-novel, with its loaded vocabulary are extremely accurate in historical documentation on war strategies, weapons, military camps, marches, attacks and retreats, deaths and survivals and the horror that accompanied such carnages in colonial history. Among the free merchants, Zachary, who is now one of them, triumphs like a sort of novel Barry Lyndon. He, too, like all the others, is changed the very moment he sets foot on the Ibis.

«That is why the English have come to China and to Hindustan: these two lands are so populous that if their greed is aroused they can consume the whole world» (p. 510), these are the prophetic words Baboo Nob Kissim pronounces to explain the First Opium War. An apocalypse put to an end by the Treaty of Nanking (1842): the definitive, formal passage of Hong Reviews 475 Kong to British rule, the opening of five new free ports, the payment of an immense amount of money as compensation to the British, by which China actually paid its own destruction. What the trilogy accomplishes is to provide both a microscopic and a telescopic view of History, in a nutshell, four years only, yet those years are still crucial to our modernity and our contemporary world. Amitav Ghosh claimed in an interview that if China and India are experiencing their economic expansion only now it is because colonialism had blocked and prevented their development. It has taken more than fifty years to those countries to regain economic and financial independence and prosperity: «Before the British arrived on the scene, India and China controlled half of the world trade. By the time they left both these countries were utterly impoverished, completely destitute, and today we can see – fifty years after colonialism –, that the countries are finally beginning to reclaim the role they had. That alone tells you the nature of damage that they did. It has taken almost sixty years to even begin the recovery».[10]

The fascination of Ghosh’s narrative monument (the Ibis trilogy), made up the of short fragments of its chapters, which are extremely readable and enjoyable, lies in the humanity of his characters, and in a language that is unpredictably rich – its secrets are unravelled by Anna Nadotti’s article previously quoted – a language that is inventive in its mirroring all jargons, patois, pidgins, idioms, dialects, rhythms and intonations, cries and whispers, voices that we the readers will unlikely forget.

 

How public opinion on the north korean threat has influenced Japanese foreign policy

Seung Hyok Lee, Japanese Society and the Politics of the North Korean Threat, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016, 200 pp. (ISBN 9781442630345)

North Korea has been portrayed in various guises in Japanese media, such as a «paradise on earth»; a socialist regime that enforces the unique socialist ideology of Juche; a hermit kingdom isolated from the rest of the world; a member of the «axis of evil», posing a security threat to other nations; or one of the poorest countries in the world with many hopeless street children called kotjebi. As the sequestered nature of the country means that it is difficult to access or to obtain credible information on it, North Korean issues have often been treated sensationally in Japan, not only in political discussions, but also in daily news. Furthermore, it is quite difficult to understand North Korean actions in a reasonable sense because it commonly employs harsh rhetoric and adopts behavioural patterns that involve taking risks in order to achieve better deals at the last minute; hence, Japanese policymakers have been required to negotiate many obstacles to achieve a stable relationship or a sense of normalisation with North Korea, particularly in recent years, which have seen several crises.

This book examines how Japan has reacted to North Korean threats and why it has chosen these actions. The book’s main question concerns why Japan has merely implemented limited policies such as denouncing North Korea during the missile crisis of 1998, but adopted more coercive means to impose unilateral sanctions in 2006. To answer this question, the author mainly focuses on gradual changes in the Japanese public’s sentiments towards North Korea and the influence of public opinion on external policy. In this sense, this book offers a case study of the multi-disciplinary research into political sociology, media politics, decision-making and the linkage between Japanese domestic and foreign policy, and the international relations in East Asia in the post-Cold War era.

The first chapter introduces the main question, which has been already mentioned, and sets the analytical framework of this book. The most important point to note in relation to the author’s framework is that he focuses on the abduction issue above all the North Korean threats discussed in this book. This issue relates to the fact that North Korea secretly kidnapped ordinary Japanese citizens and smuggled them to North Korea during the 1970s and 80s. These hostages were then coerced into serving as Japanese translators or as teachers of intelligence officers in North Korea. By focusing on this, the author intends to carefully exclude nuclear threats from his main analysis, though he supposedly understands their significance and relevance to the sanctions. This is because, he argues, (1) the nuclear tests do not always violate Japan’s sovereignty or directly victimise any Japanese citizens by themselves, and (2) the nuclear threats should be resolved in multilateral forums, like the Six Party Talks, but not through bilateral relations, unlike the abduction issue.

The author begins his presentation of his main arguments in the second chapter of the book. In Chapter II, he discusses the historical background of Japan-North Korea relations up to 2000, particularly focusing on Japanese reaction to the Taepodong-1 missile launch of August 1998 and the incursion of two North Korean fushinsen (mystery/spy vessels) in March 1999. He argues that Japan’s response to these events was limited; it made a statement of condemnation, appealed to the United Nations to pass a resolution, suspended its financial contributions to KEDO, joined the US Theatre Missile Defence (TMD) initiatives, and strengthened its own defensive capabilities. These threats by North Korea were insufficient to provoke leading news media to demand more realistic power-based approaches or to fundamentally change Japan’s post-war anti-militarist identity. The Japanese government maintained its diplomatic goal of achieving normalisation with North Korea and it attempted to mitigate tensions with Pyongyang by sending the Murayama delegation in December 1999.

Chapter III discusses Japan-North Korea relations from 2001 to 2002, prior to the first summit meeting in September 2002. In particular, the author examines how the new leadership of Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro changed Japanese politics. Koizumi enjoyed considerable popular support from the public as a result of his image as a powerful reformer determined to remove the old political power and radically reform the old-fashioned system. The author emphasises that Koizumi changed the influence the media and public opinion had on Japan’s decision-making mechanism; this was because the legitimacy of his policies largely depended on the strong support of the public. However, in terms of his initial policy toward North Korea, the author also highlights that Koizumi maintained the traditional Japanese policy of engagement and the diplomatic goal of achieving normalisation with North Korea. At this juncture, December 2001, another fushinsen incident raised security concerns among the public, but Koizumi handled the Japanese public’s anxiety and the possible signals his response might send to Pyongyang well; he updated the operational roles of the Japan Coast Guard, but only moderately, and drafted bills for emergency legislation, albeit without putting the decisions to a vote.

Chapter IV contains the main focus of the book, covering bilateral relations from 2002 to 2004. The author discusses the first Koizumi-Kim summit meeting of September 2002 and the Japanese reactions to North Korea’s admissions, particularly concerning the abduction issue and their security concerns. Among the many compromises made at the summit, the author attaches special importance to Kim Jong Il’s acknowledgement of North Korea’s involvement in the abductions and the fushinsen incidents. The Japanese found it very unacceptable that North Korea had abducted innocent Japanese people and that, of these abductees, only five had survived. The author examines how, after the summit meeting, this revelation sparked anger among the Japanese and set the societal discourse on North Korean issues. The Japanese people seriously attacked the press and established authorities who they believed were pro-North Korean, defended the North Korean position, or had neglected this issue: particularly the progressive section of the mainstream media (such as the Asahi Shimbun and Sekai), socialist or communist political parties (e.g., the Social Democratic Party and the Japanese Communist Party), and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The author stresses that the breakthrough in regard to the abductions and other issues at Pyongyang paradoxically made the Japanese more intolerant and inflexible and also raised security concerns. Koizumi maintained the diplomatic goal of achieving normalisation, but had to adjust his position in regard to the implementation of the Pyongyang Declaration by making the abduction issue the highest priority; he also passed emergency legislation bills in June 2003 in response to the rising security concerns among the public.

The fifth chapter illustrates the growing dynamism of Japan’s policy shift to unilateral sanctions and the power transition from Koizumi to Abe Shinzo that occurred between 2004 and 2006. Koizumi visited Pyongyang again in May 2004 to make further deals with Kim Jong Il, particularly in relation to mitigating the abduction issue by bringing the abductees’ remaining family members back to Japan and putting the Pyongyang Declaration back on track. Nevertheless, the second summit did not make as much progress as Koizumi wished, and the public realized that North Korea would not sincerely respond to Japanese demands. The author describes how Abe gradually came to represent the growing public clamour for sanctions and enhanced his status as the frontrunner of the possible post-Koizumi leaders; however, Koizumi kept Abe under his control and maintained the diplomatic goal of achieving normalisation until December 2004. At this juncture, the author stresses that a turning point was reached. North Korea had handed over what it claimed to be the cremated remains of the allegedly dead abductee Yokota Megumi, one of the icons of the abduction issue; however, DNA testing in December 2004 proved the North Korean allegations to be false. Japan passed two sanction bills in 2004, which remained unimplemented until 2006, that prohibited the transfer of money and goods to North Korea and the entry of North Korean vessels into Japanese ports. However, the Taepodong-2 launch of July 2006 compelled Japan to take further action, implementing unilateral sanctions and taking a strongly requesting the UN implement international sanctions against Pyongyang, a much stronger reaction than in 1998. The author closes this chapter with an epilogue that explains that immediately after the decision to impose additional sanctions was announced in September 2006, Koizumi finished his term and Abe gained power.

In Chapter VI, the concluding chapter, the author concludes his arguments and presents some implications for future Japan-North Korea relations and a possible revision of the Constitution of Japan. He critically argues that it is unlikely that the abduction issue will be resolved in a manner that satisfies Japan because the Japanese public are unlikely to believe anything North Korea claims, even with transparent and sincere reinvestigation. Additionally, he concludes that although the abduction fever has lost some of its momentum, Japanese policies towards North Korea will continue to be linked strongly to the resolution of the abduction issue.

Through careful examinations and detailed narratives, this book successfully makes important academic contributions, particularly in regard to the following two points:
The first is the relative position of this book among similar literature. While there are some excellent works on the North Korean crisis or Japanese policy toward North Korea, including Yoichi Funabashi’s The Peninsula Question and Linus Hagström and Marie Söderberg’s North Korea Policy: Japan and the Great Powers, this book presents a quite unique analysis of the question, considering the Japanese public’s discourse on North Korean issues. In particular, the author sets the abduction issue as the main topic, which is quite unique, but absolutely dominant, in Japan-North Korea bilateral relations; other works have merely taken traditional approaches, such as concerning themselves with North Korea’s nuclear development or the missile crisis. In this sense, this book has unique, powerful and long-lasting academic values and, in the future, will be referred to as an excellent case study on this topic.
The second point is the author’s choice of media and his balanced position on the discourse analysis. Some people may be sceptical about the author’s arguments because, even before the missile crisis of 1998, popular jingoistic sentiments and powerful hawkish arguments concerning North Korea were prevalent, as can be seen in conservative/rightist papers such as the Sankei Shimbun and affiliated media such as Shokun or Seiron. Such critics are probably correct. However, in regard to the main target of the discourse analysis of this book, the author examines articles and editorials of the two leading Japanese newspapers, the Asahi Shimbun and the Yomiuri Shimbun, representing moderate liberals and moderate conservatives, thereby excluding extremely right/left news media or marginal papers.

This selection method fundamentally sets the quality of this research. The abduction issue is essentially a difficult research topic because it has been treated too sensationally and politically in Japan. It requires observers to distance themselves from the topic, maintain an objective perspective, and not become involved in any political controversies; otherwise, their research would lose its unbiased position and its academic solidity, becoming simply a product of certain political leanings. However, the author consistently maintains a balanced position and examines those two mainstream papers in order to demonstrate how average Japanese people feel about the North Korean threats and the abduction issue.

Finally, let me conclude my review with a critical comment on the analytical framework and the composite nature of the North Korean threats. In the first chapter, the author defines the framework by focusing on the abduction issue and excluding the nuclear threats from his main analysis of this book. In the following chapters, he explains in further detail how the abduction issue should be distinguished from the nuclear threats in terms of the quality and the perception of the threats. However, as the author himself also presumes, North Korean threats, such as the abductions, the missile launches, and the nuclear development, are essentially compound and interrelated.

This is particularly true in his arguments concerning the Six Party Talks (SPT) and implementation of the additional sanctions (Chapter V). The author describes how Japan attempted to connect the abduction issue with nuclear and other security threats in order to include the abduction issue as an agenda of the SPT and to intensify the contents of the sanctions. Some earlier studies, like Funabashi’s The Peninsula Question, also situate the abduction issue within a broader context of North Korean security threats, including the nuclear and missile threats. In this sense, I am left with the question of the applicability of his theories – whether the abduction issue can be discussed independently of other dimensions of the North Korean threats or if his arguments can make sense only in a unique case like Japan-North Korea relations. I understand the author is successful in making his analyses more consistent and refined by focusing on a particular aspect of the North Korean threats, such as the abduction issue, because he respects theoretical parsimony in this work; however, I wish the author would discuss the abduction issue within a broader picture of the North Korean crisis so that more observers can discern the relevance of that issue to other North Korean threats.

 

Kazakhstan 2015-2016: Balancing regime stability amidst local and global challenges

Available also in pdf – Download Pdf –

Twenty-five years after independence, Kazakhstan is still under the rule of its first President, Nursultan Nazarbayev. The biennium 2015-2016 confirmed the continuity of the process of stabilization of the political system started in the previous years. These were also years of challenges to the stability of Nazarbayev’s regime, namely the persistence of the economic crisis, the emergence of visible popular discontent, and events allegedly connected with the much-feared threat of Islamic terrorism. This paper argues that, in this period, the authoritarian leadership of Kazakhstan maintained a stable grip on power thanks to an increased use of less repressive and more sophisticated authoritarian tools, such as control of new media as well as the use of institutions and official discourse to seek legitimacy. Far from being a novelty in the style of Nazarbayev’s rule, the underplaying of repression in favour of legitimation has intensified in the last two years. This more sophisticated form of authoritarianism is analysed both at the national and international level. Internationally, in fact, the regime continued to pursue an active foreign policy in order to portray itself as moderate, stable and effective. It is argued that this strategy was aimed at boosting the legitimacy of the regime at home, while making it recognized as a reliable ally at the international level.

 

Iran 2016: From the Saudi embassy attack to the demise of Rafsanjani

Available also in pdf – Download Pdf –

The year 2016 was an internal and external test for Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. The February legislative elections represented strong support for both his administration and the nuclear accord with the P5+1 group of nations. But the lack of visible improvements at the economic level, the increasing internal criticism from the hardliners, and the demise of Hashemi Rafsanjani, the second most powerful man in Iran, made this the most difficult year of Rouhani’s tenure so far. At the international level, the confrontationist policy towards Saudi Arabia and direct military involvement in Syria caused a deterioration in the country’s external image, generating an increasing regional isolationism, despite the successful conclusion of the nuclear deal. The implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in January brought to an end the nuclear-related international sanctions and started a slow and gradual process of Iranian normalization within the international commercial and financial markets. However, the election of US President Donald Trump and his impending inauguration in 2017 introduced measures that would potentially endanger the continuity of the US-Iran honeymoon.

 

Afghanistan 2016: Military crisis and contested reforms

Afghanistan’s political and economic scene in 2016 was largely conditioned by the on-going war. The uneasy balance between Afghan National Security Forces and the insurgents has shown a tendency to shift in favour of the latter. US air support has increasingly emerged as the government forces’ only element of military superiority over the Taliban. This led to the international coalition postponing the planned withdrawal of military assistance to 2017. The year 2016 was also marked by the killing of the Taliban amir Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a US drone strike, and by his replacement with Maulvi Hibatullah Akhundzada. At the same time, the year has also confirmed the Taliban’s tendency to evolve their own organization towards greater professionalization and centralization. Moreover, the Afghan scene has also been marked by indications that the Islamic State’s branch in Afghanistan – Wilayat Khorasan – is taking firm roots in the country, as it has in Pakistan. Wilayat Khorasan was also increasingly competing with the Taliban, who have tried unsuccessfully to halt its spread. On the other hand, a positive development for Kabul has been the signing of a peace agreement between the government and Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin, one of the main insurgent groups. In the field of internal politics, the government has struggled to maintain the promises of reform made at the time of the National Unity Government’s appointment. Only in the second half of the year, did President Ghani obtain approval for a new electoral law, which should open the way to parliamentary and district councils elections in 2017. Economic indicators have shown moderate growth over the preceding year, which was favoured by an unexpectedly good harvest. Other important developments include approval of the International Monetary Fund’s program of Extended Credit Facility, the opening of a new train connection with China, and the signing of a tripartite agreement with Iran and India for the development of the Iranian port of Chabahar.

1. Introduction

2016 has been another difficult year for Afghanistan. The hopes that the inception of the National Unity Government (NUG) would bring a breakthrough for the war-torn country have largely been unfulfilled. In the military field, the difficulties of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) have once again been highlighted by the Taliban offensive. This led the international coalition to postpone the planned withdrawal of military assistance to 2017. The year has also been marked by important developments in the insurgency. The first has been a change in the Taliban leadership, following the killing of their amir Mullah Akhtar Mansour in an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) strike in May 2016, and his replacement with Maulvi Hibatullah Akhundzada. The Taliban strategy has continued along the line of attempting to conquer important cities and engaging the ANSF in open battle. The strategy has resulted in more civilian casualties, as well as in large numbers of Afghans leaving their homes in search of shelter. 2016 has been a record year for the number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). The year has also confirmed the tendency of the Taliban to evolve their own organization towards greater professionalization and centralization. This process has entailed changes in the balance of power between various factions within the insurgency. Moreover, the Afghan scene has registered increasing military activity by the Afghan branch of the Islamic State (IS), Wilayat Khorasan (WK), which has claimed responsibility for several attacks. WK has also emerged as a competitor for the Taliban, who have unsuccessfully tried to halt the spread of this organization. From the point of view of domestic politics, the government has hardly been able to maintain its promises of institutional reform and transparency. Only in the second half of the year, did President Ghani obtain approval for the long-awaited new electoral law, which should open the way to Parliamentary and district council elections in 2017. However, the preparation of the legislation has once again emphasised the lack of coordination between institutional actors, especially the NUG and Parliament. Finally, as explained in the final part of this article, the economic situation in 2016 has been characterised by both positive and negative indicators.

2. Military stalemate and the extension of Resolute Support Mission

The war has largely conditioned Afghanistan’s political developments in 2016, as during the previous year.[1] The uneasy balance between the ANSF and the insurgents has tended to shift in favour of the Taliban. This situation was partly expected, as a result of the decision of the US and NATO partners to shift the role of their troops from active fighting to advising and training. During 2016, it became increasingly clear from field reports, that the conflict was moving from a state of military balance to one in which the initiative was in the hands of the insurgents. At the same time, the difficulties of the ANSF in facing this challenge without the active support of the international forces became clear. From a strategic point of view, the strategy followed by the Taliban was to attempt the occupation of provincial capitals. This indicates that the Taliban conquest – although very brief – of Kunduz city in September 2015, was not an isolated initiative, but a well-planned strategy. In 2016, the Taliban attacked provincial capitals in almost all the regions, including Kunduz, Farah, Maymana, Lashkargah and Tarin Kot.[2] While, before 2014, the Taliban could not attack urban areas because of the cover provided by international air forces, the withdrawal of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) changed the balance. The Taliban have increasingly replaced the use of Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) with more ambitious and sophisticated military offensives. The fact that all of these attacks ultimately were repelled by the ANSF, must not lead to underestimations of their importance. In each attack, the failure of the offensive was not caused by the Kabul defence forces, but rather by the intervention of US air power. The Taliban have also shown the ability to resort to more complex strategies in order to put the ANSF under strain; for example, they have attacked more cities at once, making it increasingly difficult for the Kabul troops and the allies to repel them. Another new tactic used by the Taliban has been that of trying to cut supply lines, in order to isolate provincial cities from Kabul.[3] The insurgents have not altogether abandoned the tactic of launching attacks against government buildings or places popular with foreigners: on 1 January, a bomb blast near a French restaurant in Kabul killed two people and injured fifteen; on 19 April, a suicide bombing targeted a government compound, killing thirty people and injuring hundreds; according to media sources, this has been the single deadliest year for Taliban attacks since 2011.[4]

The insurgents’ increasing military capability has led the Kabul government to blame Pakistan for its alleged support to the Taliban. In December 2016, President Ghani has stated that the Taliban «would not last a month without Pakistan’s support».[5] These developments have also thrown light on the ambiguous nature of the international military presence in Afghanistan. According to the terms of the Resolute Support Mission – which replaced Enduring Freedom on 1 January 2015 − the allies were expected to provide only advisory and training support to the ANSF.[6] However, it was also decided that the US would maintain the presence of Special Units for counter-terrorism against the international jihadists operating in Afghanistan. It should be noted, however, that the definition of «jihadist» given at that time – and followed until 2016 – had focused on al Qa‛ida, IS and the international terrorist network. The Taliban, on the other side, were normally referred to as «insurgents». The main reason for this nuanced terminology was to allow Kabul to carry on with the so-called «Afghan-led» peace process.[7] Now, in the light of the increasing difficulties of the ANSF, the category of terrorist has become broader to justify US interventions to stop the Taliban. This has forced the US to once again step into the frontline of the war, contradicting its efforts to present the war as an Afghan «affair» that should be solved only by Afghans. The continued US and international role in the war has also made it increasingly difficult for Kabul to carry on with the peace dialogue. The main argument given by the insurgents against their participation in peace negotiations with Kabul has been exactly the presence of foreign troops in the country. After 2016, it became more difficult for Kabul to say that international troops do not play a leading role in the conflict.[8]

It is not only the difficulties of the ANSF that have forced the US to take the leading role in the war. They also caused the coalition to rethink its overall strategy for Afghanistan. In March 2015, during his first visit to Washington, President Ghani formally asked the US administration to freeze the withdrawal of the troops; a request that Barak Obama accepted.[9] On 20 May 2016, the Foreign Ministers of the countries of the Resolute Support Mission announced their decision to «sustain the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan beyond 2016».[10] At the following meeting in Warsaw in July, and at the Brussels donors conference in October 2016, the coalition confirmed financial support for the Afghan military with a payment of US$15 billion through 2020.[11] While these steps confirmed that the international community did not intend to leave Afghanistan alone, they also reflected the deep concern that US and NATO experts have been voicing about the increasing military capacity of the Taliban. According to media sources, the US commander in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, submitted his threemonth report on the situation to Washington in June 2016. Although the details have remained secret, the report must have played a decisive role in making the US administration revise its strategy on Afghanistan. On 6 July, Barak Obama admitted that the situation in Afghanistan was «precarious» and that, therefore, the number of US troops in the country had to remain as it was until the end of his administration; that is, at 8,400, not reduced to 5,500 as previously announced. In the same statement, the US President repeated that the role of the US in Afghanistan remained «unchanged», being that of advising and training, while admitting that their mission was also one of «counterterrorism […] against the Taliban and other groups». [12]

3. The renewal of the Peace Process and the Taliban response

Besides the military initiative, the year has seen the international community take new steps to revive the peace process. However, international strategy did not focus on bilateral talks between Kabul and Islamabad, in the hope that Pakistan would «force» the Taliban to sit and negotiate as had often been the case in the past. The initiative has been led by the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG), established in 2015 by Afghanistan, Pakistan, the US, and China. The QCG met five times during 2016. However, it has failed so far to convince the Taliban to engage in direct negotiations. In fact, the lack of response on the part of the Taliban seemed to be increasingly frustrating for QCG representatives. During its fourth meeting, in February 2016, the QCG issued an «invitation» to «the Taliban and other groups» to participate in the next meeting scheduled in March. However, the harsh tone of the invitation was apparent in the speech by the Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani, who said that «the armed groups who continue to refuse to join the peace talks […] must realise that…our brave security forces will not hesitate in their resolve to fight them resolutely […] ».[13] In fact, the feeling was that the QCG was issuing an ultimatum to the Taliban. Apparently, the initiative did not produce any effect; the Taliban political office in Qatar issued a statement on 24 February, stating that the movement was «unaware of plans for talks» and summarised its conditions for joining the peace process: the withdrawal of all foreign troops; official recognition of the Qatar office; the removal of the Taliban from the UN’s list of designated terrorist groups; cessation of the campaign of «arrest and elimination»; the release of Taliban fighters from prison; and the end of what they called «poisonous propaganda».[14] While the Taliban had already submitted most of these conditions in the past, the inclusion of new requests, such as the UN list seemed to show a hardening of their position.[15] On the other hand, it was interesting to note the absence of references to the role of the sharīʿa in Afghanistan, which had been included in previous statements.

The reaction by the government and the international coalition seemed to follow a double strategy. First, to exploit the existing divisions among the Taliban, and, secondly, to increase military pressure on the commanders less inclined to negotiate. From the first point of view, the coalition chose not to focus on the QCG, rather on the Afghan High Peace Council (HPC), a body established by former President Karzai in 2010, charged with negotiating with the insurgency. This strategy was clearly aimed at strengthening the public image of the process as «Afghan-led». At the same time, Kabul decided on a renewal of the structure of the HPC: Pir Sayed Ahmad Gailani was appointed in February as its new chairman.[16] Gailani is highly respected in the country, as a veteran leader of the jihad against the Soviets and because of his position as head of the Qadiriyya Sufi order in Afghanistan. Other changes in the HPC composition included a reduction in the number of members from 70 to 50, and the appointment of new Deputy Heads and members of the Executive Board of Advisors. Interestingly enough, the changes indicated the political will of the NUG to maintain certain political lines for the peace process. In particular, according to many observers, the appointment of two Hazaras and three women signalled that the Kabul government was not ready to negotiate at the cost of minority and civil rights.[17] On the other hand, the decision to carry on two parallel peace initiatives – the QCG and the HPC – confirmed the ambiguity surrounding the peace negotiation. It was easy, for some critical voices to suggest that the «real» process was in fact the one of the QCG, while the HPC was only a façade, aimed at giving credibility to the peace process.[18] In any case, the new impetus seemed to produce some results. On 18 May, a draft peace agreement was announced between the HPC and the Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG), one of the main insurgent factions, although lately autonomous from the Taliban.[19] The draft was formally signed by President Ghani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar on 29 September.[20] The deal with HIG was certainly an important result: HIG was one of the oldest militant factions in Afghanistan, which had been active since the 1970s. In fact, the negotiations between the government and Hekmatyar have been ongoing since at least the period of Hamid Karzai. This said, the importance of the event should not be overemphasised. Although influential, and led by a charismatic leader, the HIG has a history of changing sides. Since 2001, the group has shifted alliances more than once. Moreover, a section of the party, led by Abdul Hadi Arghandiwal left the insurgency in 2008, and legally entered Parliament. Finally, HIG’s leader Hekmatyar was an aging man, said to be in poor health. He might, therefore, have accepted the deal in order to be granted permission to return to his country.[21]

The details of the deal are also delicate. According to media sources, HIG has agreed to abandon the insurgency in exchange for their removal from the list of terrorist organizations, and permission to act as a political party in Afghanistan.[22] Moreover, the agreement would have paved the way for the participation of the party in government institutions and electoral reform.[23] This latter point was of particular interest, since the group – like most former jihadist organizations – was in favour of a proportional electoral system. The legalization of the HIG, therefore, might be a factor favouring reform of the electoral system according to that pattern. Some independent observers have also criticised the deal for granting immunity to HIG for its actions during the civil war of the 1990s. This group – together with Shah Ahmad Massoud’s and Burhanuddin Rabbani’s Jamiat-i-Islami and Rashid Dostum’s Jumbesh – was considered responsible for some of the bloodiest battles in the country after the withdrawal of the Soviets, particularly in the city of Kabul.[24]

4. The killing of Akhtar Mansour

The second aspect of the coalition’s strategy – targeting hard-line Taliban commanders – led on 21 May to the killing of the Taliban supreme leader, Akhtar Muhammad Mansour in a US drone strike. After the attack, both the US and Afghan governments stated that the killing of Mansour had been brought about by his refusal to accept the peace process.[25] It was evident that Kabul and its international allies wanted to send a signal to all insurgency participants about the consequences of refusing to negotiate. The agreement with Hekmatyar and the killing of Mansour have thus ended up playing an important symbolic role in government propaganda. Somehow, they represented two alternatives for the insurgency. Not surprisingly, the ceremony in which Ghani and Hekmatyar signed the agreement was broadcast live on the Afghan television. During the event, President Ghani urged other insurgency groups to join the process: «This is a chance», Ghani declared, «for the Taliban and other militant groups to show what their decision is: to be with people and join the respected caravan of peace, like Hezb-i Islami, or confront the people and continue the bloodshed».[26]

5. The consequences of Mansour’s death

The loss of Muhammad Mansour should have been, at least in theory, a serious blow for the Taliban. They had lost two leaders within the space of one year, given that Mansour had replaced Muhammad Omar in mid-2015. However, the crisis turned out to be less serious than expected for two reasons. The first was that Mansour, though a skilled military commander who had considerably strengthened the movement, had also been a divisive figure. The second was that, over the past few years, the Taliban had undergone a process of institutionalization and centralization, which had made the movement less vulnerable to the killing of its commanders. From the first point of view, it should be noted that Muhammad Mansour’s appointment as amir had been met with strong resistance from the beginning from some Taliban commanders. This was mainly due to his reputation for being too involved in the narcotics trade, not only for the benefit of the movement, but also for his own.[27] Moreover, he was considered too «mundane», especially when compared to the sober personality of Mullah Muhammad Omar. Finally, some militants thought that Mansour had a too close relationship with Pakistan.[28] The allegations against Mansour even led to the emergence of a parallel structure led by Mullah Rasool. Though this rebellion became marginal in 2016, the mere fact that parts of the Taliban had rebelled against the amir, showed the divisive character of Mansour, as well as the change in the Taliban leadership after the death of the charismatic Mullah Omar. It is likely no Taliban leader after Omar will be able to get the unquestioning obedience of the movement. The fact that Mansour was killed in Pakistani territory, and that his relations with Islamabad had apparently worsened in the last months have led some Taliban members to suggest a Pakistani involvement in the killing. However, the role played by Pakistan in the Taliban’s change of leadership – assuming there was one – is difficult to assess given the lack of objective evidence.[29] The new amir, Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada is a very different figure from Mansour. First, he is a religious, rather than a political or military leader. In his youth, he studied religious sciences achieving the titles of shaikh al hadith and shaikh al tafsir. He has also taught many Taliban fighters, which has obviously increased his personal influence. Apart from his teaching, Akhundzada had served as a judge for the Taliban in various provincial courts, before being appointed chief justice by Mullah Omar around 2008. In 2015, he was chosen as a deputy to Mansour. Well-informed sources describe him as a modest, serious person, who was also very conservative on adherence to Islamic law.[30] Overall, the appointment of Akhundzada had a unifying effect on the movement. Some observers have even suggested that the choice of a universally respected leader as Akhundzada was motivated by the desire to avoid the divisions of the past.[31]

6. The reorganization of the Taliban

The change in the insurgency leadership highlights the transformation experienced by the Taliban in recent years. Since 2001, the Taliban had gone through a process of institutionalization and centralization. This means that the Taliban have appeared to be able to weather important changes in the leadership without significantly losing their strategic direction. Originally, the Taliban had a kind of federated structure.[32] The movement was a galaxy of militias organised in shuras (assemblies). The main groups – all operating from Pakistani territory – were the shuras of Quetta, Peshawar, and Miran Shah (also known as the Haqqani Group). Below this level, there was a collection of many local groups, which followed the directives of one of the three main shuras. This structure was largely informal, based more on tribal and regional considerations than on ideology. Since the regrouping after defeat in 2001 – particularly after 2009 – the Taliban structure has undergone a process of institutionalization.[33] The change was motivated mainly by the aim to make the movement into a stronger political force, which could credibly replace the government in Kabul.

Institutionalization was also intended as an attempt by the more politically- minded commanders to take the lead over hardliners. One important step towards this end, was the issue of the Taliban code of conduct or Layha in 2010. The code was issued with the declared aim of disciplining fighter behaviour toward the civilian population, and strengthening the Taliban’s image as a future governing force.[34] Although opinions differ among the analysts on how deep the change has affected the Taliban «DNA», there is a consensus that the insurgency now has a predefined strategy that, at least in the short term, could be implemented even in the absence of a recognised guide. Furthermore, their power structure, which was once decentralised and informal, has become a well-organised pyramidal chain of command. This is currently led by the Quetta Shura (also called Rahbari Shura or Guiding Assembly), which directs the other territorial commissions. After several regroupings within local bodies, the Taliban under the Rahbari Shura in 2016, was believed to consist of the Haqqani Network – whose main base is at Miran Shah, in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas – and by the Mashad Office, which organises the Taliban in the Western districts near the Iranian border. The Peshawar Shura apparently fragmented into two factions in late 2016, one of which amalgamated with the Quetta Shura, while the second formed a new group, called the Shura of the North.[35]

7. The emergence of Wilayat Khorasan

The year 2016 was also marked by the advance of IS into Afghanistan and the Aft-Pak frontier region, through its local organization, Wilayat Khorasan (WK).[36] This group began to take root in Afghanistan in 2014, although only in January 2015 did IS announce its foundation. The spread of WK in Afghanistan, however, has not followed a smooth course because of their competition with the Taliban. Between 2015 and 2016, the organization has been able to settle in different areas of Afghanistan. At the end of 2016, it was present – although with different levels of strength – in the south (Zabul), east (Konar), and in the north and northeast of the country (Badakhshan, Sar-e-Pol, Faryab and Badghis).[37] The expansive ability of WK is based on three main elements: first, its capacity to provide an alternative to those fighters who were dissatisfied with the Taliban leadership. In fact, the greatest expansion of WK coincided with the internal split within the Taliban caused by the appointment of Mansour. Secondly, its financial strength: according to one source, the wages of WK fighters in 2016 amounted to approximately $500 per month, which was considerably higher than the pay of an average Taliban. It is no coincidence that in the second half of 2016, WK had recruited many members from the Peshawar Shura, when the latter had financial problems.[38]

Despite, or maybe because of its growing influence in Afghanistan, the relations between WK and the Taliban have been difficult.[39] Originally, the Taliban – as they had done in the past with other organizations such as al- Qa‛ida – had agreed to ally with the WK as they considered IS a useful ally.[40] Moreover, IS had not sent Arab commanders to negotiate with the Taliban, rather Afghans who had fought in Syria and Iraq. However, relations between the two groups broke down, when WK began recruiting in Afghanistan and building a network of contacts with the local tribes, without the authorization of the Taliban.[41] The rift involved all the various Taliban shuras with one major difference: the greatest opposition to WK’s penetration came from the Qandahar Shura, which, by and large, represents the «heart» of the Pashtun Taliban, which is the custodian of its tribal tradition. Instead, the militias of the eastern provinces, where the tribal bonds are less strong, and where ideology, conversely, is more influential, have been more reluctant to clash with WK. This applies, for example, to the Haqqani Network.[42] Some elements suggest that religious and ideological differences between WK and the Taliban were also significant enough to prevent a merger between the two movements. From the religious point of view, it is important to remember that while IS is a Salafist movement, the Taliban are inspired by the school of Deoband. This means that the Taliban – though very conservative in matter of Islamic law – do not share the total opposition of IS to the shi’a and the cult of Sufi saints. In an interesting video released in December 2015, a representative of IS accused the Taliban of having «deviated» from the right path because of their cooperation with Pakistan and for protecting the tombs of saints.[43] It is also interesting to note that the leaders of IS and the Taliban – al Baghdadi and Akhundzada – have received the same Islamic title of amir al muminin (Commander of the Faithful). Although the title, in itself, does not necessarily imply a claim to the position of Caliph, the use of the same title by the two leaders makes an act of submission by the Taliban leader to al Baghdadi less likely. Another important factor is the growing Iranian influence on the Taliban, particularly in the western districts. The connections between the Taliban and Iran have grown recently, as the former have tried to counterbalance the pervasive influence of Pakistan. For obvious reasons, Iranian authorities have exercised considerable pressure on the Taliban to discourage the alliance between the latter and IS.[44] Finally, from the ideological point of view, various well-informed sources have emphasised that WK opposes the Taliban’s continued adherence to a national political agenda for Afghanistan, in accordance with IS’ opposition to nation-states.[45]

8. Electoral reform and the anti-corruption agenda

The activity of the NUG in 2016 has again been dominated by the issue of institutional reform, in particular that of electoral law. After the highly contested 2014 presidential election and the formation of the NUG, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah agreed on a compelling agenda of reforms. Nevertheless, since then almost nothing has been achieved. In theory, the parliamentary and district elections were to have taken place in 2015, but were finally postponed to October 2016 by presidential decree. However, in the end, this deadline was also cancelled, causing critical comments on the part of the donor countries. This said, in 2016, the government took two important steps: in September, the new election law was approved, and secondly, in November, the new commissions charged with the supervision of the upcoming elections – the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and the Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) – were appointed. Some important innovations introduced to halt the electoral frauds of the past include a new voters’ register, new rules for the formation of polling stations, and new and more stringent laws against electoral crime. Moreover, the law also introduced a system of reserved seats for religious minorities (Hindus and Sikhs) and women.[46] However, the measure that caused the most heated controversy is the government directive to the IEC to decide on electoral constituencies. President Ghani and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Abdullah have taken this step in the absence of a consensus among the various political forces on the constituency system that the State should adopt. The fundamental reason for the disagreement is that the constituencies will in the future affect the choice of the electoral system. While almost all political actors agreed on the necessity to change the current electoral system – the «single nontransferable vote» or SNTV – there has been no consensus so far on whether to introduce a majoritarian or a proportional system.[47] The importance of the issue is understandable, given that the next parliamentary and district elections will elect 660 out of 762 delegates of the future Constitutional Loya Jirga, which will decide on the future Constitution. Therefore, all political forces have been active in trying to influence future elections as much as possible.[48] Although passage of the law was certainly a positive development for the reform agenda, Ghani and Abdullah have been criticised for choosing to pass it through government and not the parliament.[49] Besides causing a further controversy, the NUG’s decision has illustrated the lack of consensus between the most important state institutions on the future direction of the reforms. The capacity of the NUG to bring important reforms to the public sector was again placed under serious scrutiny in October 2016, when the Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (MEC) issued a tough report on the Kabul Bank scandal.[50] Although at its very inception, the NUG had decided to address the scandal by reopening the case, since then not much has been done. The MEC’s report has openly criticised the government for its inactivity. It has emphasised that only a limited percentage of «buddy loans» had been recovered, and cited a «lack of cooperation and coordination among national entities and lack of transparency in the conduct of the involved institutions».[51]

9. The state of Afghanistan’s economy

The economic situation of the country in 2016 has offered both positive and negative signals. The most important factor influencing the economy, as in previous years, was the issue of security. From this perspective, economic operators have shown appreciation for NUG efforts to tackle violence, although the military situation remained a major source of uncertainty. Economic indicators showed, in the first half of 2016, moderate growth over the preceding year. The GDP increased from 1.5 to 2.0 in mid-2016. This was reinforced by the unexpectedly good harvest, due to rainfall at the end of winter.[52] The rate of inflation has been rising after a long period of deflation. This was caused by depreciation of the currency and subsequent price increases for imported goods. A further important development has been the approval of a three-year Extended Credit Facility by the International Monetary Fund. This was aimed at supporting structural reforms for the development of the private sector and improving fiscal stability to reduce the country’s dependence on donor aid.[53] Another positive step has been the opening of a new train connection with the port of Nantong in China in September. The Afghan government also signed an important tripartite agreement in May with the Iranian and Indian authorities, for the development of the port of Chabahar, in Iran, into a transit hub.[54] As regards domestic revenue, mid-2016 data registered a 35% increase, mainly due to tax increases and the positive effect of fiscal reform.[55] However, negative developments came in the field of opium production. The 2016 Survey highlighted the serious consequences of the Taliban’s advance into various provinces, which led to a 10% increase in poppy cultivation and a dramatic 91% reduction in the eradication of poppy fields.[56]

 

Pakistan 2016: Economic features

Available also in pdf – Download Pdf –

This essay analyses the predominant domestic and foreign policy events that occurred in Pakistan in 2016 through the lens provided by the country’s main economic developments. With the aims of decreasing the fiscal deficit/GDP ratio and following the guidelines of the international financing institutions, Pakistan was implementing structural reforms aimed at increasing tax revenue, cutting public expenditures, easing the market interest rates through liberalisation measures, and improving the performance of the energy sector. Among these reforms, particularly the one related to the revenue system was highly needed. The description of Pakistan’s overall taxation system and its features, given in this essay, provides also the background to contextualise the Panama Papers scandal that hit Pakistan and its Prime Minister in the year under review. In 2016, concessional loans, while resulting in steady, but mild growth, did not ensure a long-term positive trend of sustained growth or of improvement of the economy of the country at large. In the fiscal year 2016-2017, high budgetary allocations were confirmed for the defence sector, whose outlay was raised of about 18%. Over the years, costly military interventions launched to combat internal anti-government armed militancy have had a negative impact on Pakistan’s economic growth in terms of resource reallocation, military expenditures, and the contraction of trade, business activities, and investments at large. Yet, military operations brought back under the control of the Security Forces areas which were the most volatile before the Army interventions. In 2016, fewer militants’ attacks than in the previous year were recorded, mostly against soft targets like academic institutions. Foreign relations were characterised by the deterioration of Islamabad’s ties with Washington and New Delhi. At the same time, regional political realignments provided an unprecedented economic opportunity to Pakistan, with China becoming the leading economic partner of Islamabad. However, the relations with China were challenged by armed militancy and unrest, potentially capable to undermine the economic alliance of the two Asian countries.

 

Appendix to India 2016 – A brutal and violent year in the Kashmir Valley

Available also in pdf – Download Pdf –

In 2016, in concomitance with the worsening in the India-Pakistan relations, the situation in the Vale of Kashmir, which is part of the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir, took a turn for the worse. Although the reciprocal Indian and Pakistani claims to the whole of the formerly princely state of Kashmir remain the main bone of contention between New Delhi and Islamabad, the deterioration of the situation in the Vale of Kashmir was caused mainly by internal reasons, largely unrelated to the increase in India-Pakistan tension. The Indian central government and the Jammu and Kashmir state government reacted to the manifest and manifestly increasing frustration of the inhabitants of the Vale of Kashmir by making use of the iron fist. The year under review saw the unchaining of a most violent and brutal repression, which was in a way epitomised by what a well-known English daily defined «the world’s first mass blinding». As usual, the reaction of the Indian media and the Indian public opinion was – with few and commendable exceptions – one of turning a blind eye to what was happening in Kashmir, when not openly applauding the brutality of the repression and asking for more of the same.

 

India 2016: Reforming the economy and tightening the connection with the US

Available also in pdf – Download Pdf –

As in 2015, in 2016 India’s political and economic landscape appeared to be dominated by Narendra Modi, the incumbent Prime Minister. Differently from what was the case in 2015, behind the pervasive self-praising rhetoric of the Indian government and the deafening chorus of applause of the bulk of the Indian media for Modi’s work, at least at the economic level some concrete results were reached, and some reforms were implemented. Particularly important was the passing of the Goods and Service Tax (GST), an objective which had been vainly pursued by several previous governments. If the objectives and potential benefits of the GST were clear to all to see, the situation was different in the case of the other major economic reform, abruptly carried out by the Modi government, namely the demonetisation of much of India’s paper currency. This quite unexpected measure was justified by the government in different ways at different times. What was clear at the time of the closing of the present article was that demonetisation had badly hurt particularly the poorer strata of the population, but, paradoxically enough, had not had any discernible adverse effect on Modi’s still burgeoning popularity. Also, in the state elections held during the year under review, Modi’s party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), strengthened its position and was also able to get a resounding victory in Assam, where, for the first time ever, formed the state government.
Strangely enough, in spite of the fact that the Modi government’s economic policy had become more incisive in the year under review than in 2014 and 2015, the attitude of the US private capital, assiduously courted by Modi, continued to be, as it had become in 2015, one of disillusionment. US entrepreneurs, while convinced of Modi’s desire to open up India’s economy to foreign enterprise and capital, doubted his ability to do so. This, however, did not bring about a slowing down in the process of rapprochement between New Delhi and Washington, but made of the military aspect of such process its «major driver» (as claimed by US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter). In turn, the increasing US-India closeness – and the increasing relevance of its military dimension – contributed to the worsening of the relations between New Delhi and Beijing, which appeared more and more involved in a policy of reciprocal containment. This played a role in the evolution of the India-Pakistan and India- Nepal relations. In the year under review, the relationship between New Delhi and Islamabad spectacularly worsened, but the latter was able to withstand the pressure of the former also because of Beijing’s help. On the other hand, India was able to re-establish its paramountcy over Nepal, engineering the fall of the Oli Government, which had challenged New Delhi with the support of Beijing.

* The present chapter is the outcome of a joint research effort, every single part of it having been jointly discussed by the two authors before being written and revised by both afterwards. However, the final draft of parts 1 and 4 has been written by Michelguglielmo Torri, whereas the final draft of parts 2 and 3 has been written by Diego Maiorano.

 

Sri Lanka 2016: Does the new era continue?

Available also in pdf – Download Pdf –

The year under review witnessed the continuation of the new political phase in Sri Lanka, which began in 2015 with Mahinda Sirisena’s victory at the presidential polls and, later in the year, the electoral victory of the United National Front for Good Governance (UNFGG) led by the United National Party (UNP). The Sirisena administration and the National Unity Government appeared to be engaged in reestablishing of the rule of law and the implementation of reconciliation measures. However, like in 2015, the government’s efforts appeared to often be slow, limited and hesitant. Nevertheless the Unity Government was able to carry out at least some substantial democratic reforms. In foreign policy, Colombo strengthened the relations with the United States and India but, at the same time, revamped those with Beijing – which had appeared to be on the wane during 2015. From an economic point of view, the situation – which at the beginning of the year under review seemed to be positive and promising – later deteriorated, raising doubts about the government’s political will and ability to implement economic reforms. Nevertheless, when presenting the new budget in November, the government’s dual goals of addressing the systemic weaknesses of the economy and improving the conditions for the lower social strata were both in evidence.

 

Bangladesh 2016: A laboratory for Islamic radicalism

Available also in pdf – Download Pdf –

In 2016 political violence continued to upset Bangladesh. Radical Islam contin-ued to rage in the country and to disseminate terror: people belonging to ethnic and religious minorities, along with moderate Muslims were brutally killed. The violence escalated in 2016, reaching its apex with the 1 July attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery, in central Dhaka, a café attended especially by foreigners. In the attack, 22 people were killed, among them 9 Italians and 7 Japanese, mostly gar-ment businessmen.
In spite of the alarming political climate, the Bangladeshi economy was prosper-ous, with a GDP growth at about 7%: Chinese and Indian investments played a prominent role in improving Bangladesh’s economy. However, labour conditions and workers’ rights remain critical. The Bangladeshi government enhanced international relations by strengthening ties with the United States and India.

1. Introduction

The two main issues on the 2016 Bangladesh political agenda were terrorism and violent extremism, and a high economic growth involving high social costs.
Bangladesh has been shaken by political violence since 2013. [1] The attacks on religious minorities, secular persons and moderate Muslims have occurred at a steady pace particularly since 2015.  [2] In 2016 they reached a new high on the night of 1 July, when the Holey Artisan Bakery café in central Dhaka was attacked by a commando of seven armed men. In the attack 22 people were brutally killed. In spite of persistent political instability, the economy performed very well in 2016, with a GDP growth of about 7%. The main factors of Bangladesh’s growth were the strengthening of the relations with India, India’s and China’s investments in the energy and infrastructure sectors and an improved planning of Bangladesh economy. However, Bangladesh’s growth is still facing several challenges, especially labour conditions and workers’ rights. The Bangladeshi government attempted to overcome terrorism and political insecurity by enhancing Bangladesh’s international position through stronger ties with two powers: the United States and India.

2. The Holey Artisan Bakery attack

On the evening of 1 July 2016, an armed commando of 7 men at-tacked the Holey Artisan Bakery, a restaurant in Gulshan, Dhaka’s diplo-matic enclave, where most foreigners concentrate. It is the same area where Italian social worker Cesare Tavella was killed in September 2015.[3] The commando stormed into the restaurant, shooting while shouting «Allah Ak-bar». The assailants immediately killed two people and kidnapped 20 more. Among the prisoners were 7 Italians, most of them garment businessmen. The restaurant is very close to the Italian Embassy and it is attended by foreign businessmen of the garment sector, Bangladesh’s leading industrial production. ISIS claimed the attack right from its initial phases with a communiqué to the press agency Amaq, recorded by SITE Intelligence Group. The attack was also claimed by Ansar al-Sharia Bangladesh, a local organization affiliated to Al-Q ida.[4] The double claim by the two main organizations of the international jihad is explained by the competition between them for hegemony in South Asia.[5]
All employees of the restaurant were able to escape.[6] The jihadists captured more than 30 people, but only 13 survived. The terrorists questioned the prisoners and those who were not able to repeat the Koran verses were killed, while Muslim Bangladeshi were spared. The prisoners were tortured and killed slowly with sharp weapons, most probably machetes, as reported by the Director of the Army military operations, Brig. General Nayeem Ashfaq Chowdhury.[7]
Among the victims there were 9 Italian citizens, 7 Japanese, 5 Bengalis, one of them with American citizenship, 2 policemen and an 18-year old Indian girl. At least 26 people were wounded. Of 6 terrorists, 5 were killed and 1 captured.[8]
The police attempted to seize the restaurant in the evening of 1 July, but without success as the jihadists were armed with guns and grenades. Then the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), Bangladesh’s special security force, intervened. In order to reduce collateral damage as much as possible, a complex operation was planned during the night and the restaurant was raided by the security forces in the early morning of 2 July. They cleared the restaurant after a 4-hour battle with the terrorists and rescued 13 people.[9]

In spite of this new spell of violence, a year after her electoral success, Sheikh Hasina seemed firmly in control and Between 30 and 35 agents were wounded.[10] The day before the attack the investigators in charge of inspecting social media intercepted several mes-sages on Twitter, announcing an attack in Dhaka. The authorities then in-tensified the controls on embassies, and the police closed some of the main hotels and restaurants surrounding the Holey Artisan Bakery.[11]
After the raid, the police released the pictures of the bodies of five assailants[12] who had been identified: they were Nibras Islam, Rohan Imtiaz, Meer Saameh Mubasheer, Khairul Ismal and Shafiqul Islam.[13] All of the terrorists were born in Bangladesh and five had been wanted because they were suspected of being affiliated to radical groups.[14] All of them belonged to the banned Jamatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh (JMB) and were young Bangladeshi men, from middle class families, with a good educational back-ground. They had gone underground between December 2015 and March 2016. Their families reported them missing, but the authorities did not investigate their activities.[15] On 3 July it was discovered that the mastermind of the attack was Tamim Chowdhury, nom de guerre Shaykh Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif, a Canadian citizen born in Windsor, Ontario.[16]

3. The reactions to the attack: some controversial arrests

As an immediate reaction to the attack, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina decreed a two-day mourning period.[17] On 5 July she presided over the commemoration function at Dhaka stadium, where she censured terrorism.[18] In a television address to the nation, following the attack, she implored viewers to stop violence in name of the Islamic religion, defining Islam «a religion of peace».[19] Like in 2015,[20] the Prime Minister and other Bangladeshi au-thorities denied that the IS (Islamic State) had played a role in the Holey Artisan Bakery attack. While police Inspector General A.K.M. Shahidul Hoque admitted that the authorities did not exclude that possibility, the Interior Minister denied any IS involvement in the attack and any presence of the Islamic State in Bangladesh.[21]
The Prime Minister asserted that terrorists were trying to destroy Bangladesh and to turn it «into a failed state»; she vowed to get the country out of the turmoil.[22]
After the end of the 11-hour siege, two former hostages were taken into custody by the police, who suspected they were involved in the attack. The two men, holding a dual Canadian-Bangladeshi citizenship, were Hasnat Karim, age 47, and Tahmid Khan, a 22 year old student of To-ronto University who was back in Dhaka on vacation.[23] The two men were detained for over a month, before being formally arrested on 4 August.[24] The fact is controversial as, according to Bangladeshi law, a suspect can be detained for more than 24 hours only with the authorization of a magistrate, which was not the case with Karim and Khan. More than a week after the attack, the families of the two suspects had not yet received in-formation of their relatives’ whereabouts.[25] Moreover, the authorities had contradictory behaviour. While the police claimed that both men had been released, later on the Home Minister admitted that Hasnat Karim was still in custody. [26]

The suspicions of the inquirers were raised due to some footage show-ing the two men apparently helping the attackers. In some videos they also carry weapons.[27] Other hostages reported that the two men were forced by the attackers to help them.[28] An amateur video and photographs show Ka-rim talking with the terrorists inside the restaurant and on the terrace re-spectively.[29] Other hostages reported that Karim was talking and walking with the terrorists.[30] According to Karim’s lawyer, he was forced to do so because he was used as a human shield.[31] However, in a photograph Karim seems to be peacefully smoking a cigarette on the terrace with the killers.[32]
In spite of police suspicion, the images and witnesses do not clearly suggest any wrongdoing by Karim and Khan.[33] The circumstances may also suggest that they were trying to negotiate with the militants, trying to keep the situation under control, in order to avoid a bloodbath.[34]
The police had found a note with Karim’s home address in the pocket of one of the militants,[35] but this detail is very controversial: in fact, Karim might have given it to the killer in order to obtain his confidence.[36]
On the night of the attack, Hasnat Karim was at the Holey Artisan Bak-ery to celebrate his 13 year old daughter’s birthday with his wife and two chil-dren.[37] It seems therefore rather improbable that he could be involved in aid-ing the attack. However, the fact that Karim and his family were allowed by the terrorists to leave the restaurant about half an hour before the army raid raised police suspicion.[38] Hasnat Karim and Tahmid Khan, like other hostages, had been spared by the assailants because they were Muslims,[39] but for the police this was a possible proof of Karim and Khan’s connections with the terrorists.
Tahmid Khan was released on bail in early October,[40] whereas Karim was still in jail at the end of the year and his bank accounts were still frozen.[41]

However, the investigation about Hasnat Karim was based on contradictory proof. All evidence collected by the police was poor and it seems unlikely that Karim involved his wife and children in such a gruesome situation. Ka-rim might be a scapegoat:[42] after all Bangladeshi police and authorities had previously attempted to appear efficient after a similar attack, which openly targeted foreigners. A prompt reaction was required and Karim and Khan had the requisites to be prosecuted.
After the attack, Bengali authorities were under the pressure not only by national and international public opinion, but especially by foreign gov-ernments, in particular those who had faced the greatest casualties. The Bangladeshi police were in a frenzy to appear efficient and, as a conse-quence, made serious mistakes, for instance when, during the raid, they killed a pizza chef at the Bakery, who was confused with a militant.[43]
Karim and Khan’s case triggered criticism not only from their fami-lies, but also from traditional and social media and human rights organiza-tions, which were concerned about the violations of laws by the police and feared that the two men in detention might be tortured.[44]
In June 2016, following a series of politically motivated killings, the government ordered the arrest of 10 to 14,000 people.[45] Most arrested were petty criminals[46] and only about 150 were militants.[47] This kind of operation seems to be aimed more at intimidation than at a proper investigation, as an accurate inquiry is impossible with such huge numbers. In actuality, the Holey Artisan Bakery attack occurred only two weeks after the crackdown.

4. The intensification of security activities after the attack: evidence of ISIS involvement

After the attack, the police raided suspected hideouts and reportedly killed dozens and arrested hundreds. [48]
In August the investigators identified a certain Marjan as the sup-posed «coordinator» of the Café attack and released his photograph. As already pointed out, Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury was identified as the mas-termind of the attack. The police placed a 20 lakh Taka (approximately US$ 25,500) bounty on his head.[49] The police captured Chowdhury in a hideout in the outskirts of Dhaka and killed him on 26 August. Other two Islamist militants were killed with him.[50] Chowdhury was a 30 year old Canadian na-tional, born in Bangladesh. In 2013 he returned to his native country, where he is believed to have played a prominent role in funding the activities of radical organizations and recruiting militants.[51]
Chowdhury was part of a well organized network. Investigators had discovered that IS had intensified its connections with Bangladesh. In De-cember Dhaka police seized approximately 3.9 Taka (about US$ 50,000) destined for an associate of Chowdhury. The money had been sent via a ha-wala[52] cash transfer from a company based in the UK. Its owner, Siful Sujan, had been killed in Syria. However, there was no evidence that the money was sent under IS’s instructions. [53]
The preparation of the attack began in June 2016, at the start of the month of Ramadan.[54] Chowdhury had at least two accomplices, Abu Terek Mohammad Tajuddin Kausar and Tanvir Kaderi, who aided in organizing the attack.[55] The latter killed himself when, on 10 September, the police raided the flat where he and his family were hiding.[56]
Several elements contradict the government’s thesis that IS does not exist in Bangladesh. An exponent of the government asserted that in Bang-ladesh there are militants with IS links, but this does not mean that the IS is there.[57] In April 2016 Chowdhury granted an interview to Dabiq, the renowned IS magazine, under his nom de guerre Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif.[58] The magazine defined al-Hanif the head of IS in Bangladesh. [59] An article by Chowdhury on the café attack was published after his death by the other IS’s magazine, Rumiyah. [60]

5. Bangladesh, a laboratory of radical Islam

The extent of IS’s presence in Bangladesh is difficult to be ascertained at present. However, the country appears to be a laboratory of jihadism. The 1 July attack was the result of an escalation of political violence started in 2013, with the killings of bloggers, intellectuals and media people, reaching its peak in 2015.[61] At the periphery of the developed world, a politically unsta-ble country, where violence is the order of the day and the security forces have not been particularly efficient in dealing with political criminals, Bangladesh is the ideal place to experiment with new tactics and plan actions. Attacks on independent media in Bangladesh, for instance, started in 2013, two years before the Charlie Hebdo attack. The targets and tactics are strikingly similar to those used in terrorist attacks in Europe. The organizations of radical Islam have an extraordinary capacity to communicate. What happens in one part of the world has an immediate impact on the opposite side of the world. In the last three years messages, videos and instructions have been crisscrossing the world, while Bangladeshi law enforcement authorities and the international community have been culpably inattentive. Moreover, the intricate network of Bangladeshi jihadist organizations continues to be insufficiently known.[62]
It would be interesting to investigate the objectives of Bangladeshi radi-cal Islam, apart from turning the country into an Islamic State. It has been asserted that a main objective of the Bangladeshi jihadists is to undermine the garment industry.[63] It seems probable that Bangladeshi organizations of radical Islam aim to replace foreign interests with domestic ones in the highly profitable sectors of Bangladeshi industrial production and development aid. The Bangladeshi organizations of radical Islam have a high financial capac-ity: they control the Islamic Bank of Bangladesh Ltd. (IBBL), supported by Saudi Arabia, and several NGOs, some financed by Saudi Arabia as well.[64] Bangladeshi radical Islamists are capable of moving huge quantities of mon-ey. It might be plausible that they are also trying to take over the sector of garment industry, by spreading terror among the foreign businessmen, in order to discourage them from carrying out their affairs in Bangladesh. Im-mediately after the 1 July attack the embassies of the United States and other western countries issued travel warnings to their nationals, advising those in the country to be careful and avoid public places.[65] Some foreign investors cancelled all business travels in the country,[66] which resulted in a likely dam-age to the garment industry that is worth US$ 26 billion.[67]

Perhaps the Prime Minister and the Interior Minister are not totally wrong when they blame domestic rather than international organizations for the attacks.[68] Perhaps these two theses – predominant IS’s involvement or exclusive domestic responsibility in terror attacks in Bangladesh – are not mutually exclusive, as they appear to be at first sight. In other words, it is possible that both IS-related organizations and domestic terrorist outfits are active in promoting terror in Bangladesh.
The series of attacks from 2015 to 1 July 2016 clearly prove that one of the main targets of Muslim militant organizations is made up of foreign professionals.[69] Most likely the Holey Artisan Bakery was not casually cho-sen, but carefully selected for its clientele. It was probably not a coincidence that most of victims were Italian and Japanese businessmen of the garment sector and aid workers.

6. Attacks on minorities go on

Between January and June 2016 the main deadly attacks on individu-als belonging to minority groups, non-Sunni and moderate Muslims, secular bloggers and publishers amounted to 21. In addition, an uncountable num-ber of assaults on crowds during religious functions or on political parties representing the indigenous communities took place.[70] Between January and June 2016 violence against Hindus resulted into the burning of 66 houses, the destruction of 49 temples and monasteries and 24 people being injured.[71] Hindu priests and Buddhist monks were the main targets, but also ordinary believers belonging to different groups and sects were attacked. Harassment and retaliation cases have been taking place on an almost daily basis. The assailants have often been identified as members of the Awami League.[72] In many cases officials and agents were complicit in the attacks. Several of these crimes appeared to be connected with personal feuds or political motives.[73]
On 23 April Rezaul Karim Siddiquee was killed. He was a profes-sor of English at Rajshahi University, the second most important university in Bangladesh.[74] The Professor was literally massacred with a hatchet. IS claimed the murder.[75] This murder was particularly outraging for the coun-try, not just for its brutality, but especially for the peculiarity of the target. Prof. Siddiquee was killed because English literature was considered a blas-phemous subject by the militants. One of the killers was a former student of Siddiquee.[76] Radicalization in Bangladeshi universities is increasing and professors feel threatened: they are very self-conscious during their lessons and restrain themselves in order to not offend any group. They fear for their own lives and those of their relatives.[77]
At the end of 2016 another wave of attacks on Hindu temples and in-dividuals and on indigenous groups shook the country. On 30 October hun-dreds of Muslims ravaged 15 Hindu temples and the houses of about 100 families in a Hindu area in Nasirnagar, Brahmanbaria district, northeast of Dhaka. More than 100 people were injured, while the police were watch-ing, inactive.[78] Other attacks occurred across the country. The pretext was an allegedly offensive image posted on Facebook by a Hindu, Rasraj Das. Subsequently, the intelligence discovered that Das was not responsible for the upload.[79] It was not clear who propagated the image,[80] but, considering the inflamed political situation, it could have been a machination to justify the attacks. Bangladesh’s Human Rights Commission defined the attacks a «preplanned conspiracy» and began an investigation.[81] Several suspects have been arrested and the police officer in charge in Nasirnagar has been suspended. Local Awami League members were involved and three of them have been suspended.[82] The owner of a cyber café has been arrested as the mastermind of the attacks on Hindu temples and properties.[83]

On 4 November a second attack on Hindus took place first in Brah-manbaria district and, then, in Sirajganj and Jhalakathi districts on 6 No-vember.[84] The Santal indigenous group and the Hindu minority in Gail-bandha district had been subjected to similar attacks for a fortnight since 7 November, following a land dispute.[85] Two Hindu temples were vandalized and idols destroyed in Netrokona and Pabna districts on the night of 4 De-cember 2016.[86] Respectively, seven and three statues of the goddess Kali were destroyed. The attacks were well orchestrated and have been explained as attempts to land grabbing, to the detriment of local religious and ethnic minorities.[87]
Land grabbing is a persistent issue in Bangladesh. This practice es-pecially affects the northern districts, where Hindus and tribal groups are concentrated. These groups faced all kinds of pressure and abuses, attacks and rapes. Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands forced to leave their homes and migrate elsewhere to survive. The victims of land grabbing have organized throughout the years and raised their voice in marches and demonstrations. In 2015 the Awami League government promised to set up a special land commission, but nothing has happened ever since.[88]
Santals, the people most affected by land grabbing, are the largest tribal group in South Asia, living on rice and vegetable cultivation, hunting and fishing. The lands where they live are valuable not only from an agri-cultural point of view, but also for the large quantities of natural resources in their subsoil. This has triggered the interests of corporations and multi-nationals, who are accused of being behind the land grabbing.[89]
According to the Properties Return (Amendment) Act of 2011, Hin-du families have the legal right to reclaim their properties, but in practice many victims are unable to do so, in part because of government officials’ obstruction.[90]
Not only are the rights of the minorities at risk in Bangladesh, but so is secularism. Secularism – one of the four fundamental principles of the original 1972 Constitution – was removed from the constitution in 1977 by Ziaur Rahman (President from 1977 to 1981). In 1988 the then President General Muhammad Ershad declared Islam the state religion. The Com-mittee against Autocracy and Communalism then filed a petition, requir-ing that secularism be re-established. After 28 years, in 2010, the Supreme Court rejected the petition, ruling that the petitioning organization did not have the locus standi and therefore it did not have the right to be heard in the court. Finally, in 2016, the Supreme Court took an ambivalent decision: it declared secularism to be a fundamental principle, but upheld Islam as state religion.[91]

In 2011 the current Awami League government amended the Consti-tution, emphasizing secularism and «equal status» for other faiths as consti-tutional principles.[92]
A substantial transformation of the legal and educational systems and of the attitude of the media, both traditional and social, is required to stop discrimination against religious and ethnic minorities.[93] In December 2015 Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina assured state protection to Christian leaders after a series of attacks against their community. [94]

8. John Kerry’s visit to Bangladesh: Strengthening Bangladesh-US security cooperation

As already pointed out, Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury was killed just two days before John Kerry’s visit to Bangladesh. Also, a few hours before his arrival the police killed two suspected JMB members. [95]
The US Secretary of State arrived in Bangladesh on 29 August for a short visit on his way to India to discuss security issues with Sheikh Hasina after the recent wave of killings and the 1 July attack. John Kerry met also opposition leaders and exponents of the civil society. [96]
According to Michael Kugelman, of the Wodroow Wilson Center in Washington D.C., «One of Kerry’s core intentions in Dhaka will simply be to emphasize the importance that the US accords to security problems in Bangladesh».[97] According to Kugelman, Washington underestimated the increasing security threats in Bangladesh, which affect also the West and the US. [98]
This was John Kerry’s only official visit to Bangladesh,[99] but «the dip-lomatic quarters» defined it as «significantly important».[100] The Secretary of State believed that IS elements were connected with operatives in Bangla-desh.[101] He agreed with Sheikh Hasina and other Bangladeshi authorities on additional intelligence and security cooperation[102] and offered US as-sistance to solve security problems in Bangladesh.[103]
Bilateral talks on security had been started in the past, but the rela-tionships between the two countries had remained tepid, especially due to Dhaka’s indecisiveness regarding US offers of assistance to tackle the ter-rorist menace.[104] The purpose of Kerry’s visit was to overcome Bangladesh’s scepticism and to enhance a Bangladesh-US security partnership.[105]
In 2012 the two countries started the Bangladesh-US Security Dia-logue, a cooperation programme concerning a wide range of issues. Bilat-eral meetings have been held yearly, either in Dhaka or in Washington.[106]

The 5th round of the dialogue was held in Dhaka on 2 October 2016. Kamrul Ahsan, Additional Foreign Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Af-fairs, led the Bangladesh delegation, including representatives from several Ministries and Government organization. The members of the American delegation were William Monahan, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, rep-resentatives of the Departments of State and Defence, United States Ambas-sador Marcia Monicat and Embassy officials.[107]
As on previous occasions, the issues under discussion were the «secu-rity partnership between the two countries, strategic priorities and region-al security issues, defense cooperation, civilian security cooperation, UN peacekeeping and counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism».[108] Both countries acknowledged: «the importance of a deeper and stronger partnership» in addressing mutual security concerns while upholding the values of human rights and fundamental freedoms.[109] The United States representatives appreciated both Bangladesh’s «zero tolerance» against ter-rorism and violent radicalism and the Bangladeshi government «not allow-ing its territory to be used for terrorist activities against other countries».[110]
The Holey Artisan Bakery facts were the focus of the 2016 Dialogue. It was decided to create a Counterterrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) Unit under Dhaka Metropolitan Police.[111] The Bangladesh delegation asked for enhanced United States training, equipment and logistic support in ac-tivities concerning counterterrorism, contrasting violent radicalism and dis-aster management.[112]
The US had already been assisting Bangladesh in enhancing its dis-aster preparedness through the joint Disaster Response Exercise and Ex-change (DREE), the funding of the construction of 600 multipurpose cy-clone shelters in coastal areas and the provision of fast moving boats to the Bangladesh Coast Guards to minimize the response time against piracy within Bangladesh’s boundaries.[113]
The US delegation praised Bangladesh for its participation in UN peacekeeping operations and in the Global Peace Operations Initiative fi-nanced by the United States. [114]

9. An outstanding economic growth

The Bangladeshi government pursues two ambitious economic goals: to «graduate» to a middle income country within 2021 and to evolve into a developed country within 2041.[115] In 2015 the World Bank upgraded Bang-ladesh to a middle income country, although in reality it is a lower middle income country.[116]
Bangladesh’s economic performances are astonishing for many analysts,[117] especially considering its critical political situation.[118] In 2015 foreign direct investments had a 44% increase from the previous year, while, thanks to «the economic success», life expectancy grew from 56 to 70 years.[119]
In April 2016 the World Bank reported that «Bangladesh economy remained strong and resilient despite external and internal challenges».[120]

Bangladesh is among the top 12 developing countries with over 20 million people that achieve a 6% growth. Inflation declined from 6.5% in March 2015 to 5.65% in March 2016. Food inflation decreased from 6.4%to 3.4% thanks to good rice harvests, lower international food prices and stable exchange rates.[121] However, non-food inflation increased from 6.1%to 8.4%, due to suppressed internal demand, increase of wages and rise of electricity and gas prices. The budget deficit was expected to rise, due to a reduced revenue collection in Fiscal Year (FY) 2016-2017.[122]
Several factors continue to hinder growth: power and energy shortages, credit shocks, lack of reform continuity, infrastructure bottlenecks. It is esti-mated that to develop the country’s infrastructure, US$ 410 billion financing is required, twice the size of the GDP.[123] Although the government has already approved some important reforms regarding special economic zones, exports processing zones and labour rights, their implementation must be enforced.[124]
Remittances continued to decline in 2016, due mainly to the global economic crisis.[125]

Private investments were still stagnant, even declining in the first half of FY 2016-17 from 1.5 to 1.3%.[126] However, Sheikh Hasina promised great-er support to the private sector. At a seminar titled «New Economic Think-ing: Bangladesh 2030 and Beyond», organized by the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry on 20 December 2016, the Prime Minister assured traders and investors that her government will continue to support the private sector by «establishing a trade-friendly atmosphere».[127] The Prime Minister announced that Bangladesh may become the 29th largest economy in the world in 2030 and the 23rd in 2050. Within 2021, electricity will be distributed over the whole country, which is expected to be poverty free in 2030 and to reach a per capita income of US$ 12,600 in 2041. In the same year Bangladesh should become the central «hub» of regional commerce.[128]
Bangladesh is pursuing an «open market policy» and is developing sub-regional and international relations.[129]

10. The dark side of Bangladesh’s economic growth

Unfortunately Bangladesh’s remarkable economic growth and prom-ising expectations have enormous social costs. The workers’ conditions are still deplorable and safety of working places is far from being satisfactory.[130] On 10 September 2016 a fire broke out after a boiler exploded at Tampaco Foils Ltd., a plastic packaging factory in the Tongi BSCIC industrial area of Gazipur, near Dhaka. The fire caused the collapse of the five story building: more than 30 people were killed.[131] The factory provided packaging for other companies, including Nestlé and British American Tobacco.[132]
The Tampaco Foils accident was the worst industrial disaster after the Rana Plaza tragedy in 2013, when 1,137 workers lost their lives and about 2,500 were injured.[133]

According to the first independent survey of the garment industry, issued after the Rana Plaza disaster, the factories producing for the big-gest international retailers failed to implement the renovations required: 62% among them lack viable fire exits; 62% do not have a proper alarm system; 47% have structural problems.[134] Renowned retailers like Walmart, Gap, Target and their affiliates, including North Face, Timberland, Wran-gler and several others, set up a voluntary organization named Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety. Unfortunately, it unilaterally postponed the deadlines for repairs and improvements from 2014-15 to 2018.[135] A recent report titled «Dangerous Delays on Worker Safety» discovered that, out of 107 factories labelled as regular by the Alliance, 99 had not completed the safety improvements. The report has been published by the International Labour Rights Forum, the Worker Rights Consortium, the Clean Clothes Campaign and the Maquila Solidarity Network.[136]
A survey carried out by the Overseas Development Institute[137] on 2,700 slum households disclosed that child labourers living in slums worked an average of 64 hours a week. Two thirds of the girls were working for the garment industry, while 15% of the children between 6 and 14 years old did not go to school and worked full time.[138] Over 36% of the boys and 34% of the girls reported that they experienced extreme fatigue and were often mistreated. In July 2016, a nine year old boy was tortured at one of the largest spinning fac-tories in the country.[139] The mill assistant administrative officer was arrested, while the owner and other accused managers who had fled were wanted. The police raided the factory and rescued 27 children, many aged under 14, who were returned to their families.[140]
Recently, Bangladesh enforced several ambitious reforms preventing child labour, among which the National Plan of Action (2010), the National Children Policy (2011) and the Children’s Act (2013). However, «a compre-hensive legal framework for protecting children against child labour» was still missing.[141]

11. Bangladesh, between China and India

Bangladesh has become the crossroads of an increasing geopolitical rivalry between China, India and Japan, with the US backing the latter two.[142] The rivalry has been taking the shape of a race, especially between China and India, to obtain billionaire contracts for infrastructural and power plants investments. At the beginning of 2016, India’s state-owned Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) was about to sign a US$ 1.6 billion contract with Bangladesh for the construction of a coal-fired pow-er station in the Khulna district of southern Bangladesh, defeating the competition of the Chinese Harbin Electric International Company. The Khulna power station will be the largest foreign project implemented by an Indian Company.[143] The Indian media defined the BHEL episode as a «second setback» for Beijing, after the failure of a long and failed ne-gotiation with Bangladesh to build the Sonadia deep-sea port, near Chittagong.[144]
A spokesman of the Bangladesh-India Friendship Power Company, a joint venture set up to build the power plant, reported that BHEL was the low-est bidder. The impression is that the BHEL agreement was part both of In-dia’s strategy to undermine China’s economic and strategic interests in South and South-East Asia, and of the US’s pivot to Asia.[145] Bangladesh’s Planning Minister A. H. M. Mustapha Kamal admitted that the deal could not proceed because both India and the US were against the Chinese initiative.[146]
India’s interests in Bangladesh are part of its «Act East Policy», aiming at promoting its investments in South-East Asia and the South China Sea.[147] Moreover, the Sonadia port would have increased China’s presence in the Bay of Bengal and would have been too close to Indian Andaman and Nico-bar Islands. Both were weighty enough reasons to induce India to prevent the realization of the Chinese project.[148]
With the ports of Kyaukpyu in Myanmar, of Hambantota in Sri Lanka and of Gwadar in Pakistan, Sonadia was part of both the so called Chinese «string of pearls strategy» and the «One Belt, One Road initiative», based on the construction of a series of ports along the strategic sea route connecting the Indian Ocean with the Persian Gulf and East Africa. For China the sea lanes are vital for its oil and raw material supplies.[149]
In the period under review Narendra Modi and Sheikh Hasina strengthened the India-Bangladesh relations.[150] Indian businessmen and investors attending the Bangladesh Investment and Policy Summit in Janu-ary promised to invest US$ 11 billion in several infrastructure projects, in-cluding a gas pipeline from Orissa to Bangladesh.
India was building a road, rail and waterways transit route to the North-East States through Bangladesh, bypassing the Siliguri Corridor, to connect India’s mainland with these remote areas.[151]
In spite of its increasingly close relation with New Delhi, Dhaka car-ries out a balanced policy aiming at maintaining good relationships with both China and India.

On 13 October 2016 Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Bangla-desh. It was the first visit of a Chinese head of state in 30 years.[152] The Chinese president announced several agreements, among others the construc-tion of two coal-fired power plants respectively in Payra, in the southern district of Patuakhali, and in Banshkhali-Chittagong, for 1,320 MW each. For the first time a China-Bangladesh cooperation agreement exceeded the average size of Bangladesh-India cooperation.[153]
The strongest Bangladesh’s entente, however, is still with India. From 17 to 19 December 2016 Sheikh Hasina’s first official visit to India took place. It was a hugely symbolic occasion, as it coincided with the 45th anni-versary of India’s recognition of Bangladesh’s independence.[154]
Narendra Modi did not miss the occasion to transform the visit into an «anti-Pakistan spectacle»,[155] as the programme included the honouring of the Indian soldiers who lost their lives in the 1971 liberation war. The talks between Modi and Sheikh Hasina, focussed on border security and anti-terrorism agreements, were described as «fruitful».[156] Both countries need to strengthen anti-terrorism cooperation.
Sheikh Hasina’s visit to Delhi was preceded by the visit of the Indian Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar, to Bangladesh on 30 November 2016. Parrikar met with Sheikh Hasina, her defence advisor, retired Major Gen-eral Tariq Ahmed, and the President, Abdul Hamid. The purpose of the visit was to discuss «a new defence cooperation framework».[157]
Parrikar’s visit was considered by local and international analysts as part of the struggle for influence in Asia between India and China, and came as a response to China handing over two US$ 203 million worth diesel electric sub-marines to the Bangladeshi Army.[158] Beijing was particularly concerned by Washington’s increasing closeness with New Delhi, which is seen as aiming at involving India in the military encirclement of China.[159]

 

Myanmar 2016: From enthusiasm to disillusionment

Available also in pdf – Download Pdf –

2016 was the year when political change finally came to Myanmar. After a fiveyear transition from military rule to a (semi-)civilian government, the two electoral rounds of November 2015 (parliamentary) and March 2016 (presidential) ushered in a new phase of formally – if substantially constrained – democratic politics. The 2015 (direct) elections were the real watershed between two political eras, with the 2016 (indirect) ones representing the completion of NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s victory. This article reviews the events of 2016, and shows that the year can best be understood as a tale of two contrasting halves. Initially, the government laid out its priorities in domestic, economic and foreign policy. It identified peace-building as the first priority. The first part of the year proceeded relatively smoothly, without major mistakes by the government, whereas the second was marked by increasing tensions and incidents in Rakhine State in the south west. An attack in October by a Rohingya militant organization against border police sparked clashes that led to a crackdown by the army and a renewed flow of refugees into neighbouring Bangladesh. Criticism of the plight of the Rohingya community was growing outside the country. Myanmar’s transition was clearly still very much a work-in-progress.

 

Thailand 2016: The death of King Bhumibol and the deepening of the political crisis

Available also in pdf – Download Pdf –

A military coup in May 2014 was the last turn in a political crisis that has affected the country since the beginning of the century. As the country grew richer and its society more demanding, a quite liberal constitution had been approved in 1997, leading to a higher degree of democratization. However, the regional economic crisis 1997-98 immediately tested the new political framework as the country become more politically divided and socially polarized. In 2016 the military junta ruling the country succeeded in having a new constitutional project approved by a referendum, paving the way for the return of the country to a system of semi-democracy in which the royalist elites and the army will continue to maintain a fundamental political influence. As in previous occasions, the military coup had been presented as a needed step to protect the monarchy and the country, restoring peace and order. With the health of the old King Bhumibol becoming increasingly frail, however, it was evident that a major concern of the political forces then in power was to govern the royal succession. The death of King Bhumibol on 13 October was a watershed event for Thailand, putting an end to a reign that had lasted over seventy years. The advent to the throne of Maha Vajiralongkorn opened a new era in the country as the new King did not seem to have the same level of people support enjoyed by his father. This being the situation, the role of the monarchy – so far the ultimate arbiter in political life and a major economic player – may eventually change. A series of bombings, including in the royal sea resort of Hua Hin in August, proved that the problems in the three southern provinces with a predominantly Muslim population have not been solved. The country continues to face regional divides, which also include a strong resentment against the Bangkok elites in the northern and north-eastern regions were the deposed premier Thaksin Shinawatra continues to enjoy a solid consensus.

 

Laos 2016: The 10th congress of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (Lprp) and its domestic and international aftermath

Available also in pdf – Download Pdf –

The 10th Congress of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP) concluded in January 2016 with a reshuffle of the Politburo. The new leadership confirmed a «steady-as-you-go» policy continuing to base its political legitimacy both on economic growth cum social equity and the fight against the spread of corruption, and on its strategic ability in the international arena. Laos, as temporary chairman of ASEAN, acted as guardian of its autonomy vis-à-vis Beijing’s undue influence. This latter approach also aimed at ensuring the party-state good relations with the international community and, consequently, the steady flow of official development assistance (ODA) and foreign direct investments (FDI). Barack Obama’s visit (in September), the first one to Laos of a sitting US President, contributed to highlight the impressive economic growth achieved by the country in the last decade, strengthening the PLRP’s political legitimation.

 

Vietnam 2016: The aftermath of the 12th congress, between continuities and changes

Available also in pdf – Download Pdf –

In the aftermath of the heated January 2016 12th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), Vietnam seemed face multiple challenges, both at the domestic and at the international level. For what concerns domestic affairs, this paper argues that one major challenge for the newly elected Vietnamese leadership (and one major stake for Vietnam in the coming years) was one of gaining back control over the country’s development pattern – and responding to raising bottom-up discontent and demands. Concerning foreign relations, the paper highlights the growing challenges and sources of uncertainty for Vietnam – and its attempt at balancing between major (and smaller) powers’ foreign strategies – emerging out of the already-fluid and thorny Asia-Pacific geopolitics.

 

Indonesia 2016: A difficult equilibrium amid global anxiety

Available also in pdf – Download Pdf –

The year 2016 in Indonesia saw President Joko Widodo consolidate his power after last year’s uncertain start. Domestic policy focused on curbing terrorism linked to the Islamic State (IS), especially following a deadly attack in the capital in January. Nevertheless, the rise of religious intolerance and political Islam were not tackled with the same decisiveness. In terms of foreign policy, Indonesia was trying to keep equidistance from the great powers in the Asia-Pacific region, although increasing geopolitical tensions were making it difficult. Indonesia’s economic performance was better than in 2015. Yet, the rate of growth of the gross domestic product, estimated at around 5% for 2016, was still hampered by the low prices of key exports and by the continuing slowdown in global economy

 

The Philippines 2016: Democracy in dispute?

Available also in pdf – Download Pdf –

President Rodrigo Duterte’s 2016 election was a divisive moment in Philippine politics. The promise to disrupt élite-centric politics and restore national peace and order won him strong popular support throughout the country. His satisfactory track record of turning Davao City from a haven of criminals to the «safest city» in the Philippines raised hopes that he would make every effort to replicate this model nationwide. His supporters celebrated his authoritarian, haphazard leadership style, which, however, also provoked severe criticism at home and abroad. Both local and international media have been keen on condemning his «War on Drugs», which sanctions extra-judicial killings, and his crude approach to foreign relations. The tension between those for and against Duterte’s leadership has caused many to question how it was possible for a nation that successfully toppled a dictatorship through a non-violent revolution to elect someone with strong authoritarian leanings. This article argues that Duterte’s election was an outcome of the diminishing credibility of the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution and the system it created as a model for Philippine democracy. It suggests that the 2016 Philippine national elections provided an opportunity for people to express their dissatisfaction with the country’s democracy, which had come to be seen as a fractured system. It adds to the usual, personality-focussed, commentaries on Philippine politics, by also discussing a range of domestic and international issues and the irony of electing a strongman to represent the people’s discontent with Philippine politics.

1. Introduction

The Philippines has fought hard to keep its democratic institutions intact. Since becoming fully independent from United States (US) colonial rule in 1946, most of the Filipino electorate has opted for a candidate who supports freedom of the people. Although the Proclamation of Martial Law in 1972 challenged this ideal, it also showed that democracy was embedded in the Filipino spirit. Discontent over corruption and grave human rights abuse under the Marcos dictatorship urged the public to protest. Through the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution, Filipinos appeared to have successfully resurrected democratic institutions in the country. This historical episode was a victory over authoritarianism and has been the emblem of Philippine democracy ever since. Yet almost three decades later, the 2016 election of President Rodrigo «Digong» Duterte presented another turning point for Philippine democracy. Duterte’s campaign slogan, «Change is Coming», embodied both the change he wanted to make as a Philippine president and change desired by the Filipino majority. Duterte distanced himself from the usual campaign strategy of utilising tactfully constructed sound bites to entice voters. His campaign was candid, down-to-earth, and often undiplomatic. Duterte also shifted from the usual policy concerns of economic growth and anticorruption strategies. Instead, he stressed fighting criminality as the major precursor to Philippine development. His promise to restore domestic peace and order through any means possible, including extra-judicial killings and reinstitution of the death penalty, was extraordinarily bold and straightforward. Despite criticism from rights groups who were against the pacification policies, Duterte continued as the mayor of Davao City prior to the elections,[1] with the prospect of a Davao-like Philippines prevailing among the voters.

Perhaps unexpectedly, the 2016 Philippine national elections set a historic record, with an 81% voter turnout.[2] Contrary to what one might expect from a democracy, the Filipino majority voted for a candidate with authoritarian features. Duterte won in a landslide victory with a 12.8% margin. The newly elected president maintained an approval rating of 72% six months after his inauguration on 30 June, amidst ceaseless domestic and international objections to his violent war against drugs and calls for his resignation from some quarters.[3] Underneath Duterte’s unbridled popularity is a nation torn between defending democracy and jeopardising its continuance; the potential for the country to be under the rule of authoritarian government appears to be a risk associated with improving the nation’s political and socio-economic conditions. How did it become possible for a nation that successfully toppled a dictatorship to elect someone with strong authoritarian leanings? This article argues that Duterte’s election is an outcome of the diminishing credibility of the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution and the system it created as a model for Philippine democracy. It suggests that the 2016 Philippine national elections provided an opportunity for people to express their dissatisfaction with the country’s oft-described fractured democracy. It adds to the usual commentaries on Philippine politics that emphasise personality politics by also discussing domestic and international issues and the irony of electing a strongman to represent the people’s discontent with Philippine politics.

2. 2016 Philippine presidential elections: Overturning the post-EDSA order

2.1. Choosing the Philippine president: A brief history

To acquire a broad picture of the novelty of the 2016 Philippine national elections and the implications for Philippine politics, it is necessary to discuss the two foremost methods for replacing top public officials in the country: elections and public protests. Elections, based on the plurality voting system to determine winners, were integral to the development of representative democracy in the Philippines.[4] The first Philippine national election in 1935 was part of the process of gaining independence from US colonial rule. Following the directives of the Tydings-McDuffie Act,[5] the 1935 Constitution institutionalised the right of Filipinos to vote directly for their president and vice president. Since then, national elections have been held successfully at fixed terms.[6] The Japanese Occupation briefly interrupted the process in 1943 when the Japanese established the single-party Kalibapi, or the Association for Service to the New Philippines, to dissolve political parties established under the US tutelary government. The Kalibapi appointed the president of the Second Philippine Republic instead of holding elections. The Filipinos’ right to suffrage was re-institutionalised in 1946, following the end of the Second World War, almost three months before the US granted the Philippines full independence.

However, less than two decades after independence, the election of Ferdinand Marcos as the 10th Philippine president introduced another challenge to the country’s representative democracy; further, it engendered popular protests as a means of ousting and installing a chief public official. When Marcos won his first presidential term in 1965, the Constitution granted elected presidents a four-year term with one chance for re-election. Having this option, the then popular Marcos ran again in 1969, winning 61.47% of the votes to become the first president to serve two consecutive terms.[7] However, his popularity eroded following his Proclamation of Martial Law in 1972 and the promulgation of the 1973 Constitution.[8] The proposed objective of the 1973 Constitution was to change the form of government from a presidential to a parliamentary system.[9] Nevertheless, Marcos used this opportunity to further tighten his grip on power. What could have been the Philippines’ first experiment with parliamentarism turned into one of Asia’s most ruthless dictatorships, under which the nation suffered military brutality, extra-judicial killings, desaparecidos, and rampant corruption. The perilous political situation coupled with severe economic conditions dramatically diminished the legitimacy of Marcos.[10] Consequently, he lifted the martial law declaration in 1981, primarily because of pressure from the business class. This action, however, hardly made a dent in the scope of his executive and legislative powers.

Filipinos reached the tipping point when Marcos reinstalled presidential elections in 1981. He ran for the presidency and won 88.02% of the votes.[11] Instead of legitimising his rule, his dubious victory exacerbated the public displeasure that had been growing over the years. The infamous 1983 assassination of the opposition leader, Benigno Simeon «Ninoy» Aquino Jr., further angered the public, giving opposing elites the impetus to reclaim their power. Marcos called a snap election in 1985 and won against the opposition candidate and widow of Ninoy, Corazon Aquino.[12] The people, outraged and desperate, acted to oust the dictator and installed Corazon Aquino as the president of the newly restored Philippine democracy in the historic 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution – what is now simply known as EDSA I. Public protests that draw on the powerful legacy of EDSA I have come to play an important role in deciding the fate of Philippine presidents. So far in the post-Marcos era, there were two attempts to replicate EDSA I. Because of EDSA II, Joseph «Erap» Estrada was ousted through impeachment. He was succeeded by constitutional mandate by his vice president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who faced two failed ousting attempts: EDSA III and several impeachment cases based on allegations of cheating during the 2004 elections, when she formally ran for the presidency.[13] Unfortunately, Arroyo remained in power and is currently a congresswoman.

Arguably, electing the Philippine president has been a celebration of freedom in a country formerly deprived of liberty under centuries of colonisation and decades of authoritarian rule. Apart from this, the Philippine experience since 1935 illustrates that popular protests have become crucial in the formal process of voting to legitimise a leader. Especially since EDSA I, the people have found a recourse through public protests as an effective means to protect their democracy from national leaders who appear to threaten it. At the outset, it seems that Filipinos firmly embraced the gift of democracy received after independence. However, as noted above, despite this relatively short but fiery history of protecting democracy from its enemies, most Filipino voters in the 2016 presidential elections chose a strongman to run their country for the next six years. Have the Filipinos lost their faith in democracy? Or was it a democratic expression of their frustration with the system?

2.2. A protest vote?

Despite being a latecomer in the presidential race hounded by allegations of hidden wealth and lewd remarks about a gang rape of an Australian missionary,[14] Duterte gained strong grassroots support and maintained a secure lead during the latter half of the electoral campaign. Filipino political scientist Ramon Casiple observed, «the vote for Duterte is a protest vote, not really a Duterte vote».[15] In theory, a voter casts a protest vote in a plurality system because of the absence of a genuinely preferable candidate or party. The vote is not intended to put somebody in a position of power, but to protest a previously favoured candidate or party which failed to deliver. Cumulatively, protest votes strengthen the clout of less dominant candidates or parties.[16] Based on this definition, Duterte’s massive popularity is attributable to the failure of the past administration and his rival presidential candidates, rather than to his credibility as a long-serving mayor of Davao City or his presidential campaign platform, «Change is Coming». People appeared to tolerate Duterte’s inappropriate behaviour because the people saw him as the «face» of their protest.[17]

Indeed, given the weaknesses of the other presidential candidates, which will be discussed below, it is plausible that a substantial portion of Duterte votes constituted protest votes. However, if we consider his political career as the mayor of Davao City and the people’s unmatched enthusiasm towards his campaign promises, Duterte’s win could be considered both a protest vote and a Duterte vote. Three factors influenced the outcome of the 2016 presidential election: 1) distance from the generation of leaders and elites who emerged triumphant after EDSA I yet who failed to sustain the EDSA spirit, which in turn diminished the appeal of notions such as freedom and a revolutionary movement; 2) public office track record; and 3) personality. These factors were interrelated in such a way that if a candidate was perceived to lack any of these, he or she would be at a disadvantage. A good example was Grace Poe, one of the leading candidates during the early pre-election phase. She had a relatively good track record as a legislator. She also played the card as the daughter of Fernando Poe Jr., the actor who lost to Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in the 2004 presidential election. Following the Hello Garci scandal that demonstrated the possibility of Arroyo manipulating election results, Grace Poe championed the cause for fair elections. A vote for Grace Poe in any other election would have symbolised a protest vote against a rigged electoral system, possibly sufficient to get her elected. Yet, her chances of winning as an independent candidate began to decline when she was engulfed with questions about her dual citizenship in the US and the Philippines. Moreover, despite expressing disagreement with the previous administration and distancing herself from traditional politics, the softspoken Poe appeared detached from the people and lacking the personality to garner mass appeal. This cost her the lead as a non-aligned, independent candidate.

Duterte was perceived as having all three factors associated with presidential preferences. First, it was not a coincidence that he emerged as the most favourable candidate to replace Benigno «PNoy» Aquino III in the Malacañang Palace. The former president’s administration brought huge disappointments to the Filipinos, who had invested their hope on his ‘straight path’ campaign to rebuild the nation following the corruptionladen Arroyo regime. He ran in the year his mother died, which ignited the people’s nostalgia for EDSA I. The people yearned for its revival through PNoy. However, what seemed to be a sterling beginning ended with unsatisfactory legacies, most notably the Mamapasano incident and the Disbursement Allocation Program (DAP) scandal, in which Duterte was accused of fund malversation.[18] The gap between the rich and poor widened sharply during his term, which reflects the ironic flipside of the GDP growth that the Philippines was beginning to experience even though corrupt officials were still in public office.[19]

Certainly, the performance of the Aquino administration only magnified the failure of the post-EDSA system to live up to its promises of eradicating corruption and challenging the overwhelming political and economic influence of the oligarchy. The only noticeable difference between the Marcos regime and the post-EDSA government seemed to be the form of government. Philippine politics – democratic or authoritarian – remained unscrupulous, violent, and exclusively managed by the rich and powerful. As Aquino ran on the usual rhetoric of linking democracy with good governance and development, Duterte’s campaign radicalised PNoy’s reformist agenda through «jettisoning its liberal aspects» and «promising fast results through harsh punitive measures», with threats to dissolve Congress and abrogate human rights.[20] Duterte stated that EDSA I «restored democracy only for the elite» during an interview commemorating EDSA’s 30th anniversary. [21] In his last campaign speech, he told the cheering crowd something that previous candidates would not dare say: «I will be strict. I will be a dictator, no doubt [about] it. But only against the forces of evil –criminality, drugs and corruption in the government».[22] Thereafter, the majority showed no hesitation in electing somebody who openly called himself a dictator, in a refreshing contrast to the corrupt elites who posed as liberal and democratic. The vice-presidential campaign is also telling of this choice. The strongest competitors were Ferdinand «Bongbong» Marcos Jr., the son of Ferdinand Marcos, and Leni Robredo, the widow of Jesse Robredo, an acclaimed mayor of Naga City and former Department of Interior and Local Government Secretary.[23] Robredo won the race only by 263,473 votes. Duterte’s victory and the surprising number of votes for Bongbong Marcos despite the legacy he carried, further demonstrated how the 2016 national elections gave the disenchanted the opportunity to cast protest votes against the post-EDSA system in their desire to preserve the oligarchy. It delivered a harsh judgment to those who steered the Philippines for almost 30 years after EDSA I. As if to add insult to injury, the people were close to putting Bongbong Marcos, a son of a former dictator, in office with a self-proclaimed «qualified» dictator. Beyond the previous administration’s performance, Duterte also had a track record that appealed to the anti-EDSA protest votes. During his campaign, he vowed to roll out Davao City’s law and order measures across the nation. Filipinos were aware of what he meant. Davao City is a very urbanised area in Mindanao, where Duterte was the mayor for more than 22 years.[24] Davaoeños’ unwavering support for Duterte is largely the result of his success in transforming the ‘murder capital of the Philippines’ to one of the safest and richest cities in the Philippines. During his term, the national government frequently rewarded Davao City for its good local governance practises. It was acclaimed as one the safest cities on earth.[25] Duterte earned public admiration when he declined the nomination for the «World Mayor Award», saying that he was «only doing his job».[26] Upon his election as the mayor, Duterte’s formula dictated that peace and order precede economic and political progress.

Such was his premise when he said, «If I make it to the presidential palace, I will do just what I did as mayor. You drug pushers, hold-up men and donothings, you better go out. Because as the mayor, I’d kill you».[27] In the minds of many Filipinos, the image of the Philippines becoming like Davao City resonated strongly, overriding concerns that Duterte’s measures to enforce peace and order could threaten human rights and ignore legal measures. Duterte’s authoritarian appeal was not based on imagined fear. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, incidences of crime and delinquency skyrocketed from 212,812 cases in 2012 to 1,161,188 in 2015.[28] Regarding drugs, the Philippines has the highest rate of methamphetamine use in East Asia.[29] In fact, 26.93% of the 42,063 barangays (the smallest administrative division) have drug-related problems, with Metro Manila the most affected at 92.26%.[30] Therefore, his emphasis on criminality as one of the major causes of stagnation in the Philippines resonated across all socio-economic classes, especially in crime and terror-laden areas of Metro Manila and Mindanao.

The last point in question is Duterte’s personality. In the Philippines, at least on the cursory level, personality politics speak louder than political parties, ideologies, or policy coherence. Aside from land ownership and patronage, «celebrification» has been a potent tool for electioneering.[31] Celebrification refers to the introduction of celebrities to public office, the most notable example of which was the impeached Erap Estrada. Although Duterte was not a celebrity, he was packaged in Hollywood-style garb. His famed nicknames include «Du-dirty Harry» – a spin-off of Clint Eastwood’s iconic fictional police character, Dirty Harry, known to take justice in his own hands – and «The Punisher», based on the vigilante character in Marvel comics.[32] Duterte also created his own celebrity status with his unreserved communication style. He would drop lines ranging from humorous ones such as «Even God will weep if I become the president»[33] and «I’ll dump all of you (criminals) into Manila Bay and fatten all the fish there», to outright irreverent statements addressed to the Pope: «I want to call him ‘Pope (son of a whore)’, go home. Do not visit us again».[34] Adding to his international stardom was the constant comparison to Donald Trump, who was simultaneously running for the US presidency. To this, Duterte responded, «He is a bigot, I am not».[35]

Yet, much like Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, a substantive policy discourse was absent. Filipino sociologist Randy David coined the term ‘Dutertismo’ to characterise Duterte’s campaign style, which capital ised on theatrics and promises without a concrete underlying rationale.[36] Accordingly, Duterte’s «dark» charisma comes from his fearless and intrepid personality. Though clear about his aim to eradicate criminality in his first year as the nation’s president, he did not present a defined agenda on how he planned to do it. Regardless, his rhetoric against crime fuelled resentment and fanned aggression among ordinary people towards criminals as public enemies.

Perhaps what contributed most to Duterte’s allure was that he offered something that his rivals could not: an alternative to elite-dominated politics. He is the antithesis of a typical Filipino president known until now. Appearing folksy, tactless, frank, and oftentimes vulgar, Duterte posed as an ordinary man who had no care for the luxurious lifestyles of politicians. He wore ordinary clothes, lived in an ordinary house, and spoke the ordinary Filipino’s language. He also came from the southern part of the Philippines, where people often feel neglected because of the concentration of wealth and power in «imperial Manila».[37] He stood out in the roster of candidates who – including Grace Poe – were seen to be representatives of trapo, the Filipino word for ‘rag’ but also a derogatory term for traditional politicians, denoting «scum».[38] It would be a facile generalisation to interpret Duterte’s election simply as a product of protest votes. His promise of ushering in ‘real change’ was no different from that of previous and rival candidates. There were similarities among them, perhaps enough to cancel Duterte’s image as one-of-akind. He was like Jejomar Binay, who pledged to transform the Philippines into Makati City.[39] He was also like Roxas, who represented another political dynasty. He was like Poe, who wanted to challenge the status quo. Like the rest of the presidential roster, he faced allegations of corruption; worse, he was said to have been involved with the notorious Davao Death Squad, a purported vigilante group in Davao City responsible for the deaths of thousands of crime suspects. Yet, Duterte was chosen, conceivably less because the electorate did not have a choice, but rather because Duterte embodied what the majority wanted – a strongman. Thus, the tragic irony of the 2016 presidential election for democracy in the Philippines was the public choice of an authoritarian figure to rectify the mistakes of past «democratic» leaders. It is too early to judge the effectiveness of Duterte’s leadership or to make sense of his unabated popularity among the public despite actions and policies that have been contentious and controversial. Nonetheless, Duterte’s few months in office have already drawn a wedge between people who are separated only by their beliefs regarding how to improve the country’s condition. The next two sections cover the controversial issues surrounding the Duterte administration in relation to domestic and international politics that raise questions about the durability of democracy in the Philippines.

3. Domestic politics

3.1. The «war on drugs»

Perhaps the deepest dent to the EDSA-ushered democracy following Duterte’s election was the Filipino majority’s surprising acquiescence to violence to restore order in society. In theory, one of the most important tenets of democracy is resolving conflict and restoring order through peaceful and diplomatic means. Under the rule of law, all citizens, including criminals, are protected against the possible abuse of power from the state. When a citizen errs, a mature democratic society alludes to thoughtfully designed procedures to ensure that he or she gets a just and fair trial. If this is not a viable option, the people may devise non-violent extra-constitutional means. In practice, this was the core principle behind the success of EDSA I and II, with Erap Estrada’s impeachment: a peaceful means to reclaim the power of the people from the hands of criminal leaders.

Whereas these successes created a mythical belief in the non-violent nature of Filipinos,[40] Duterte’s election opened a space for the majority to express their unwillingness to stand firmly for non-violent means. Duterte initiated the national War on Drugs, known colloquially as «Oplan Tokhang», immediately after his inauguration.[41] He urged the public to «do it [killing] yourself if you have the gun» and offered financial rewards to those who could capture or kill a drug lord.[42] Duterte worked in tandem with his close friend, Ronald «Bato» dela Rosa, chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), who previously served in Davao and transferred to PNP Headquarters in Manila, to deliver swift ‘justice’ to victims of drug-related crimes. In roughly a month, a total of 103 suspects were reportedly killed, and 60,000 drug pushers and users surrendered, proving that Duterte’s promise of a bloody war against drug users and pushers could be fulfilled.[43]

The War on Drugs immediately attracted domestic and international attention. Aside from dominating domestic media, it glossed the covers of Time Magazine and made it to the headlines of top newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Guardian. Internationally, there is a perceptible sensationalism in the depiction of the Philippine situation, especially compared to how other countries where political conditions are arguably much worse – such as in Venezuela or South Sudan – are covered. Exacerbating this poor imagery is Duterte’s response to foreign criticism. Whenever international institutions and Western leaders attack Duterte’s administration for supposedly condoning the killings that have occurred, Duterte typically retaliates, citing their hypocrisy and double standards. For instance, Duterte chided the United Nations (UN) for its shortcomings in dealing with the Middle East crisis and Africa.[44] After the European Union (EU) released a statement against his War on Drugs, Duterte raised his middle finger and reminded everyone of Europe’s brutal colonial history.[45]

Although there are some truths in Duterte’s angry retorts that strike an anti-Western chord, the ruthlessness of his crime deterrence is also real. The War on Drugs operated on a lethal combination of fear and secrecy. The whole modus is – to use Charles Tilly’s characterisation of state and warmaking – similar to that of organised crime.[46] States operating in this regard act like «self-seeking entrepreneurs» who create threats and sell protection in exchange for legitimising the state’s monopoly on force. The state consequently acquires legitimacy from other consenting authorities and citizens. In the case of the Philippines, magnifying the drug problem and inciting fear and paranoia among citizens create the threat. Duterte’s constantly updated «Narco» list contains the names of more than 1,000 suspected drug criminals, including high-ranking officials. The case filed against former Commissioner on Human Rights and Secretary of Department of Justice Leila de Lima roused domestic and international attention. It involved allegations of De Lima having an affair with her driver, who also served as her drug money collector and who was a known drug user. De Lima was also accused of using illegal drug-related funds for campaigning during the 2016 national elections.[47] Another high-profile case is the death of Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr., who was shot in prison while resisting arrest for suspected illegal drug possession.[48]

Among ordinary citizens, 6,236 people were killed in five months, with 2,187 of those deaths conducted during police operations and 4,049 in vigilante killings.[49] It is surprising that the number of vigilante killings is almost twice more than those performed through formal means. What perhaps fuelled the killing epidemic is the nature of the war itself. According to Hardt and Negri, the limits of war in the 21st century have been extended, and states and institutions can wage an abstract war against an indefinite enemy. [50] The main targets in this war are the poor, whom the authorities and their supporters consider as 1) morally dangerous because they are ‘social parasites’ who make their living by stealing, engaging in prostitution, and pushing drugs; and 2) politically dangerous because they are disorganised and capricious.[51] In aspiring for so-called «cardboard justice», anybody can act like police officers and kill anyone whom they suspect is a criminal.[52] Like Hardt and Negri’s social parasites, drug pushers and dealers are perceived as threats to societal morale and order. As such, they can be easily gunned down instead of being brought to the justice system.[53]

The rising number of casualties prompted the formation of a congressional committee tasked to investigate the alleged state-sponsored extrajudicial killings. Duterte was also probed for charges of murder, torture, and kidnappings during his tenure as the mayor of Davao City.[54] However, the chair of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights terminated the hearings, stating that there was insufficient proof linking the deaths to state policies.[55] The International Criminal Court in The Hague spelled out that it had no plans to investigate Duterte after the Senate ruling. Still, there are pending motions for investigations from the UN and local activist groups hoping to convince the so-called ‘silent majority’ to withdraw their support for Duterte.

Despite the criticisms, Duterte remains invincible. In the latest survey conducted by the Social Weather Station, respondents gave the government an ‘excellent’ rating for its campaign against drugs, with 74% saying they are satisfied with its effort to uphold human rights.[56] Though it is debatable whether or not Duterte’s War on Drugs condones state-sponsored killing, the ongoing investigations and public exchange it has sparked has led citizens to scrutinise the extra-judicial killing records of past presidencies.[57] The extent to which these discussions can boost or deter the killing spree is still in question, but they certainly have made the world feel the once overlooked presence of those who back violence as a means of restoring order in a democracy.

3.2. Burial of Ferdinand Marcos

Another historic event that unveiled a crack in post-EDSA Philippine democracy was the burial of Ferdinand Marcos in the national Heroes’ Cemetery. The atrocities the nation experienced during Martial Law made the idea of giving Marcos a hero’s burial almost taboo.[58] Any form of festivity was restricted during the process of transferring his body from Hawaii to his home province, Ilocos Norte, in 1993. His remains were subsequently preserved in an airtight glass case in his family mausoleum, where they were made available for public viewing.

In 2016, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the Duterte administration’s request to bury Marcos in the Heroes’ Cemetery on 18 November.[59] Duterte argued that this action would initiate national healing, wherein Marcos would not necessarily be considered a hero but would receive the ceremony dead soldiers and presidents had in the past.[60] Duterte was an admirer of Marcos and considered him the ‘brightest’ among the past Philippine presidents, citing his wish to revive programmes Marcos initiated during his presidency.[61] He also took on the failure of past administrations to deal with the lingering burial issue and their unwillingness to gamble on possible dissent from the people.[62]

The proposal also seemed to echo the majority’s opinion. The narrow margins in surveys show a fundamental divide among Filipinos regarding the treatment of Marcos’s remains. Social Weather Station surveys conducted in July 1998, March 2011, June 2011, and February 2016 revealed that 54%, 60%, 50%, and 59% of Filipinos agreed that Marcos should be buried with official honours.[63] Such support was also reflected in the fact that Marcos family members continue to hold elected public positions despite persisting allegations of corruption. Ferdinand Marcos’s wife, Imelda Marcos, is currently a member of the House of Representatives. Their daughter, Imee Marcos, is the incumbent governor of Ilocos Norte, and their son – Bongbong Marcos – is a senator. As mentioned earlier, Bongbong lost the 2016 vice-presidential race by only a narrow margin. This underestimated support for the Marcos family was tested when Duterte decided to bury the late dictator in fulfilment of one of his campaign promises. As expected, human rights groups and activists protested. The bone of contention, fought on the bases of history and legality, was whether Marcos was a hero. As the anti-burial protesters shouted «Marcos, not a hero!» Marcos loyalists pleaded for forgiveness for the dictator’s atrocious deeds for the sake of «national healing».[64] A petition was filed with the Supreme Court to stop the burial. However, it ruled for the burial in a 9–5 vote, with one abstaining. According to the Supreme Court, Duterte’s decision was not considered a grave abuse of discretionary power, and as chief executive, he had the right to reserve a cemetery plot for Marcos.

Protests and appeals to revoke the Supreme Court ruling erupted across the country as the Marcos family and their loyalists rejoiced. High-profile public officials, such as Senator Francis Pangilinan, Vice President Leni Robredo, and Socrates Villegas, the president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, voiced their objection to the decision. Martial law victims filed a temporary injunction to suspend the burial of Marcos with the argument that it would defile the people’s «historic struggle against the tyranny of martial law».[65] The sentiments of anti-burial citizens could be summarised in former National Historical Commission of the Philippines Chair Maria Sereno Diokno’s statement in her letter to Duterte, «Our appeal is based not on a narrow and short-sighted reading of law but on historical grounds».[66]

Despite these petitions, the Duterte administration performed the burial. According to the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the Department of Defence instructed them to keep the preparations private, at the request of the family. As a response to this act compared to a «thief in the night», thousands of Filipinos – including the young who had not experienced the Marcos regime – joined the «Black Friday» protests. Duterte’s reassurance that the protests would not be suppressed came as a consolation prize, for the protesters’ demands were unheeded as the burial pushed through. On a positive note, the protests reminded many of EDSA I, when people of different socio-economic backgrounds and generations joined to fight an oppressive regime. Nevertheless, the Marcos burial seemingly reversed the achievements of EDSA I. The protests continued briefly. Several petitions to exhume the remains of Marcos and appeals questioning the legitimacy of the Supreme Court’s decision are still on the table.[67] Therefore, it is difficult to deny that the burial was a watershed moment implicating future discussions about lessons learned by the Filipinos from overthrowing a dictator and electing a president who authorised his burial in Heroes’ Cemetery.

3.3. Economic policies

Despite considering Philippine oligarchy as the foremost enemy of Philippine democracy,[68] the Filipinos have elected oligarchs to the presidency since 1935. Whether the election outcomes reflect their choices or the absence thereof, Duterte’s election might have changed the pattern. Like any other newly elected president, Duterte faced the challenge of addressing the Filipinos’ economic plight. Poverty in the Philippines has long been linked to land-owning oligarchies, which own and control most of the country’s resources. Whereas poverty alleviation has been a permanent campaign vow of presidential candidates, it was Duterte’s pro-poor image that revitalised the hope of overturning the system. The current administration’s 10-point socio-economic agenda offered a promising start. It combines existing economic policies and a renewed focus on infrastructure development, agrarian reform, and improvement of social welfare protection programmes. Duterte’s economic team, composed of highly qualified individuals, acknowledged PNoy’s efforts to improve the economic condition of the country.[69] Such open-mindedness towards incorporating and reviewing the previous economic policies was fundamental to keep the inherited economic growth from digressing.

Duterte’s economic platform seems to be on the right track. Notable Filipino economist Gerardo Sicat stated that Duterte acquired good macroeconomic fundamentals from the Aquino administration, including a good ‘investment grade’ credit rating and decrease in total debt-to-GDP ratio. However, he also inherited his predecessor’s «poor performance in public infrastructure investment», particularly its position against easing the constitutional restrictions to foreign direct investments.[70] Knowing this, the Duterte administration allotted 900 billion pesos to strengthen infrastructure development.[71] It also plans to loosen constitutional restrictions regarding land ownership to attract foreign investors. In addition, the current administration’s goal is to reduce poverty from 21% to 13% by 2020, with a focus on addressing issues in rural areas and among the poorest of the poor families.[72] Existing poverty alleviation programmes such as Conditional Cash Transfer, by which families are given money in exchange for fulfilling certain requirements, were retained, and the results of the latest Family Income and Expenditure Survey by the Philippine Statistics Authority were reviewed to determine which policies needed improvement. The government also sought to enhance the implementation of the Reproductive Health Law, despite causing a skirmish between its supporters and opponents, especially the Philippine Catholic Church.

The reception towards Duterte administration’s socio-economic agenda implementation was mixed, particularly when seen against the backdrop of the country’s political climate. The perception of the business community was generally positive, expressing approval for Duterte’s choice of people to oversee economic matters.[73] Likewise, the Philippine Chamber of Commerce President George Barcelon saw economic improvements in the first three months of Duterte’s presidency. For some experts, the adherence to sound economic fundamentals was a good sign. Gilberto Llanto, the president of the Philippine think tank, the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, had an optimistic outlook about the sustained implementation of tax reforms.[74] According to a Social Weather Station survey, the percentage of families who considered themselves in poverty reached a historic all-time low of 42% compared to the 50% average of previous years.[75]

However, such a positive economic outlook may be more an effect of Duterte’s popular ‘outsider image’, rather than a reflection of his leadership’s likely economic consequences. Even though his approval ratings remain high, alleged human rights abuse, questionable anti-drug policies, and inflammatory rhetoric against his critics has turned off foreign investors.[76] The Philippine peso fell to its lowest value in seven years owing to the perceived political instability of the Duterte administration. Despite perceptions of the government’s volatility, Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez reassured the public that despite Duterte’s undiplomatic manner, he remains loyal to economic agreements within and outside the country.[77]

In an ironic twist, critics cannot help but see the anti-poor angle of the current administration’s economic policies. Non-governmental organisations, activists, and government opponents consider Duterte’s anti-drug campaign as a war on the poor, contradicting his claim that eradicating drug problems in the country would help alleviate poverty.[78] In addition, a leftleaning think tank, IBON Foundation, argues that Duterte’s economic policies still adhere to the neoliberal agenda that neglects pro-Filipino industrialisation through boosting local industry’s competitiveness in favour of foreign investors. This bias towards big business and private interests could undermine land reform and other policy initiatives supportive of farmers and low-income workers.[79] Filipino leftists, likewise, described Duterte’s top economic advisers as the «neoliberal triumvirate» who could undermine his ‘pro-poor’ economic policies by sustaining the Aquino administration’s neoliberal policies.[80] Duterte, in their view, should be wary of fostering exclusive economic growth that would fail to trickle down to ordinary Filipinos who voted for him.

Weighing these perceptions, it is difficult to ascertain whether poverty and the overall economic performance of the Philippines will improve or deteriorate during Duterte’s term. His supporters continue to show a willingness to lean on his strongman leadership style for the sake of what they perceive as a key to changing the impoverished state of the country. Nevertheless, the economic discussions transpose the developmental state debate that asks whether an authoritarian leadership could improve the country’s socio-economic condition. Are the Filipinos ready for this? Can Duterte boost the economy without a stronghold among the oligarchs? These are altogether separate questions that need more time to answer.

4. The return of the Philippines in geopolitics?

As in domestic politics, Duterte’s personality featured prominently in foreign relations. For the past several years, the perceived decline of US influence in many Asian countries coinciding with a China that wants a significant regional and global presence has affected East Asian regional politics. [81] Duterte was able to capitalise on this fluid power landscape to make his mark as an iconoclast leader in Southeast Asian international affairs. Rallying for an «independent foreign policy», Duterte showed signals that he was not beholden to any conventional wisdom or custom regarding how to deal with China and the US or how to position the Philippines in the international community.[82]

Duterte’s election occurred simulataneously with the emergence of the Philippines as a key country for balancing Chinese and American influence in the region. The case against China’s maritime territorial claim in the South China Sea at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague was filed during the previous Aquino administration, and it reflects the position of the Philippines and, to some degree, that of ASEAN. There is a growing unease with China’s bold moves to disturb the status quo.[83] Aquino also brought back US forces to Filipino soil for the first time in over 20 years since their departure in 1992, sending a clear message to the US that the Philippines needed its support and would host American troops despite domestic backlash. Joining the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations was equally crucial to counterbalance the growing influence of Chinese money in the Philippine economy.[84]

However, Duterte upset those enamoured with the Aquino legacy once he assumed the presidency. He appeared to play the powers against each other instead of committing to one side. Less guided by strategic calculations, Duterte operated on a reactionary, gut-instinct move to throw his foreign counterparts off balance. He managed, within months of his taking office, to offend the US and befriend China, Russia, and Japan, which ironically is a key ally of the US in the region.[85] What resulted from his approach was a new matrix of regional relations in which traditional allies, friends, and foes seemed to be unchained from the post-Cold War order. Duterte’s approach also allowed the Philippines to carve out some room for diplomatic maneuvering. During his Southeast Asia tour, Duterte expressed his intention to have a stronger Sino-ASEAN security partnership. In effect, he overrode the balancing strategy of the Aquino administration and opted instead for equi-balancing, which prefers engagement with multinational insitutions instead of balancing or bandwagoning with great powers.[86]

To an extent, it appears that Duterte is independently creating his country’s pivot to Asia. He visited both Beijing and Tokyo to strike aid and economic deals. Unlike his predecessors, he showed little interest in prioritising ties with Washington.[87] Aside from the rude remarks addressed to US President Barack Obama during the ASEAN Summit in September 2016,[88] Duterte also called off future joint military exercises with the US. He had never professed any liking for the Americans ever since he was the mayor in Davao City, where he derided the country for its colonial legacy in the Philippines.[89] The US, taking the moral high ground and criticising his war on drugs on grounds of human rights abuse, appeared hypocritical based on the brutal killings of thousands of Filipinos during its colonial rule. In addition, Duterte sees the shadow of the US in the elites of his country’s domestic political establishment. The US as a representative of the imperial world, which marginalised formerly colonised and developing countries, seems an anathema to the pursuit of Duterte’s anti-establishment agenda. Worth noting is that although leadership of the Philippines in East Asian foreign affairs may be illusory, Duterte’s «anti-Americanism» kicked off a broader enquiry on the history of American colonialism in the Philippines. In history textbooks, American colonialism is usually narrated in positive terms, postulating that the Americans came to save the Filipinos from the brutal rule of the Spanish and defended them from Imperial Japan. In other words, the benevolent assimilation narrative runs deep in the veins of ordinary Filipinos, who have long seen US as a model. If there is a positive externality to Duterte’s quips critical of the West, it is putting the spotlight on the negative American colonial legacies that had since been eclipsed by US foreign and military aid to the Philippines. With Duterte, the Filipinos might have found a leader that refuses to kowtow to the demands of big powers, especially the US.

Nevertheless, there are a few loopholes in his rhetoric. Duterte was less dismissive than China was of The Hague ruling favouring the position of the Philippines. Nevertheless, he chose to downplay the victorious card against China. Opting instead to effectively shelve the issue, Duterte let realpolitik dictate his course of action. Neither China’s claim nor the upholding of international law seemed worth considering unless it served the national interests of the Philippines. As he would demonstrate later in his scathing remarks about US interference in Philippine domestic politics or the hypocrisy of internatioanl organisations, protecting Philippine sovereignty was of utmost concern. For Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr., this would effectively address both internal and external security threats.[90] Duterte was careful to clarify that he does not intend to completely cut ties with the US. Under his leadership, Duterte only aspires for a Philippines that pursues an «independent foreign policy».[91] What he meant by «independent foreign policy» is still unclear. The irony is that as Duterte’s admnistration pulls the Philippines away from the American grasp for the sake of sovereignty, it does so at the expense of backing China’s and Russia’s territorial and military ambitions.[92] Hence, it appears that the Philippines is sandwiched between three giants and has not revamped its role in world politics. Duterte’s presidency presents a real test to how Philippine domestic politics could implicate its geopolitical relations. For the Filipinos, the historical enquiry Duterte inspired may at best show how a US-bestowed democracy could backfire against the former coloniser by electing Duterte. At worst, it could urge the former coloniser to make a comeback in another form.

5. Concluding remarks

In this essay, some of the most salient issues of Philippine domestic and international relations in 2016 have been examined analytically. Duterte’s emergence to power is linked to the brief but substantive history of choosing a leader in the Philippines following the right to suffrage granted to the Filipinos by the US. This essay also illustrates the consequences of the EDSA system applicable to democratic politics, particularly the irony of electing an authoritarian leader to rectify an ailing democracy. Arguably, Duterte introduced unconventional measures in Philippine domestic and international politics in 2016. His landslide victory over the usual power players demonstrated a democracy wanting change, dissatisfied with the initial unfulfilled promise of the post-EDSA system to dispense with oligarchic politics. More importantly, he created a space big and controversial enough to reveal a majority willing to experiment with an authoritarian leader who promised to improve the country’s abysmal situation. Despite receiving domestic and international criticism and derision for his tough and impulsive manner, Duterte has gained enough supporters to condone even brutal forms of discipline in the country. If democracy is the reflection of the will of the people, then Duterte is a product of democracy. The Duterte administration entered 2017 with an 83% approval rating, but it is difficult to ascertain whether he will maintain his popularity amidst the tirade from his supporters and critics. [93] It is also too early to tell whether real change is coming or whether the Filipino majority will continue to give Duterte the support that gave him the presidency in the first place. The War on Drugs remains at the core of Duterte’s domestic policy. Development programmes involving the social security system, building infrastructure, labour, and agrarian reform are still pending. In international relations, the pay-offs of Duterte’s attitude towards global politics have yet to unfold. It is difficult to overturn both the positive and negative momentum he created with the US, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia. Whether the Philippines –a country known to be among the strongest partners of the US in Asia – can afford to rid itself of its colonial dependence is another big question mark.

In the early 1990s, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew told then President Fidel Ramos that disorder and underdevelopment in the Philippines could be attributed to its lively democracy. To this, the former Philippine president asserted the importance of democracy for development. For decades, the Filipinos stood by this belief. It is distressing to think that they have abandoned a history of struggle to defend democracy, especially when it is what has defined their political history. Truly, 2016 was a year of painful revelations and events for Asia’s oldest democracy, challenging people’s belief that there has not been a greater moment in Philippine history than when the Americans granted independence in 1946, followed by the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution. Perhaps for the Philippines, 2016 was not a dispute against democracy in general, but rather a dispute against a democracy they finally realised had failed them.

 

Japan 2016: Political stability amidst maritime contestation and historical reconciliation*

Available also in pdf – Download Pdf –

This article assesses the stability of the Abe administration in the face of a rapidly changing international environment. Important displays of historical reconciliation testified to the toning down of Prime Minister Abe Shinz ’s revisionism, thus feeding into international and domestic stability. At the same time, continued maritime contestation in the South China Sea followed the July 12 award of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea’s arbitration tribunal. Moreover, China’s renewed assertiveness around the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands and the election of Donald Trump as US President was a key factor in making stormy the waters where Abe had to navigate. Yet, Japan remained a beacon of political stability amidst the surrounding confusion, as proven by the July 10 Upper House elections. This article provides an account of Japan in 2016 through the prism of the above listed developments. In so doing, it details the Abe administration’s political stability in the context of the Japanese government’s foreign policy initiatives, in particular in the history and maritime domains.

* The author wishes to thank two reviewers, Stefano Carrer, Michelguglielmo Torri, Nicola Mocci and Lauren Richardson for commenting on an earlier version of the article. All errors are the author’s.

1. Introduction

This article argues that, in 2016, Abe was capable of retaining considerable domestic political support despite complex regional dynamics. How did he manage to do so? PM Abe’s toning down of his conservative nationalist colors contributed to ameliorating the international environment. After all, the year under review witnessed gestures of reconciliation to soothe the so-called «history issue». These overtures, such as US President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinz ’s respective historic visits to Hiroshima and Pearl Harbor, placed some of Japan’s bilateral relations on firmer ground. Yet, the 28 December 2015 agreement between the governments of Japan and South Korea on the «comfort women» issue was this essay provides a brief analysis of this topic. At the same time, this year’s article recognizes that: «[Japan’s] fundamental defence and foreign policy issue is number one: China. Number two: China. Number three: China».[1] Japan continued to tackle China’s assertiveness in the China Seas. It did so also on the basis of the July 2016 ruling by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea’s (UNCLOS) international tribunal on the Philippines-China dispute over the Scarborough Shoal and, more broadly, on contested maritime space and maritime rights in the South China Sea. Moreover, the present article details Japan’s interactions with Taiwan, the Philippines, and Russia in the year under review. Finally, this year’s analysis provides an overview of Japanese domestic politics and economic policies, dominated by Prime Minister Abe Shinz and his administration.

2. The international politics of the history issue: Japan’s relations with the South Korea and the United States

Prior to delving in the details of the Japan-South Korea (ROK) agreement on the issue of «comfort women», a brief historical overview of the matter in the context of bilateral relations is in order. During World War II, the Japanese military set up around the front lines an institutionalized form of brothels, euphemistically called «comfort stations». Out of economic necessity, manipulation, or blatant coercion, «comfort women» hailing from all corners of the Empire were forced into providing sexual services to Japanese troops; the largest cohort of comfort women was Korean, followed by residents of Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, China, and other corners of East Asia.[2] The issue never emerged in post-colonial Korea due social stigma, a strong patriarchal society, and Cold War calculations. For these reasons, the issue was never brought up in the Japan-ROK treaty negotiations as it was yet to be politicized. In 1965 the Japanese government eventually normalized relations with Seoul: the autocratic Park Chung-hee government agreed to receive substantial grants and soft loans as Japanese war reparations, with the promise that the ROK would renounce individual claims against Japan. History vindicated Park’s ruthless decision, because it kick-started Korea’s export-led economic miracle.[3]

Yet, the politicization of frustrated colonial grievances in a democratic ROK proved that Japan’s imperial legacy was still unsettled. With the end of the Cold War, former «comfort women», Korean nationalists, and citizen activists vocally demanded official Japanese compensation and recognition of state responsibility. Korean democratization empowered these voices along with shifting international dynamics: South Korea growingly outgrew its Cold War dependency for economic assistance and security reassurances from Japan. Thus, on the basis of multiple oral testimonies and the discovery of Japanese documents indicating military involvement, the Japanese government conceded to Korean remonstrations, and in the summer of 1993 a study group led by the Cabinet Foreign Policy Council crafted an apologetic statement approved by Chief Cabinet Secretary K no Y hei.[4] The statement’s strong and explicit wording disproves facile criticism of an unrepentant Japan; after all, the «K no Statement» was also the result of diplomatic negotiations with Seoul, and successive Japanese governments have explicitly abided by it (t shu). In addition, in 1995 Japan established the Asian Women’s Fund (AWF) initiative, which provided a mix of private and public funds for «comfort women» survivors from the ROK and elsewhere, along with a letter of apology signed by the Japanese prime minister. In other words, the Japanese government allocated public resources and admitted both moral culpability and the involvement of the Japanese military without admitting, crucially, to any legal responsibility. If it had, the Japanese state could have been liable for paying war reparations had renounced explicit war reparations following World War II.

Roughly fifty years after the normalization of bilateral relations, the parallel ascension to power of Park’s daughter and of nationalist Abe Shinz further strained bilateral relations.[5] The statement and the AWF proved unfair in the eyes of militant Korean activists, who lobbied for an admission of legal responsibility, state compensation from the Japanese government, and an official apology by higher organs of state power, such as the Japanese Cabinet and the Diet. These requests, buttressed by the erection of a controversial monument dedicated to «comfort women» in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, fed into an understandable Japanese «apology fatigue» and some nationalistic resentment. Indeed, following his comeback and acting in consonance with his own personal worldview, Abe declined to commit to the K no Statement and instead established an investigative committee to document the statement’s genesis. The implicit purpose of this initiative was to expose the political nature of this statement as the product of diplomatic pressure from Seoul over its wording. In this way, Abe intended to delegitimize some of the findings of the Cabinet Foreign Policy Council’s study group, and, thus, to hollow out the statement’s significance.[6] At the same time, President Park Geunhye immediately took an uncompromising position towards her Japanese counterpart, due contested politics in South Korea and arguably also in light of her father’s history as a lieutenant of the Imperial Japanese Army.[7] In this context, China cozied up to South Korea by making a strategic use of the history issue also for international political gains.[8] Until the December 2015 agreement, the history issue was both symptomatic of, and led to, a heated ROK-Japan political standstill.

The Japan-ROK agreement was negotiated by the Head of the National Security Secretariat, Yachi Sh tar , and ROK’s presidential chief of staff, Lee Byung-kee.[9] It consisted of six takeaways. Firstly, following international pressure (detailed below), Abe implicitly disavowed his personal beliefs by acknowledging direct Japanese military involvement along with Japanese responsibilities; this position was very much in line with the K no Statement and far away from Abe’s revisionism. Secondly, Abe stated his «most sincere apologies and remorse».[10] Thirdly, Japan made a one-time contribution of public funds to a South Korean foundation for «recovering the honor and dignity and healing the psychological wounds»[11] of the surviving «comfort women». Fourthly, the Korean government reciprocated by acknowledging the efforts of the Japanese government in the lead-up to the release of the announcement, possibly hinting at its appreciation of past efforts. Fifthly, Seoul promised efforts at removing the statue facing the Japanese embassy in Seoul. Finally and most importantly, the ROK confirmed that the issue was «resolved finally and irreversibly with this announcement».[12] Although this deal did not satisfy the comfort women activists in Korea, the two governments were prepared to put the matter behind them and, by the end of the year, a vast majority of the victims accepted the provisions of the deal.[13]

Active US intervention and a changing strategic landscape put bilateral relations back on track. The March 2014 meeting between Abe, Park and Obama testified to Washington’s public and private pressure in brokering a deal between its two most important allies in East Asia. Moreover, China’s inability to put meaningful pressure on North Korea’s nuclear and missile program, Kim Jong-un’s belligerent pursuit of nuclear and missile weapons, and China’s aggressiveness in the South China Sea convinced Park Geun-hye of the need to enrich her strategic options by opening to neighbouring Japan. After all, it was only one week after the deal that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) conducted its fourth nuclear test on 6 January and, again, on 9 September 2016; these tests took place after a three year-long hiatus and were accompanied by a heightened number of successful missile tests throughout 2016: on 3 August, part of a North Korean missile’s tip/warhead fell into Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone for the very first time. Thus, the need for ROKJapan- US coordination against Kim Jong-un’s rush to develop nuclear and long-range missile capabilities became ever more pressing. Thanks to a more conducive political atmosphere, in late 2016 the ROK government’s slowly moved to enhance trilateral cooperation: it signed the long-awaited ROK-Japan General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) and agreed to deploy the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defence System (THAAD), whose installation is also under consideration by Japan. Since the THAAD radar can easily be converted to monitor missile flights deep into China,[14] Beijing made its strong displeasure known to Seoul, also through systematic economic retaliation.[15] Yet, it is worth stressing that South Korea’s primary concern remained enhancing deterrence against North Korea.

In the year under review, Obama and Abe made history with their respective visits to Hiroshima and Pearl Harbor, which were reportedly in the making for a very long time. On May 27, following the G-7 Summit held in Ise-shima, Abe accompanied Obama on his visit to the Hiroshima Peace Park, where they both laid a wreath of flowers honouring the victims of the atomic bombing. In the speech that followed, while Obama offered no apology, he did express sympathy for the victims of the bombing, the hibakusha, as well as a vision of «a future we can choose, a future in which Hiroshima and Nagasaki are known not as the dawn of atomic warfare but as the start of our own moral awakening.»[16] Abe’s December 27 visit to Pearl Harbor marked the first official visit by a sitting Japanese Prime Minister to the USS Arizona Memorial. The Japanese Prime Minister’s behaviour at the site of Japan’s surprise attack on 7 December 1941 mirrored Obama’s: Abe offered condolences and a speech that both reflected on the past and looked to the future. In fact, Abe stressed the importance of the Japan-US alliance as a tool for promoting peace: Japan and the United States showcased an eloquent set of gestures and words, according to which reconciliation went hand-in-hand with a strong alliance. History statecraft paved the way for a reset in Korea-Japan relations and Abe’s visit to Pearl Harbor reinforced the US-Japan «alliance of hope», where «enemies that had fought each other so fiercely have become friends bonded in spirit.»[17]

The above messages were partially aimed at China, to prove the resilience of Japan’s transpacific alliance and Beijing’s inability to drive a wedge between the two allies. In fact, Abe softened his tone on history and showcased his more pragmatic side and, in so doing, Abe also displeased his core nationalist domestic constituency. According to a journalist from the progressive Asahi Shinbun, Abe’s recent statements and initiatives hinted at a widening gap with the ideology of the right-wing conservative Nippon Kaigi association.[18] In the author’s view, the United States government was able to convince a more politically stable Abe administration to tone down its historical revisionism. In exchange, Japan benefitted from a deepened US-Japan alliance, a credible commitment to the defence of the Senkaku/ Diaoyu Islands, and trilateral cooperation with South Korea. In fact, the Obama administration played the key role in making possible the «comfort women» agreement, so much so that «U.S. State Department officials were involved on the sidelines of the negotiations between ROK and Japanese foreign ministry officials.»[19] Finally, Obama and the ROK’s appreciation of Japanese overtures played well into Abe’s denunciations of China’s relentless criticism, which had gained momentum following the 2012 Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands standoff and Abe’s comeback.[20]

Yet, these showcases of reconciliation were still on precarious foundations. Immediately after the Pearl Harbor visit, Japan’s Defence Minister Inada Tomomi decided to visit the controversial Yasukuni Shrine providing fodder to China’s propaganda campaigns and putting into question Japan’s revisionists’ sincerity in facing Japanese imperial history.[21] In the context of Korean domestic politics, a major corruption scandal involving Park Geun-hye led to her impeachment,[22] and her weakness affected the ROK’s overtures to Japan. It is true that the «comfort women» deal looked to stand on a somewhat solid ground, as the vast majority of survivors accepted the provisions of the agreement.[23] But the issue was politicized by opposition parties and local activists alike, who by December 2016 erected a new «comfort woman» statue in Busan, facing the Japanese Consulate there.[24] In short, conciliatory gestures on the history issue by the Japanese and South Korean governments prompted demonstrative counter-reactions by Japan’s right-wing and ROK left-wing nationalists: while US-Japan relations were on solid ground, domestic politics and the emotional reactions of a loud minority questioned the tenability of Japan- ROK strategic reconciliation.

3. Abe and the Trump incognita

Obama and Abe’s display that the US-Japan alliance rested on firm strategic and historical grounds was shaken by the November 2016 election of Donald Trump. The Japanese government would have preferred Hillary Clinton’s victory, and US-Japan alliance managers considered her as the safe hands of US Asia policy, given her earlier careful oversight of the US «Pivot to Asia» as Obama’s first Secretary of State.[25] To hedge against the risk of betting for the losing horse, in late 2016 Japanese policymakers also met with key foreign policy advisors to Trump, obtaining reassurances about his eventual Japan policy.[26] In fact, two advisors to the president elect published a muchcirculated commentary on the shape of a Trump foreign policy in the Asia- Pacific. The article linked an emboldened China with a somewhat indecisive Obama administration, and indicated Trump’s intention to pursue a more muscular approach.[27] Trump’s Cabinet and White House appointments indicated a coherent design: the intention to ease US-Russia tensions would facilitate on the one hand the US fight against international terrorism in the Greater Middle East and, on the other hand, a more substantial rebalance to the Asia-Pacific to counter China’s growing clout.

It is still unclear, however, how much momentum Trump’s China balancing will take given the likely economic retaliation that China can implement against the US. The economy, after all, was Trump’s avowed policy priority and the key issue he will be judged upon. At any rate, Trump’s decision to accept a congratulatory phone call from Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen,[28] his public questioning of Washington’s long-standing «One China Policy», and his decision to install China hawk Peter Navarro in a newly-created National Trade Council within the White House hint at the growing turbulence in US-China relations. In fact, US-China trade friction was likely to surface out of Trump’s consistent criticism of unfair trade practices in China. In the author’s view, Trump was making active use of political and security issues as ransom for extracting economic concessions from adversaries and allies alike.

In light of the above, Abe could not take Trump for granted and needed confirmation about US security guarantees. Japan’s Prime Minister’s Office, the Kantei, correctly assessed the necessity to engage the president-elect through personal diplomacy. First, Abe pandered to Trump’s narcissistic personality by sending a congratulatory message that read: «[…] as a very successful businessman with extraordinary talents, not only have you made a great contribution to the growth of the US economy, but now as a strong leader, you have demonstrated your determination to lead the United States».[29] Second, Abe secured an early face-to-face meeting with Trump in New York and did so, according to an anonymous Japanese diplomatic source, against the desires of the Obama administration.[30] Abe was the first foreign leader Trump met and early reports indicated that the two would meet again shortly after the January 20 inauguration.[31] On the other hand, in a video message, Trump declared the Pivot’s signature policy, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a dead letter shortly after meeting with the Japanese leader.[32] Abe’s strenuous efforts at signing and ratifying the deal, for which he invested a substantial amount of political capital, were lost in the face of a more protectionist US president. Moreover, Abe will necessarily have to adapt to Trump’s «America First» philosophy. In that light, Trump may seek to extract economic concessions from Abe, possibly also by manipulating Japan’s uneasiness towards China to the US advantage: security could constitute means for economic gains. Clearly, Trump’s overly personal approach to foreign policy, which included inflammatory outbursts on social media and recurrent bravados, presaged an unpredictable and mercurial presidency.

4. Contested islands and contested maritime space: Japan’s relations with China, Taiwan and Russia

Japan and China were still embroiled in patrol activities to enforce their respective control in the contested islands in the East China Sea. In fact, 2016 testified to the elusiveness of establishing a maritime crisis management mechanism promised in the joint parallel statements of 7 November 2014.[33] On the contrary, Japan and China’s constabulary forces kept eyeing the counterpart: since late December 2015 China’s maritime law enforcement forces deployed former People Liberation’s Army Navy (PLAN) vessels equipped with guns as Chinese Coast Guard ships routinely sent to patrol waters surrounding the Senkaku/Diaoyu. To these deployments Japan responded by increasing the Japanese Coast Guard’s budget, which was in addition to a military expenditure that ranged around 1.3% of GDP.[34] Japan was setting up its amphibious forces, a Japanese version of a US marines brigade, and deployed 500 Ground Self-Defense Forces in Ishigaki city, near the disputed islands.[35] At any rate, there is a strict separation between the Japanese Coast Guard and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Forces, as legal and technical matters hamper their cooperation.[36] As a result, Japan struggles to address China’s «hybrid» strategy around Senkaku/Diaoyu waters.

China upped the ante around the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in 2016.[37] Moreover, it did so with the close collaboration of Russia: in April, Chinese and Russian Defence Ministers agreed to deepen military cooperation, also by increasing the number and expanding the scope of joint military exercises, which were already at an historic high.[38] This trend paralleled the crescendo in military exercises of Japan with the United States, and other regional strategic partners, such as India, Australia and the Philippines. While the type of military trills was somewhat constant, more countries joined them. At any rate, an episode unveils the growing entente between Russia and China; the entire reconstruction is based on the detailed account of Prof. Hamamoto Ry ichi. On 8 June, for the first time a PLAN frigate, rather than Coast Guard Ship, entered the contiguous zone of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands and, as it was later revealed, shadowed a Russian naval fleet stationed in the same area for roughly five hours. Several signs indicate that the action was coordinated. The first was that the Chinese frigate entered the contiguous zone only after a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Forces (JMSDF) destroyer approached those waters to monitor the three Russian warships, as if the PLAN vessel waited for a pretext. The second sign, connected to the first, was that the Russian fleet did not leave the waters surrounding the Senkaku/Diaoyu from the north-western side, where the Chinese frigate came from. On the contrary, the Russian warships crossed the archipelago to exit from the northeastern side –a strange direction considering that Russia’s Pacific Fleet is stationed in Vladivostok and its surroundings. The third sign pointing to a coordinated action was that, on 9 June the Chinese Ministry of Defence did not denounce Russia’s actions.[39]

Due the worsening situation in the East and South China Seas (and since the situation in the two China Seas was connected, as demonstrated in the previous year’s essay), the commander of the US Pacific Command, Admiral Harry B. Harris, lobbied for shows of force in the Western Pacific. Thus, in 2016 the United States deployed the third fleet’s supercarrier, John C. Stennis, in the South China Sea. For three months it patrolled the South China Sea to later join the 7th fleet’s USS carrier Ronald Reagan and stage a joint exercise in the Philippine Sea.[40]

Japan also continued to proactively denounce China’s activities in the South China Sea. After all, China relentlessly pursued landfilling operations in the Spratly Islands and deployed surface-to-air missile systems in Woody Island, part of the Paracel Islands chain; China was slowly militarizing disputed islets in the South China Sea.[41] Ahead of the Ise- Shima G-7 summit, Abe embarked into a dense tour of European capitals to personally lay the groundwork and secure an early commitment to Japan’s global agenda. Concretely, Abe made direct reference to the «situation in the East and South China Seas, […] emphasiz[ing] the fundamental importance of peaceful management and settlement of disputes.»[42] To this rather blunt criticism, China angrily accused Japan of «hyping up»[43] the South China Sea issue and «meddling»[44] into issues that interest China to «exacerbate»[45] regional tensions. These accusatory words were setting the ground for China’s public opinion and information strategy in preparation for the looming Tribunal award concerning maritime entitlements in the South China Sea. Also, they were an indication of China’s hardened stance. On 12 July, the Tribunal recognized that Chinese sailors historically made use of islets in the South China Sea, but China exercised no «exclusive control over the waters [sic] or their resources»,[46] thus there was «no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources […] within the sea areas falling within the ‘nine-dash line’.»’[47] Moreover, the Court sanctioned that all of the features claimed by China were not entitled to a 200-nauticalmile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), because these were not islands: these features qualified as rocks, reefs, shoals and so forth that were not capable of sustaining human habitation. Beijing sternly rejected the validity of the ruling and even questioned the impartiality of the court, by pointing at the fact that the president of the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea, responsible for appointing some of the judges at the Permanent Court of Arbitration,[48] was a Japanese national, namely Yanai Shunji.[49] Yet, in appointing the judges who had ruled on the Chinese claims in the South China Sea, Yanai had followed standard procedures and Yanai’s intervention was a procedural necessity born out of China’s refusal to partake to the proceedings. Also, and more importantly, the ruling condemned the EEZ extending from artificial «islands» and constituted a powerful precedent that might help building a legal case against Japan’s very own undisputed reef: Okinotorishima.

Interestingly, Japan’s enforcement of its claimed EEZ around the above atoll briefly soured Taiwan-Japan relations with the outgoing Ma Ying-jeou government. Japan’s 25 April arrest and sanction of Taiwanese fishermen prompted a forceful response from Taipei, including a statement by Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan that lamented the «[infringement] on our fishermen’s human rights, fishing rights and their rights to operate in the high seas.»[50] Taiwan’s remonstrations included its decision to rename the «island» and the employment of patrols through its maritime law enforcement forces. These measures, however, were short-lived: the new Tsai Ing-wen administration, which took office on 20 May 2016, backtracked for the sake of friendlier ties with Japan. After all, Abe cherished strong ties with both the ROC and Taiwan’s Japan-friendly Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) leadership. The latter was responsible for reinventing Taiwanese identity as a democratic and prosperous country, partly thanks to Japan’s role model.[51] Tsai backtracked from Ma’s approach: her administration did not re-name Okinotorishima in the guise of Okinotori reef, and left the doors open for negotiating an agreement on fishing rights on the small atoll in the Philippines Sea.

The Japanese government was relieved by Tsai’s ascension. In fact, Japanese scholars and policymakers alike had identified the posture of Tsai’s predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou, towards Japan as an assertive one. Yet, the Ma government’s reaction in the above instance had been in accordance with international law and unanimously approved by the Taiwanese Legislative Yuan. This being the situation, it wouldn’t be easy for Tsai to recognize Japan’s EEZ extending from an uninhabitable reef. Moreover, Japan’s intransigence at Okinotorishima reflected the Abe government’s double-standards on its much-vaunted compliance to the «rule of law», a catchphrase used to frame the strategic narrative against China’s activities around the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands and in the South China Sea. Yet, to paraphrase Mozart’s comic opera: «Così fan tutti (thus do all)», the 12 July Tribunal award prompted not only Japan’s rhetorical insistence on the island qualities of Okinotorishima, but also spurred Taiwan to step up its own expansive EEZ claims over Itu Aba, commonly known as Taiping Island.[52] At any rate, sovereignty over Okinotorishima was not under dispute.

On the contrary, with its major claims in hotly disputed waters, China remained the most blatant offender, which also happened to act coercively. China’s concerted response to the ruling did not differ much from the above in terms of substance, but it was out front hostile and indicative of an enduring assertive foreign policy outlook. Moderate voices from the previous Hu Jintao administration and current government officials alike labelled the court’s long and detailed findings as nothing more than «waste paper».[53] To make the point clearer, China insisted on legal warfare and more shows of force in line with its «hybrid strategy». First, on 2 August, the Chinese Supreme People’s Court reiterated China’s jurisdiction over the islands and stipulated that foreigners intruding into territorial waters deserved harsh punishments.[54] Second, during the first half of August, China conducted a series of notable military drills. These included the 1st August massive drills for a «sudden, cruel and short» war with as many as 300 PLAN vessels, and dozens of fighter planes,[55] and the 9~11 August live fire training of destroyers from the East China Sea Fleet.[56] Third, around the same time China sent official vessels and paramilitary forces around the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands and the Scarborough Shoal, disputed with the Philippines. The close timing between the two massive incursions, along with the military exercises, indicates the Xi administration’s predilection for military means, and for heavy-handed signalling short of outright military aggression. For instance, as many as 200-300 Chinese fishing boats appeared in the waters around the Senkaku/Diaoyu on 6 August, followed by the largest dispatch of official vessels to date. [57] According to China watcher Hamamoto Ry ichi, each of China’s fishing boats had one member of the so-called «maritime militia» on board.[58] In short, the Chinese party-state apparatus would not back down in the face of the stern international ruling over its expansive claims in the South China Sea: instead, it doubled down in both the East and South China Seas.

To be sure, China’s more offensive outlook stemmed from a heightened sense of insecurity, especially against Japan and the United States, as hinted from China’s 2015 Defense White Paper’s veiled emphasis on the new threats from «hegemonism, power politics and neointerventionism ».[59] Moreover, China’s interpretation of UNCLOS, which disavowed surveillance and reconnaissance operations in its EEZs, was no recent development. In fact, Beijing traditionally pursued this interpretation with other non-Western developing countries.[60] Nonetheless, events in 2016 betrayed China’s assertive posture, as well as its expansive appreciation of its maritime interests. After all, the People’s Daily immediately dismissed the international tribunal’s arbitration by insisting that 2000 years of history granted China sovereignty over the South China Sea (sic) and its «islands», adding that «black is black and white is white, no confusion must be made between what is right and what is wrong.»[61]

Authoritative and influential opinion pieces by Chinese international relations experts, such as Associate Dean of the School of International Studies at Renmin University, Jin Canrong, corroborated such rock-solid views; in a widely-shared commentary, eloquently entitled «Chinese people must be ready for war!», Jin lamented the international arbitration as a farce orchestrated by the United States and «co-directed» by Japan. In addition, Jin praised the Chinese government’s very tough response. He referred to the fact that the central government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of National Defence, all included a first-time reference to the South China Sea islands having «internal waters». [62] According to Prof. Jin’s interpretation, China, through these official statements, qualified the Spratly Islands (or Nansha Islands) as the southernmost border of China’s inland sea. [63] Moreover, according to him, China had to convey its resolute stance to third parties meddling in the SCS issue, also by harnessing its people’s power.[64] Summing up, Chinese emotions over the South China Sea were running high. This was an important factor, which did not bode well for the future of US-Japan-China relations.

The development of Philippines-China relations in 2016 needs a brief overview because of great relevance to Japan. Indeed, China’s posture towards Manila hints at a Janus-faced foreign policy: while forcefully asserting its claims in the China Seas, China enacted a tactical détente with the Philippines for clear political gains. The June 2016 election of populist strongman Rodrigo Duterte to the Filipino presidency led to a recalibration of Manila’s foreign policy outlook, in line with the president’s deep-held personal suspicions and resentments against the United States.[65] Following up a successful visit in Beijing, where Duterte provocatively promised a (highly unlikely) «separation» from the United States, China promised funding and investments worth US$24 billion[66] and quietly allowed Filipino fishermen to exploit the rich waters around the Scarborough Shoal. In other words, China had «surreptitiously brought itself in line with the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling»,[67] by allowing the Philippines to exploit the natural resources in the waters surrounding the disputed shoal. Summing up, the promising evolution of Sino-Filipino relations under Duterte defused the hottest dispute in the South China Sea. However, China showed no intention to abandon Scarborough – seized in 2012 – and that it had adjusted its position towards Manila to drive a wedge between the Philippines and the United States.[68] To what extent Manila will be willing to distance itself from Washington remains to be seen. However, Japan was quick to respond to China’s economic carrots with its own US$8.66 billion aid package.[69]

Throughout 2016, Japanese policymakers spent their energies on another set of contested islands, the Southern Kurils/Northern Territories disputed with Russia. Concretely, the Japanese government aimed at the return of two of the four islands, Habomai and Shikotan, and the signing of a Russo-Japanese peace treaty. In return, Japan would lobby the G-7 group for a more accommodative foreign policy towards Moscow, promote the construction of health care, infrastructure and housing facilities in the Russian Far East, and push cooperation in the energy sector in the same region.[70] Also, in preparation for the G-7 summit, Abe made a grand tour of European capitals that ended in Sochi, Russia, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Abe decided to engage Russia against the desires of the United States, which made its displeasure clear during an Obama-Abe phone call: Abe’s leadership was in full display.[71] In short, Abe proactively engaged Russia on both the economic and diplomatic front in the hope of gaining back the two tiniest disputed islands and signing a peace treaty while simultaneously reaching a few important objectives. The Abe administration’s objectives were basically three. At the international level, Japan would gain more strategic leeway towards China; at the personal level, Abe would burnish his statesman qualities and leave a legacy that was in line with the foreign policy outlook of his father, Abe Shintar ; finally, at the domestic level, Abe could convert his diplomatic successes into an electoral landslide following a strategic dissolution of the Japanese Diet. Yet, the much-hyped bilateral summit that took place in Japan in mid-December was a mixed failure for the Japanese premier: in fact Putin gained the promise of economic contracts and an end to diplomatic isolation, whereas Abe only gained yet another summit for more negotiations in Moscow the following year.

5. Japan’s domestic politics: more Abe

Throughout 2016 Prime Minister Abe towered over Japan’s domestic politics. His cabinet’s public support rate hovered consistently above 40%, climbing up to 50% and above in the latter half of the year. High approval ratings neutralized challengers hailing from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) ranks. In fact, ruling LDP presidents become easy prey of intra- LDP strife when their approval ratings waver around 25%,[72] but Abe’s personal poll ratings never witnessed such dismal numbers in four years of governing. On top of that, the main opposition parties remained helpless and undecided on how best to confront the Abe government, thus feeding into a general perception that there were no alternatives to the ruling LDPNew Komeito coalition.

Resting on firm political ground and with an eye on the long-sought constitutional change, Abe and his affiliates aimed at changing internal LDP rules to allow the incumbent Party president to serve for an additional three-year term, instead of just two consecutive terms. On September 6, Hosoda Hiroyuki, chairman of the General Council, openly asked for a debate on term limits for the LDP presidency. Interestingly, the term limit was imposed following Abe’s great-uncle Sat Eisaku’s eight-year run from 1964 to 1972, when he was criticised for concentrating too much power in his hands. Following a revision of intra-party rules, in early March 2017 the LDP General Council is supposed to formally approve those changes, thus paving the way to an Abe premiership that will last until 2021. This change could also have important implications for Japan’s foreign relations because Japan’s partners, such as China, will have to confront Abe.

Nonetheless, Abe was unwilling to dissolve the Diet to call a doubleelection, a strategy his political entourage had successfully advanced in late 2014. Abe was strong but not almighty, as demonstrated by his inability to capitalize on planned economic and foreign policy forays. Quite the contrary: the afore-mentioned Abe-Putin summit was inconsequential, and in April the earthquake in Kumamoto provoked damage of roughly 3.8 trillion yen, or US$32.5 billion, further straying Japan’s fiscal expenditure;[73] Sino-Japanese relations continued to be testy; and real economic growth in 2016 approximated roughly 1%.[74] For these reasons, Abe would not dissolve the Diet throughout the year under review and postponed general elections to an indefinite date well into 2017, if at all. Abe’s grip on power was indicative also of his team’s utmost attention to defusing political scandals before they affected his government’s fortunes. Two examples stand out from 2016. In January the graft allegations against Minister for Economic and Fiscal Policy Amari Akira were particularly troublesome, as they directly involved an early Abe loyalist who was responsible for the Prime Minister’s comeback in 2012. Yet, in just about one week, the executive agreed on Amari’s swift resignation.[75] An expenses scandal involving Tokyo Governor Masuzoe Y ichi resulted in exactly the same dynamics, with the LDP local chapter holding a vote of no confidence that led to Masuzoe’s resignation in June. The 31 July Tokyo gubernatorial elections, however, were lost by the LDP-endorsed candidate. Instead, former Defence Minister and hawkish LDP Diet Member Koike Yuriko, who ran as an independent, won the elections by a very wide margin over her opponents.

6. Economics: Three new Abenomics arrows and the fourth industrial revolution?

Japan’s economic performance somewhat improved from the earlier year: real GDP growth rose from 0.4% in 2015 to 1% in 2016.[76] Yet, it is worth noting that this small increase does not imply a lasting change in a long-term economic trend, which, indeed, remains a negative one. The reason explaining this negative long-term trend is simple: economic output ultimately depends on labour and (physical and human) capital inputs multiplied by total factor productivity. In the Japanese context, one of these factors, namely labour, has been in constant decline for the past eight years, as shown by the fact that the Japanese population has shrunk by more than one million since it reached its peak in 2008. In fact, according to the 2015 Census, the Japanese population has been dwindling by almost two hundred thousand residents per year since 2010.[77] Moreover, by 2030 one in three Japanese will be aged 65 years or older,[78] which implies that social security costs for elderly care will steadily be increasing. The above means that, all else being equal, the size of the Japanese economy is destined to shrink in absolute terms.

What could possibly change the above scenario? Technological advancement may substantially alter productivity and there are some indications that the so-called «fourth industrial revolution» is around the corner.[79] For this reason, the Abe government vowed renewed efforts at «science, technology and innovation as a growth engine for the economy».[80] In June 2016 the Prime Minister’s Office unveiled a «Plan for the Dynamic Engagement of All Citizens», which contained an extensive plan for tackling the new age of the machines, with particular reference to big data, artificial intelligence and the internet of things (i.e. the interconnection of computing devices embedded in everyday objects).[81] Yet, substantial productivity gains brought by networked machines capable of exponential improvements in their computational abilities were still a mirage in 2016. Moreover, in the author’s view, the introduction of artificial intelligence is bound to cause little-appreciated, but certainly conspicuous, socio-economic disruptions.[82]

While waiting for the fourth industrial revolution, the Abe government tackled the other parts of the economic equation: increasing the number of inputs in the national economy. Thus, the Abe administration pushed forward a set of three new Abenomics arrows that represented policy targets rather than policies per se. The first new arrow promised an economy that would be as large as 600-trillion-yen by 2020, requiring an increase in nominal GDP growth equal to 3% per year. This, for a mature economy marred by secular stagnation and the above mentioned problems, is nothing less than «Mission: Impossible».[83] The second arrow aimed at increasing the fertility rate from 1.4 to 1.8. In this context, new legislation would allow subsidies for non-regular employees, prevent discrimination against maternity leave, and offer childcare facilities. [84] The third arrow also targeted an increase in labour inputs, and set up a series of goals for expanding elderly care; this would facilitate the entry into the labour force of those who have to take care of their parents. As evident from the two new arrows, the Abe government now considers demographic problems as a priority with the aim of stabilizing Japan’s population around 100 million people by 2060.[85]

7. The July 10 Upper House elections

As above hinted, Abe confronted a series of hurdles in 2016. At the same time, in the face of a feckless opposition and thanks to a relatively successful G-7 Summit and to a historical visit by a US president to Hiroshima, Abe continued to tower over Japan’s political landscape. The 10 July Upper House elections for half of the seats of Japan’s House of Councillors registered a win for Abe Shinz ’s LDP. Abe would have claimed victory if 61 seats had been secured for the LDP-NK coalition government; in fact, the results exceeded Abe’s minimalistic targets, with the LDP winning 56 seats and the New Komeito securing 14 seats, a total of 70 seats that allowed Abe to act triumphant within the party ranks. The LDP’s electoral campaign agenda insisted on the merits of Abe’s economic strategy, Abenomics, with specific reference to the most recent deferment of a consumption tax hike to late 2019, a decision Abe shrewdly announced 40 days ahead of the elections.[86] In contrast, the opposition parties rallied support by criticizing Abe’s 2015 security reforms and pointed at the danger of endowing the coalition government with a two-third majority that would have allowed it to change the constitution, especially Article 9. The LDP would simply ignore these remonstrations and debunk the link between the Upper House elections and changes to the pacifist clause of Japan’s constitution.[87] The Democratic Party of Japan and the Communist Party devised a joint strategy tailored for this election, but weren’t able to propose viable economic alternatives to Abe’s economic agenda. In fact, the Abe government appropriated itself of the opposition parties’ main criticisms, such as the postponement of the consumption tax.

The Upper House elections were meaningful in several respects. First, the elections awarded a two-third majority to parties in favour of constitutional amendments, possibly paving the way for serious consultations between the LDP and several small parties. Second, the elections confirmed the resilience of the conservative coalition government in the face of a global revolt against the politico-economic establishment. Compared to notable political upheavals elsewhere, such as the UK’s Brexit referendum and the US presidential election of Donald Trump, Japan looked like a beacon of stability. To be sure, the voter turnout flew low at 54.7%, but it registered a slight increase from the 2013 Upper House elections.[88] Third, for the first time teenagers aged 18 and 19 were granted the right to vote, thanks to legislation enacted the year before, and they largely voted in favour of the LDP. The hidden implications of the 2016 Upper House elections were substantial.

6. Conclusion

The year under review witnessed the continued ability of the Abe administration to face a rapidly changing international environment. ahe present essay has analysed Abe’s «history statecraft» as an indication of his toning down his nationalistic colours and pragmatism. At the same time, the Japanese government tackled a series of contested maritime or territorial challenges mounted by China, Taiwan, and Russia. The surprising announcement in August of the Japanese Emperor’s willingness to abdicate presaged, yet again, that times were indeed changing. Following special legislation that will allow Emperor Akihito to abdicate in favour of his son, Naruhito, the Abe Cabinet will literally inaugurate a new Japanese era by setting up a committee of experts responsible for picking the new era’s name.[89] The Heisei era started in 1989 and ends in 2018, roughly coinciding with the stability associated with a United Statescentred liberal order in East Asia. During most of the Heisei years, lack of great power competition partly depended on US military and economic supremacy, commonly known as pax americana. With the waning of that period, Japan confronted an emboldened Chinese foreign policy. The rise of Donald Trump, his unpredictable nature and his willingness to adopt a sterner China policy could reassure Japan of the United States of America’s staying in power in the Asia-Pacific. It remains to be seen, however, whether the Trump administration will be able to skilfully deter China without provoking an already emotional foreign policy apparatus. At the same time, Trump’s «America First» and economy-focused colours betrayed a transactional deal-making posture to world affairs, hinting at the reverse risk. Abe’s Japan leaned by default on the US side, but it could not take Washington for granted.

 

 

Korean Peninsula 2016: The never-ending crisis

Available also in pdf – Download Pdf –

The year 2016 was characterized by major crises throughout the entire Korean peninsula. The decline in popularity of South Korean president Park Geun-hye further deteriorated after the election for the National Assembly in April, which gave the majority to the opposition parties. The serious scandal in November that involved Park and one of her closest confidants and friends, Choi Soon-sil, brought her approval rating to a historical low and forced her to withdraw after an impeachment vote in the National Assembly. In North Korea, the most important event in terms of domestic policy was the seventh Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea, in May, which can be regarded as the culmination of Kim Jong Un’s consolidation of power. Another major crisis on the peninsula erupted in January, when North Korea tested a nuclear weapon, and worsened in September with an additional nuclear test. For the first time in its history, Pyongyang completed two nuclear tests in the same year. The reaction of the international community has been one of condemnation, with Seoul, Tokyo and Washington asking for a new set of comprehensive sanctions against North Korea. UNSC Resolutions 2270 and 2321 were designed to curb North Korea’s nuclear programme, affecting the influx of hard currency and limiting its export of natural resources. Nevertheless, the ambiguous posture of China in relation to the implementation of the sanctions, and some loopholes, gave Pyongyang the opportunity to continue its exports. In respect of the foreign relations of the two Koreas, the nuclear tests had relevant effects. The first consequence has been that of strengthening the alliance between Seoul and Washington, with the decision to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Air Defence (THAAD) system on the peninsula. Also, the growing threat from Pyongyang has led to a rapprochement between South Korea and Japan, which culminated with the signing of the agreement on the sharing of intelligence information (GSOMIA). This realignment of Seoul towards the traditional Southern Alliance has undermined its relationship with Beijing, especially as a consequence of the decision to deploy THAAD. In this perspective, the main beneficiary of the new situation has been North Korea, which, despite its isolation, has throughout the year improved its relationship with China. As for the economy, South Korea faced another year of slowing growth, troubled also by a series of crises that involved some of the biggest industrial conglomerates; in North Korea, despite the new sanctions, the economic outlook remained fairly stable.

1. Introduction

The most appropriate term to define 2016 for the two Koreas might be the word ‘crisis’. A security crisis shocked the peninsula at the beginning of the year and continued unabated throughout 2016. At the same time, a political crisis overturned the political scenario in South Korea and forced President Park Geun-hye out of office.

The elections for the National Assembly in April represented the first political surprise for South Korea. Despite all the opinion polls, which gave a clear advantage to the Saenuri dang, President Park’s conservative party, the results completely changed the composition of the Parliament. The Democratic Party, despite its internal split at the beginning of the year, won a slight majority of the seats; more importantly, the progressive bloc against Park – composed by the Democratic Party, the People’s Party and the Justice Party – became the dominant force. The forced cohabitation between a legislative and an executive power characterised by different political colours led to several moments of tension in the following months, which culminated with a major political crisis following the breaking out of the Choi Soon-sil scandal (on which, more below). The inability to negotiate and find a common ground between progressives and conservatives, together with the growing popular anger that materialised in massive street demonstrations, led to a vote of impeachment that forced President Park out of office, pending a final decision on the matter by the Constitutional Court.

The domestic crisisin South Korea erupted in the middle of the security crisis caused by North Korea. Its fourth nuclear test on 6 January,[1] the launch of a satellite on 7 February and the fifth nuclear test on 9 September represented the main stages of the most active and dangerous year for Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programmes. Obviously, this activism had serious repercussions, first of all on the relations on the peninsula. Park Geun-hye’s Trustpolitik was finally set aside in favour of a diplomatic effort to impose new sanctions on and isolate North Korea. This uncompromising policy was epitomised by the decision to close the last remaining example of inter-Korean cooperation: Kaesong Industrial Park.

Regarding domestic policy, however, 2016 was a fairly stable year for North Korea, or at least a year of stabilisation of power. Having built for more than four years, in fact, Kim Jong Un’s consolidation of power culminated with the seventh Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the first in 36 years. This event of paramount political and symbolic relevance sanctioned the definitive coronation of Kim as leader of the country and the official approval of his Byungjin political line as the new policy of the country. The reform of the constitution, in late June, served as a further formal recognition of his role. The crisis that shook the peninsula also had repercussions on the foreign relations of the two Koreas. In particular, there was a return to a sort of ‘old normal’ in terms of political alliances and realignment. The provocation from North Korea not only reinforced the military alliance between Seoul and Washington, but also helped the process of rapprochement between South Korea and Japan, which had begun in the last part of 2015. In this perspective, the agreement to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Air Defence (THAAD) system on the peninsula, and the agreement to share military intelligence information between Seoul and Tokyo (General Security Of Military Information Agreement or GSOMIA), represented the culmination of this new emphasis on the so-called «Southern Alliance».

The main victim of this development has been the relationship between South Korea and China. During the first three years of Park’s presidency, the two countries had benefited from a highly positive and constructive relationship, but South Korea’s decision to realign its policy with that of the US also affected Seoul’s relationship with Beijing, especially after the former’s decision to deploy the THAAD system. China, in fact, has always been a staunch opponent of the installation of an anti-missile system on the peninsula. Despite reassurances that the system’s only purpose was countering the North Korean threat, Beijing considered it as negatively affecting the existing arms balance in the region and its own security. For this reason, relations between China and South Korea worsened, also implying some small-scale economic retaliations from Beijing.

2016 can also be considered as a sort of return to a new normal in terms of foreign relations for Pyongyang. The nuclear and missile tests increased its isolation from the international community; at the same time, however, the revival of the axis between Seoul, Washington and Tokyo brought about an improvement in relations between North Korea and China, aimed at countering the resurgence of the Southern Alliance. In respect of the economy, South Korea faced another year of slowing growth despite the efforts planned by the government before the outbreak of Choi Soon-sil’s scandal. In addition, a series of crises that involved some of the biggest South Korean industrial conglomerates—Hanjin, Hyundai and Samsung—further contributed to worsen the country’s economic outlook. In North Korea, the new round of sanctions, the harshest ever approved, triggered by the fourth and fifth nuclear tests were specifically aimed at hitting relevant economic aspects of the regime, focusing on the exports of natural resources, such as coal and iron ore. Nevertheless, during 2016, the North Korean economy seemed to remain in a fairly stable condition compared to previous years.

2. Domestic politics

2.1. South Korean domestic politics

The political crisis that struck the South Korean political system during 2016 covered the ten month period from the legislative election in April, which gave the parliamentary majority to the opposition, until the vote for the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye on 9 December. The crisis cannot in fact be reduced to the period which began with the hectic weeks of November, when millions of citizens took to the streets protesting and demanding Park’s resignation and which ended with the final vote that ousted Park in December: the roots of South Korea’s political instability can be traced back to some fragilities within its constitutional system, combined with South Korea’s peculiar political culture. The formal semi-presidential system designed by the Constitution of 1987 – with a Prime Minister appointed by the President but with the approval of the National Assembly – is in practice more like a presidential system due to the large powers, which often cross into the field of legislative power, in the hands of the head of state coupled with the residual role left to the Prime Minister. Unlike other semi-presidential systems, such as France, in South Korea the Prime Minister is not the expression of the parliamentary majority, but only assists the President and directs the ministers. Furthermore, the President’s mandate of five years is not harmonised with the National Assembly’s four year mandate. This system is bound to cause political tension if, after an election, the parliamentary majority doesn’t support the President but, at the same time, doesn’t have any real possibility of impacting on the decision-making process or having representation within the executive power. Precisely this situation came into being following the April 2016 ballot, against a backdrop characterised both by a strong conflict between conservatives and progressives and by the President’s declining popularity. The political scandal that abruptly erupted in November gave the opposition a window of opportunity to reverse this situation, thanks also to the popular legitimacy acquired after the legislative elections.

2.1.1. The elections for the National Assembly

During the first months of 2016, the main focus of South Korean domestic politics has been on the elections for the National Assembly, scheduled for 13 April. At the beginning of the year, the more troubled of the two political fronts seemed to be the progressive opposition. The Saenuri dang, the conservative party of President Park Geun-hye, was in fact confidently aiming at reinforcing its majority in the legislative body. Virtually all the polls conducted in the first months of 2016 indicated a large advantage KOREAN PENINSULA 2016 93 over its progressive counterpart to Park’s conservative party.[2] The previous legislative elections, held in 2012, had assigned a majority of 152 seats out of the 300 total members of the Parliament to Park’s Saenuri dang, while the main opposition party had lagged far behind at 127. On the eve of new elections, after several by-elections lost by Park’s Saenuri dang, the party of the President still had 146 seats against the 103 of the Democratic Party. Since early January, the leader of the Saenuri dang, Kim Moo-sung, set as the party’s political target the conquest of a majority of 180 seats in the next general elections. This result would give the Saenuri dang the ability to force a vote on contentious bills, even without the consensus of the opposition.[3] According to the National Assembly Act, in fact, a majority of three fifths is required to put a pending bill to a vote. Considering the harsh political and social confrontation of the last months of 2015 regarding the new labour reform proposed by the government,[4] a majority of this kind would be an important instrument for the conservatives to pursue their own political agenda.

However, despite the declared optimism of Kim Moo-sung and many conservative members of the National Assembly, a victory of this magnitude seemed to be out of reach. During 2015, the popularity of President Park was in constant decline, especially because of the scant leadership skills demonstrated during the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) crisis and the ensuing civil society demonstrations.[5] In order to cope with this growing popular discontent, the President decided on a major government reshuffle in the last days of 2015, replacing key positions in her cabinet, especially in the economic field, and calling for reforms aimed at revitalising the economy. The polls conducted in the early months of 2016 suggested a positive trend in popularity for the President and her party, but probably not enough to achieve Kim Moo-sung’s ambitious goal of a three-fifths majority. Nonetheless, a victory for the Saenuri dang was considered to be on the cards.

The opposition front, on the other hand, was in major turmoil. The united front of NPAD (New Politic Alliance for Democracy), created in March 2014 by the merger of the Democratic Party and the independent political subject of Ahn Cheol-soo, fell to pieces in December 2015, when Ahn’s faction decided to split and create a new party to compete in the upcoming legislative elections. In the first days of 2016, several relevant political figures of the progressive front decided to follow Ahn in his new project and left the Democratic Party, such as Kim Han-gil and Kwon Rho- Kap. The new party was officially founded on 2 February with the name of the People’s Party, Gungminui Dang.[6]

Meanwhile, the leader of the Democratic Party and former presidential candidate Moon Jae-in decided to step down from his position in an effort to renew the party leadership. The party was renamed Deobureo Minju Dang – literally ‘Together Democratic Party’ – and Kim Chong-in was designated the new leader.[7] The progressive front was thus divided again, in a similar situation to that of 2012. The split in the progressive vote was a further help for the conservative party, in particular with an electoral system such as that of South Korea in which 253 seats out of 300 are allocated through the firstpast- the-post system. This was the situation when the country was preparing for the legislative vote and the electoral campaign was officially launched on 30 March. The question was not about which party was going to win, but only about the scale of Saenuri dang’s victory. The main topics that dominated the public debate before the elections were national security and economic growth. After the fourth North Korean nuclear test on 6 January, the options on how to deal with Pyongyang became one of the main points of discussion. Park’s government had responded from the very beginning with an extremely tough line: in diplomatic terms, in order to create a vast international consensus aimed at isolating Pyongyang, and in military terms, aimed at reinforcing the alliance with the US and interrupting any contact with Pyongyang. Some sectors of the Saenuri dang had even more hawkish positions, asking for the development of a South Korean independent nuclear deterrent to counter North Korean threats.[8] The progressives, on the other hand, were open to addressing the issue through a more comprehensive approach, combining condemnation and sanctions with dialogue. In particular, the decision to close the inter-Korean joint industrial park in Kaesong was a major controversial issue between the parties.

Regarding the economy, the programme of the Saenuri dang was to stick with its business-friendly reforming effort, in particular the labour market reform, while the progressive front was pushing for ‘economic democratisation’, with policies oriented towards social aspects of the economy, such as the protection of workers, pensions and minimum wages, and a shift from larger conglomerates, which dominate the South Korean economy, to small businesses.[9] The main goal was to capitalise in political terms on the social protests that had characterised the last months of 2015. The day of the elections, 13 April, the results of the ballots came as a big and unexpected surprise for all the parties involved. Not only did the Saenuri dang fail to gain the three-fifths majority it was aiming at, but it also lost its relative majority, becoming the second party in the National Assembly. The final results showed a deeply divided country and were a clear setback for President Park. The Minju dang won 123 seats and asserted itself as the main political force within the National Assembly; the Saenuri dang stopped at 122, losing as many as 35 seats; the new political subject, the People’s Party, created by Ahn after the split of the democratic front, won 38 seats at its first electoral attempt and became the majority party in the southeastern province of Jeolla and in the metropolitan city of Gwangju, a former stronghold of the Democratic Party. Six seats were then allocated to the Justice Party (left of the Democratic Party), creating a political opposition bloc against Park Geun-hye of 167 seats.[10]

Party Seats ± % of Total Districts Prop. Rep.
Democratic Party 123 – 4 41% 110 13
Saenuri Party 122 – 35 40,7% 105 17
People’s Party 38 new 12,7% 25 13
Justice Party 6 – 7 2% 2 4
Independents 11 + 8 3,6% 11
Total 300   100% 253 47

Source: National Election Commission, Republic of Korea (the data have been elaborated by the author)

The disastrous and unexpected electoral result of President Park’s party can be considered a major political defeat for the President herself. The South Korean party system, as above noted, is politically dominated by the President, who is at the centre of power in the national political system and also exerts a strong influence within her own party, often considered as a mere vehicle toward the presidency.[11] The defeat of the Saenuri dang was thus a clear rejection of the presidential political action, especially in terms of domestic politics. The decline in Park’s popularity – which started with the Sewol tragedy in April 2014 and continued throughout 2015 – materialised in this first real electoral test. The results shook the party to its foundations. The party leader, Kim Moo-sung, resigned the day after the electoral defeat, while an emergency committee was created to reform the internal structure and refresh its political leadership and guidelines.[12] The powerful and divisive figure of Park Geun-hye became one of the major controversial points of discussion, and an anti-Park faction started to emerge within the party. The 2018 presidential election was looming on the horizon and a lame duck president, with a very low approval rating, started to be considered a liability. This internal tension was partly resolved with the election of Lee Jung-hyun, a strong supporter of President Park, as party leader in early August, but resurfaced in disruptive terms in the last weeks of 2016.[13]

After their equally unexpected success, the oppositions started to voice even louder concerns about several controversial presidential decisions and to demand a stronger role for the National Assembly in the country’s decisionmaking process. As noted above, within South Korea’s peculiar semi-presidential system, the role of the legislative power is reduced and the representation of the parliamentary majority within the executive is not guaranteed. In addition, Park’s method of government had been criticised several times in the past by the opposition parties for her tendency to centralise power in her hands and in those of her inner circle, for the lack of transparency in her decision-making process and for excessive political personalisation. In this situation of weakness, President Park Geun-hye agreed to a first meeting with the leaders of the three main parties on 13 May. This resulted in the decision that the President would henceforth meet with the key political party leaders on a regular basis, in an effort aimed at starting cooperation with the newly elected National Assembly to defuse political tension and respond to the political message sent by the voters.[14]

2.1.2. The deployment of THAAD and the new domestic political tension

During the summer, however, these first conciliatory moves were not followed by a real pursuit of a bipartisan consensus on the most important decisions taken by the president, nor by a new and more inclusive government style. The confrontation between conservatives and progressives clearly resurfaced in July with the final decision, on 8 July, to deploy the American THAAD anti-missile system on the peninsula to counter the growing military threat from North Korea.[15] Beyond the military and strategic relevance of the system, the decision sparked a strong debate within the country, fuelled by the opposition of the Democratic and People’s Parties. The controversy over the new anti-missile system epitomised the polarisation and the domestic political divide in South Korea. The sources of contrast between government and opposition were mainly two: the strategic opportunity to deploy the new system and the process of deciding where to install the system on the peninsula. Regarding the first issue, the decision to deploy the THAAD was perfectly in line with the traditional foreign policy priorities of South Korean conservatives— contrasting North Korea with military measures and strengthening the defence alliance with the US. On the other side, the progressive front, while recognising the danger of the North Korean nuclear programme, criticised the decision because it could further escalate military tension and affect relations between South Korea and China, a strong opponent of THAAD.

In addition, the choice of the location for the deployment of the system again reflected the lack of transparency in the government’s decision-making process, a primary critical point in the interactions between conservatives and progressives. On 13 July, the South Korean government announced, without any previous discussion with the local administration or residents, that the site for the new missile defence system would be the rural southern county of Seongju. The protests began immediately, triggered by the fears of local residents related to the effects of the radars on health and the possible adverse consequences for agriculture – the county provides 60% of all melons produced in South Korea. When, two days later, the Prime Minister visited the county in an effort to defuse the situation of tension, he was pelted with eggs and water bottles by the protesters.[16] The political opposition supported the requests of Seongju residents, reaffirming its position against THAAD, considered counterproductive for its possible repercussions on relations with China. Also, the political opposition criticised the top-down decision of the government, which had not previously consulted the residents, and the choice of location, which would not guarantee the security of the capital, situated as it was more than 200 km away. Amidst the growing popular discontent, the government decided to postpone a final decision on the subject. After almost three months, and after consultations with the local authorities, the final site was located on an isolated golf course, 18 km from the centre of Seongju County.[17]

The controversy over the THAAD deployment clearly demonstrated that the tension between the main political parties was still very high after the April election, with the opposition still struggling to find a more effective voice in the country’s decision-making process. At the same time, the lack of transparency and collegiality in pinpointing the location of the final site showed once more that the governing style of Park Geun-hye’s executive had not really changed after the electoral defeat.

2.1.3. The Choi Soon-sil scandal and Park Geun-hye’s impeachment

The parabola of President Park Geun-hye’s mandate reached its final stage in autumn 2016, when the corruption scandal that involved one of her main confidants and advisors, Choi Soon-sil, erupted. The first signs of the scandal that would soon overturn the political situation in the country appeared in late September, when a parliamentary interrogation sought by a former presidential secretary, Cho Eung-cheon, brought up the possibility that the donations of high amounts of money from the main South Korean industrial conglomerates to two foundations, Mir and K-Sports, were connected to favourable decisions from the Blue House.[18] In particular, it was claimed that Choi Soon-sil, the daughter of a deceased mentor to the President and a close friend and confidant, had made use of her influence on the President to offer favours to the conglomerates in return for large sums of money, which had been conveyed through the two foundations.[19]

Within a few weeks, the corruption scandal grew dramatically, involving prominent figures of Park’s political team, and new aspects came to light. The cable TV channel JTBC, in fact, reported in late October that it had obtained a computer owned by Choi in which 200 confidential files were found, including several drafts of Park’s speeches and statements, including the famous ‘Dresden Speech’, one of the milestone of Park’s inter- Korean policy.[20] The role of the President’s friend and confidant – not a government official or a civil servant – started to assume a political relevance as a powerful éminence grise with direct access and strong influence on Park herself. In the last days of October, Park Geun-hye was forced by the size of the scandal to intervene directly. The slow and indecisive reaction of the President to the scandal probably played a role in its further development. On 25 October, Park gave her first apology speech to the public, in which she admitted leaking confidential documents to Choi to ask for her advice and opinion but denied the possibility that Choi had any real political power or influence.[21] Soon after, on 30 October, Park decided to reshuffle her staff, firing the chief of staff and seven other aides in order to cope with the growing public anger and to regain public trust, after thousands of South Koreans took to the streets to call for her removal from office.[22] A few days later, Park decided to designate Kim Byong-joon, a former chief policy coordinator of the progressive president Roh Moo-hyun, the new Prime Minister. The move was considered to be an overture towards the parliamentary opposition and a possible first step towards a greater sharing of political power during her last year in office.[23] On 4 November, Park gave her second public apology and stated that she was willing to collaborate with the prosecutors and to submit to questioning.[24] However, these presidential initiatives for political renovation were not enough to calm the protests of civil society and the political opposition in the National Assembly. On 5 November, in the second public demonstration against the President, tens of thousands of protesters demanded Park’s resignation. At the same time, the opposition parties rejected the appointment of the new Prime Minister, whose designation was then withdrawn by Park, and joined the civil society in demanding Park’s resignation, the only alternative being that of starting the process of impeachment.[25]

From this moment on, the political crisis was characterised by Park’s continued attempt to cope with the demands of the growing political and social opposition without being able to avoid her final capitulation. After the National Assembly’s refusal to approve the appointment of the new Prime Minister, Park proposed that the appointment be made by the National Assembly themselves and affirmed that she was willing to devolve some of her powers, maintaining the prerogatives related to foreign policy and defence. At this point, however, the opposition was no longer open to negotiation and demanded the resignation of the President. Meanwhile, the internal frond of the Saenuri dang, temporarily silenced after the defeat in the April elections, began to manifest itself once again. Despite the activism of the opposition, the key factor in the crisis was the anti-Park mobilisation of civil society, a key component of South Korean political life since the days of the authoritarian regime. During November, in fact, a huge crowd of protesters rallied every Saturday in the centre of Seoul and other South Korean cities for peaceful demonstrations that called for the immediate resignation of the President. In particular, the demonstrations of 12 and 26 November recorded the participation of nearly two million people, making it the largest in the post-democratisation era.[26]

Given the scale of the protests, Park – meanwhile accused of complicity with Choi by the prosecutor – was forced to take a step back and proposed, in her third public speech of apology, to put her mandate in the hands of the National Assembly and delegate the decision for a roadmap for the transition of power to that institution. The opposition, however, had already started the process of impeachment and discarded this proposal as a ploy to gain time and divide the front that supported the President’s dismissal.[27] The vote was scheduled for Friday 9 December. Meanwhile, the conservative front was in total disarray. Defending Park’s position was no longer a politically viable option; nevertheless, a faction of the party was in favour of the impeachment, while the pro-Park faction was proposing a roadmap that would lead to the resignation of the President and would guarantee greater institutional stability. The vote on 9 December marked the victory of the opposition line: the impeachment was approved with 234 votes in favour, far more than the required 200. The defection of Saenuri dang parliamentarians was massive. The President was then immediately suspended from her duties and replaced by Prime Minister Hwang Kyoahn, pending the final decision of the Constitutional Court, which could have taken up to 180 days.

The epilogue of the crisis left the country under the temporary and uncertain guidance of an unpopular Prime Minister, directly connected to Park, who had appointed him in June 2015. Meanwhile, the conservative party split definitively in the last days of the year, and the race for the presidential candidacy in view of an early election began among the opposition. The political crisis, which in a few weeks overturned the political situation in South Korea and forced President Park’s final capitulation, was not only linked to the Choi scandal, but had deeper roots. The lack of transparency and a shadow of authoritarianism in her decision-making had followed Park Geun-hye since her first months in office. The figure of Choi Soon-sil was therefore the perfect catalyst for this discontent: she was seen as a powerful éminence grise, unelected and without any official public office but with tremendous power in the presidential office, and as part of a closed and rather obscure circle within which the main decisions for the country were taken. Moreover, the scandal showed that the unaccounted power of this inner circle had most likely been used for personal gain, in economic terms and prestige. Among the accusations that were raised against Choi, one was particularly outrageous for many protesters: the political pressure to have her daughter admitted to the prestigious Ewha University despite the fact that she was not qualified, surpassing the most deserving students without political connections.[28] This particular problem – which, to a non- Korean, can appear secondary – actually unleashed huge indignation in public opinion in relation to the abuse of power against weaker citizens and the importance that the society attaches to higher education and to prestigious universities, because of their role in promoting social mobility. As already noted, the political crisis highlighted the centrality of civil society movements. Popular indignation at the personal use of political power brought millions of citizens to the streets. This activism showed that young South Koreans, usually considered aloof from political participation, this time played a key role in shaping the contemporary history of their country, showing that civil society is still very much alive and active in the country. The political opposition in parliament, rather than leading the process, seemed to follow the protests from the streets. The result has been ambivalent. While, in fact, the impeachment vote was successful, a greater predisposition to negotiate with the conservatives would have probably allowed replacement of the Prime Minister with a political figure closer to the opposition and more distant from Park Geun-hye’s closed circle. Finally, the crisis has demonstrated that the need for constitutional reform in the country is not only linked to the issue of the re-election of the President, but also to the need to clarify the division of powers and duties to prevent a political crisis from becoming an institutional stalemate.

2.2. North Korean domestic politics: Kim Jong Un’s final coronation

While the internal political situation in South Korea was shaken deeply by the legislative elections and by the Choi Soon-sil scandal, in North Korea 2016 was the year of the final and formal coronation of Kim Jong Un as the country’s leader. As discussed elsewhere,[29] in the first years after his rise to power, Kim had consolidated his position within the regime through systematic purges and several changes in the most important political positions. The young leader had also launched his own new policy line, called Byungjin, which fell within the broader Juche ideology and was a continuation of the military-first policy – Son’gun – launched by his father Kim Jong Il. These combined efforts had legitimised his position within the regime and in the eyes of the North Korean population.

In May 2016, this consolidation process reached its culmination, also in formal terms, with the convening of the seventh Plenary Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea, after a 36 year long hiatus. In the months preceding the Congress, Kim clearly reaffirmed the importance of the nuclear programme – one of the pillars of the Byungjin doctrine, which provided the parallel development of nuclear capabilities and economic development – through words and actions. On 6 January, Pyongyang conducted its fourth nuclear test and a few weeks later, on 7 February, launched a satellite into orbit through use of the Unha-3 carrier, considered to be an integral part of North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile programme. In the following months, the launches of short-range missiles into the East Sea continued very frequently, along with several tests, many of which failed, of Musudan medium-range missiles.

The Congress was inaugurated on 6 May with a long opening speech by Kim Jong Un in front of more than 3,400 delegates. In it, the leader officially sanctioned his new policy line, as already expressed in theory and practice in the previous years. In addition to reiterating that the nuclear power status of the country was not negotiable unless within a global denuclearisation process, Kim emphasised the purely defensive character of the North Korean nuclear programme, considered as a deterrent against hostile US political and military actions.[30] North Korea was thus presented as a responsible nuclear power: it did not intend to use its nuclear weapons except to defend its national sovereignty and was fully committed to global non-proliferation.[31] Kim’s speech[32] fitted perfectly with the regime’s effort to legitimise North Korea as a nuclear power, even towards outside countries, through a strategy of fait accompli and a subsequent political legitimation of its actions as necessary for the defence of national sovereignty. As for the economic aspect – the second pillar of Byungjin – Kim presented, for the first time since 1980, a fiveyear plan, defined as a «five-year strategy for the state economic development from 2016 to 2020».[33] Despite the lack of details in its implementation, the plan seemed not to foresee any substantial reform of the economic system. Nevertheless, just like for the convening of the Congress, the mere fact that after so many years the leader had launched a five-year plan represented an important development, as, by doing that, Kim explicitly and publicly took responsibility for the economic development of the country.[34]

Kim Jong Un’s speech represented the final affirmation of Byungjin as the permanent new policy of the country. The subsequent speeches by leading members of the party were nothing but a further confirmation of what had been stated by Kim himself, and a tribute to the leader’s political skills and vision. The Congress unanimously approved the report of the leader, who was elected Chairman of the Party, thus replacing the previous role of First Secretary. Finally, the delegates elected the seventh Party Central Committee, made up of 129 regular members and 106 alternate candidates.[35] The Congress can be considered, therefore, as the investiture of Kim Jong Un as the undisputed leader of the country after a four year consolidation period. A few weeks after the Party Congress, on 29 June, the Fourth Session of the 13th Supreme People’s Assembly approved a constitutional reform that created the new State Affairs Commission. It replaced the National Defence Commission as the principal political and decision-making organ of the North Korean regime. The reform also emphasised the political role of Kim Jong Il, together with Kim Il Sung.[36] Kim Jong Un was appointed Chairman of the new Commission, assisted by three vice-chairmen: Hwang Pyong So, Choe Ryong Hae and Pak Pong Ju. This reform aimed at further strengthening and expanding the powers of the leader. It can also be considered an expression of the realignment of the North Korean power system to party political structures rather than military ones.[37]

3. Inter-Korean relations

The development of inter-Korean relations during 2016 was clearly moulded by the development of Pyongyang’s nuclear programme. During the year, in fact, the regime repeatedly made clear, in practical and explicit terms, that the continuing strengthening of its nuclear arsenal and missile programme was a top priority. Two underground nuclear tests, carried out for the first time during the same year, formed part of this, along with the launch of a satellite in February, progress in the missile programme, the diversification of delivery systems and advances in the miniaturisation of warheads. As noted above, Pyongyang’s behaviour had crucial implications in the development of relations between the two Koreas and in the foreign policies of both countries, triggering the second of the two crises that rocked the peninsula in the course of 2016. As for inter-Korean relations, Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile developments triggered a harsh reaction from Park Geun-hye’s government, putting a final word to Trustpolitik and to any attempt at dialogue or cooperation on the peninsula.

3.1. The fourth North Korean nuclear test

A few days after the beginning of 2016—and the traditional speech of the North Korean leader, full of references to inter-Korean dialogue and good intentions—North Korea carried out its fourth nuclear test, drawing the attention of the world to the peninsula and sparking an escalation of tension that was still ongoing at the end of the period under review. At 10:30 am on 6 January, seismographs at the National Institute of China and South Korea detected an earthquake in the northeast of North Korea, exactly where the Punggye-ri nuclear site is located. About two hours later, the state television in Pyongyang confirmed that the origin of the shake had been an underground nuclear test, adding that it was a thermonuclear explosion. Although the collected data quickly disproved the possibility that it had been a detonation of an H bomb – the power of the explosion was estimated around seven kilotons, close to the 7.9 of 2013 – the test immediately provoked a harsh reaction from the whole international community, with South Korea, US and Japan in the lead. Beijing rapidly reiterated its opposition to the North Korean nuclear programme and the UN Security Council convened an emergency meeting.[38]

The days after the fourth test were characterised by strong military and diplomatic activism in Seoul to contrast this new threat. As a first move, South Korea decided immediately to restore anti-regime propaganda broadcast messages through loudspeakers located on the border, which had been interrupted after the inter-Korean agreement of August 2015; a few days later, on 10 January, two B-52 American bombers flew over the southern part of the peninsula, as retaliation against the test and in order to reaffirm commitment to the defence of South Korea by the United States.[39] Seoul, fully supported by Washington, started from the very first moment to put pressure on the international community to create a united front championing condemnation and sanctions. The main target of this strategy was predictably China, regarded as the only key player that could appreciably influence Pyongyang’s regime. In addition to the Security Council resolution, which would come soon, Seoul decided to develop a set of unilateral sanctions. These were aimed at North Korean individuals and companies related in any way to the nuclear and missile programme. This policy was rapidly followed by Japan and the US. Moreover, as discussed later, the deterioration of relations on the peninsula also influenced South Korean foreign policy: in the following months, President Park, during her travels abroad, sought to consolidate the broadest possible front against North Korea’s nuclear programme and to turn away from North Korea some countries historically close to it.

The situation on the peninsula worsened even further in the following weeks. On 7 February, North Korea launched a satellite into orbit, further violating UN resolutions and defying warnings from the international community.[40] As widely expected, the move provoked unanimous international condemnation. In this case, however, there were greater repercussions in relations on the peninsula. Three days after the launch, Seoul, as already noted, announced the closure of all activities inside the joint industrial park in Kaesong, the last remaining example of inter-Korean cooperation. The motivation behind the decision was not in retaliation to the new provocation, but rather the fact that, according to the Ministry of Unification, the park’s revenues were diverted by the regime toward its nuclear and missile programme.[41] The predictable response from Pyongyang was immediately to expel all South Korean workers in the park and seize all the equipment and machinery. Unlike what happened in the aftermath of the third test, in 2013, this time—and for the first time— closure came with a decision from the South Korean government. Such a decision would raise in the following months a harsh controversy within the country, further exacerbating the division between conservatives and progressives.

In addition to the practical consequences, the closure of Kaesong represented the final nail in the coffin of any possibility of dialogue and cooperation under Park’s administration. The so-called Trustpolitik, launched by Park even before being elected in 2012, already weakened in 2013 and repeatedly challenged both by the actions of Pyongyang and by the contradictory policies of Seoul, was finally buried in favour of an approach of total closure towards North Korea and a tightening of its international isolation. The last act of the crisis started by the fourth nuclear test was the approval of Resolution 2270 of the UN Security Council, containing new sanctions against North Korea’s nuclear programme, the harshest sanctions ever approved.[42] As happened in previous cases, the resolution was passed unanimously by the Council, including the vote of the two members close to Pyongyang, China and Russia. Besides expanding the list of banned items and individuals subject to restrictions, the resolution introduced an obligation for all countries to inspect any cargo coming from or going to North Korea and a ban on trading with Korea North in natural resources, including some of the major export products of the country such as coal and iron ore. In the latter case, however, an important exception was granted: this prohibition was not applied in the case of livelihood purposes.[43] This exception thus risked becoming a sort of loophole, especially for Chinese companies active in the border area, to allow them to continue to trade with North Korea. As in previous cases, despite the unanimity of the approval, the real test was the practical implementation of sanctions, in particular on the part of China. A few days later, South Korea announced its unilateral sanctions, including the prohibition of entry into South Korean waters for ships that had transited in North Korea in the previous 180 days and the creation of a blacklist of dozens of individuals and organisations connected to the North Korean nuclear programme.[44]

3.2. The constant tension between the two nuclear tests

The nuclear tests in January and September certainly represented the moments of greatest tension in relations between the two Koreas— and between the peninsula and the main external actors – in 2016. Nevertheless, during the eight months between these two key events, tension on the peninsula continued unabated. The Seoul government’s decision to pursue a zero tolerance policy with total closure of dialogue with the North, combined with the continuous military action and provocation by Pyongyang, made the beginning of a phase of détente impossible, unlike in 2013. As early as March, a few days after the new Resolution 2270 and the unilateral sanctions by South Korea, the US and Japan, Pyongyang began a long series of short-range missile launches into the East Sea and the testing of new medium-range missiles and new launch platforms, including submarines. In March, three different events took place: the launch of Scud-C missiles on 10 March, a medium-range Rodong that flew for 500 miles on 18 March,[45] and again the launch of short-range missiles on 21 and 29 March.[46] In April, the regime focused on testing a longer-range missile, the Musudan, with two failed attempts on 15 and 28 April and one from a submarine, partly failed, on 23 April. During the summer, the series of launches continued unabated, with a new failed attempt on 31 May and one successful one on 22 June, during which the Musudan missile remained in flight for 250 miles. North Korea again tested a submarine-based missile on 9 July and three short and mid-range missiles on 19 July. On 3 August, a Rodong missile sank in the Japanese EEZ after a 620 mile flight, a launch which was repeated one month later. On 24 August, a medium-range missile launched from a submarine flew for 310 miles, a much better result than those obtained in April and July. This unprecedented series of tests continued with two unsuccessful attempts to launch a Musudan missile, just five days away from each other, on 15 and 20 October.[47]

This long series of tests and launches, which continued a trend already begun in 2014 and 2015, showed the regime’s clear intention to pursue without delay the development of its missile programme, paired with its nuclear programme, in order to obtain reliable carriers capable of delivering a nuclear warhead, and with differentiated systems to be less vulnerable to possible pre-emptive strikes. The systematic pattern of the tests, a few weeks apart and therefore with a higher risk of failure, demonstrated a real commitment to a strategy aimed at improving the missile capabilities of the country, and not just the intention to give a demonstration of military force, which was present anyway. In this perspective, the short-range missile launches in March and July can be considered primarily as retaliation respectively to the approval of sanctions and the agreement to deploy THAAD; but the other tests can be considered as part of a broader missile development strategy, in line with Kim Jong Un’s Byungjin policy. The emphasis placed by Pyongyang on its missile programme in the aftermath of the fourth nuclear test continued to significantly affect inter-Korean relations. In a sort of self-sustaining vicious cycle, the growing intransigence of both sides made the easing of tension on the peninsula almost impossible.

Along with the problems created by the nuclear and missile programmes, the issue of defectors came back to the centre of inter- Korean relations. In addition to repeated statements by Seoul on the need to support the resettlement of defectors,[48] two events were particularly relevant during 2016. In early April, a group of North Korean workers at a restaurant in China decided to defect in a group. As many as 13 workers managed to escape and defect to South Korea, being the largest group to do so in the last 15 years.[49] The reaction of Pyongyang was almost immediate. Seoul was accused of kidnapping the 13 workers against their will and North Korea called for their immediate repatriation. The answer from Seoul was predictably negative, based on the fact that, according to the Ministry of Unification, the defectors fled voluntarily.[50] The week after, Pyongyang proposed to hold a meeting between the defectors and members of their families who were still in North Korea. The meeting was to be held through the Red Cross of the two countries in the border village of Panmunjom, or even in Seoul. However, this proposal was categorically rejected by South Korea and labelled as North Korean propaganda.[51]

During the summer, a new defection further shook relations between the two Koreas. On 17 August, Seoul announced that the number two diplomat at the North Korean embassy in London, Thae Yong Ho, had defected with his family to South Korea. The announcement gave rise to a great stir because of Thae’s high-ranking diplomatic status. Thae’s escape has been considered by some observers as a possible sign of a crumbling of the consensus for the leader in the highest ranks of the North Korean political elite.[52] However, it was an isolated episode and therefore hardly a real signal in this sense. Nevertheless, the symbolic value of the defection remains important, combined with its practical and strategic value. Thae could in fact become a significant source of information for South Korean intelligence, as he clearly stated his will to collaborate.[53]

3.3. The fifth North Korean nuclear test

As noted above, 2016 represented a turning point for the North Korean nuclear programme. For the first time, as previously noted, the regime carried out two underground nuclear tests in the same year. On the 68th anniversary of the founding of the state of North Korea, 9 September, Pyongyang detonated an atomic bomb for the fifth time in its history. The course of events was identical to those of only eight months before. The first information came in the morning, with the detection of a 5.3 earthquake, located in the Punggye-ri area, by South Korean authorities. The first data estimated the power of the explosion to be around ten kilotons – not a substantial difference compared to the previous one, but still the most powerful bomb ever tested by North Korea. The reactions of the actors involved were also almost the same as in January: the firm and immediate condemnation of South Korea, followed closely by the US and Japan; the negative reaction of the Chinese government – this time less firm than in January, probably because of the THAAD issue that had emerged in the meantime; and, finally, the emergency meeting of the UN Security Council that condemned the test and proposed a tightening of sanctions.[54]

Besides the usual succession of actions and reactions between Pyongyang and the international community, the new test showed the dimension of ‘normality’ that the North Korean nuclear programme was acquiring and the failure of sanctions to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear policy. The condemnations appeared necessary but without any real political meaning, emptied by their own continuous repetition over the course of the years. Even the official statements from the North Korean regime, in addition to glorifying the new achievements, seemed to focus more on the standardisation, and on the production speed and miniaturisation, in a kind of process of ‘normalisation’ of the nuclear programme of a country which considers itself a rightful nuclear power.[55]

The effects of the fifth test on inter-Korean relations were therefore rather limited, if only because they were already at extremely low levels, especially after the South Korean decision to close the Kaesong park. A few days after the test, two US B-1B bombers flew again over the peninsula as a confirmation of US commitment to South Korea’s security, also through the use of the nuclear deterrent. In addition, the two governments pledged to approve new unilateral sanctions and to press for a new Security Council resolution, with new sanctions that could eliminate the loopholes of the previous one.[56] Finally, Seoul stated that it would not provide humanitarian aid to North Korea, hit hard by a flood in early September, reaffirming once more its hard line stance after North Korea’s fifth nuclear test.[57]

The new sanctions finally came in the last days of November and early December. On 30 November, the Security Council unanimously approved Resolution 2321, but without a real breakthrough compared to the previous one. To try to limit the loopholes in natural resources trade, especially coal, the resolution posed a limit of 7.5 million metric tons or US$ 400 million; in addition, the resolution introduced the obligation to notify every coal import from North Korea, expanded the list of prohibited items, and imposed financial restrictions on North Korean diplomatic missions.[58] All these measures, however, could hardly be considered as a major breakthrough. The limitations of the new measures reflected a time of political uncertainty for the powers involved: the United States was in fact in the midst of the transition between Obama and Trump; South Korea was shaken by Choi’s scandal; finally, the issue of THAAD had cooled relations between Beijing on the one hand and Washington and Seoul on the other, with negative consequences for the chances of cooperation.

4. International relations

4.1. The end of the honeymoon between Seoul and Beijing

The nuclear crisis that had been triggered by North Korea’s fourth and fifth nuclear tests during 2016 not only had repercussions in the development of North Korean foreign relations, but affected those of South Korea. The first victim of the new wave of provocation coming from the North was the very good bilateral relations between South Korea and China. In fact, during Park Geun-hye’s presidency, one of the main priorities—and one of the main achievements—of South Korean foreign policy had been the enhancement of positive relations with China, not only in traditional economic terms but also in the political realm.[59] This increasing rapprochement between Seoul and Beijing had gone so far as to cause serious concerns in Washington, risking the creation of friction in the alliance between South Korea and the US. The resurgence of the North Korean nuclear threat, however, reinforced the military alliance with the American ally and drove a wedge between Seoul and China.

One of the main sources of disagreement between Seoul and Beijing was how to react to the North Korean nuclear programme. Although the two countries both agreed on the danger of the programme and on the necessity of intervention, the strategies on how to cope with the problem seemed to be different. While South Korea invoked a tough reaction from the whole international community, using isolation and sanctions as the main instruments to force Pyongyang to withdraw from its nuclear ambition, China’s position was to conciliate sanctions and condemnation with dialogue and negotiations. This situation led Seoul to criticise what it considered a lukewarm stance from Beijing towards the North Korean nuclear programme.[60] From Seoul’s – and Washington’s – perspective, China is the only actor that can directly influence Pyongyang’s behaviour, because of the economic and political ties that link the two banks of the Yalu River. The lack of decision and effectiveness in implementing the several rounds of sanctions against North Korea had created in South Korea a frustration that materialised at the first real test. In a sort of zero-sum game, Seoul, right after North Korea’s fourth nuclear test, started to divert its attention from Beijing and to refocus on the so-called Southern Alliance with Washington, but also with Japan.

The turning point in South Korea-China relations during 2016 was Seoul’s decision – bound to have broad strategic and diplomatic consequences in the region – to deploy the American anti-missile system THAAD. The deployment of the advanced anti-missile system on the peninsula had been a strategic objective for the US for a long time. In the aftermath of the fourth nuclear test, and even more after the launch of the satellite in early February, talks over the deployment of THAAD started to gain momentum in South Korea. China was worried that the system had a radar range capable of reaching deep into its territory from South Korea, threatening its own missile deterrent system. In its view, the deployment of THAAD would change the existing arms balance in the region, undermining its stability and creating a new source of tension. Despite reassurances from Seoul and Washington that the system was aimed only at counteracting the North Korean threat, many in China considered the move as a further effort to solidify America’s position in Northeast Asia at the expense of China and Russia. Furthermore, China was afraid that the deployment of THAAD would bring Japan and South Korea closer to the US and its security complex, creating a sort of military bloc that might target China and Russia[61] in a sort of revival of the Cold War era Southern Alliance.

The first real friction on this issue between Seoul and Beijing started in late February, when the Chinese ambassador to South Korea, Qiu Guohong, during a meeting with the leader of the South Korean main opposition party, warned that the decision to deploy THAAD would destroy the relationship between the two countries. The reaction of South Korea’s government was almost immediate and very firm. The spokesman for President Park stated that China must refrain from intervening in the issue, which concerned only South Korean security and its national interests.[62] The situation worsened during the summer when Seoul and Washington announced the final agreement on THAAD on 8 July. In addition to the domestic opposition inside South Korea, the decision triggered an immediate negative reaction from China. Beijing considered the deal a major setback, particularly considering that President Xi Jinping had spent significant political capital trying to convince Park Geun-hye to reject the American push for the deployment.[63]

After the announcement and the formal protests from Beijing, there was no direct retaliation from China. Nonetheless, in the following months, several moves specifically targeting South Korean firms operating in China started to fit into a broader picture of retaliatory measures against THAAD, mainly in business and cultural areas. For example, Korean pop artists and entertainers were virtually banned from appearing on Chinese TV shows; and, in December, after the South Korean government announced a deal with Lotte industrial conglomerate to locate the anti-missile system at one of the firm’s golf courses, the company had to face tax, safety and fire investigations into 150 stores and factories located in China.[64] What started to appear was a sort of retaliatory scheme against South Korean private companies in order to influence the government. Obviously, this situation negatively affected the relationship between China and South Korea, even if it did not result in an open crisis. President Park’s impeachment also contributed to this, opening the possibility of new elections and victory for a progressive candidate, most likely Moon Jae-in. This, in turn, could lead to a revision of the decision over THAAD and, consequently, to a rapprochement with China.

4.2. Strengthening the alliance with the US and reapproaching Japan

If, on the one hand, relations with China cooled – but did not freeze to death – in 2016, on the other hand, South Korea reinforced its traditional alliance with the US and continued the rapprochement with Japan, started the year before.[65] North Korea’s nuclear weapons tests and missile launches in 2016 appeared to have eased differences between Seoul and Washington, not only regarding North Korea but also China. North Korea’s actions during 2016 also pushed for an expanded strategic cooperation between Seoul and Tokyo, which the US had long desired. The relationship between Seoul and Washington followed an opposite path compared to that of Sino-South Korean relations. As previously noted, the two allies coordinated their political moves in order to deal with the new nuclear and missile threats from North Korea. A few days after the fourth nuclear test, two American B-52 bombers flew over South Korea to demonstrate commitment to defending its ally; during January, both Washington and Seoul kept pressure on China to act in a more decisive way in order to curb North Korean nuclear ambitions; finally, in March, both countries approved a set of unilateral sanctions against Pyongyang. After the fifth nuclear test, the two allies demonstrated once more their will to face the North Korean threat in a coordinated way, with the goal of creating a united and solid bloc. A few days after the test, two American B-1B bombers again flew over South Korea and the two countries reaffirmed their intention of tightening the sanctions, both unilaterally and through a new resolution of the Security Council, and demanded that China play a more active role. These commitments were also emphasised during the ‘two plus two’ meeting in October, with the participation of the two Foreign Ministers, Yun Byun-se and John Kerry, and the two Ministers of Defence, Han Minkoo and Ashton Carter. During the meeting, the parties decided to establish the Extended Deterrence Strategy and Consultation Group, with the specific goal of creating a permanent body of consultation for the protection of the Asian ally.[66] This enhanced policy coordination demonstrated a clear will to address the North Korean issue through an unambiguous common strategy.

Despite the controversies emerging within South Korea and in the region, the agreement on the deployment of THAAD, in July, represented a major success for American foreign policy in Northeast Asia and a further sign of the solidity of the security alliance between Washington and Seoul. The positive relations between the US and South Korea during 2016 might, however, be challenged by the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States. During the electoral campaign, in fact, Trump threatened to withdraw US troops from the country unless Seoul started to pay a higher share of the costs. He also proposed that American allies should consider the idea of developing their own nuclear deterrent. Finally, he repeatedly criticised US free trade agreements, including the so-called KORUS-FTA between South Korea and the United States. These statements raised concerns over a possible revival of an American isolationist foreign policy and a weakening of Washington’s commitment to defending its Asian allies. The strengthening of the alliance with the US and the growing threat from North Korea also had positive effects on relations between South Korea and Japan. After the conclusion of the comfort women agreement at the end of December 2015, the policy coordination efforts against North Korea in the first months of 2016 involved also Japan. Right after the fourth test, Prime Minister Abe condemned North Korea and talked on the phone with President Park to agree on a common response. Japan was also at the forefront in pushing for harsher sanctions by the UN and approved its own set of unilateral sanctions, just like South Korea and the US.[67]

On the sidelines of the multilateral Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, in March and April 2016, Park joined a trilateral meeting with President Obama and Prime Minister Abe, their first trilateral summit since 2014. The three leaders agreed to strengthen trilateral cooperation on North Korea policy at all levels of government, focusing on ensuring the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, restoring peace and stability to the region, and shining a spotlight on human rights conditions in North Korea.[68] Park and Abe met again in early September, on the sidelines of the ASEAN-related summits in Laos, for the third time in less than a year; discussions were dominated again by consultations on implementing a common and efficient response to counter North Korean threats.[69] The same policy coordination pattern was followed in the autumn after the fifth North Korean nuclear test.[70]

Probably the most relevant achievement in the relations between South Korea and Japan during 2016 has been the signing of the so-called GSOMIA (General Security of Military Information Agreement) on 22 November, an important pact on the sharing of military intelligence information. The negotiation process for the agreement had started in early 2011, but its final ratification had been put on hold by President Lee Myung-bak, in June 2012 because of domestic political and social opposition, including within his own party.[71] During the first three years of Park Geun-hye’s presidency, the negative state of relations between Seoul and Tokyo virtually froze every possibility of restoring the process. The rapprochement started in the final weeks of 2015, and the rediscovered cooperation in 2016 gave new momentum to negotiations. On 27 October, Seoul announced its plan to reopen the process and, after less than one month, the final agreement was signed and ratified.[72] On 16 December, the agreement yielded its first practical results when the two parties directly exchanged classified information on North Korean nuclear and missile programmes for the first time.[73]

The improvements in relations between South Korea and Japan during 2016 is certainly an important development for Seoul’s foreign policy, but one can legitimately ask if it will be a long-lasting one. The growing provocations from Pyongyang, the cooling of relations with Beijing and, above all, the pressure from Washington, which considers the creation of a united front of allies in East Asia as a top priority, combined to enhance the rapprochement between Seoul and Tokyo.[74] Unfortunately, within the country, historical memories of the brutal Japanese occupation still linger, making a consensus on the chance of friendly relations with Japan unreliable. The solution of the domestic political crisis and the election of a new President, together with possible changes in regional dynamics, might challenge this rapprochement in the near future.

4.3. The consequences of nuclear tests for North Korean foreign policy

The events that characterised 2016 also had a strong impact on North Korea’s foreign relations. On the one hand, their main result has been an increase in the country’s isolation following condemnation of the tests and the new rounds of sanctions approved by the UN Security Council. At the same time, however, 2016 can be considered a positive year for relations between Pyongyang and Beijing. As previously noted, the US, together with South Korea, put a lot of effort into trying to tighten sanctions against North Korea, both in unilateral and multilateral terms. In addition to the sanctions against nuclear and missile tests, Washington decided in July to impose its own unilateral sanctions against Kim Jong Un for being responsible for human rights abuses and violations, together with 14 high officials. The restrictive measures were mainly financial.[75] The move from the American government was probably related to the fact that, in February, the UN Human Rights Council officially stated that Kim could have been personally accused and prosecuted for human rights abuses;[76] the following month, the same Council set up a group of independent experts to study how to bring to justice perpetrators of crimes against humanity in North Korea.[77] The immediate retaliation from Pyongyang to the American decision was to «totally cut off» any communication between the North Korean and the US mission in the UN, closing the only diplomatic channel still open between the two countries.[78]

The final step in the return of the ‘old normal’ in relations between the two Koreas and the external powers concerns North Korea and China. The nuclear and missile tests of 2016 also raised concerns and condemnation in Beijing, which considers the stability of its border on the Yalu River a security priority. China joined the rest of the members of the Security Council in approving the two resolutions – 2270 and 2321 – after the fourth and fifth nuclear tests, but at the same time emphasised the need to address the issue not only through sanctions, but also through dialogue and negotiations. On 1 June, President Xi Jinping met the North Korean delegation led by Ri Su Yong. Ri delivered a message from Kim Jong Un to Xi in which the North Korean leader expressed his hope of working with China and strengthening the bilateral traditional friendship.[79] The meeting represented a slight thaw in relations between the two neighbours.

But even more than the traditional friendship and alliance or the formal common ideology, the factor that could improve relations between Beijing and Pyongyang came in July, with the agreement to deploy THAAD. As noted above, besides the military and strategic risks which the agreement implied for China, it represented a clear signal that South Korea was fully realigning with the US. Moreover, the agreement with Japan, in November, reinforced the idea of a resurgence of a Cold War-style Southern Alliance.

5. The economy

5.1. South Korean economy: between slow growth and crisis

The crisis that hit South Korea during 2016 also had repercussions for the economy of the country. One of the main sources of concern for Park Geun-hye’s government since its inauguration in 2013 had been to cope with the slowing growth of the country. During her first three years in office, the South Korean economy grew between 2.6% and 3.3%, well below the 4/5% levels of the previous decade. The export-oriented model that led South Korea out of poverty during the Seventies and Eighties started to appear inadequate for the sustained growth of a fully developed industrial country. After recovering from the 1997 economic and financial crisis, the development model of South Korea began to be challenged from both outside and inside. The over-reliance on exports for economic growth became a liability because of the growth of global competition, especially from China, in sectors such as electronic, cars and shipbuilding, which had been the most prominent Korean exports in the last two decades. In 2015, 45.9% of South Korea’s GDP was due to exports, down from a peak of 56% in 2012 but still much higher than other countries in the region, such as Japan and China.[80] At the same time, the industrial system based on a small number of big conglomerates – chaebols – with enormous economic power started to create economic problems and social frictions. The South Korean public started to question the role of these conglomerates because of the constant corruption and bribery scandals that involved economic and political power.

Both these challenges to the economic model of the country came to the forefront in 2016. Three of the most important industrial conglomerates suffered a major crisis in the second half of the year. Between late August and early September, one of the most important shipping companies worldwide and the biggest in South Korea, Hanjin Shipping, went bankrupt and filed for court protection to get permission to dock its ships and unload its cargos. After several days of uncertainty and confusion, the vessels were finally allowed access to ports in the US, China, Singapore and other countries, thanks to the intervention of the South Korean government.[81] The Hanjin Group mobilised around US$ 100 million, combining the personal wealth of Hanjin Shipping chairmen and a loan from Korean Air, part of the same conglomerate, while the state-owned Korean Development Bank offered a credit line of US$ 45 million to help in the emergency situation.[82] The Hanjin crisis reflects most of the recent problems of South Korean family-owned large conglomerates. The problems in the industrial sector, squeezed between over-capacity problems and growing global competition, caught Hanjin Shipping management, dominated by the founder’s heirs and family without any specific expertise or understanding of the industry, totally unprepared and led to the outbreak of the crisis.

In September, the two biggest South Korean conglomerates, Hyundai and Samsung, faced serious problems that caused a further slowdown of the national economy. During the summer, unionised workers at Hyundai Motors – the carmaker branch of the conglomerate – started a series of partial strikes in a long and complicated negotiation with the company’s management over wages. On 26 September, the workers staged the first full time nationwide strike in the last 12 years, clearly signalling their discontent over the issue and causing a serious loss of production for Hyundai.[83] The situation was partially resolved during October, when the company reached a tentative wage pact with labour unions after 24 rounds of strikes;[84] but the months of turmoil among its workers caused a significant loss of output and profit.[85]

Also Samsung, the biggest chaebol and the symbol of South Korean economic growth in recent years, faced very serious problems in the last months of 2016. At the beginning of August, Samsung Electronics presented the new smartphone Galaxy Note 7, which went on sale on 19 August. Soon after the launch, the first reports of battery explosions emerged, forcing the company to recall 2.5 million phones. Meanwhile, the US Federal Aviation Administration and Consumer Product Safety Commission started to advise passengers and customers about the risks of using the Galaxy Note 7.[86] Samsung tried to cope with this global image damage by replacing the batteries in the recalled phones and temporarily suspending sales. After several reassurances on the safety of the new batteries by the company, the new phones returned for sale on 1 October. Unfortunately for Samsung, however, the explosions continued with the new devices and, on 6 October, a Southwest Airlines plane in the US was evacuated due to smoke on board from a Galaxy Note 7. After these additional accidents, the company decided to permanently halt sales and production and asked customers to stop using the phones.[87] The Galaxy Note 7 crisis hit the most lucrative branch of the Samsung group hard, in terms of both profit and image. The total cost for the recall and for discontinuing the product has been estimated to be around US$ 5.3 billion, greatly affecting the company’s profit for the last part of the year.[88] In addition to the financial costs, the crisis affected the image of Samsung and of South Korean products in general, due to the role that the company has achieved in recent years as a symbol of the country’s export products and the success of its industrial production.[89]

These serious crises, involving three of the most important players in the South Korean economy, clearly show the impact of chaebols on the overall status of the country’s economy and how it still depends on them for growth. In addition to the economic aspects, the probable involvement of the country’s leading industrial conglomerates in the scandal that led to the impeachment of President Park has also undermined South Korean public opinion and trust in the chaebol-based system as a vehicle not only for the country’s growth, but also for the upward social mobility of the population.

5.2. North Korean economy: stable despite sanctions

During 2016, several events could have had a strong impact on the North Korean economy. The two nuclear tests and the long series of missile launches led to the approval of two new rounds of sanctions from the United Nations Security Council, while many other countries worldwide launched new and harsher unilateral sanctions. Despite these efforts to punish the regime for its provocative behaviour, the North Korean economy remained in a fairly stable condition during 2016 compared to previous years.[90] The estimated growth rate of the country during Kim Jong Un’s first five years, according to the Bank of Korea, has ranged around 1%, with the exception of 2015 when it fell by 1.1%.[91] Given the total lack of economic statistics by the government, these estimates are often uncertain. Many analysts consider the data from the Bank of Korea often too conservative and estimate the real growth rate for 2015 to be between 3 and 4%.[92] According to the Hyundai Research Institute, for example, in 2015 North Korea per capita GDP surpassed US$ 1000 for the first time, reaching US$ 1013, with an increase of more than US$ 80 per capita compared to the previous year.[93] The difficulties in finding reliable data and processing them in order to obtain statistical indicators that can give an idea of the overall situation of the country is one of the main obstacles in the evaluation of the North Korean economy. Nonetheless, the relative stability of the foreign exchange market and of the prices of basic food supplies suggests that the sanctions did not have a major impact on the country’s economy. Also, trade with China remained at similar levels compared to previous years.[94] Beijing’s decision to ban imports of coal from North Korea for the last three weeks of 2016, from 11 December to the end of the year, did not have a real effect on the exchange between the two countries, but it might signal the will of the Chinese leadership to use this economic leverage to exert an influence over North Korea in the future.

 

 

Taiwan 2012-2016: From consolidation to the collapse of cross-strait rapprochement

Available also in pdf – Download Pdf –

From 2012 to 2016, the relation between Mainland China and Taiwan saw landmark achievements and underwent profound shockwaves. During the second term of President Ma Ying-jeou, China and Taiwan reached the zenith of a process of cross- Strait rapprochement. This process began in 2008, as Ma and General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and President of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Xi Jinping met in Singapore on 7 November 2015. This was the first meeting between the leaders of the two Chinas since 1949. The process itself was brought to an abrupt end by elections held in the Republic of China (ROC) on 16 January 2016. In this election, the presidential candidate of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Tsai Ing-wen, became president and her party obtained for the first time a majority in the Legislative Yuan (LY). Tsai’s refusal to accept the existing «1992 Consensus» between the CCP and the Kuomintang (KMT), which posits the existence of One China, including both the Mainland and Taiwan, led cross-Strait relations towards a phase of renewed tensions, as the PRC froze relations with Taipei’s new administration. On 2 December 2016, the phone conversation between President Tsai and US President-Elect Donald J. Trump certified the fracture between Beijing and Taipei. In Taiwan, unsatisfactory economic performances, social discontent and intra-party fighting marred Ma’s second term, facilitating the DPP’s sweeping victory in the 2016 elections. Long-standing structural imbalances and the freezing of the relations with China, however, complicated Tsai’s plans for reinvigorating Taiwan’s economy during her first months in office. In regional politics, Taiwan attempted to «punch above its weight» in the international sovereignty disputes occurring in the East China Sea and in the South China Sea, which involve areas claimed by the ROC. Although Ma’s «Peace Initiatives» were effectively ignored by the international community, Taiwan was nevertheless able to sign a successful fishery agreement with Japan, which effectively shelved the dispute in the East China Sea. Nonetheless, tensions remained high in the South China Sea up to 2016, as President Tsai pursued a less accommodating and more assertive policy concerning sovereignty disputes.

* Key terms and expressions are reported in English followed by a transcription in Chinese characters. Traditional characters are used for terms and statements drawn from Taiwanese sources, while simplified characters are used for terms and statements drawn from PRC’s sources. Given the lack of a standardised system for proper nouns in Taiwan, people’s names and place names are transliterated either in Wade-Giles or in Gwoyeu Romatzyh, following their most common usage. Proper nouns from the PRC are transliterated in Hanyu Pinyin.

1. Introduction

This essay explores the developments which occurred in the ROC in the fields of cross-Strait relations, domestic and regional politics, and domestic economy within the broader context of the rapprochement process that characterised the relations between Taipei and Beijing in the first half of the 2010s. As such, it covers the period between 2012 to 2016, encompassing the second term of President Ma Ying-jeou and the first year in office of President Tsai Ing-wen. While throughout most of Ma’s second term, between 2012 and 2015, cross-Strait relations underwent a process of consolidation, they faced a rapid collapse under President Tsai.
After an introductory section providing the necessary context for the process of cross-Strait rapprochement which occurred during Ma’s first term, the second, third and fourth sections provide an in-depth analysis of cross- Strait relations in chronological order. Section two covers the developments between 2012 and 2014, section three covers 2015 and section four 2016. The fifth section gives an account of the developments which unfolded in Taiwanese domestic politics between 2012 and 2016. Against the backdrop of cross-Strait and domestic politics, the sixth section provides a bird’s-eye view of the major trends in Taiwan’s domestic economy and an analysis of the economic policies of the Ma and Tsai administrations in the same period. Finally, section seven covers the ROC’s role in the sovereignty disputes over the East China Sea and the South China Sea which have affected the stability of Asia-Pacific in recent years.

1.2. The bedrock of cross-Strait rapprochement: the 1992 Consensus and the Economic Framework Comprehensive Agreement

Cross-Strait relations between 2012 and 2016 responded to a dynamic shaped by two key factors. The first is the polarisation of Taiwan’s domestic politics along the axis of the so-called «1992 Consensus» ( ) existing between Taiwan’s Kuomintang (KMT) and Mainland’s Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The second is the economic and political impact caused by the signing of the Economic Comprehensive Framework Agreement (ECFA) between Beijing and Taipei in June 2010. The «1992 Consensus» posits that «the Mainland and Taiwan both belong to One China» ( ). While both the KMT and the CCP agree on this point, the KMT has maintained a distinctive understanding of the Consensus – defined as «One China, respective interpretations» ( ) – in order to stress Taipei’s claim as the legitimate government of China. Even though Chinese authorities do not endorse the KMT’s formulation of the Consensus, they do not challenge its use either.[1] Building upon this shared position, the two parties have enhanced cooperation, since 2005 at the party-level, and, later, during Ma Ying-jeou’s two terms in office (20 May 2008 – 20 May 2016), at a cross-Strait level.[2] The two parties, however, maintained different understandings of the implications of the Consensus. Mainly because of weak popular support for unification among the Taiwanese, the KMT has generally understood it as an instrument to uphold the political status quo across the Strait while deepening economic ties with the Mainland to Taiwan’s advantage. This approach is exemplified by Ma Ying-jeou’s «three noes policy» ( ), proposed during the 2008 presidential election campaign: «no to unification (with the Mainland), no to independence, no to the use of military force» ( ).[3] Conversely, Beijing has grown to interpret the Consensus as a platform to enhance future negotiations for a peace treaty and political talks aimed at unifying China.[4] In opposition to both the KMT and the CCP, Taiwan’s DPP has consistently refused the «One China principle» ( ) as it goes against the sovereignty-affirming tenets of the party.[5]
The opposing views of Taiwan’s two major parties on the Consensus, in turn, shaped their respective approaches to economic integration with the Mainland. Following KMT’s sweeping victory in the 2008 presidential election and the resuming of cross-Strait dialogues, Taipei and Beijing signed the ECFA in June 2010.[6] The agreement outlined a framework for promoting investments and liberalising market access for trade in goods and services across the strait. Moreover, it provided a roadmap and negotiating mechanisms to reach further major agreements on service trade, merchandise trade, trade dispute settlement and investment protection.[7] Signed under the aegis of the 1992 Consensus and KMT-CCP cooperation, the ECFA inevitably charged the issue of cross-Strait economic integration with strong political overtones.
The DPP resolutely opposed the agreement, criticising the impact of liberalisations on Taiwan’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the short and medium-term, and especially the possible constraints to the political autonomy of the island in the long-term.[8] However, because of the weak popular support for the DPP’s campaign against the ECFA in the build-up to the 2012 presidential election, the DPP candidate Tsai Ing-wen shifted the focus of her campaign back to the 1992 Consensus and KMT’s China policy. She proposed a new, broader and democratically approved framework to build a new relation with Beijing, dubbed the «Taiwan Consensus» ( ).[9] China’s predictable refusal of the DPP’s alternative framework signalled that the 2012 presidential election was a decisive crossroad for cross-Strait relations.

2. Cross-Strait Relations between 2012 and 2014: tense undercurrents beneath a process of consolidation

On 14 January 2012, incumbent President Ma defeated DPP candidate Tsai in the presidential election, even though his victory margin substantially shrank compared to the 2008 triumph.[10] The DPP’s failure to clearly articulate a model of effective cross-Strait relations as an alternative to KMT’s (founded on the 1992 Consensus) was a key factor in its electoral defeat. KMT’s victory ensured the stability and consolidation of cross-Strait relations and, in the aftermath of Ma’s success, both Beijing and Taipei pledged to prioritise the signing and implementation of the ECFA followup agreements. The Director of the PRC’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), Wang Yi, articulated China’s post-election Taiwan agenda via a number of articles and statements disseminated on Chinese media outlets during 2012. In his New Year message to Taiwanese «compatriots» ( ), Wang ensured Taiwanese SMEs, fishermen, farmers and grass-root people that economic integration with the Mainland would benefit them.[11] In April, at the 2012 Boao Forum for Asia, Wang coupled a pledge to conclude the ECFA follow-up agreements with a call to deepen «political mutual trust» ( ) across the strait.[12] In an article published the same month for the CCP political theory magazine Qiushi, the TAO Director argued that cross- Strait relations had entered a new stage of «consolidation and deepening» ( ).[13] In this new context, Wang submitted two proposals. Firstly, both parties needed to establish a clearer «common understanding and a unanimous position» on the One China principle; secondly, both parties needed to conclude the ECFA follow-up agreements «as soon as possible» to provide tangible benefits to the Taiwanese people.[14] Thus, they would eventually identify their «vital interests and career developments» with the progress of cross-Strait relations.[15] Finally, in another article in Qiushi, published in October 2012, Wang framed the themes of his Taiwan agenda with a major emphasis on the issues of unification and of Taiwan’s role within the Chinese project of national rejuvenation initiated under the new administration of Xi Jinping.[16] A recurrent theme in Wang’s 2012 statements was the fact that KMT’s last two electoral victories in 2008 and in January 2012 created a historical «opportunity» ( ) for the enhancement of cross- Strait relations. While carefully worded to avoid overt criticisms in Taiwan, Wang’s statements showed Beijing’s intentions to move beyond a relation mainly driven by the ECFA-sanctioned process of economic integration and towards a more explicit political dimension. President Ma Ying-jeou’s post-election statements were, however, more cautious. After a widely criticised comment on the possibility of a peace agreement with the PRC in November 2011, in February Ma affirmed that peace across the strait could be institutionalised without a formal agreement.[17] Months later, during the inauguration speech for his second term, delivered on 21 May 2012, Ma conditioned the signing and implementation of the ECFA follow-up agreements only on a pledge to pursue a broader economic agenda. This included further economic cooperation agreements with New Zealand and Singapore and the negotiations to access the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).[18]

The contrast between Wang Yi’s bold agenda and Ma Ying-jeou’s cautious approach reflected the persistence of different views on the political implications of economic integration under the ECFA in Beijing and Taipei after the election. However, in Ma’s case, the more muted tone also reflected the persistence of wariness for a deeper engagement with China among the Taiwanese public (on this, see below, section 6). Cross-Strait pledges for enhancing economic integration during Ma’s second term, in fact, failed to fully realise. In the period between 2012 and 2014, Beijing and Taipei reached and put into effect only one of the four major ECFA follow-up agreements: the Cross-Strait Investment Protection and Promotion Agreement (CSIPPA).[19] After this minor success, the process of economic integration suffered a heavy blow following the failure to pass the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement (CSSTA) in the Legislative Yuan (LY), namely the unicameral Parliament of Taiwan. Signed by both parties in Shanghai in June 2013, the CSSTA aimed at opening 80 market segments in China and liberalising 64 industries in Taiwan in the SMEs-dominated core sector of the island’s economy.[20] The signing of the CSSTA raised concerns on the possibly disruptive impact of the liberalisations upon the Taiwanese economy and on its questionable immediate benefits. For instance, a report by the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research issued in July 2013, credited the CSSTA for a very limited 0.02 – 0.03% boost to the island’s GDP.[21] At the same time, a number of polls conducted since the signing of the agreement showed consistent public opposition to it.[22] Within this heated context, the alignment with the DPP by KMT LY Speaker Wang Jinpyng, who had been locked into a feud with President Ma since September, played a key role in halting the CSSTA. Wang’s decision to grant an articleby- article review of the agreement, together with the scheduling of 16 public hearings throughout the LY’s second 2013 session and first 2014 session, delayed the CSSTA review process to be held in the Internal Administration Committee until March 2014.[23] Following further DPP obstructionist tactics in the committee, on 17 March 2014 KMT co-convener Chang Chingchung took the unilateral decision to pass the CSSTA to the LY plenary session without the committee actually deliberating on it.[24] Chang’s decision ignited wide popular protests which coalesced into the «Sunflower Student Movement» ( ).

Taiwanese students occupied the LY from 18 March until 10 April, stormed the Executive Yuan (EY) building on 23 March, and organised mass protests in front of the Presidential Office Building on 30 March.[25] The Sunflower Movement rapidly shifted the focus of its protests from the hasty review process of the CSSTA to the broader issue of the LY’s oversight powers on cross-Strait agreements. This shift reflected a widespread perception that, due to the «black box» ( ) nature of KMT-CCP relations, democratic accountability had been consistently side-lined in the previous negotiations with Beijing.[26] The fate of the agreement was decided in April 2014: the DPP obstructed new KMT attempts to resume the work of the Internal Administration Committee at the beginning of the month, and later it halted the committee hearings on a cross-Strait agreement oversight bill proposed by the EY in order to pander the protesters.[27] By summer 2014, it was clear that the CSSTA would remain a dead letter. Even though Beijing’s reactions were far from being inflammatory, the TAO repeatedly addressed the delays in the CSSTA review process throughout 2013 and, crucially, refused to renegotiate the agreement in accordance with the requests of the DPP and the Sunflower Movement.[28] With the CSSTA stranded in the LY, the other ECFA follow-up agreements on trade and trade dispute suffered a similar fate.[29] Ultimately, the CSSTA reified and amplified the wariness of the Taiwanese public towards the entire process of engagement with the Mainland, envisioned by the KMT since its return to power in 2008. More broadly, the agreement became a conduit for the widespread popular discontent after the global financial crisis in 2008, which had disproportionately affected the youngest and poorest sections of Taiwanese society.

New tensions between Beijing and Taipei emerged once again as early as 2 September 2014, when President Ma expressed his support for universal suffrage in Hong Kong, after the decision by China’s National People’s Congress to screen candidates for the Legislative Council and for the position of Chief Executive and the emergence of the Umbrella Movement ( ) protests.[30] Against the backdrop of rising tensions in Hong Kong and of Ma’s endorsement of universal suffrage in the former British colony, on 26 September Xi Jinping reaffirmed that the final aim of China’s Taiwan policy remained unification under the «one country, two systems» ( ) framework applied in Hong Kong and Macao. Ma’s spokesperson firmly rebutted Xi’s statement and on 10 October the President himself expressed further support for the democratic protests in Hong Kong in his «Proud of Taiwan, Proud of Our Democracy» ( ) address.[31] Ma’s vocal support for the protesters in Hong Kong was no surprise, as Taiwanese public opinion had been sympathetic to the struggles of Hong Kong’s people since the handover of the former British colony to China in 1997. In fact, Taiwanese public opinion had been seeing Hong Kong’s fate as a cautionary tale on the implications of reunification with the Mainland. Moreover, Ma’s predicament was further complicated by the strong public reaction to his administration’s Mainland policy after the signing of the CSSTA a few months earlier.

Conversely, Xi’s remarks on eventual reunification under the «one country, two systems» framework reflected Beijing’s deep concern over the political implications of the March-April 2014 popular protests. Throughout the unfolding of the CSSTA debacle, Beijing appeared to equate any opposition to the agreement as support for Taiwan’s independence. In doing so, it conflated the diverse aims and agendas of the Sunflower Movement and of the DPP into a single independence camp.[32] Against the backdrop of the protests in Hong Kong, Xi’s «reminder» signalled that China would not tolerate a linkage between the independence movements in Taiwan and the emerging ones in Hong Kong. Even though the ECFA follow-up agreements stalled, Beijing and Taipei were nonetheless able to progressively intensify and upgrade their communication channels and cooperation and achieve remarkable results. With Beijing’s consent, Taiwan (as «Chinese Taipei») was able to participate as «guest» to the 38th Assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) – a UN specialised agency – held in Montreal on 24 September 2013.[33] Taiwan’s participation in the ICAO Assembly was the signal of major developments in cross-Strait relations occurring between the two ministerial-level agencies of the two sides, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council and China’s TAO. In April 2013, one of the most senior KMT leaders, Vincent Siew (Siew Wan-chang), met Xi Jinping at the Boao Forum, where they both expressed Taiwan’s and China’s commitment to accelerate progress in the ECFA follow-up negotiations.[34] Later in October, on the side lines of the APEC 2013 meeting in Bali, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairman Wang Yu-chi met new TAO Director Zhang Zhijun, and the two addressed each other with their respective titles. A few days later, on 16 October, Wang stated that both sides agreed to conduct reciprocal visits.[35] He proceeded then to visit Zhang Zhijun in Nanjing on 11 February 2014, in the «first meeting between the heads of the competent authorities for cross-Strait affairs».[36]

Whilst Wang’s visit constituted an achievement for both Taipei and Beijing, limitations imposed by both sides on the content of the meeting significantly reduced its scope. Unconfirmed reports from Taipei hinted that the Ma administration consented to Beijing’s requests to avoid a range of topics («politics, the Republic of China and anything related to human rights, democracy, rule of law and the use of the word ‘president’») ( ; ).[37] A legislative resolution of the LY, in response, forbade Wang from signing documents or issuing joint statements that would hurt the ROC’s sovereignty.[38] Under such a restricted agenda, the two ministers only reiterated the key role of the 1992 Consensus as the «common foundation» ( ) of the development of cross-Strait relations, and discussed the possibility for SEF and ARATS to create reciprocal permanent missions in each other’s territory.[39] Zhang Zhijun’s own visit to Taiwan, originally planned for April 2014, was postponed to June in light of the public protests over the CSSTA, but it was still marred by local protests.[40] Moreover, while never publicly acknowledged by either side, the implications of the CSSTA debacle also affected the proposed SEF-ARATS plan to establish reciprocal permanent missions in their respective territories. In fact, China refused Taiwan’s request to grant SEF representatives the right to visit jailed Taiwanese citizens in the Mainland.[41] Retrospectively, even if the Zhang-Wang meetings did not unlock the stalled process of economic integration, they successfully projected the necessary inter-governmental dimension to the relations between Beijing and Taipei, laying the foundations for the Xi-Ma «leaders meeting» to be held in Singapore the following year.

3. 2015: the end of an era and the Xi-Ma meeting in Singapore

Within the context of cross-Strait relations, 2015 was a year marked both by historical achievements and by the progressive reckoning that the era of cross-Strait rapprochement was drawing to an end. President Ma’s abysmal approval ratings and KMT’s heavy defeat in the Taiwanese local elections held in November 2014 certified the weakness of the incumbent administration in Taipei and foreshadowed a DPP victory in the presidential election the following year.[42] The new downbeat climate of cross-Strait relations was evident in TAO Director Zhang Zhijun’s New Year message to the Taiwanese, issued on 20 January 2015. In it, Zhang auspicated a year of stability, development and benefits for the Taiwanese people, while acknowledging the difficulties encountered in 2014.[43] Zhang’s message was in evident contrast with Wang Yi’s lofty expectations for cross-Strait relations after Ma’s victory in the 2012 presidential election: there was no mention of historical opportunities to grasp in order to develop the relations, and no mention of the ECFA follow-up agreements. In fact, Chinese calls for stability masked the concern for the future course of relations with Taiwan. This new predicament, in turn, triggered not-so-veiled threats by Mainland China to the Taiwanese opposition parties. During a session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference held in early March, Xi Jinping reiterated that the 1992 Consensus and the One China principle were the «foundation» ( ) of the cross-Strait relations, ominously adding that «if the foundation is not firm, the earth will move and the mountains will shake» ( ).[44] The difficult moment in Mainland-Taiwan relations was confirmed by the first speech of the new MAC Chairman Andrew Hsia’s (Hsia Li-yan) to the LY on 9 March. Asked to comment on a declaration by senior KMT figure Gao Yu-ren about the need to start political talks with the Mainland and go beyond the 1992 Consensus, Hsia admitted that no widely supported agreement had yet been reached in Taiwan on the 1992 Consensus. Moreover, Gao also admitted that there was not sufficient «reciprocal trust» ( ) between the two sides of the Strait to enhance the relations towards political talks.[45] Compared to Wang Yi’s call to deepen mutual political trust in early 2012,[46] Hsia’s comment was a measure of the disappointing trajectory of cross-Strait relations.

Between March and April 2015, another fiasco in cross-Strait relations rapidly unfolded, as Beijing rejected Taiwan’s application to the new Chinaled Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the multilateral institution that together with the «One Belt, One Road» project testified to China’s new aspirations of regional and global leadership under Xi Jinping.[47] On 19 March 2015, the ROC Finance Minister Chang Sheng-ford stated that Taiwan was willing to join the AIIB.[48] Taiwan submitted a letter of intent to join the institution on the final day for applications, intending to apply under the moniker «Chinese Taipei».[49] However, Chinese authorities insisted that Taiwan follow the same application procedure of Hong Kong, and apply under the «appropriate» name, even though they never specified it. Later, in April 2016, ROC Finance Minister Chang admitted that the outgoing Ma administration considered Taiwan’s application to the AIIB. Most likely, the PRC’s rigid approach to Taiwan’s AIIB application has to be framed within a «soft» retaliatory strategy that Beijing had begun pursuing since the CSSTA debacle, as in the case of the failed SEF-ARATS office exchange. In April 2015, the race towards the 2016 presidential election began, with Tsai Ing-wen obtaining for the second time the DPP nomination. Emboldened by the November 2014 sweeping victory in the local elections and Ma’s disastrous approval ratings, Tsai began the campaign as the clear frontrunner. Since her nomination, her main challenge was to elaborate a cross-Strait policy that would avoid alienating the more radical fringes of her party while convincing Beijing that she would not endanger the stability of cross-Strait relations by pursuing an independentist agenda – in other words, that she was not a new Chen Shui-bian.[50]

Since her nomination in April, Tsai shaped her cross-Strait policy around three «foundations» ( ): first, the ROC’s «existing constitutional order» ( ), second, the «accumulated outcomes» ( ) of the previous twenty years of cross-Strait relations, and third the «will of the people» ( ) of Taiwan. However, she stopped short from accepting the 1992 Consensus and the One China principle, which remained Beijing’s sine qua non for managing the relation.[51] Tsai’s strategy inevitably made the 1992 Consensus the focus of the campaign, and exposed her and the DPP to much of the same criticism characterising the 2012 presidential campaign – namely that she was proposing a vaguely defined, unrealistic Mainland policy in contrast with Beijing’s precise requests. This time, however, Tsai could withstand this criticism by pointing out the failure of the ECFA followup agreements, the stalling trajectory in cross-Strait relations, and the unsatisfactory domestic economic performances which had characterised Ma’s second term. Indeed, the poor performances of the Ma administration between 2012 and 2015 left the KMT little room for manoeuvring. On two separate occasions in April and May, outgoing President Ma attempted to defend the Mainland policy of his administration by emphasising the key role of the 1992 Consensus in ensuring «cross-Strait peace and prosperity».[52] Nonetheless, it was new KMT Chairman Eric Chu’s meeting in Beijing with Xi Jinping on 4 May that truly captured the spotlight. Chu publicly reaffirmed the One China principle and reiterated KMT’s commitment to uphold the Consensus. On his part, Xi, echoing previous statements issued in March, remarked that the One China principle and the 1992 Consensus remained the foundation upon which the entirety of cross-Strait relations rested. While Chu’s words outlined a vision for a reconstruction of cross- Strait relations in the future, Xi’s statement clearly addressed the eventuality of a DPP victory, reminding about the negative consequences of a blatant refusal of the Consensus by Tsai.[53]

The threat of a Chinese assertive response to a DPP victory, however, did not affect Tsai’s prospects, and by September 2015 the DPP candidate already showed a solid lead in the polls over KMT presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu. On her part, after being nominated in July, Hung Hsiuchu made the unusual decision to suspend her campaign activities after an ineffective start and numerous negative polls. On 17 October 2015, KMT Chairman and Taipei major Eric Chu substituted Hung as his party’s candidate in the presidential race.[54] At this point, the KMT’s disastrous electoral campaign foreshadowed Tsai’s victory. This being the situation, on 3 November, the TAO and the President spokesperson announced that Xi Jinping and Ma Ying-jeou would attend the first «leaders meeting» since 1949, four days later in Singapore.[55] During the meeting, which was held on 7 November, Xi and Ma reiterated the absolutely central role of the 1992 Consensus and the One China principle for the stability and the development of cross-Strait relations. In addition, Ma explicitly restated Taiwan’s own interpretation of the 1992 Consensus. He also carefully worded the auspice for the broadening of Taiwan’s participation to world politics and the halting of Chinese military exercises directed towards the island.[56] The abrupt announcement, hasty preparation and overall timing of the meeting suggested that it aimed at strengthening KMT’s electoral chances. However, the meeting did not produce any breakthrough either at the diplomatic or at the electoral level. By November 2015 it was already clear that KMT’s hopes for a reversal of fortunes were extremely low: post-meeting polls immediately confirmed that Tsai was still leading over Chu.[57]

The historical significance of the meeting was probably that of offering Ma, after a deeply unpopular presidency, the occasion to build a political legacy and possibly to lay the foundation for a major post-office role in the KMT. Most likely, the meeting constituted both a benchmark against which to assess the developments of future cross-Strait relations under a Tsai presidency, and a base upon which to rebuild the cross-Strait relations under a future KMT administration. As a matter of fact, after the Xi-Ma meeting, Tsai refined her position regarding the 1992 Consensus. In fact, during the 27 December presidential debate, Tsai, without proffering the term, recognised as a «historical fact» ( ) that the KMT and the CCP, during the 1992 Hong Kong meeting had agreed to enhance cross- Strait relations on the basis of a «mutual understanding» ( ) and in the spirit of «seeking common grounds while reserving differences» ( ).[58] By recognising the «historicity» of the Consensus and, thus, its key role in the cross-Strait rapprochement, Tsai got as close as possible for a DPP presidential candidate to ease Beijing’s concern.

4. Cross-Strait relations in 2016: from Tsai Ing-wen’s victory in the presidential elections to the «Trump Call»

The victory of the DPP candidate Tsai-Ing-wen in the 2016 ROC presidential elections upset the delicate balance upon which the cross-Strait rapprochement was construed. After an apparent period of détente between Taipei and Beijing following Tsai’s electoral victory and the power transition in Taiwan, and a phase of mounting PRC pressure on the new administration to recognise the 1992 Consensus, the unexpected phone call between Tsai and the US President-Elect Donald J. Trump on 2 December deepened the disruption of cross-Strait relations and amplified it on a global stage.

4.1. The apparent cross-Strait détente and its swift collapse

Tsai Ing-wen obtained a landslide victory in the presidential election against KMT candidate Eric Chu on 16 January 2016, gaining almost 6.9 million votes (56.1% of the votes), whilst Chu obtained just over 3.8 million votes (31%).[59] For the first time, moreover, the DPP obtained a majority in the LY, winning 68 of the available 113 seats.[60] Tsai’s victory speech was particularly sober and restrained. The President-Elect repeated her preelection commitments to establish «consistent, predictable and sustainable» ( ) cross-Strait relations. These were to be founded upon «the Republic of China constitutional order, the results of cross-strait negotiations interactions and exchanges, democratic principles and the will of the Taiwanese people» ( , , ).[61] Tsai attempted to defuse the existing tensions with Beijing without accepting the latter’s required formulation related to the foundation of cross- Strait relations. The PRC’s response, delivered through a TAO statement and a number of commentaries in the media, was equally restrained. Indeed, in the immediate aftermath of Tsai’s victory speech, there was a tendency by both the Mainland commentators and DPP figures in Taiwan to downplay the importance of cross-Strait relations in determining the election result.[62] At this particular juncture, both sides had indeed interest in emphasising the role of domestic politics in the vote, and thus ignoring the wide popular opposition throughout 2014 against the CSSTA and the process of economic integration with the Mainland. Retrospectively, this probably indicated that for a brief window of time Beijing pondered whether Tsai would change her approach on the 1992 Consensus. Similarly, DPP’s restrained attitude possibly implies that its leadership assumed that there was the possibility to establish a constructive relationship with Beijing. The tipping point of this trend was a post-election interview that Tsai gave to the Taiwanese newspaper Liberty Times on 21 January. She reinstated and expanded her position on the 1992 Consensus by incorporating the «SEFARATS discussions of 1992» and their achievements as an integral part of her approach to cross-Strait policy.[63]

Once again, China’s reactions to the interview appeared relatively positive.[64] However, this apparent cross-Strait détente rapidly showed its first signs of collapse in the following weeks. By March 2015, a number of signals already hinted at the deterioration of cross-Strait relations. On 5 March, President Xi Jinping spoke about cross- Strait relation to a Shanghai delegation at the National People’s Congress, reinstating that «accepting» ( ) the historical fact of the 1992 Consensus and its political implications was the only way to ensure a common political foundation between the two sides and maintain positive interactions.[65] Then, on 17 March, PRC and Gambia jointly announced the resuming of diplomatic relations.[66] Tellingly, it was the first time that a country switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing since Malawi did so in the final months of the Chen Shui-bian administration in January 2008.[67] In addition, breaking with the practice established during the Ma years, Beijing did not invite Taiwanese «quasi-official» figures who would be involved in the Tsai administration at its annual Boao Forum.[68] Beijing sent further ominous signals in April, as media reported multiple cases of forced repatriation and prosecution of Taiwanese citizens allegedly involved in criminal activities from Kenya and Malaysia to the Mainland.[69] Finally, on 12 April, Taiwan’s Tourism Bureau reported a significant decrease of both individual and group travelling applications from the Mainland between the end of March and the beginning of April.[70] With Tsai’s inaugural address due for 20 May, it was clear that Beijing was employing a wide array of pressure tactics to push the President to publicly acknowledge the 1992 Consensus.

No surprises, however, came from Tsai’s inaugural address on 20 May 2016. The President reiterated her acknowledgment and respect for the «historical fact» that «the two institutions representing each side of Strait» met in 1992 and for the «accumulated outcomes» produced by these meetings. Tsai then reaffirmed once more the four foundations of her cross-Strait policy: the 1992 meetings, the ROC’s existing constitutional order, the negotiation and outcomes of the previous twenty years of cross-Strait relations, and the prevalent will of Taiwanese people.[71] The President neither mentioned nor accepted the 1992 Consensus, but she pointed out that her administration would conduct cross-Strait relations according to both the ROC’s Constitution ( ) and the Act Governing the Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the People of the Mainland Area ( ). Both documents implied, to a certain extent, an acknowledgement of the One China principle.[72] Therefore, once again since her nomination in April, Tsai had slightly and progressively adjusted her cross-Strait rhetoric aiming at convincing Beijing that, short of a public acceptance of the 1992 Consensus and the One China principle, her administration had no intention to alter the status quo and was willing to continue along the path of cross-Strait rapprochement. TAO’s official statement on Tsai’s inaugural address showed a relative appreciation of her acknowledgments of the 1992 SEF-ARATS meetings, but criticised the fact that she did not «explicitly recognise» ( ) the 1992 Consensus and did not «acknowledge» ( ) its «core implications» ( ). Thus, the address was «an incomplete test answer» ( ). The TAO, however, coupled this relatively mild response with the warning that the continuation of the institutionalised channels of communication between the Mainland and Taiwan was subject to the recognition of the One China principle.[73] A few days later, during a press conference on 26 May, TAO Spokesperson Ma Xiaoguang criticised Tsai with harsher tones, this time threatening Taiwan’s access to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).[74] Then, on 25 June 2016, TAO spokesperson An Fengshan confirmed that cross-Strait communication had been halted since 20 May.[75] Throughout the summer, cross-Strait relations were then characterised by three trends: the stop of the existing institutionalised channels at high-levels (although work-level communication continued); the continuing pressure from the Chinese authorities in regards to the acceptance of the 1992 Consensus and the One China principle via a plethora of official statements; and, as a counterbalance, a focus on domestic affairs and a downplaying of the state of cross-Strait relations by President Tsai and her administration.[76]

4.2. Building up pressure on Tsai’s administration

On 23 July 2016, United Daily News reported that former MAC vice- Chairman Lin Chong-pin had received relevant information from two separate sources in Beijing on China’s strategy towards Tsai. According to Lin, Chinese top policy-making circles had come to the conclusion that Tsai would not have changed her position on the Consensus, and, as a consequence, had decided to pursue a long-term «impoverish Taiwan» (reportage, President Tsai, during an interview with the Washington Post, had answered a question regarding the existence of a possible Chinese deadline for accepting the 1992 Consensus. She had stated that: «It isn’t likely that the government of Taiwan will accept a deadline for conditions that are against the will of the people».[78]

Confirming Lin’s theory of an «impoverish Taiwan» strategy, the number of Mainland tourists to the island decreased by 32.4% in the period between May and October 2016.[79] This decrease was in line with Beijing’s preferred use of economic means to reach political objectives, a policy which is generally characterised by the adoption of «informal or indirect measures».[80] Indeed, in the second half of 2016, the PRC pursued an extremely diversified retaliatory tactic towards the Tsai administration. Beijing denied Taiwan’s participation in the 39th ICAO Assembly after having allowed Taiwanese representatives to join the previous one in 2013;[81] it continued the controversial operations of forced repatriations of Taiwanese citizens to the Mainland;[82] and on 24 November 2016, in the port of Hong Kong it seized nine Singaporean Armed Forces Terrex infant carrier vehicles directed to Taiwan as part of the long-established, unofficial military ties between the city-state and the ROC.[83] Finally, the competent PRC’s authorities continued to foster an intricate web of contacts with KMT local administrators, Taiwanese business circles with interests in the Mainland, and even sympathetic youth organisations on the island, in a concerted effort to shift general popular perceptions of the 1992 Consensus and Tsai’s opposition to it.[84] Beijing’s reliance on the KMT for this aim was particularly evident in the party leader’s meeting held on 1 November 2016 in Beijing between Xi Jinping and the new KMT Chairman (and failed presidential candidate) Hung Hsiu-chu. The latter, since her nomination as Chairwoman in March, had pushed for a more marked alignment with Beijing even against the scepticism of certain party circles.[85]

4.3. The «Trump call» and the collapse of the PRC-ROC process of rapprochement

The existing situation was unexpectedly and radically changed by the eventful phone call between US President-Elect Donald J. Trump and Tsai Ing-wen (2 December 2016). The relevance of the «Trump call» has to be assessed within the post-inaugural address deadlock in cross- Strait relations. It is beyond the scope of this essay to analyse the broader political implications of the phone call in the context of the US-PRC relations and East Asian regional politics. Here, instead, the «Trump call» must be assessed in relation to both Taiwanese domestic politics and cross- Strait relations. According to a statement from the President-Elect office, successively deleted, Tsai called Trump, congratulated him on the electoral victory, and shared her views on «the close economic, political and security ties» between Washington and Taipei in a ten-minute conversation. The statement issued by President Tsai’s office also mentioned that the two discussed Taiwan’s economic development and national defence, and that the Taiwanese leader expressed to Trump her hope for the enhancement of «bilateral interactions and liaisons» ( ).[86] The conversation was the first publicly acknowledged communication between a ROC President and a US President or President-Elect since the severing of diplomatic relations in 1979. Trump’s tweets about China on 4 December, however, led to a shift in the perception of the phone call with Tsai. Whilst initial concerns had focused on the Trump administration’s recognition of Taiwan independence and/or the abandonment of the US’s One China policy once in power, the successive tweets of the President- Elect left the impression that Washington’s position on Taiwan would ultimately depend on Beijing’s stances on the sovereignty of the South China Sea and monetary policy.[87]

Within the narrower perspective of cross-Strait relations, the phone call confirmed the complete collapse of the process of rapprochement between the PRC and the ROC, which had started in 2008. China’s Foreign Ministry and former TAO Director Wang Yi immediately defined the episode as a Taiwanese ineffective «petty move» ( ) that could not change international recognition of and support for the One China policy.[88] On 14 December, the TAO spokesperson blamed the Tsai administration for having emboldened the «splittist» political forces on the island and reminded that Taiwan independence was a «dead end» ( ).[89] Beijing tones were further exacerbated by the following announcement that Tsai would conduct a diplomatic tour in Central American and Paraguay with the usual stop-overs in the US. At the same time, Beijing raised the volume of its intimidating and retaliatory tactics: the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) enacted a series of air-sea military drills extremely close to Taiwanese identification zones throughout December;[90] finally, on 26 December it announced to have resumed diplomatic relations with one of the three African countries still recognising the ROC, São Tomé and Príncipe.[91] At the end of the day, the most immediate effect of the Tsai- Trump call seems to have been a further hardening of Beijing’s posture vis-à-vis Taipei and the prospect of a durable deadlock of cross-Strait relations.

Such outcome leads to the question of why the Tsai administration took the decision to call Trump. The answer seems to be that this decision resulted from two converging forces: the Tsai administration’s conviction, likely emerged between late May and late July, that there was no room left for cooperation with Beijing; and an autonomous initiative taken by certain influential Republican figures near Trump. More specifically, Tsai and her administration reached the conclusion that there was no room left for cooperation with Beijing only a few months after the electoral victory. This predicament pushed Tsai to gambit on a Trump presidency in order to break the deadlock in cross-Strait relations. This was coupled with the fact that, according to a number of reports, the DPP administration and several Republican figures close to Trump had been working on the phone call at least since October 2015. Foremost among them was Edwin Feulner, the founder of the American conservative think-tank Heritage Foundation, later indicated by Taiwanese media as the key figure in planning the phone call. He led a delegation to Taiwan in the very month of October and met President Tsai. In addition to Feulner, Tsai and the DPP could count on the pre-existing solid relations with figures within or close to the Trump transition team.[92] Once this has been said, it is necessary to point out that, beyond the immediate euphoria for having put Taiwan back in the spotlight of world politics and obtaining a renewed international relevance, the results achieved with this move remain questionable. The phone call damaged Tsai’s credibility as a reliable partner in the eyes of Beijing, whilst there is no evidence that the coming Trump administration will change the fundamental tenets of the US’s Taiwan policy. In fact, in light of Trump’s tweets on 4 December, and, more broadly, of the «transactional» logic that seems to inform his conception of diplomacy, Tsai’s gambit may have even exposed Taiwan to the risk of being turned into a bargaining chip in a dangerous game between the US and China.[93] The Tsai administration’s firm refusal to accept the 1992 Consensus and the One China principle remains the most immediate reason for the collapse of cross-Strait relations after an eight-year phase of enhancement and consolidation which had produced landmark results. This is, indeed, the PRC’s position on the issue, and Beijing has repeatedly pointed out that the solution to the current deadlock is exclusively in the hands of President Tsai.

In fact, this is a rather self-serving claim, because Beijing, as the stronger partner in the PRC-ROC relationship, has been defining the framework of the relations since 2008. Accordingly, the ultimate cause for the current deadlock is its lack of flexibility in responding and adapting to the political developments of Taiwan’s democracy. The PRC remained inactive between 2013 and 2014, refusing to renegotiate the CSSTA even though it was clear that the agreement had not been well received by the Taiwanese public. Furthermore, KMT’s intra-party feuds exposed its passage in the LY to the effective obstructionist tactics of the DPP – even though the CSSTA was a key component in the strategy of national unification via economic integration. In addition, Beijing continued to assume a rigid posture towards Tsai throughout 2015, when it was increasingly clear that KMT was proceeding towards an electoral catastrophe in January 2016. Moreover, for more than a year, namely in the period between Tsai’s nomination as DPP presidential candidate in April 2015 and her inaugural address in May 2016, Beijing refused to acknowledge both her slow but progressive adjustments in regards to the 1992 Consensus and the One China principle, and the numerous reassurances she was sending on the issue of Taiwan independence. Instead, PRC’s authorities decided to implement subtle but easily noticeable pressure tactics to force Tsai to an unrealistic about-face on cross-Strait policy. Within this context, the Tsai-Trump call was the unpredictable outcome of Beijing’s risky strategy to corner Tsai.

Ultimately, the PRC’s policy towards Taiwan between 2012 and 2016 was in line with the assertive posture that the former country pursued in East Asia during the same period. In regards to Taiwan, the PRC’s assertiveness hints at a deep-seated conviction among Beijing’s top policy-making circles that there was no more reason to «hide strength and bide time» ( ) and that the country must «strive for achievements» ( ) in order to fulfil the «China Dream of a Chinese national rejuvenation» ( ), an enterprise to which national unification with Taiwan is of supreme importance.[94] In other words, Beijing believes that national unification can be reached more rapidly through a direct confrontation with a DPP administration – even at the price of a temporary freezing of the bilateral relations – rather than by tolerating a protraction of the existing status quo across the Strait during the Tsai presidency.

5. Taiwanese politics in 2012-2016: KMT’s woes, DPP’s identity-affirming policies and a newcomer in the LY

The key developments regarding Taiwanese domestic politics in the context of cross-Strait relations between 2012 and 2016 have been explored in the previous sections of this essay. Consequently, this section mostly focuses on the intra-party developments of the major political forces on the island. KMT suffered heavy and repeated blows to its political credibility among the Taiwanese public during this period. The woes characterising Ma’s second term originated in the unsolved contradictions between KMT’s «Mainlander» ( ) elites on the one hand, and the party’s, Taiwanese «nativist» ( ) grass-root faction on the other.[95] Historically, the party’s factional tensions had repeatedly surfaced at critical junctures, taking the shape of leadership crises. The most recent of these crises contraposed the «Mainlander» Party Chairman and ROC President Ma Ying-jeou against the «nativist» former LY Speaker Wang Jin-pyng between the mid-2000s and the mid-2010s.[96] Tensions between Ma and Wang threatened to split the KMT during the nomination of the 2008 presidential candidate, and remained high during Ma’s two terms in office, as Wang used his speakership and the considerable power base he built throughout the 2000s to undermine the agenda of the President and his government. The tension between Ma and Wang erupted in September 2013, when the Ma faction attempted to expel the LY Speaker from the party and revoke his speakership following an influence peddling investigation.[97] As Wang regained the party membership and the role of Speaker after a court injunction, he played a key role in the sinking of the CSSTA in the LY and in the negotiations with the Sunflower Student Movement. As explored in the following section of this essay, the weakness, divisions and scarce party discipline showed by the KMT majority in the LY between 2012 and 2015 became a major factor in hindering the economic policy initiatives of the Ma administration.

The consequences of this negative political performance, however, extended beyond the national theatre and rippled into local politics. In fact, the KMT encountered the worst electoral result of its history in the local elections of November 2014, when it lost four of the six municipalities to the DPP, and Taipei to a DPP-backed independent candidate.[98] The convergence of the 2014 electoral defeat, Ma’s retirement from politics under a shadow and Wang’s own marginalisation in the party after the September 2013 events, convinced the remaining major figures in the party, such as the new Chairman Eric Chu, to avoid seeking the nomination for an election considered lost before its start. From this stalemate emerged an unlikely fringe candidate such as Hung Hsiu-chu, known for her extreme pro-Beijing leanings. Hung’s own ineffective candidature, marked by political gaffes and ill-received comments on national unification, however, lasted only from July until October, when she was supplanted by Chu.

KMT’s grotesquely mismanaged electoral campaign ended up in Tsai Ing-wen’s victory and the DPP’s first ever majority in the LY in January 2016;[99] but the shockwaves in the party continued to be felt in the leadership contest held in March, in which Hung made an unlikely comeback, becoming KMT’s first Chairwoman.[100] Amidst widespread internal oppositions within the left-wing of the KMT, the former presidential candidate pushed for a new, radical «peace platform» ( ). The new platform brought the party’s position on the 1992 Consensus dangerously close to the one sustained by Beijing, by virtually dropping all the traditional references to the «respective interpretations».[101] On 1 November 2016, the Chairwoman reiterated her own «minimal» interpretation of the Consensus by referring exclusively to the One China principle, as agreed in her 1 November 2016 Beijing meeting with Xi Jinping.[102] In light of the recent electoral results and President Tsai’s resilient approval ratings, the KMT’s annus horribilis ended with the concrete risk of being marginalised in Taiwanese national politics, because of its pursuit of the radical pro-unification China policy sponsored by Hung Hsiu-chu. KMT’s woes highlighted, in turn, the DPP’s successes in recent years. The DPP found itself in an unprecedented position of power – holding the presidency, the LY majority, four of the six municipalities (while also endorsing Taipei independent mayor Ko Wen-je) and a majority of lowerlevel local administrations. From this position of strength, the DPP sought to produce lasting changes in Taiwanese society and especially on the perceptions of the island’s recent history among its inhabitants. On 25 July, the DPP-controlled LY passed the «Act Governing the Handling of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations», specifically designed to target KMT’s properties, obtained during its authoritarian rule on the island. The Act froze the KMT’s bank accounts in September, and sequestered its two holding companies later in November, plunging Hung Hsiu-chu’s party into a dramatic and unexpected liquidity crisis.[103] Constrained by the DPP majority in the LY and widespread popular support for the Act, KMT’s fortunes probably depended on the appeal verdict that is supposed to be passed in 2017. In addition to the Ill-gotten Act, President Tsai also pushed since her inaugural address for the institution of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for transitional justice about the 1947 «228 Incident» and the following White Terror period (1947-1987) under the KMT’s authoritarian rule.[104] Moreover, in August, she officially apologised to the Taiwanese aboriginal communities for the «racial discrimination, use of native land and forced cultural assimilation» perpetuated by the Chinese on the island.[105] While these measures reflected the DPP’s commitment to foster a distinct Taiwanese identity on the island, they also signalled Tsai and the DPP’s will to change the balance of power among the major political parties of the island while the KMT was in the doldrums.

2016 also saw the meteoric rise of a new political force in Taiwan, the New Power Party ( , NPP) which emerged from the experiences in civic mobilisations of the 2014 Sunflower Student Movement. The NPP obtained five seats in the new LY, and became the third party in the country. In tune with similar movements emerging in Hong Kong – where new parties such as Younginspiration and Demosist appeared in the aftermath of the Umbrella Movement – the NPP effectively channelled the demands and aspirations of the younger generations of Taiwanese voters who «came of age» during the 2014 popular protests against Ma Ying-jeou and the CSSTA. The new Taiwanese party campaigned on a platform on the left of the DPP, focusing on social justice, constitutional reform, localist identity and political independence.[106] During the electoral campaign, the NPP benefited from Tsai’s endorsement, establishing a «cooperative but competitive relation» with the DPP. [107] Indeed, following the election, mild frictions with the DPP emerged as the NPP pressured the Tsai administration on her stance on independence.[108] By exploiting both the DPP’s necessary shift to more cautious positions on independence since coming into power and KMT’s chronic inability to attract young voters, the NPP appeared to have built in 2016 a sustainable basis for political survival as the standardbearer of the anti-PRC, anti-establishment sentiment in the island.

6. Taiwan’s economy 2012-2016: structural malaises and ineffective remedies

The state of Taiwan’s economy at the beginning of Ma Ying-jeou’s second term in office was particularly discomforting, still affected by the consequences of the 2008 global financial crisis whilst grappling with severe structural issues. The economy had been exposed to external factors since the global crisis, as foreign monetary stimulus packages severely hurt the island’s exports, causing, in turn, weak GDP growth. A response via expansive monetary policies, however, was not a viable choice for Taiwanese authorities because of the low average wages and its consequent high exposure to inflation for the local population.[109] In this scenario of weak growth, low tax revenues, increasing cost of state subsidies in electricity and fuel, and the combination of a rapidly ageing population and an ineffective pension system further affected the ROC’s finances.[110] Moreover, Mainland China’s on-going shift from being a source of cheap labour for Taiwanese firms to a competitor in the island’s key industrial sectors, together with a situation of market saturation in two of the strongholds of the manufacturing sector – computers and digital displays – demanded an overhaul of the structure of the Taiwanese economy itself.[111] Facing these challenges, the Ma administration and the new government led by the Premier Sean Chen (Chen Chu) gave absolute priority to a transformation of the national economy since the beginning of 2012.[112] The government’s efforts focused on four main areas: a tax reform, a reform of the pension system, the reduction of the fiscal deficit, and the attraction of Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) through Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and liberalisations in the service sector.

The issue of tax reforms was at the centre of the economic agenda since March 2012, when the government appointed a special task force unit headed by Finance Minister Christina Liu (Liu Yih-ju). The task unit’s initial plans for a universal capital-gains tax, however, were progressively set aside by a number of amendments, which were introduced following strong popular opposition to the tax. Approved only in June 2013 and implemented since April 2015, the amended capital-gains tax concerned only around 10,000 investors, with very limited returns estimated between NT$ 6bn and NT$ 11bn.[113] Further tax raises for high-earners and financial service firms aimed to raise an estimated NT$ 65bn were instead approved in the LY in May 2014.[114] Pensions had historically been a thorny issue for KMT administrations, as the national retirement programme traditionally favoured the party’s main electoral constituencies: civil servants, teachers, and the military. The government envisioned an aggressive plan aiming at decreasing the income replacement rates of public pensions by 15% while pursuing similar but less drastic measures for the private sector.[115] This was a manoeuvre aiming at outflanking the DPP’s proposal for a «national conference on pensions».[116] Nevertheless, the KMT’s bold reform plan did not survive its main constituencies’ threat to boycott the party in the coming elections in case the reform passed.

Thus, by the end of 2015, KMT lawmakers in the LY were actually blocking the opposition’s amendments to the reform plan in order to protect the interests of their core constituencies, in contradiction with the original spirit of the reform.[117] The government also attempted to enhance the country’s fiscal position by reforming poorly performing State-owned enterprises (SOEs) and curbing subsidies on electricity and fuel prices.[118] While the planned SOEs reform failed to realise, the cut of subsidies was partially implemented, but at a heavy price in terms of political support.[119] These setbacks caused government revenues to increase only marginally, up 1.2%, between 2012 and 2015. The administration, however, was relatively more successful in its effort to address the ROC’s growing fiscal deficit, shifting the budget balance from -2.4% to +0.1% by reducing government expenditure by 12.6% in the same period.[120]

Broader long-term efforts to transform the structure of the ROC’s economy and enhancing the service sector met a similar fate. In October 2013, Taipei announced the creation of seven Free Economic Pilot Zones (FEPZs), enjoying customs, tax and immigration breaks, and focusing on educational innovation, financial services, value added agriculture, international healthcare and smart logistics, with the aim of stimulating a nation-wide programme of liberalisations in the long term. But the FEPZ’s initiative never passed in the LY due to a combination of internal oppositions within the government, firm DPP opposition, and a widespread perception that the beneficiaries of the plan would mainly be Chinese investors.[121] Even though the FEPZ’s plan failed to materialise, Taipei appeared to have made substantial progress in its efforts to attract FDIs not only by signing the keystone CSSTA in June, but also by reaching the ASTEP and ANZTEC FTAs with Singapore and New Zealand in May.[122] In addition, following the lift in July 2012 of a ban on beef imports from the US imposed in 2007, Taipei and Washington resumed their Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) negotiations in March 2013.[123] However, the beaching of the CSSTA in the LY in 2014 and the freezing of cross-Strait relations following Tsai Ingwen’s electoral victory in 2016 – with the consequent Chinese opposition to Taiwan’s FTAs in the WTO – severely compromised Taiwanese prospects in this area. Similarly, the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) talks with the US, which continued under the Tsai presidency, did not produce tangible results in 2016.[124] Indeed, notwithstanding Ma’s FTA push, inward direct investments in Taiwan shrunk from US$ 3.2bn to US$ 2.4bn between 2012 and 2015.[125] Moreover, the signing of the Seoul-Beijing FTA in December 2015, which included liberalisations in the same sectors of the CSSTA, further complicated Taiwan’s position.[126]

By November 2014, following KMT’s heavy electoral defeat in the local elections, the government’s economic policy lost any residual élan. The only noticeable initiative was a modest economic stimulus package of NT$ 3.5bn (US$ 110m) in the manufacturing and service sectors, dubbed «Productivity 4.0», which was approved in August 2015.[127] Ultimately, major economic indicators between 2012 and 2015 were not kind to Taiwan’s economy. Real GDP growth registered an average 2.2% and domestic demand growth averaged 1.9%.[128] The current-account balance stood at 11.3% of GDP; average consumer-prices inflation was at 0.9%, while employment grew by 1.1%.[129] Taiwan’s economy woes increased in 2016, as the economic implications of frozen cross-Strait relations worsened an already suffering economy. Indeed, the challenges faced by the Tsai administration since May were daunting. Against the backdrop of a sharp decrease in the number of Chinese tourists from the Mainland,[130] the new administration had to shape its economic policies addressing both the long-standing structural challenges of the economy and the expectations raised by an electoral campaign that had heavily capitalised on the social discontent caused by inequality, salary levels and job prospects. The DPP’s flagship project for the first months in power was the «New Southbound Policy» ( , NSP) directed towards the countries of the Indian subcontinent, the ASEAN countries, Australia and New Zealand, presented on 12 May. Previous ROC administrations had already devised economic policies aiming at reducing Taiwan’s dependency from Mainland China and enhancing Taiwan’s presence especially in South-East Asia by supporting local firms abroad.[131] The NSP, however, appeared to be characterised by a new and ambitious focus on projecting and exerting Taiwanese soft power by fostering peopleto- people relations, and by providing visa schemes and fellowships to attract tourists, businesspeople, students and academics to the island.[132] The new policy was ambitious and addresses major issues – dependency on the Mainland, immigration, limited international presence, the need to attract foreign investments. However, it caused major concerns regarding the meagre budgets available to the firms, its short-term impact on the economy, and above all the capacity to withstand the possible (and consistent with the actions pursued in 2016) PRC’s pressure on the target countries.[133]

The second keystone of the Tsai administration’s economic policy was the revival of the national defence industry, after years of decreased spending under Ma.[134] The plan, driven by shipbuilding and modernisation programmes commissioned by the ROC Navy within a 2017-2040 timeline, aimed at producing spill-overs in the other industrial sectors, obviously together with the need to ensure national defence in the shifting context of East Asian regional politics. However, as in the case of the NSP, the contrast between the plan’s ambitious aims on the one hand, and the ROC’s limited budget resources and international isolation on the other, raised serious concerns on the viability of the project.[135] In October it approved the new «Electricity Act», devising a two-phase plan to liberalise the energy sector and stimulate the renewable-energy sector along a nine-to-ten year timeline.[136] In line with its campaign platform, in September the DPP government also announced a 5% rise of the monthly minimum wage and a 10.8% increase in the hourly minimum wage.[137] Finally, notwithstanding wide protests among public sector workers, the Tsai administration also continued its work towards a comprehensive reform of the pension system.[138] The overall situation of Taiwan’s economy, however, remained problematic. Real GDP growth registered an average 0.2% in the first two quarters of 2016 Real domestic demand growth is estimated at 1.7%, close to the same levels of 2015; the current-account balance is estimated to have contracted by 0.1%, standing at 14.4% of the GDP; average consumer-prices inflation is estimated at 1.3%, and the estimated growth in labour employment was 0.4%.[140]

To conclude, Taiwan’s economy between 2012 and 2016 suffered the conflation of mounting structural problems, cross-Strait tensions and dysfunctional domestic politics. During his second term in office, President Ma could rely on the most stable relation with Beijing ever enjoyed by Taipei. However, with an already weakened popular mandate in the aftermath of the 2012 electoral victory, Ma and his administration were not able to withstand the combined impact of the vested interests of his party’s constituencies and the continuous infightings in the KMT. This situation made particularly effective the DPP’s strenuous opposition in the LY. Bold attempts to address Taiwan’s structural economic malaises such as the tax reform and the reform of the pension system were consequently shelved or amended in the LY until they became irrelevant, while precious energies and political capital were spent in ill-conceived plans without popular support. Moreover, the concerted effort to provide a new international dimension to the island’s economy via the multiple FTAs negotiations pursued throughout 2013 was rendered vain by the CSSTA debacle in early 2014, a result of the internal struggle between President Ma and Speaker Wang within the KMT. Regarding the Tsai administration, the first eight months in power saw no critical signs of collapse in the DPP’s solid LY majority, but the political choices of the President hurt an already suffering economy. Moreover, the first major economic policy initiatives of the administration showed a worrying tendency to propose ambitious but generally underfunded plans. On a positive note, Tsai was able to rapidly and proactively address social problems such as low salaries and ageing demographics, maintaining the necessary momentum to face the crucial battle-to-be for the reform of the pension system in 2017.

7. Taiwan in the Asia-Pacific: between sovereignty disputes and Sino-American growing rivalry

The PRC began to send the first signals of a growing assertiveness in Asia-Pacific between 2009 and 2010, during a period in which cross-Strait relations were rapidly improving and progressing towards the signing of the ECFA. The confirmation of this shift in Beijing’s regional policy arrived with the eruption of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute with Japan in the East China Sea in 2012, and later, in 2014, with the massive land-reclamation programme conducted in the South China Sea.[141] As the PRC’s sovereignty claims in the region are virtually identical to the ROC’s own claims, Taiwan became by force majeure involved in a rapidly shifting regional context. The Senkaku/Diaoyu dispute in the East China Sea, the first major regional crisis, emerged between late August 2011 and 11 September 2012, as the Japanese Noda Cabinet announced the decision to nationalise three islets of the archipelago claimed by both Taipei and Beijing.[142] In the earlier stages of the dispute, the Ma administration pursued a double-edged strategy. On the one hand, it responded to the expectations of embattled Taiwanese fishermen and nationalist circles: Taipei issued defiant statements rebutting the Japanese nationalisation, and its coast guard even engaged in a water-cannon confrontation with the Japanese counterpart as it escorted a flotilla of fishermen to the islands’ territorial waters.[143] On the other hand, the Ma administration had already officially announced four days before Japanese nationalisation, an «East China Sea Peace Initiative» (ECSPI) focussed on «mutually reciprocal recognitions» and the «joint explorations and development of resources».[144] Indeed, after the water-cannon battle, Taipei progressively defused tensions with Tokyo. On 10 April 2013, the two sides reached an important fishery agreement modelled on the blueprint of the ECSPI, which effectively shelved the dispute. The agreement institutionalised a joint committee to enhance communications between the two sides, and allowed Taiwanese and Japanese fishermen to freely operate within the disputed area, while maintaining their respective sovereignty claims and excluding Taiwanese ships from the territorial waters of the islets.[145] This move, in turn, highlighted the unexpected tensions on the issue of the disputes, the Ma administration had ignored repeated TAO appeals to the «common responsibility» ( ) to uphold together «Chinese» sovereignty over the islets against Japan.[146] Furthermore, in duelling with Japan, Beijing had implicitly but nonetheless clearly dismissed Taipei’s sovereignty on several occasions. For instance, in November 2012 Beijing issued new passports containing pages portraying not only the Senkaku/ Diaoyu Islands and the disputed islets of the South China Sea as Chinese territory, but also Taiwan, thus provoking an angry reaction in Taipei.[147] In November 2013, China’s decision to establish an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the East China Sea – including Taiwan’s airspace as well as the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands – raised an even greater concern on the island.[148] From a cross-Strait perspective, Beijing saw the dispute as a means to further bring Taipei inside its sphere of influence and to give more substantial content to the One China principle for the benefit of both domestic and international public opinions. However, the independent agenda pursued by the Ma administration through the ECSPI defied this expectation. In fact, the fishery agreement reached by Taipei with Tokyo implicitly but clearly highlighted the assertive nature of Beijing’s posture in the dispute.

Taiwan’s role in the Senkaku/Diaoyu crisis also contributed to tamper mounting concerns on the state of US-ROC relations. Since the signing of the ECFA in 2010, a number of US scholars, commentators and former policy-makers argued for «abandoning Taiwan» in order to accommodate a rising PRC as the US was in a phase of relative decline.[149] By progressively moving the cross-Strait relations towards unification, the Ma administration was transcending the strategic ambiguity at the core of America’s own One China policy, which aimed at «fostering China’s political and economic liberalization and creating a peaceful and consensual resolution of the cross Strait impasse».[150] Countertrend Taiwanese reactions to the escalation of the dispute demonstrated however that the Ma administration was not willing to blindly follow Beijing on its path of «common responsibility to protect sovereignty». A statement of the American Institute in Taiwan appreciating the «constructive response» to Beijing’s declaration of the East China Sea ADIZ proved that US-Taiwan relations were back on track right when the process of economic integration between Taiwan and the Mainland was beginning to derail because of the CSSTA.[151] While US attitudes towards Ma remained relatively frosty in the period leading to the Xi-Ma meeting in November 2015, the Obama administration’s unlocking in December 2015 of a 2014 Congress-approved arms sale package to Taipei – the first since 2011 – was clearly signalling that Washington was willing to fully support the new expected president Tsai Ing-wen.[152]

Taiwan’s pragmatic position in the East China Sea dispute, however, stood partially in contrast with its more assertive posture in the broader South China Sea dispute, involving the PRC, the ROC, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia, which has unfolded since 2014. This was the natural enough consequence of the fact that Taipei retains or reclaims numerous territories in that maritime area. As reports surfaced about massive Chinese land-reclamation endeavours in the South China Sea, tensions between the two Chinas rapidly emerged. The Ma administration clearly stated that it would not give up Taiwan’s territories in the disputed areas, but proposed, on 26 May 2015, a South China Sea Peace Initiative along the lines of the ECSPI.[153] However, the ROC’s position was greatly weakened by the 12 July judgement of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) on the Philippines’ submission against China. In fact, the PCA unexpectedly did not recognise the Taiping/Itu Aba territory, claimed by Taipei, as an «island», but only as a «rock», thus granting no Exclusive Economic Zone to Taiwan. In response to the verdict, President Tsai decided to send a ROC Navy frigate to Taiping.[154]

 

 

China 2016: Defending the legitimacy of the party-state’s authority*

Available also in pdf – Download Pdf –

The present article focuses on what seemed to be the main issue at stake in China during the year 2016: the legitimacy of the party-state’s domestic authority.[1] Partystate’s legitimacy was indeed affected by an enduring and worsening economic slowdown and above all by various forms of protests that were overwhelming the institutional legal channels. The aim of the present article is firstly to assess the main symptoms of the party-state’s legitimacy crisis in the year 2016, and, secondly, to focus on the major strategies adopted by the Chinese Communist Party to deal with its legitimacy crisis. The article deals with the legitimacy crisis in terms of the party’s and its affiliated social organisations’ capacity to politically represent social groups and their interests. In 2016, labour protests in particular (which, however, did not represent the sole form of social protests) effectively suggested that industrial workers were critical of the role of the single trade union and, as a consequence, relayed more and more on alternative labour organisations and on outright illegal forms of collective protests. In that sense, although it would not be correct to claim that labour protests were threatening the stability of the political regime, the party-state’s legitimacy was nevertheless at stake because of the party’s evident inadequacy to represent workers’ interests and to promote the workers’ effective empowerment. The way the party-state was dealing with the malfunction of its corporatist stance was, indeed, in itself a further demonstration of its legitimacy crisis: repression was gradually taking the place of corporatism and one man-authority was trying to replace collective leadership. Significantly, these authoritarian regressions were being ruled and formalised by law. Additionally, the international perspective on some key selected issues, namely the ongoing BRI (Belt and Road Initiative, formerly called OBOR: «One Belt, One Road» initiative) and the arbitration question on South China Sea, showed that Chinese foreign policy too was substantially conditioned by domestic legitimacy issues.

1. Introduction

The year 2016 has represented a fundamental drive for China’s search for a new development path. The Chinese economic «miracle» has been over for at least two decades. The export-driven model, especially after the emergence of the global economic crisis, was not able to grant a sustained economic growth anymore, and social turmoil spread, nurtured by the slowdown in growth, which in 2016 was 6.7%, namely slightly lower than the previous year (6.9% in 2015)[2]. As a consequence, Chinese economic growth could no longer be considered the basic fuel for the legitimacy of the single-party rule, which was in the middle of a major internal crisis. More and more informal social organisations were indeed involved in protests, making use of non-institutional and illegal canals to express their grievances. These actions can be considered a symptom of the party’s growing inadequacy to politically represent the major social groups and their interests. Furthermore, since 2008–09, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been dealing with economic and geopolitical tensions in the Southeast Asian region, complicated by the United States’ Pivot to Asia politics. Maritime Asia was indeed at the front line of intense geopolitical and trade competition where global challenges converged and overlapped with national prerogatives. As Chinese foreign policy experts confirm, China’s foreign policy was indeed embedded in domestic issues and national interests and could thus be considered as a key instrument for defending and strengthening the single-party internal legitimacy to rule the country. As a consequence, foreign policy goals and decisions can be read as being guided by a combination of measures supporting domestic economic growth and responding to nationalism.[3] During the year 2016, it seems that the main issue at stake has indeed been the legitimacy of the Chinese party-state’s authority mainly observed in terms of its political and social representative capacities. The aim of this article is firstly to assess the main symptoms of the party-state’s legitimacy crisis as far as the year 2016 is concerned. Secondly, the work focuses on the major strategies adopted by the Chinese Communist Party to deal with its legitimacy question.

The article begins with what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has officially declared as its current top priority as it faces the above mentioned emerging challenges: the strengthening of its unity in terms of ideology and policies. Facing external and internal threats, the party, indeed, has usually demonstrated the need to make ideas converge into one single path, from a perspective of international and domestic politics as well as of political economy. In 2016, the CCP line favouring structural economic reforms seemed to prevail over the more conservative faction, as was demonstrated by the State Council’s documents on the so called «Supply-side Reform». The article is divided into two parts. The first deals with labour conflicts and the party-state’s reaction to them, because in 2016, factories have been the principal terrain of social conflict. The second part deals with the «One Belt, One Road» strategy’s new developments in the Euro- Mediterranean area and with the 2016 evolution of the South China Sea’s conflicts in the Philippines versus China arbitration case.

2. Strengthening the unity of the Party: a top priority

The year began with the Politburo Standing Committee demanding comprehensive loyalty to the party’s central leadership and to Xi Jinping. After the Politburo Standing Committee meeting on the 7th of January 2016, the party released a formal statement.[4] In the official state press communication, it is possible to read a summary of the meeting and some significant points. The first is that: «The key to strengthening party leadership is maintaining the centralised and unified leadership of the party centre». The official report underlines as well the need to be united around one single ideological line – Xi Jinping’s – in order to be able to carry on with the project of building socialism with Chinese characteristics.[5] Near the end of the year, in October, during the Sixth Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China’s central committee, Xi was formally proclaimed the «core leader» ( ) of the Chinese Communist Party. From the full-text of the communiqué of the Sixth Plenary Session, it is clear that the party’s main political focus was to be stronger and united around one single path. In order to achieve this, it was necessary to establish more severe inner-party rules and to continue fighting against inner-party corruption. The plenary session was, in particular, a call for senior officials so that they would feel invested with important responsibilities and behave as example-models in front of the party’s local officials for the sake of the leadership’s broader development plans. By calling party officials to comply with Xi Jinping’s political line, the party was demanding them to have three different types of consciousness: «political consciousness» ( ), «consciousness of the big picture» ( ), «consciousness of the core» ( ) and a strong «consciousness of keeping in line» ( ). This was officially the only way to build an equitable and developed society and to grant social stability.[6]

Technically and formally, the new title of «core leader» did not give Xi Jinping more power that he already had. However, it was a significant request to recognise the dominance of his political line. The official reasons for proclaiming Xi Jinping the «core leader» of the party and for asking party officials to publicly recognise it, were, according to official state media, the need to have strong leadership in order to enable the party to surmount challenges ( ) and to deal with new situations ( ) and new problems ( ).[7] Taking into account that China, for almost ten years, had been in the middle of a persistent economic slowdown [8], of growing social conflicts due to an enlarging socio-economic gap, and of complicated international tensions, by using the above expressions (new challenges, new situations, new problems), the party was very likely referring to these kinds of situations and problems.[9] Here, it should be noted that the need to be united around the centre is not a new issue in Chinese domestic politics. Discourses on political stability, unity and economic development indeed emerged soon after the Cultural Revolution along with Deng Xiaoping’s leadership. The fight against factionalism, the strengthening of the inner-party discipline, the institutionalisation of political power and collective leadership, had all emerged intermittently as political strategies to rule the country since the first biggest threat – historically – to party legitimacy.[10]

3. Domestic politics and social issues: managing labour conflicts

3.1. Workers’ militancy: an overview of the major labour protests in 2016

Labour conflicts have always been a constant in Chinese social history and recently, since the beginning of the 2008 global economic crisis, their intensity seems to have reached the level of the 1990s labour protests, which followed the first state-owned-enterprises’ reform.[11] Because of the erosion of exports since 2008, most Chinese industrial sectors strategically started to implement several solutions: from downsizing to closure; from abroad relocation to sales or mergers. These solutions were accompanied by some labour cost-cutting tactics such as downsizing severance pays, salaries, bonuses and benefits such as social insurance.[12] In particular, in the Pearl River Delta, the heart of Chinese labour-intensive manufacturers, thousands of manufacturing units were relocating, merging or closing down.[13] In most cases, factory owners and managers did not discuss relocation plans with the workforce but merely announced them, sometimes providing employees with minimal compensation, sometimes without doing it. In many cases, the company had never paid (before the relocation) social insurance, housing funding or other welfare benefits required by law. As a consequence, those workers risked being laid off without pension or medical insurance. Following a model already framed by the first Asian «tigers»[14], this kind of capital’s reaction against an economic crisis caused the development of a variegated and fragmented labour movement, struggling to obtain compensation for workers, missing severance payments and social insurances from the closing factories.[15] According to the China Labour Bulletin’s Strike Map, the peak of these protests was registered during 2016, the year under analysis.[16] For the sake of synthesis, only a few of them are listed hereafter.

The year started with the explosion of about 19 collective protests in the municipality of Chongqing. The protests were organised by laid off workers of a machine factory and by golf caddies asking respect for the compensation agreement and fair social security contributions.[17] The year went on with two other significant labour conflicts in Shenzhen. Almost one hundred workers at the electronic factory Guang Xie Electronics went on strike and picketed the factory entrance in order to prevent managers from removing machinery and other possessions to another location. Eventually, they forced the company to pay lay-off compensation in advance as a guarantee against relocation. A labour organisation, the Chunfeng Labour Dispute Service Centre, assisted the workers in the first phases of the action and, later, the local trade union intervened in support of their interests. The labour organisation, in particular, organised training seminars on how to engage in collective bargaining with management, and assisted workers with the election of their representatives and the formation of their committee. Workers were able to invite the company to the negotiating table to discuss a potential factory trade union’s reform, wage increases, arrears, social insurance and housing.On 31 May, the company decided to renounce to its plans of reallocation.[18]

The second significant labour conflict, which started already in 2015 in Shenzhen, involved the Mizutani Toy Factory Co. Ltd., a manufacturer of the Walt Disney Corporation in China. The reasons behind this unrest were similar to the others: relocation of production (Mizutani was moving to the Philippines), underpaid severance compensation and social insurance contributions ( ) and unlawful dismissal of workers. After the protests in 2015, negotiations started up again in March 2016. However, the company agreed to compensate ( ) employees with only one-tenth of the arrears ( ) and, as a consequence, the workers went again on strike, before being repressed by the police.[19]

Finally, during the last quarter of 2016, the international and Chinese press registered several strikes in some multinational companies that expressed the intention to sell off their factories to local companies. This occurred with the French company Danone in Guangzhou, because the French decided to sell a bottling plant to a local company and refused to pay severance according to the workers’ years of employment, pointing out that the corporate name was not changing. Dozens of workers went on strike for two weeks and were violently repressed by the police. Furthermore some workers were dismissed and charged with «suspension, sabotage, disruption of work order and for disobeying work arrangements».[20] Red Balloon Solidarity, a Hong Kong labour organisation, reported some workers claiming that: «[…] we did not want anything if not defending our legal rights ( ) and seizing our hard-earned money, everyday they were coming to frighten us by saying we were breaking the law ( ), that we could be arrested if not imprisoned and that capital was not going to suffer a financial loss».[21] A similar problem involved Sony at a smartphone camera parts factory in Guangzhou. Workers went on strike for two weeks in order to oppose Sony’s decision to sell the factory off to a local company. They feared that working conditions would worsen and some of them might lose their job. The multinational reacted by paying them off an unfairly low amount of money and by firing many workers that had organised the strike. Unrests erupted as well in three Coca Cola plants (in Chengdu, Chongqing and Jilin province) after the announcement about the intended sale of all Coca Cola bottling plants in China to the Hong Kong multinational Swire Pacific and to a giant Chinese state-owned food corporation, COFCO. Like the Sony workers, Chinese Coca Cola workers feared receiving lower wages or losing their jobs. They organised coordinated strikes to ask for more detail on the sale and to obtain economic compensation.<[22] As had happened during the 1990s, large protests (however, not as large as in the 1990s) seriously involved the state sector again as well and, in particular, the coal mining and steel industries. Protests emerged, indeed, after the government announced, in 2015, its intention to reduce industrial overcapacity ( ) and to lay off ( ) about 1.8 million workers in the coal and steel industries (15% of the industries’ total workforce). [23] In September 2015, the Longmay Mining Group, the biggest coal company in North-eastern China (owned by the government of Heilongjiang Province) announced, in line with the central government, its plan to lay off 100,000 workers (40% of the workforce at 42 mines in four cities).[24] In March 2016, a massive protest of at least a thousand coal miners belonging to the Longmay Mining Group took place in the city of Shuangyashan (Heilongjiang Province) in front of the mining authorities’ headquarters. Some pictures in the Chinese micro-blogging website, weibo, showed some banners displayed by protesters that said: « » («We want to live, we want to eat»). Workers were demanding wage arrears that they were finally able to obtain when Mr. Lu Hao, the governor of Heilongjiang Province, gave in to the workers requests.[25] Between April and October, labour unrest also took place in the Wuhan Iron and Steel State Corporation in order to protest unfair layoff compensation.[26] By the end of July 2016, provincial governments had met only 38% of their targets to cut production capacity in coal mining and 47% in steel industry, according to Zhao Chenxin, spokesperson for the National Development and Reform Commission.[27] It is possible to suppose that one of the reasons for this delay was the massive, widespread discontent and unrest among coal and steel workers.

The most significant and widespread labour unrest in 2016 was likely the Wal-Mart workers’ campaign against a new comprehensive working-hours system, unilaterally introduced by the multinational company. It started some years before and gave rise to an online Wal-Mart Workers’ Association ( ) that began in 2014 with 100 to 200 affiliated members and ended up in 2016 with about 10,000 members.[28] Furthermore, July 2016 was the beginning of an embryonic form of collaboration between the newborn Chinese Wal-Mart Workers’ Association and the Wal-Mart American Workers Group based in Minnesota. The leaders of the groups, it is reported, discussed the recent strikes in China on Skype calls using a translator.[29] According to a text written by the Wal-Mart Workers’ Association on 7 September 2015, in an attempt to seek the support of the official trade union, and published by Red Balloon Solidarity on the 13, workers thought that the new working-hours system would jeopardise their current contract terms, which assured fixed working hours, overtime pay and holidays. Wal- Mart’s aim was to cut wages, which were stagnating in relation to the increase in the company’s profits and to the minimum wage, and at the same time, maximise flexibility. The new system entailed indeed the possibility for store managers to assign employees any number of hours per day, as long as each of them reached a total of 174 hours per month. As a matter of fact, those working for more than eight hours per day or forty hours per week would not be entitled to overtime pay. Furthermore, the association accused Wal-Mart of deliberately cutting workers’ wages, of fragmenting their labour union and of unlawfully firing workers’ representatives. The 7 September text was a call to be united, to independently form groups, and to enter a struggle: « , , […]». The text also contained a criticism of the Chinese official trade union for not doing opposition against the new working-hours system, and a call for authentic trade union’s elections which, according to the workers, have been constantly manipulated by the multinational company in order to be sided by a pro-management trade union.[30] In July 2016, after discovering that the company had unilaterally put into effect the new working-hours system despite their opposition, around two hundred workers struck in three stores: two in Nanchang, Jiangxi and one in Chengdu, Sichuan. Workers at all three stores shared similar demands: abolishing the unilaterally imposed comprehensive workinghours system, separating meal subsidies and full-attendance bonuses added to the basic monthly wage, impeachment of the current store trade union presidents, and democratic trade union elections.[31]

After the strikes, workers formed a preparatory committee to become better coordinated at a national level and bargain with Wal-Mart management. Forty-nine activists from all over China formed the preparatory committee on 23 July, and the committee elected Wang Shishu, a veteran worker and activist in Shenzhen, to serve as the head of the Wal-Mart Workers Rights Defence Coordination Group. The committee also democratically elected eight deputies. The intention of the Group was to organise strategy meetings with the Group’s head and the deputies, and to arrange on-site labourorganising training for workers in different cities in order to prepare them to engage in collective bargaining with the company. Furthermore, the Group aimed at helping Wal-Mart workers obtain support from the official trade union, and also offered activists and workers who were subjected to reprisals or who were dismissed by Wal-Mart the legal advice of a group of labour rights lawyers. In general, the Group aimed to encourage workers to file law suits against Wal-Mart’s imposition of the new working-hours system [32]. In August, a veteran employee indeed took Wal-Mart to the labour arbitration court in Shenzhen demanding that the Shenzhen store where he was employed stop imposing the new working-hours system [33].

3.2. The repression of labour NGOs

Labour non-governmental organisations emerged in China in the 1990s in order to answer to the needs of a growing mass of rural migrant workers in the growing export-processing zones. Following China’s integration in the global economy, the mode of production had changed from Maoist communism to capitalism; however, the official single trade union’s functions and procedures (All China Federation of Trade Unions, ACFTU) have never been adapted to capitalist transition, leaving workers unorganised and unprotected in a new and transitioning mechanism of production. Most labour groups have been established by former workers or labour activists. Initially, they emerged as legal aid centres. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the central government started to promulgate a series of labour and trade union laws with the intention to adapt the legal situation to the changing conditions of labour and thus to improve working conditions in the state as well as in the emerging private sectors. However, labour laws were being poorly implemented, and migrant workers were experiencing large violations of labour rights without being aware of their own rights and of recently enacted labour laws. Labour NGOs, thus, emerged with the primary objective of promoting legal awareness and mutual legal aid among migrant workers. Between the 1990s and the 2000s they proliferated in the manufacturing zones and, since the spread of the factory closing phenomenon, they have also slightly changed their objective toward a more direct support of collective actions and strikes. Most of the time, these collective actions and strikes have taken place outside the official channel of the ACFTU; furthermore, they were not envisaged in any of the several Chinese labour laws. However, it must be stressed that labour NGOs’ primary role remained to provide legal support to workers for individual petitions, arbitration cases or court suits against employers, or also in collective negotiations with management.[34] In order to be legal, every social organisation in China must receive recognition from the authorities through an official registration procedure. Labour NGOs usually cannot be registered under the label of social-group organisations (or non-profit organisations). In fact, this label is reserved for organisations set up by state agencies and carrying out specific social welfare functions, such as official trade unions, or to those organisations able to attach themselves to other legal entities such as universities or research institutes. In the latter case, these legal entities represent a «professional supervising unit», a sort of sponsor through which to obtain recognition from the Ministry of Civil Affairs and toward which to be accountable, together with the ministerial institutions (the so-called «dual management system»). Most labour NGOs are classified as grassroots organisations and cannot easily find an official sponsorship. Thus, in order to be officially authorised, they must be registered as business NGOs and obtain their licence from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. For this reason, being registered as a business organisation, labour NGOs are not allowed to raise funds domestically. As a matter of fact, for many years, they have been heavily dependent on foreign funding.[35] With the number of rural migrant workers steadily growing together with widespread violations of labour rights, labour NGOs’ role became even more strategic during the 2000s and, in particular, during the on-going global economic crisis. As more and more factories were closing down, it became crucial for workers to receive assistance to get compensation, social insurance and wages in arrears. Furthermore, labour organisations were essential in helping workers deal with management, local authorities and local trade unions. Lastly, they started to get involved in strikes, not as the main organisers but as legal supporters and organisational advisors.[36]

The great majority of labour groups tended to prefer legal strategies and individual-type based remonstrance against the employers, demonstrating a non-antagonist stance towards both capital and the partystate and a will to solve labour conflicts in an harmonious way. Nevertheless, by doing so, these labour groups were representing an alternative form of organisation to the official trade union and were funnelling thousands of workers into potentially antagonist social organisations. According to Tim Pringle, labour NGOs’ appearance represented a Chinese version «of the outsourcing of welfare delivery and related civil services to selected civil society organizations that has accompanied the global spread of neoliberal ideology […]».[37] At first sight, their work was well-suited with the partystate’s old corporatist strategy of channelling social complaints into institutionalised juridical channels of dispute resolution such as petitions, arbitrations and courts.[38] However, their recent increasing involvement in labour organising, in strikes and in assistance in collective bargaining was evidently overthrowing the institutionalised perimeter of labour grievances’ representation channels. For all these reasons, labour NGOs were frequently monitored, boycotted, co-opted or, more recently, openly repressed by Chinese authorities.[39] This has been the case for 2015–2016, during which the repression of labour activists was particularly severe. In December 2015 several labour NGOs – such as the Panyu Migrant Workers Documentation Service Centre in Guangzhou ( ), the Nanfeiyan Social Work Service Organisation in Foshan ( ), the Haige Labour Centre in Guangzhou ( ) and the Labour Mutual Aid Group in Panyu, Guangzhou ( ) – and several specific labour activists became the target of both a state media smear campaign against them and a proper police prosecution.

From 3 December 2015, police authorities launched a stringent procedure of investigation: staff, family members and affiliated workers of the above mentioned labour organisations were questioned and several remained in custody. Four were formally charged in December 2015, and, between September and November 2016, were sentenced to prison for disruption of public order. This was the case of Zeng Feiyang, Zhu Xiaomei, Tang Huanxing and Meng Han, all Panyu Migrant Workers Documentation Service Centre’s labour activists. Zeng was sentenced to a three-year jail term, suspended for four years. Zhu and Tang were sentenced to 18-month jail terms, suspended for two years. Meng Han was sentenced to 21 months. Furthermore, the centres were closed down.[40]

The state media campaign targeted, in particular, the Panyu Migrant Workers Documentation Service Centre (PMWDSC) in Guangzhou and its director, Zeng Feiyang. During the 1990s and the 2000s, Zeng was very active in establishing labour NGOs in Guangdong, among which was the PMWDSC. More interesting, he had been one of the leaders of the protest held outside the Ministry of Civil Affairs Office in Guangzhou in 2014 against one of the first drafts of the so-called Overseas NGO Management Law, which was finally promulgated in 2016 (see § 3.3). The draft was targeting foreign NGOs and foreign funded NGOs, restricting requirements for registration and defining more strictly the border between legal and illegal civil organisations.[41] On 22 December, the People’s Daily published a report entitled ‘ ” : ’ (‘The socalled «Pioneer of labour movement», Zeng Feiyang has been arrested for gathering money illegally and seeking sex under the cover of public interets’). The report accused the labour organisation of not being properly registered and of being very active and behind the scenes in organising labour strikes, inciting labour conflicts and severely disrupting social order (« ; ; »). Furthermore, the report accused the organisation and its director of accepting foreign funds (« ») from Hong Kong-based foundations, such as the China Labour Bulletin, but also from Western NGOs («»). Lastly, Zeng was also accused of embezzlement.[42] The same kind of accusations can be found in a Xinhua report published on 22 December 2015.[43]

On 8 January 2016, Han Dongfang, the Director of China Labour Bulletin, issued a letter to the People’s Daily editor-in-chief, Li Baoshan. He argued that Guangzhou authorities were already well aware that the PMWDSC had been cooperating with the China Labour Bulletin for at least the last five years. In addition, he explained the foundation of CLB’s work with Chinese labour activists and underlined the positive results of this cooperation. He specified that among them there were the peaceful settlement of potentially violent labour disputes through negotiations that tried to assure fair distribution of wages and benefits to workers.[44] It is interesting to note that the court verdicts, especially that of Zeng Feiyang which had been the main target of the Chinese official press, were lighter than one could have expected. According to the English language and Chinese language local press, Zeng’s sentence made no mention of foreign funding. Its argument was narrowed – when compared to the smear media campaign – to the fact that Zeng and his labour organisation had encouraged workers to go on strike causing serious losses to the involved companies. The four plaintiffs also had suspended sentences. However, probably in exchange for this, they had to publicly admit their guilt in «disrupting social order», although their often declared aim was exactly the opposite – that is, instructing workers to make them able to organise bargaining tables with managers. Furthermore, all four of them chose not to appeal.[45] .

3.3. New laws on social organisations: the Charity Law and the Overseas NGOs Law

During the same year, the People’s Republic of China passed two key laws for the management of social organisations. In March, the National People’s Congress passed the Charity Law ( )[46] and in April, it passed the Law on Management of Foreign NGOs Activities in Mainland China ( ).[47] The first went into effect in September 2016, while the second was expected to go into effect in January 2017. According to the Charity Law, organisations that can be registered as social organisations can also be entitled to receive the status of charitable organisation ( ) from the Ministry of Civil Affairs (Article 8), which is also entitled to carry out the management and supervision of charitable activities (Article 92). In Articles 3-4, the law defines «charitable activities» as «public interest activities voluntarily carried out […] through the donation of property, the provision of services or other means […]»; and says that they «[…] shall abide by the principles of being lawful, voluntary, honest, and non-profit, and must not violate social morality, or endanger national security or harm societal public interests or the lawful rights and interests of other persons». One of the most important innovations introduced by the Charity Law was norms that have the effect of lowering barriers to domestic funding by increasing the types of non-profit organisations that could engage in public fundraising and also encouraging more people to donate to public benefits and charitable causes by cutting taxes. Before that, this kind of fundraising was allowed only for a small number of organisations – the ones strongly connected with the government. Furthermore, the law included charitable organisations among a group of four different types of non-profit organisations for which the «dual management system» was going to be removed, making them able to register directly with the Ministry of Civil Affairs without the need of searching for a sponsorship and making them accountable only to the Ministry or its local departments.[48]

The Charity Law, and in particular its entry norms (Article 8), however, automatically excluded most labour NGOs from the benefits and protection of the law; most of them were indeed registered, as we have already said, as for-profit businesses and thus could not be classified as charitable organisations: «‘Charitable organisations’ refers to legally established nonprofit organisations […]. Charitable organisations include foundations, social groups, social service organisations and other forms of organisations». In order to be eligible to become a charitable organisation, it was necessary to be legally classified as non-profit and thus to first obtain the sponsorship of a «professional supervising unit» such as a government ministry or a state agency. For labour organisations lacking good connections with the government and above all operating in highly sensitive sectors, obtaining the sponsorship could be a difficult if not an impossible task.[49] Interestingly, the Overseas NGOs Law’s main aim was to raise barriers to foreign funding and, in general, to regulate foreign NGOs’ activities in China in a more stringent way. Firstly, the law (Articles 3-4), defines the fields of action of overseas NGOs such as economy, education, culture, health, sports, environmental protection, poverty and disaster relief; it specifies that they «shall not threaten China’s national reunification and security or ethnic unity, nor harm China’s national and social interests or the legitimate rights and interests of citizens, legal persons and other organizations» and «shall not engage in or finance profit-making or political activities in the mainland of China, and they shall not illegally engage in or finance religious activities». Secondly, the law placed the registration and supervision of all foreign NGOs operating in China under the Ministry of Public Security instead of the Ministry of Civil Affairs (Article 6). Thirdly, it required a report to be filed on by all of their Chinese partners, funding sources and activities to Public Security. This requirement was easily fulfilled by Chinese partners with an official background, good connections with the government or that were properly registered. However, it would certainly be problematic for labour organisations, which were usually unregistered or registered as for-profit organisations. Lastly, according to the law, in order to be legal, foreign NGOs had to establish a permanent representative office registered in China that had to be approved by a government affiliated sponsor; it could work only within the geographic area where its given activity had been accepted (Article 18); and it could not engage in fundraising or accepting donations in China. For those Chinese organisations or individuals that receive funding from unregistered or illegal foreign NGOs, the law envisages penalties, including detention. Detention is considered as well for members of foreign NGOs or their representative office in China, which are guilty of engaging in or funding political activities or engaging in other acts that endanger national security or harm national or public interests (Articles 46- 47). As the useful compendium filed by Ivan Franceschini and Elisa Nesossi underlines, the Overseas NGOs Law’s norms on supervision, management and penalties are vague and would probably easily allow arbitrary actions by Chinese public security officials for the sake of social order and stability.[50]

4. To be united around a single development path: which one?

We began this article by stating that what emerged as the CCP’s top political priority for 2016 is the strengthening of party unity around the political and economic line expressed by Xi Jinping. Furthermore, this priority has been described as an old-style party strategy that is usually implemented to defend its authority in times of legitimacy crisis. The party-state was certainly in the middle of a profound legitimacy crisis due primarily to the typical harsh social backlashes of the crisis which has been affecting China for at least ten years, which have not been adequately managed by the corporatist official channels connected to the party. The proliferation of pro-labour laws that Elaine Sio-ieng Hui identified as a «vital vehicle through which the Chinese party-state has constructed capitalist hegemony with regard to state-capital-labour relations» by substantially building proper and ad hoc juridical institutional channels for workers’ complaints, it seemed not to work anymore.[51] As reported by the same author, on various occasions the government expressed official criticism toward the very well-known pro-migrant workers 2008 Labour Contract Law for excessively raising labour costs and for having made the Chinese labour market much too inflexible and less affordable for local and foreign investors.[52] Furthermore, as the events in 2016 demonstrated, it is remarkable that labour protests and strikes have started to overcome those institutional limits that are set up by labour laws, precisely with respect to those labour rights sanctioned by the same laws. As a matter of fact, one of the party reactions that we have chosen to highlight here is the promulgation of the 2016 Charity Law and Overseas NGOs Law. These laws seem to have the precise aim to reconstruct new institutional limits in the face of a widening use of non-institutional means to protest labour rights’ violations by pushing labour organisations behind the legal perimeter. What seems to be clear is that the legitimacy of the party-state was strictly intertwined with the skilful governance of the capitalist economy and that the major internal challenge was to prevent the development of hybrid and embryonic forms of system-changing initiatives that would question both capitalism and the party-state.

Although it remains difficult to assess with certainty which political economy line the party intended to prioritise and develop in the face of its legitimacy crisis, and aside from repression and social control – as it was stated in the 13th five-year plan (2016–2020) released on March 2016 and approved by the National People’s Congress[53] – the Chinese partystate seemed to follow three policy directions, all of which are strictly interconnected: 1) innovation and upgrading; 2) structural reforms and adjustment; 3) market expansion. In 2016, in particular, it seems that the diverging views were blurring because of Xi’s efforts to fight against political rivals through the anti-corruption campaign, and to unite the party leadership along one single view.[54] We might say that the statement of Xu Shaoshi, Minister of National Development and Reform Commission, on the occasion of the 2016 Central Economic Work Conference, subsumed the essence of that view: «We will use the market and the law to regulate enterprises. If a company can adjust its work according to the market and make its own decisions, the government will not interfere».[55] The main current institutional and central plan to sustain innovation and upgrading was launched in 2015, and was called «‘ 2025’ » («‘Made in China 2025’ A Green Book on Innovation and Technology Key Areas»). It was a ten-year action plan aimed at radically transforming China’s manufacturing sector from a low-cost one to a competitive, innovative, efficient and high-tech sector. The plan was indeed meant to focus mainly on information technology, robotics, aerospace and new materials. According to some media, it could represent a solution to a plethora of problems: the rising labour costs, the challenges in terms of the environment and resources, the exports slowing down and the growth of Southeast Asian industrial competition. In the words of the Premier, Li Keqiang, «Made in China 2025» was a strategy to «seek innovation-driven development, apply smart technologies, strengthen foundations, pursue green development and redouble our efforts to upgrade China from a manufacturer of quantity to one of quality».[56] In 2016, the plan started to be implemented and Ningbo (in Zhejiang Province), which was in the middle of a major port infrastructures’ upgrade, was chosen to be the first pilot city, expanding, in this way, its capacity to attract foreign capital.[57]

Since the Central Economic Work Conference in December 2015, as already highlighted in the previous issue of Asia Maior, the so-called «Supply-Side Structural Reform» became a central factor in China’s economic policy, to be gradually implemented by local leaders. This reform included four elements: eliminating excess capacity, especially in State- Owned-Enterprises; reducing stocks of unsold housing; shutting down inefficient and indebted firms; reduce costs and increase competitiveness of firms (possibly through tax reductions; de-regulation; reductions in social security contributions).[58] As far as the elimination of excess capacity is concerned, in February 2016, the State Council released two documents concerning the steel and coal industries and the plan for layoffs. In both documents, the central government appeared extremely careful of the fate of laid-off workers. Each plan indeed implied large funds available for workers’ reassignments to new jobs or to retirement procedures.[59] Thus, the «Supply-Side Structural Reform» was another element of a wider political economy project aimed at producing a transition from a labour-intensive and export-driven economy to a capital-intensive, high-tech, and domestic demand-driven one. The plan effectively aimed at upgrading the mode of production and at reducing inefficiencies, especially in SOEs. In the meantime, the transition, as well as the connected labour redundancy, had to deal with intensified government intervention such as distribution of subsidies, tax breaks and loans.[60] The December 2016 Central Economic Work Conference, set to establish economic policies and priorities for 2017, confirmed the same trend for the following year: cutting overcapacity in the steel and iron industry as a top priority to be reached by focusing on «zombie enterprises»[61] and encouraging mergers and reorganisations.[62] Lastly, market expansion, in particular through the «One Belt, One Road» project, was the other side of the coin of the «Supply-Side Structural Reform» as well as of the «Made in China 2025» strategy. The plan was indeed meant to deal with overcapacity in steel and iron industries not only through cuts, mergers, reorganisations and labour redundancy but also by promoting the internationalisation of Chinese enterprises. Facilitating internationalisation meant liberalising outbound foreign-direct investment (OFDI) from Chinese companies and acquiring, in this way, the know-how and licenses necessary to upgrade and innovate them, improving their international competitiveness. Furthermore, the whole BRI plan consisted, concretely, in turning Chinese steel and iron overcapacity into the building processes of an integrated set of transportation and communication infrastructures, enhancing regional and continental connectivity between China and the so-called Eurasian space.[63] As shown in the next part of the article, Chinese foreign policy indeed seemed an international projection of this new development path. As Chinese foreign policy experts confirm, China’s foreign policy was indeed embedded in domestic issues and national interests and could thus be considered a further key instrument for defending and strengthening the single-party internal legitimacy to rule the country. As a consequence, foreign policy goals and decisions can be read as if guided by a combination of measures supporting domestic economic growth and responding to nationalism.[64]

5. China’s foreign policy

5.1. New developments of the «One Belt, One Road» initiative: a focus on the China-Euro-Mediterranean corridors

The entangled relationship between domestic issues of party-state legitimacy and foreign policy strategies is nowhere more evident than in the BRI initiative. As stated in the previous issue of Asia Maior, the gargantuan global infrastructure plan could, indeed, potentially answer to various domestic questions. It would strategically nurture China’s domesticconstruction industry, contributing to contain, where possible, the ongoing labour conflicts. Secondly, it would create a faster and more feasible way for the exchange of goods between China and regional markets in Europe, Central Asia, Africa and Southeast Asia. Furthermore, specifically, taking into account the South China Sea disputes (§. 5.2), the BRI could also be considered as a means to secure access to raw materials, and energy in particular, throughout an active promotion of good neighbour relations and profitable economic agreements. At the same time, the reasons behind the BRI could as well be read in relation to the ongoing China- US global challenge on both the geopolitical, economic and ideological levels. [65] Recalling the already quoted perspective of Elaine Sio-ieng Hui on Chinese labour laws, we might add that the BRI could be considered as another «vital vehicle» to perpetuate capital hegemony together with the party-state’s legitimacy by extending their borders and their agency outside China’s frontiers. From the BRI perspective, in 2016 profound attention was paid to European countries, in particular to the European Mediterranean countries and to Central and Eastern Europe. In May, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Europe Bank for Construction and Development signed a memorandum of understanding that set out a framework for cooperation in the field of infrastructure investment in Asia and the rest of the world.[66] The main reason behind those preferences lies in the pre-existing projects located in these regions: the Greek port of Piraeus, the Land-Sea Express Route between Greece and Central Europe, the China-Europe railway hubs.[67] In the summer 2016, China’s shipping and logistics corporation, COSCO, expanded its involvement in Piraeus, acquiring a controlling share in the Piraeus port authority. In Greece, this meant port privatisation, which unleashed Greek dockworkers’ strikes and protests during the negotiation between COSCO and Greece’s privatisation agency (the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund).[68] COSCO and other Chinese port companies were also interested in other seaports such as: Algeria’s port Cherchell; Egypt’s Port Said and Alexandria; Israel’s ports Ashdod and Haifa; Turkey’s port Kumport; Genoa, Naples and Venice in Italy. Throughout all this, combined with the shares that COSCO, in particular, owned in the Suez Canal container terminal and in the Port of Antwerp, China could potentially create a network of shipment routes around Europe and the Mediterranean Sea. It should also be noted that in 2016 the PRC opened in Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa, its first overseas military base.[69]

Furthermore, great attention has been paid to the connection between the Mediterranean Sea and the North and Baltic Seas through the construction of the Belgrade-Budapest railway that was supposed to continue through Skopje (in Macedonia) toward Piraeus. In November 2016, at the Riga 16 plus 1 Summit (Central and Eastern European Countries plus China), Serbia and China signed both a contract for the construction of the first part of the railway and a memorandum of understanding for a loan to finance it. The contract was worth US$ 319 million and the loan was agreed to with the Chinese Exim Bank.[70] Apart from this huge land-sea route BRI project, other China-Europe rail services were increasing in number and frequency; in 2016, the railway lines Wuhan-Lyon and Rotterdam-Chengu were officially opened.[71] As the 2016 debate on the granting of the market economy status to China reveals, the European Union and European countries were trapped in a so-called «China dilemma» between, on the one hand, job redundancy that could result from the dropping of trade protections and, on the other hand, the aspiration of many of them to receive Chinese investments.[72] In view of this, the possible Chinese achievement of market economy status within the WTO has become one of the main concerns for the European Union (EU). China has argued that it should automatically be granted the market economy status after the 15th anniversary of its accession to the WTO on 11 December 2016. Such a transition also has a customary legal enforcement, granted by the WTO Commission. Nonetheless, the European Parliament and other Western institutions are struggling to convince the commission to reconsider or to postpone China’s shift. With such new status, Chinese exports would no longer be subjected to anti-dumping measures and, accordingly, the EU would be forced to automatically lift its customary barriers towards the Chinese products. This scenario might cause a fracture between the richest and most import-oriented countries, which would happily greet lower prices and more purchasing power, and the manufacturing countries, which to the contrary, would be strongly disadvantaged. According to a report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI)[73], if the WTO grants the market economy status to China, its exports are expected to increase to 50%, and the labour market of the EU could lose up to 3.5 million jobs and 2% of its GDP in a three to five-year timespan. Such sweeping changes would severely damage the competitiveness of EU manufacturing industries, and undermine most of the still fragile European economies. According to the EPI report, the most penalised countries would be France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom.[74] However, at the end of 2016, the European Commission presented a proposal for a new method for calculating dumping on imports from non-EU countries, particularly from non-EU countries where the state has pervasive influence on the economy. The purpose was to improve European trade defence instruments, making irrelevant the possible WTO acceptance of China’s economy as a market economy.[75]

5.2. China and Southeast Asian regional politics: the South China Sea issue

The South China Sea issue has often been portrayed as a straight foreign matter, especially because of the presence of the other regional claimants, but it actually has a pronounced domestic significance and has become increasingly important for the party-state legitimacy. The dispute is a delicate matter for the Chinese leadership, for more than one reason. The first reason is that integrity of the national territory is a sensitive issue, and the ability to safeguard the inviolability of the motherland represents a true indicator of the government’s legitimacy. In its preamble, the 1982 Chinese Constitution refers to Taiwan as «[…] part of the sacred territory of the People’s Republic of China. It is the inviolable duty of all Chinese people, including our compatriots in Taiwan, to accomplish the great task of reunifying the motherland».[76] Furthermore, Article 52 states that: «It is the duty of citizens of the People’s Republic of China to safeguard the unification of the country and the unity of all its nationalities».[77] Even if the document specifically indicated Taiwan, which is understandable since it is connected to the reunification process, such a statement also applies to other territories that are already part (or considered to be) of the motherland, but face strong external pressure, such as Tibet, Xinjiang and the South China Sea.[78] The second reason lies in the growing impact of public opinion on government policy. Regarding the specific case of the maritime dispute, the Communist leadership faced some criticism for not reaffirming the country’s sovereign rights more forcefully. One significant cause behind such development, as also pointed out by different scholars, has been the rise of a strong nationalistic feeling after the Tiananmen crisis and the subsequent international isolation.[79]

Furthermore, the South China Sea dispute represents a matter of national security for several reasons. The sovereignty issue is probably the most evident. It also has a great political importance for the leadership and the party’s authority. To a certain degree, the unavoidable quest for sovereignty is almost a justification to safeguard the nation’s most urgent needs and valuable economic assets. Basically, China aims for domestic stability in order to achieve political continuity. In view of this, to China, «control of the critical South China Sea is a security imperative».[80] First of all, China’s economic growth has become progressively dependent on energy and the importation of natural resources from Africa and the Middle East. The country’s increasing dependence on foreign oil is perceived as a potential weakness, which is one of the main reasons behind most of the government’s economic, military and political actions and initiatives designed to protect national critical interests. Such a continuous search for energy and resources has contributed to the growing assertiveness in the South China Sea, which is believed to contain vast reserves of oil and gas. In fact, according to State-owned China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC)[81], the area might contain approximately 125 billion barrels of oil and 500 trillion cubic feet of gas. Although the Chinese government has probably overestimated the area’s resource potential, the fact that the South China Sea is rich in offshore oil fields has been confirmed by the most recent geological report issued by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Indeed, USGS figures show great confidence in picturing the South China Sea as an unexpectedly rich oil area, with a 95% chance of extracting at least 750 million of oil barrels.[82] By itself, this is more than sufficient to qualify the area as a major oil field.

The above figures might also represent another – economy-related – explanation of the importance given by the Chinese leadership to the South China Sea dispute. Despite Xi’s progressive departure from the old model of growth based on exports, and the new focus on domestic consumption, the party’s political legitimacy and social stability are still tied to the reattainment of a pre-financial crisis figures, with a slightly decreased expected annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth at 7-6% and an inflation rate below 4%.[83] In order to sustain such growth, the leadership needs to ensure that oil supply disruptions are either eliminated or kept at a minimum. Accordingly, Càceres’ geopolitical equation accurately describes the strategic importance of the South China Sea: «Control of oil and gas brings power. Power provides a complete sense of security. Security, both from external and internal threats, is a prerequisite to prosperity and stability. China seeks all of these things».[84] Another strategic imperative is the safeguard of the Sea Lane of Communication (SLOC) that goes through the South China Sea. In order to have a deeper understanding of the importance of the South China Sea for all of the East Asian economies, it is important to note that «the oil transported through the Malacca Strait from the Indian Ocean, en route to East Asia through the South China Sea, is triple the amount that passes through the Suez Canal and fifteen times the amount that transits the Panama Canal».[85] Concurrently, a significant portion of the global oil and gas production transit through the South China Sea in its way to reach the Chinese, Japanese and Korean ports. The figures strongly uphold such a trend: «[…] Japan, South Korea and Taiwan each import over 80% of their crude oil via the South China Sea; and, for China, which now imports over 50% of its total oil consumption, around 80% to 90% of those imports cross the South China Sea».[86]

The preservation of those maritime routes is a priority not only for Beijing, but also for Seoul, Taipei and Tokyo. The PRC’s assertiveness contributed to the emergence of a renewed, but also artificial, Chinathreat theory, specifically the ‘China SLOC threat’. According to several observers, the issue has progressively emerged because of the Chinese navy’s increasing presence: «The mission of sea lanes protection is now mentioned far more often in official Chinese documents than ten years ago, in part because China has itself become far more vulnerable to interruption of its seaborne trade».[87] The common fear of a naval blockade, which would cause catastrophic consequences for the entire region, might evolve into a deeper cooperation and become a shared international responsibility, rather than another source of tension and misunderstanding. Another important, and often underrated, issue concerns the debate around fishing rights in the contested area. The ongoing clash over fishing rights poses a major threat for regional peace and, if not properly addressed, could even trigger an armed escalation in the South China Sea. Food security is as important, if not more so, as oil security, and the regional actors do not have a shared awareness of the problem. The figures are showing the seriousness of the situation. According to the last report of the World Bank and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO): «[…] China will likely increasingly influence the global fish markets. According to the baseline model results, in 2030 China will account for 37 percent of total fish production (17 percent of capture production and 57 percent of aquaculture production), while accounting for 38 percent of global consumption of food fish».[88] If the Chinese projection is already impressive, the sum of China, Japan and Southeast Asia is projected to account for 70% of global fish production by 2030. Both China and its coastal neighbours have started to enhance their fishing fleets, but a common fishing policy would be absolutely desirable in order to discuss such demanding projections and avoid a further exacerbation of the issue.

5.2.1. A nightmare come true: the South China Sea arbitration case (an overview)

The evolution of the Chinese regional policy has been strongly affected by the progressive internationalisation of the South China Sea dispute, triggered by the Philippines in 2013, which reached its climax in 2016. However, before starting the analysis of this year’s events, sketching out a few background facts, which might be useful for a clearer and deeper picture of the problem, is in order. The Philippines started the legal process on 22 January 2013, by appealing to Articles 286 and 287 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).[89] Article 286 states that: «[…] any dispute concerning the interpretation or application of this Convention shall, where no settlement has been reached by recourse of section 1, be submitted at the request of any party to the dispute to the court or tribunal having jurisdiction under this section». On its part, Article 287 states that: «When signing, ratifying or acceding to this Convention or at any time thereafter, a State shall be free to choose, by means of a written declaration, one or more of the following means for the settlement of disputes concerning the interpretation or application of this Convention: (a) the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea established in accordance with Annex VI; (b) the International Court of Justice; (c) an arbitral tribunal constituted in accordance with Annex VII; (d) a special arbitral tribunal constituted in accordance with Annex VIII for one or more of the categories of disputes specified therein».[90]

According to Article 287, Manila requested the formation of an Arbitral Tribunal,[91] which was constituted on 21 June 2013, under Annex VII92 of the Convention. The Philippines expected to be awarded by the Tribunal regarding three main issues: (1) the illegitimacy of the Chinese claims and its inconsistency with the Convention; (2) the determination, under Article 121 of UNCLOS, of the nature of certain features claimed by both countries and their capacity to generate any legal entitlement to maritime zones larger than 12 miles; (3) clarification regarding Manila’s entitlement to exercise its sovereign rights within and beyond its exclusive economic zone and continental shelf as established in the Convention.[93] The main purpose of the Filipino government was to undermine the Chinese prominence by challenging the regional status quo with new tools. For the first time in their long-standing dispute, Manila decided to officially oppose the Chinese claims and bring the South China Sea controversy in the global arena. In addition, the arbitration request was not aimed to achieve any sovereignty acknowledgment on the contested islands for two main reasons. The first reason is the fact that acknowledging sovereignty lies beyond the legal boundaries of the Tribunal, which has no jurisdiction on such matters. The second one is more a question of political opportunity for the Philippines. Manila’s main interest is the exposing China to global criticism rather than reinforcing the legitimacy of its claims, which suffer the same legal inconsistency of the Chinese ones.

The Chinese reaction was based on the reaffirmation of their inalienable right to the islands. The Chinese government clarified its unwillingness to participate in any arbitral proceeding and, in December 2014, produced a diplomatic note that expressed its aversion to the ongoing procedure. China’s Position Paper was intended «[…] to demonstrate that the arbitral tribunal established at the request of the Philippines for the present arbitration (Arbitral Tribunal) does not have jurisdiction over this case».[94] Concurrently, the document also clarified that «no acceptance by China is signified in this Position Paper of the views or claims advanced by the Philippines, whether or not they are referred therein. Nor shall this Position Paper be regarded as China’s acceptance of or participation in this arbitration».[95] Beijing’s absolute and incontrovertible denial to consider any degree of procedural participation basically reflects the consistency of the Chinese posture regarding the issue. Accordingly, China refused to appoint one of the five arbitrators that constituted the tribunal or to submit any written memorial to the court. In China’s own view, the Chinese self-declared sovereignty over the South China Sea is undisputable and non-negotiable. Such a doctrine does not imply that the Chinese Communist Party was unaware of the regional environment or the presence of other claimants. The Chinese leadership actually encouraged the organisation to hold bilateral meetings with the specific purpose of finding a peaceful resolution of the controversy. Bilateral ground is the most suitable for Beijing, even though the continuous engagement encouraged by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has gradually persuaded China to debate the maritime issue in a very limited number of multilateral meetings. China has constantly refused to discuss the dispute outside the regional environment, in an international multilateral framework that would include extra-regional powers (namely, the United States), because the CCP considers it a domestic issue that has to be debated and resolved with the other regional actors directly involved. Accordingly, the hypothetical Chinese participation in such an international legal process would represent the political antithesis of the aforementioned doctrine. It would imply the implicit acknowledgment of the Philippines’ claims and the acceptance of the internationalisation of the dispute. That could represent a serious threat to the Party’s legitimacy.

In April 2015, the Permanent Court of Arbitration issued a press release, which confirmed its decision to conduct a hearing in July on the Arbitral Tribunal’s jurisdiction.[96] The same document confirms that the Chinese government «will neither accept nor participate in the arbitration unilaterally initiated by the Philippines».[97] During the two rounds of hearings, the Philippine delegation clarified to the Tribunal its political and strategic aim. The former Secretary of Foreign Affairs Albert del Rosario emphasised that « […] the Philippines is not asking the tribunal to rule on the territorial sovereignty aspect of its dispute with China. We are here because we wish to clarify our maritime entitlement in the South China Sea, a question over which the Tribunal has jurisdiction».[98] Such a clarification was strategically important because it allowed Manila to achieve two fundamental goals: it shifted attention to the legal entitlement of the Chinese U-shaped line[99] and, concurrently, cleared the path for the Tribunal to accept the case. Over the last two decades the Chinese leadership has relied on bilateral negotiations with the other claimants, refusing to debate the South China Sea issue in almost any multilateral environment in order to avoid a possible internationalisation of the dispute. This concern became a reality on 29 October 2015, when the Arbitral Tribunal in The Hague issued its award on jurisdiction and admissibility. China successfully avoided the Tribunal’s jurisdiction over its specious U-shaped line and its self-declared sovereignty over the islands, nevertheless, the tribunal’s decision to determine the legal entitlement of some contested features in the South China Sea significantly undermined Beijing’s claims, which consequently entered in the international legal debate. China continued to decline any involvement in a procedure that it considered illegal and inappropriate, and instead reiterated its unquestionable rights over the contested area.

5.2.2. Dividing the region; China and its quest for support

The first six months of 2016 marked the beginning of a crucial stage of the South China Sea controversy and both countries worked to uphold their cause within the regional environment. In April the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Brunei, Cambodia and Laos. The most important issue on Wang’s agenda was clearly the South China Sea (SCS) issue and the upcoming arbitration. During the visit in Brunei, his first destination, Wang underlined the importance of China’s dual-track approach as the most practical and feasible way to solve territorial disputes in the SCS. The bilateral instrument is central to Chinese regional diplomacy, reinforcing Wang’s statement that: «[…] disputes related to the South China Sea should be addressed properly through negotiations and consultations among countries directly concerned».[100] Wang clearly expressed his concern regarding the danger of a possible deviation in regional affairs: «Deviating from the ‘dual-track approach’, the overall interest of the ASEAN will be obstructed and even kidnapped by certain individual countries for private gains and the peace and stability of the South China Sea will be also jeopardized by the intervention of countries outside the region upon the occasion, which is absolutely unacceptable to China and ASEAN countries».[101] The second stop of Wang’s diplomatic voyage was Cambodia, where he met Prime Minister Hun Sen, and then he ended his short tour in Laos. Wang’s meeting with his Lao counterpart Saleumxay Kommasith was particularly important, since Laos was holding the annual chairmanship of ASEAN and was expected to play a crucial, and neutral, role in managing the arbitration output. In this regard, Kommasith acted more as ASEAN spokesman and respected the association’s neutral stance, underlining the country’s support for an effective implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of the Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), in order to maintain the regional peace and stability.[102] Wang’s main accomplishment resulted in the publication of a fourpoint consensus, agreed to by his counterparts in Brunei, Cambodia and Laos, through which China developed a substantial backing from the three countries. The consensus concisely stated that: (1) the dispute over the Spratly Islands is not an issue between China and ASEAN and should not have any implication on their future relations; (2) sovereign states have the right to choose their own way to solve disputes and no unilateral decision can be imposed on them; (3) dialogues and consultations under Article 4 of DOC[103] are the proper instrument to solve disputes; (4) China and ASEAN countries are able to jointly maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea through cooperation. Countries outside the region should play a constructive role rather than exacerbating the current issue.[104] The reference in the last sentence is probably addressed to the United States, and more generally to Western institutions such as the Permanent Court of Arbitration, which are considered as the most influential external forces in the dispute. The constructive role desired by Beijing should be translated into the non-interference in the regional affairs, rather than in the tacit endorsement of such international disturbance, perceived as an exacerbation of the antagonism in the South China Sea. Wang’s short tour and the consequent document underlined both China’s eagerness to engage its closest regional partners as the Tribunal’s final verdict approached, and Beijing’s inner capacity to capitalise on the division between the ASEAN members regarding the South China Sea issue.

The Philippines did not gained any regional praise for their international endeavour, and possible partners in the dispute, such as Vietnam and Malaysia, released neutral statements in which they expressed their hope for a «fair and objective ruling in the Arbitration case».[105] On the other side, by supporting China’s four-point consensus, Brunei, Cambodia and Laos clearly expressed their position, which was a refusal of the Philippines-led multilateral strategy against China’s maritime assertiveness. Also, the fourth point of the aforementioned consensus clearly stressed that China and its three partners would stand against any involvement of outside powers, namely the United States. On 8 June 2016 the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a final document,[106] reiterating its denial and nonparticipation in the arbitration and settling the relevant disputes between the two countries through bilateral negotiations. On 29 June 2016 the Tribunal officially announced the decision to issue its final award on 12 July 2016.

5.2.3. The verdict and its impact on the regional environment

On 12 July the Tribunal issued its unanimous award, and the result was completely favourable to the Philippines, receiving almost all of Manila’s submissions. The most important decision was probably the one concerning the Chinese historical right and the status of the Nine-Dash (or U-shaped) Line.[107] In view of this, the Tribunal stated that «[…] as between the Philippines and China, China’s claims to historic rights, or other sovereign rights or jurisdiction, 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 Convention and without lawful effect to the extent that they exceed the geographic and substantive limits of China’s maritime entitlements under the Convention».[108] Regarding the entitlements to maritime areas and the status of features, «[…] The Tribunal also concludes that none of the high-tide features in the Spratly Islands are capable of sustaining human habitation or an economic life of their own within the meaning of those terms in Article 121(3) of the Convention. All of the high-tide features in the Spratly Islands are therefore legally rocks for purposes of Article 121(3) and do not generate entitlements to an exclusive economic zone or continental shelf».[109] The final award also clarified that «[…] both Mischief Reef and Second Thomas Shoal are located within 200 nautical miles of the Philippines’ coast on the island of Palawan and are located in an area that is not overlapped by the entitlements generated by any maritime feature claimed by China. It follows, therefore, that, as between the Philippines and China, Mischief Reef and Second Thomas Shoal form part of the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf of the Philippines».[110]

Concurrently, the Tribunal also declared that «[…] China had violated the Philippines’ sovereign rights in its exclusive economic zone by (a) interfering with Philippine fishing and petroleum exploration, (b) constructing artificial islands and (c) failing to prevent Chinese fishermen from fishing in the zone. The Tribunal also held that fishermen from the Philippines (like those from China) had traditional fishing rights at Scarborough Shoal and that China had interfered with these rights in restricting access».[111] Altogether, the Arbitration ruling was overwhelmingly in Manila’s favour and the court downsized, if not effectively eliminated, the Nine- Dash Line as we know it. Such an award also marked the first significant international legal decision on the maritime dispute in the SCS, a danger that China had successfully avoided for more than 20 years. The Chinese government refused to recognise the Tribunal’s award. Xi Jinping declared that China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime interests in the SCS would not be affected in any circumstances, while its Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, stated that the arbitration was «a political farce under the pretext of law».[112] Immediately after the publication of the final award, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs released an official statement that solemnly declared that the award was void and it had no binding force: «[…] The conduct of the Arbitral Tribunal and its awards seriously contravene the general practice of international arbitration, completely deviate from the object and purpose of UNCLOS to promote peaceful settlement of disputes, substantially impair the integrity and authority of UNCLOS, gravely infringe upon China’s legitimate rights as a sovereign state and state party to UNCLOS, and are unjust and unlawful».[113] It is underlined again in the final paragraph of the document: «The Chinese government reiterates that, regarding territorial issues and maritime delimitation disputes, China does not accept any means of third party dispute settlement or any solution imposed on China. The Chinese government will continue to abide by international law and basic norms governing international relations as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, including the principles of respecting state sovereignty and territorial integrity and peaceful settlement of the disputes».[114] The Philippines welcomed the Tribunal’s award with great satisfaction. For Manila, the award provided a basis to further talks and cooperation to encompass all parties, including China. According to the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Philippines, Albert del Rosario, «[…] good faith discussions, based on the rule of law, can be commenced to prepare the way for negotiations and a lasting settlement among all parties with claims in the South China Sea».[115] The whole arbitration process had been triggered and fuelled by the Aquino III administration and his Liberal Party, which lost the election in favour of Rodrigo Duterte’s PDP-Laban on 9 May 2016. Duterte’s stance on the dispute and his willingness to follow the Court’s guidelines are not clear.[116]

5.2.4. The post-arbitration environment and Rodrigo Duterte’s election

Regarding China’s position after the arbitration, it is possible to point out a dual view. From a domestic point of view, Beijing’s stance was unaltered, along with popular support for its maritime strategy, and the Tribunal’s award was seen as another unrequested foreign interference. From an international point of view, despite China’s alleged disregard, the verdict clearly undermined Beijing’s position and its enduring work to keep the issue outside of the international agenda. From such a perspective, China’s reaction was both confident and wary of a possible international exacerbation. China is expected to be a responsible stakeholder in the South China Sea, but after Manila’s unexpected triumph, the Chinese leadership lost the chance to exploit the legal ambiguity derived from its Nine-Dash Line. The court ruling was particularly aggressive and directly rejected the Line, which literally infuriated China and led to the intensification of its assertiveness and land reclamation in the disputed area. The tension in the region peaked when Chinese Defence Minister Chang Wanquan released a warring declaration, in which he called for the «recognition of the seriousness of the national security situation, especially the threat from the sea». He also added that «military, police and people should prepare for mobilization to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity».[117] On the same day, the Supreme People’s Court issued a judicial interpretation in which it specified its new standards for convicting and punishing those engaged in illegal fishing in Chinese territorial waters. Such criminal acts and those responsible would be fined and sentenced to less than one year’s imprisonment. [118] The court also added that «People’s court will actively exercise jurisdiction over China’s territorial waters […] and safeguard Chinese territorial sovereignty and maritime interest».[121] Such strong declarations appeared as the dangerous preamble of a military escalation in the region, on the contrary turned out to be the beginning of a gradual downsizing of the confrontation. Philippine President Duterte declared that his country could achieve more benefits from China if the two governments could reach a settlement despite the Tribunal’s award. [120]

On 20 October 2016, during an official visit to China, President Duterte announced a new realignment towards Beijing and the beginning of a new ‘springtime’ in the relationship between the two countries. President Xi Jinping called Duterte’s visit a new milestone in Sino-Philippine relations, adding that the two countries agreed to pursue bilateral dialogue and consultation in seeking a proper settlement in the South China Sea.[121] The Arbitration’s award created great commotion in the region and certainly affected the perception of China, both regionally and globally. But Beijing’s alleged belligerence and assertiveness was mitigated by the inception of new political strategies in the Philippines and by the usual lack of regional cohesion. These two factors contributed to reduce the political scope of the arbitration and allowed Beijing to preserve its core interest, namely to maintain a favourable political and strategic status quo in the contested waters and uncontested access to the SCS, in order to keep its second strike capability with SSBN submarines. Even if the whole arbitration process was a serious strike to China’s regional prestige and its bilateral diplomacy framework, Beijing successfully avoided further internationalisation of the dispute and reduced any expected damages.

 

Foreword: Asia Maior in 2016

Available also in pdf – Download Pdf –

The second and final four-year mandate of US President Barack Obama came to an end on Friday 20 January 2017, making of 2016, the year under review in this volume, the concluding one of what can be defined the Obama Era. The end of the Obama era was related not so much to the conclusion of the second and last Obama presidency as to the political personality and programme of his successor. The unexpected election of Donald Trump as the new US president, on 8 November 2016, brought to power a politician whose programme, although lacking in clarity and coherence, appeared to have as its polar star the objective of undoing most if not all of the major policies and reforms carried out by his predecessor. As far as Asia is concerned, Donald Trump’s election had an immediate and major consequence, represented by the President-elect’s announcement, on 21 November 2016, that he would withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) «from day one» of his presidency. By taking this decision, Donald Trump demolished one of the twin pillars on which the Obama administration’s foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific region had been based (the other being the «pivot to Asia», namely the redeployment of much of the US military strength in the Asia-Pacific region). Trump’s decision, by the way – notwithstanding Japan’s Prime Minister Shinz Abe warning that the TPP would be «meaningless» without US participation – did not mean either the end of the Trans Pacific Partnership or its reduction to irrelevance. On the contrary, Trump’s decision meant, quite simply, that the US was giving up its role of leadership in what still remained potentially the most important free-trade pact of the 21st century. By so doing, the US President-elect opened the way to China joining and, eventually, playing a leadership role in the TPP.

Trump’s decision to withdraw from an economic pact that had been so actively pursued by his predecessor and was so central to his policies highlighted a clear-cut and decisive hiatus in the US foreign policy and, in a way, epitomised the end of the Obama era in Asia. However, momentous as they were, and bound to decisively affect the next future of Asia, Trump’s election and his decision to abandon the TPP came too late in the year 2016 to really play a decisive role in the political and economic evolution characterising that year in Asia Maior (namely that part of Asia that the Asia Maior think tank defines as delimited in the north by the Caucasus and the Siberian southern border, in the west by Turkey and the Arab countries and in the south and the east by the Indian and Pacific Oceans respectively). Differently put, although 2016 was the concluding year of the Obama era, and although the closing of the Obama era was bound to impact on the future of Asia (as well as on the future of the remainder of the world), this event, crucial as it was, did not yet visibly impact on the political and economic processes under way – in Asia as elsewhere – during the year under review.

Others, therefore, were, during the solar year 2016, the developments characterizing the evolution of the Asian countries examined in this volume. As usual in a geopolitical and geo-economic area as complex and differentiated as Asia, even that limited part of Asia that is here defined Asia Maior, these developments varied in the different quadrants of the area under review. However, two main threads are discernible as significant for most Asia Maior countries, while a third one can be identified as significant in at least some key countries. The first thread is represented by China’s assertive foreign policy and the varied reactions to it of most other Asian countries; the second thread is represented by changes in the political set up in the countries examined in the present Asia Maior issue, a change related to the search for the legitimation and the consolidation of power of their respective ruling classes; the third thread – relevant for Muslim majority countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia – is epitomised by the belligerent struggle of radical Islam against whomever is not sharing its regressive and authoritarian Weltanschauung. It is worth stressing that the first and second threads are strictly intertwined as – as argued below – China’s aggressive foreign policy is itself expression of the search for legitimation and power of its ruling class.

 


 

To a large extent, in 2016 much of Asia Maior was influenced – directly or indirectly – by China’s policies. The giant East Asian country was still experiencing – as it had been the case since 2011 – a pronounced slowdown in its economic growth. Although China’s growth was still impressive, its deceleration determined a complex set of consequences for both its domestic and foreign policies. This was the natural enough result of the fact that, since the late 1970s, the legitimacy of the Chinese ruling class has no longer been based on the idea of heroism of the founding members of the revolutionary party but on the success of the party’s economic policies. Accordingly, the economic slowdown characterizing the years since 2011 was bound to put this legitimacy in doubt. At the domestic level, this has brought about the rise of labour unrest which, in turn, has determined what Francesca Congiu and Alessandro Uras, in this volume, define as an «authoritarian regression […] ruled and formalised by law». In other words, a process became visible characterised by the shifting of political power from a collective leadership to one man, namely President Xi Jinping.

In the analysis of Congiu and Uras, this crisis of legitimacy has been the real engine behind China’s aggressive behaviour in the South China Sea, as the Chinese leadership was trying to find a prop to its declining legitimacy in nationalism. However, it is worth stressing that, although widely perceived as aggressive, China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea is far from being a threat to freedom of navigation, as claimed by the US and its allies. After all, it is freedom of navigation which makes possible for China both to carry out most of its trade, which is crucially important for its economic growth, and to supply itself with the energy needed for making its whole economic system work. Accordingly China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea can also be read as the natural outcome of its legitimate preoccupation to keep its more proximate and more important sea connections with the remainder of the world open to trade and outside the reach of the navies of the US and its allies.

The Chinese ruling class’ crisis of legitimacy may or may not be the engine of Chinese policy in the South China Sea. However, the economic slowdown that is at the basis of this crisis of legitimation is also the key motivation in explaining the gigantic Belt and Road Initiative (formerly called One Belt, One Road initiative), launched by Beijing in autumn 2013. Through this initiative, Beijing has been trying to find a productive employment for China’s economic over-capacities, while, at the same time, protecting itself from the arc of containment that the Obama administration has been building around China. Accordingly Chinese capital and know-how have started to be employed in giving shape to an extremely ambitious and complex network of traditional and new infrastructures aimed at connecting China to the remainder of continental Asia plus Europe and Africa.

Of course, as in the case of Chinese policy in the South China Sea, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has a political-military strategic side. If Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea aims (also) at keeping open the sea lanes that are most vital to the Chinese economy, the BRI aims at opening new connections with the remainder of the Eurasian landmass, which are beyond the reach of US military might or, anyway, more difficult for it to control and, in case of need, to choke.

The BRI and Beijing’s South China Sea policies, while strengthening China’s connection with several, mainly continental, Asian countries, have, not unexpectedly, caused the adverse backlash of others, actively supported by the US. This, as shown by Giulio Pugliese in this and previous Asia Maior issues, has been the case with Japan. Also, as shown by Michelguglielmo Torri and Diego Maiorano, again in this and previous Asia Maior issues, this has been the case with India. Likewise, as shown by Michela Cerimele, this has been the case with Vietnam.

A more complex reaction to China’s policies is that of Laos, analysed by Nicola Mocci: Laos maintained its strong economic connection with China, mainly built as a consequence of BRI; nevertheless, in the year under review, and as a result the new political set up which came into being following the 10th congress of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party, the South-east Asian country marked its political distance from its giant northern neighbour.

In a class apart, but still representative of China’s difficulties in relating to its neighbours, there is China’s relationship with Taiwan, or, differently put, the relation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) with the Republic of China (ROC). As shown by Aurelio Insisa, after a promising phase of rapprochement between the two Chinas – based on the acceptance by both countries of the «1992 Consensus», which posits the existence of One China, including both the Mainland and Taiwan – this process came to an abrupt end. What caused this development was the election to the Taiwan presidency, on 16 January 2016, of Tsai Ing-wen and the conquest of the majority in the Taiwan Legislative Yuan (LY) by her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Tsai’s refusal to accept the «1992 Consensus» led to a phase of renewed tension between the two Chinas, exemplified by Beijing’s decision to suspend cross-strait contact.

On the other hand, as noted above, there were the cases of countries which were becoming increasingly tied to China, and, in addition, cases of countries which were hedging their bets by keeping open their connections with both China and its adversaries. Undoubtedly, in 2016, the most telling example of the former category was Pakistan, analysed by Marco Corsi. Here the construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), namely a gigantic network of infrastructures tying the Chinese province of Xinjiang to the Indian Ocean port of Gwadar was under way. The project, originally valued at US$ 46 billion, in 2016 already reached the value to US$ 54 billion.

Examples of states which have hedged their bets by keeping open their connections with both China and other geopolitical main players in Asia are those of Sri Lanka, analysed by Fabio Leone, and of Kazakhstan, analysed by Adele Del Sordi. In a way representative of the same phenomenon is the case of Nepal, analysed by Michelguglielmo Torri and Diego Maiorano when discussing India’s foreign policy. The imperatives of geography have consigned the Himalayan country to the chocking embrace of its giant South Asian neighbour. Still, as shown by Torri and Maiorano, Nepal and China are operating to maintain open their connections and, if possible, to enlarge then in the future.

A peculiar case in the relations between China and its neighbours is that of the Philippines. In 2013 the Philippines filed a case at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague against China’s claim on most of the South China Sea. The ruling of the Permanent Court came on 12 July 2016, and was against China on nearly all counts. However, at that point in time, in the Malacañang palace in Manila, pro-US President Benigno Aquino III, under whose tenure his country had filed the case against China, had recently been substituted by anti-US President Rodrigo Duterte. This not only was enough to radically diminish the political fall-out of the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s verdict, but, as explained by Carmina Untalan, was the ironic premise to the Philippines’ «pivot to China».

 


 

The name of Rodrigo Duterte can be considered an appropriate launching pad for exploring what, beside China’s assertiveness and the other Asian nations’ varied reactions to it, is the other main thread to follow to understand the political and economic evolution of Asia Maior in 2016. This second thread is represented by the evolving power balance inside the ruling classes of the Asian countries analysed in the present issue. This evolution appears to be characterised by two processes. The first is the consolidation of authoritarian or quasi-authoritarian one-man leaderships, sometimes inside political systems which are democratic or partly democratic, sometimes inside political systems which are openly nondemocratic, usually based on one-party rule.

The second of the two processes characterising the evolving of the internal political balances in the Asia Maior countries is the maintenance of the grip on power by openly authoritarian ruling classes, guided by a Leopard-like willingness (the reference, of course, is to Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s famous novel) to change everything – or, if not everything, quite a lot – so that everything can stay the same. This latter attitude explains the authoritarian ruling classes’ availability to opening partly democratic or quasi democratic spaces inside or beside the political systems which they control. In turn, this development begs a crucial question: are these mixed systems nothing more than the old authoritarian arrangements, now dressed up in new and more attractive «democratic» clothes? Or the newlyopened democratic spaces represent real, although constrained, spaces of freedom, and, at least in some cases, are possible stepping stones on the way to full-blown democracy?

Of course this is not the place where to answer this question. Our task, here, is simply and humbly that of pointing out the examples of the above listed two processes characterising the evolving political balance of the Asian ruling classes. But before doing that, it is worth stressing that it can be argued – as has authoritatively been done by Beverly Silver – that the just noted authoritarian processes are not due to chance but are the necessary outcome of the adoption of neoliberal policies. These policies do bring about a usually rapid growth of the GNP but, at the same time, cause steep increases in social disparities and the consequent necessity by the ruling classes to make use of the iron fist in implementing the new policies. This, in turn, naturally results in the emergence of strongmen and/or the tying of their grip on power by the ruling élites.

Once this has been said, and coming to the examples of authoritarian or quasi-authoritarian one-man leaderships in Asia Maior, Duterte’s case, which has just been recalled above, is the most evident example, at least in Asia, of an authoritarian leadership brought to power by popular vote. As noticed by Carmina Untalan, what makes this case puzzling is that it has happened in a country which, not so far ago, namely in 1986, put an end to a 20-year period of dictatorship through a successful non-violent and democratic revolution. As shown in Untalan’s analysis, Duterte’s ascent to power is the result of the long-term decline of the spirit of that People Power Revolution, or EDSA Revolution, which not only put an end to Marcos’s authoritarian rule, but resurfaced again in 2001 with the EDSA II and EDSA III movements, related to the ousting of President Joseph «Erap» Estrada.

Another example of an authoritarian personality tying his grip on a democratic system is that of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, examined by Torri and Maiorano. In countrast to this, there is the case of Japan Prime Minister Shinz Abe, examined by Pugliese. As shown by Pugliese in this and past issues of this journal, although Shinz Abe is undoubtedly an authoritarian personality, his capability to strengthen his grip on the political system has precise and inflexible limitations in the democratic strength of this same system. In fact, in 2016, as shown by Pugliese, political calculation pushed Shinz Abe to soften his more nationalistic positions, with the aim of paving the way to an extension of his already long mandate as Japanese Prime Minister.

On the other side of the political spectrum, namely inside openly non-democratic systems, the rise or consolidation of one-man leaderships is exemplified by the consolidation of personal power by both Chinese President Xi Jinping – analysed by Francesca Congiu and Alessandro Uras – and Supreme Leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Kim Jong-un – analysed by Marco Milani. The latter case, of course, is a special one, as is in no way related to the implementation or strengthening of neoliberal economic policies.

Examples of authoritarian ruling elites’ Leopard-like willingness to change what is needed to maintain their ultimate control of power are abundant. As argued by Adele Del Sordi, in Kazakhstan a political leadership that remains strongly authoritarian successfully adopted softer, less repressive and more sophisticated forms of control. As shown by Pietro Masina, in Thailand the military junta ruling the country after the coup of 2014 had a new constitution approved, which heralded the creation of a «semi-democratic» system. In it the ultimate power was to be firmly kept in the hands of the army and the royalist élites. A similar case can be considered that of Myanmar. Here, as shown by Matteo Fumagalli, a five-year transition from military to semi-civilian rule reached a turning point with the elections of 2015 and 2016, which marked a watershed in favour of the latter form of government. However, at the end of the day the transition to full democracy was less than complete and the proof given by the new government, de-facto headed by Aung San Suu Kyi, somewhat disappointing, even under the profile of democratisation. Yet the point can be made that, in Myanmar, the space of democracy created inside or beside the still surviving authoritarian set-up could be a step towards full-blown democracy.

A somewhat different case, but still one which can be considered exemplary of the ability of the old authoritarian élites to maintain their grip on power, is that of Indonesia. Here, the new President, Joko « Jokowi» Widodo, has widely been perceived by the people at large as a representative of new democratic forces vis-à-vis the deep-seated authoritarian legacy embodied in Suharto’s still powerful «New Order» political and social circles. However, as argued by Elena Valdameri in this and in the previous issue of this journal, the Indonesian president has continued to rely on public figures, especially military ones, still connected to the old and authoritarian «New Order» of the Suharto era.

Together with the above examples, a peculiar case can be made of a political system apparently stuck mid-way between democracy and authoritarianism, namely that of Iran. Here an openly authoritarian political set-up exists, headed by the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei – who, in turn, is the expression of the religious-military oligarchy which assumed power through the 1979 revolution. However, inside this authoritarian system, a democratic although constrained space does exist, headed by a president elected by universal adult suffrage every four years. In 2016, as shown by Luciano Zaccara, the incumbent president, Hassan Rouhani, strengthened his position thanks to the results of the legislative elections. These results endorsed both Rouhani’s administration and the nuclear accord which, through laborious and long negotiations, the Iranian President had reached with the P5+1 group of nations. By itself this represented a strengthening of the constrained democratic dimension present inside a political system which, at the end of the day, remains authoritarian.

Once all the above has been pointed out, in Asia Maior there were at least two exceptions to the consolidation of power by one-man-leaderships or its maintenance by authoritarian ruling classes willing to apply Leopardlike strategies. One is represented by the ousting of South Korean President Park Geun-hye as the result of the mobilisation of civil society. As shown by Marco Milani, this was triggered by the reaction of the civil society to the South Korean President’s improper connection with a close friend and confidant. The latter had made use of her influence on the President to offer favours to powerful economic conglomerates in return for large sums of money.

At least as important is the case of Sri Lanka, analysed by Fabio Leone. The new Lankan political phase had initiated in January 2015 with the electoral defeat of authoritarian President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the fall from power of Mahinda himself and his family clan, which, under the defeated president’s leadership, had come to dominate the Lankan polity. In 2016, under the double leadership of President Maithripala Sirisena and his new Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, the Lankan new political phase found expression in a policy aimed at re-establishing the rule of law and implementing reconciliation measures aimed at healing the still open wounds of the long and bloody civil war of 1983-2009.

 


 

A third thread worth to be followed to understand the evolution if not of most countries in Asia Maior, at least of some of them is represented by the violent struggle between radical Islamic forces and a number of Asian states. This is, of course, the case of Afghanistan, where the war is still going on and, as Diego Abenante argues, in 2016 the uneasy balance between the regular army and the Taliban insurgency showed the tendency to shift in favour of the insurgents. In Pakistan, as pointed out by Marco Corsi, in the past years military operations against radical Islamic insurrectionary or terrorist forces have effectively rolled them back, bringing large swathes of territory, previously under the sway of Muslim armed extremists, once again under the control of the state. This effort, however, has had a heavy cost in terms of resource reallocation, military expenditures, and the contraction of trade, business activities, and investments at large. Two other Asian countries which were put under pressure by radical Islam were Bangladesh and Indonesia. In particular, as shown by Marzia Casolari, Islamic violence in Bangladesh was so continuous and pervasive, to appear as a low-intensity civil war against not only Bangladeshi and foreign non-Muslims, but also against Bangladeshi moderate Muslims and secular citizens. In reacting to it, both the government and the state repressive apparatus showed uncertainty and weakness.

The situation in Indonesia, as shown by Elena Valdameri, although different, was hardly less alarming. Here the government reacted efficiently and without hesitation to violence on the part of Islamic radicalism. What was worrying, however, was the rising of Islamic intolerance in the Indonesian society at large and the successful attempt to use Islam as a tool to question political pluralism. This phenomenon was epitomised by the mass demonstrations and the judicial case against the Christian governor of Jakarta, Ahok, speciously accused of blasphemy by a political adversary. Equally alarming was the weakness shown by President Widodo in dealing with what was a clear and present danger to Indonesian ethno-religious pluralism and political democracy.

 


 

Most commentators, at least in India, would portray the case of Kashmir as an example of the just discussed violent clash between radical Islamic forces and the state. However, as argued by Marco Valerio Corvino in the appendix to the article focussed on India, reality is considerably different. In spite of the fact that some Pakistan-based radical Islamic terrorist groups have been active in the Kashmir Valley at least from the early 1990s, the problem of Kashmir has very little to do with religion and, far from being the result of the intervention of radical Islamic forces coming from outside India (as claimed by both the Indian State and most Indian commentators), has causes related to the recent political history of Kashmir. In fact, Kashmiri Islam is historically alien from those fundamentalist and radical Islamic currents – steadily promoted in the past decades by Saudi money and imams – which have found expression in the creation and violent activities of outfits such as al-Q ida and the Islamic State. What is at the basis of the Kashmiri problem is, rather, the betrayal of the engagement made by the Indian State in 1947, promising a very wide autonomy to Kashmir. In other words, Kashmir discontent and the resulting unrest are not linked to religion, but are the natural enough reaction to the policies of a central state that has first steadily and duplicitously worn away Kashmiri autonomy – in spite of it being enshrined in the Indian Constitution – and, then, beginning with the early 1990s, has fallen back on a ruthless and pervasive policy of repression. This policy, however, far from solving the Kashmir problem, has increased the alienation of the Kashmiris vis-à-vis the Indian State, determining a dangerous and unstable situation. It is a situation where even a small spark can cause a massive explosion, which, as shown by Corvino, is exactly what happened in 2016.

MT & NM