The Wonk Room

Positive Steps And Missed Opportunities In China

Our guest blogger is Winny Chen, Research Associate for the National Security and International Policy Team at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Looking at the deliverables from President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao’s first summit is a lot like looking at the box score on the sports pages: it only tells part of the story. Sometimes, the best plays — astute defense, patience in the pitch count, taking the charge — won’t manifest in the final readout, but they could be the game-changing plays.

At first glance, the results of the summit were a mixed bag. The trip, at times, seemed to highlight the differences between the United States and China more than it did to deliver results. There was agreement on the need for free trade but also mutual finger-pointing on currency and protectionism, recognition of the progress in the Strait but the same catechisms on arms sales and One-China.

Perhaps the biggest loser was human rights. To be fair, President Obama did speak directly to President Hu about the issue, asserting “America’s bedrock beliefs that all men and women possess certain fundamental human rights,” and urging Chinese leaders to meet with the Dalai Lama. But at the end of the day, what some deem as President Obama’s more practical approach resulted in some missed opportunities. Unlike in past presidential summits, China didn’t release any political dissidents as a symbol of goodwill. Indeed, China went the opposite direction and detained activists before the President Obama’s arrival. The Obama team did not meet with any political activists or dissident leaders in China, nor did they directly reference China’s human rights record on the trip. The president’s much-publicized call for greater internet freedom was, ironically, censored in China. And ultimately, President Obama’s more conciliatory approach seemed to soft-pedal human rights.

But there was progress, too. Obama and Hu recommitted to improving and increasing military exchanges, programs, and dialogue and have laid out an affirmative agenda focusing on law enforcement and counterterrorism. They reaffirmed a unified approach to the crisis on the Korean peninsula. On non-proliferation, Presidents Obama and Hu agreed to work together to achieve a successful Review Conference of Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 2010 and supported the launching of negotiations on the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty at an early date in the Conference on Disarmament. Most surprising was the progress made on climate change. So, all in all, a mixed tally.

But what the score, and many accounts of the trip, won’t reflect is the important contributions that President Obama’s trip made to U.S.-China relations. There were three intangibles that we cannot overlook. First, he signaled that the United States is back in Asia, ready to assume its role as an engaged Pacific power once again. Second, his remarks at the joint press conference with President Hu on Tuesday threw support and momentum behind sustaining the U.S.-China dialogue at the highest levels in both governments. Third, he made clear to the Chinese and to the American audiences at home, that, like it or not, on the big issues — security, economy, climate change — we’re in this together.

Chinese Strateg-urrance

Our guest blogger is Nina Hachigian, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund

Earlier this week, as he prepared to leave for Asia, President Obama called the U.S. relationship with China a “strategic partnership.” This is a big move. The term is an upgrade from President Bush’s label “constructive and cooperative and candid” and a far cry from Bush’s campaign term “strategic competitor.” President Obama’s comments are 100% certain to be met with accusations of appeasement and naivete by the not-always-so-loyal opposition. The neocons didn’t like the concept of “strategic reassurance” that Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg unveiled a few weeks ago, and spoke about at a recent event, and they are going to like this even less. But using this term before his first visit is a very smart move.

First, let’s be clear about what President Obama said and the context in which he said it. In response to a reporter’s question about how he views China, President Obama began by saying that he sees China as “a vital partner, as well as a competitor.” Later he stated that “on critical issues, whether climate change, economic recovery, nuclear non-proliferation, it’s very hard to see how we succeed or China succeeds in our respective goals without working together. And that is, I think, the purpose of the strategic partnership.”

So it is clear, in case you hear otherwise, that President Obama does not think China is our best friend. In addition to calling China a “competitor,” he went on to say that he raises human rights, “universal rights” he called them, in every meeting with the Chinese. We know that he hasn’t hesitated to anger Beijing when policy calls for that, as his controversial decision on trade sanctions on Chinese tires illustrates. In fact, the entire trip itinerary makes clear that China is only one element of US Asia policy. President Obama is strengthening our traditional alliances in Japan and South Korea, and finally getting the US in the game of multilateral diplomacy in APEC and ASEAN on which China has been running the tables over the last eight years.

Obama referred to a strategic partnership with China in the context of major transnational threats. China is the world’s largest emitter of carbon, its most dynamic large economy and a nuclear power that neighbors North Korea and buys more oil from Iran than any other country. If China isn’t our partner, then we are in trouble.

The problem is that China has not been a reliable partner. It has been reluctant to take the kind of proactive steps on global challenges that the US wants and needs it to. As I detail in a new report, China is very engaged in all the international institutions and very prepared at the international summits—and this is a big step in the right direction—but you can count on a couple of fingers the number of times China has taken proactive leadership on a global threat: (1) North Korea (but it took enormous and constant US pressure to get them to lead on the Six Party Talks) and (2) the avian and swine flu pandemics, but on those their active leadership has consisted of convening international conferences, not exactly a mind-blowing example of international problem-solving.

Beijing is not using its leverage with Iran to end its nuclear program, it has so far resisted agreeing to limits on its carbon emissions that would make a necessary global deal to address climate change possible, and the steps China is taking to move to a domestic-led growth model that will address global economic imbalances are welcome but too few and too slow.

What the Chinese will tell you is that they achieve a trusting relationship by, first, developing trust with their counterpart and only then doing things together. This is exactly reverse, they will say, of Americans, who want to get things done together and develop trust in the process. President Obama’s gesture gives China’s leaders some strategic reassurance that he has a positive view of the relationship. He is offering a modicum of pre-trust that the Chinese say they need. This is not weakness — it is clever diplomacy.

If, over time, the Chinese do not cooperate more deeply, then “strategic partnership” will fail to become an accurate description of the relationship. The term could end up just a blip in the historical fluctuations of US-China terminology. But instead I hope that, in a few years, it turns out to be a positive, accurate and unremarkable description of our relationship with China.

What Does The Pentagon’s ‘Afghanistan-Pakistan Hands Program’ Say About Obama’s ‘Smart Power’ Efforts? »

Our guest blogger is Brian Katulis, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

An interesting effort at the Pentagon caught my attention in recent weeks: the “Afghanistan-Pakistan Hands Program.” Introduced earlier this year, the program raises broader questions about the emerging Obama doctrine on U.S. national security and the right balance of resources between military and non-military efforts.

Yochi Dreazen at the Wall Street Journal mentioned the program in this article earlier last month (calling it the “Afghan Hands”), and this recent article on the Pentagon’s website provides more details.

The program seeks to bring officers from all of the military services to serve for 3-5 years on Afghanistan and Pakistan. The overall aim is to promote greater focus and continuity on these countries as well as reduce the steep learning curve facing personnel on language and cultural issues when they land in Afghanistan. The program has 300 billets, including 121 new positions. Military personnel who enter the program would have their assignments focused on the Af-Pak region of the world –so after serving on the ground, they would rotate to positions in the Defense Department that are focused on this part of the world. The training would include several weeks of language training in Pashto, Dari, and Urdu, as well as combat training. And the Pentagon has stated that those who enter the program won’t be penalized in terms of advancement and seniority – easier said than done with the sometimes rigid bureaucratic procedures governing such a large group of personnel.

The idea for the program emanated from the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s review of Afghanistan strategy that General Stanley McChrystal chaired before he became the current top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.

Obama administration officials are careful to note the obvious – that this program could be scaled back if the commander-in-chief decides to move to a strategy that includes a more modest military footprint in Afghanistan. I doubt that the creation of this program signals all that much about what President Obama will decide in the coming weeks, beyond restating the obvious that we’re seeing a recalibration of more resources to Afghanistan and Pakistan and that the center of gravity for U.S. policy in the broader Middle East and South Asia is shifting eastward.

Two questions I had about the Af-Pak Hands Program:

1. Why did it take eight years to come up with this idea? I don’t find it a particularly innovative idea that America might want to know something about the countries where it sends tens of thousands of soldiers and Marines and spends billions of taxpayer dollars. There are more tactical questions such as whether a few weeks of language training are really enough – as an Arabic speaker, I know how hard it is to develop and then maintain the language skills. The creation and existence of this program demonstrates the gap that exists between what counterinsurgency (COIN) theorists often propose our troops should do and the actual capacity among our troops to implement those tasks.

2. What do Pentagon programs like these mean for the “smart power” ideas that are the threads of an emerging Obama doctrine on national security? The Obama administration’s top national security officials have all talked about the need to focus on investing in diplomacy and development as tools of national power – putting it under the label of smart power. And Afghanistan and Pakistan are probably the toughest test cases of this emerging Obama doctrine of smart power.

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Electronics and Atrocities: Tech Supply Chains Must Do No Harm »

Our guest bloggers are Sarah K. Dreier, a graduate student at the University of Washington and a former researcher at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and David Sullivan, Research Associate at the ENOUGH project.

From the satellite mapping of atrocities and data-driven prosecution of war criminals to the use of social networking to mobilize against repressive regimes, advances in science and technology hold unprecedented potential to make human rights a reality across the world.

A new report from the Center for American Progress, “New Tools for Old Traumas,” calls on President Obama — recently dubbed “Scientist in Chief” for his unprecedented commitment to research and development — to lead efforts to use these new tools to bring human rights perpetrators to justice; halt ongoing atrocities; and empower victims to fight against injustice. Cell phone companies have crucial roles to play as well because part of the complexity of this issue is ensuring that these tools do not foster human rights atrocities as well as stop them.

Today, the mobile phone that an activist uses to mobilize protesters in Tehran is made with tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold, whose mining in eastern Congo has fueled the world’s deadliest conflict since World War II.

All electronic devises — from satellites to smart phones — require these specialized metals. Tin is used to affix components to circuit boards. Tantalum is a vital element of capacitors that store electrical charge. And tungsten is a key ingredient in vibrate alert functions and LCD displays.

Unfortunately, the mines in eastern Congo that produce these mineral ores fuel and support armed groups on all sides of the conflict. These groups — including the Rwandan Hutu rebels who helped commit the 1994 genocide and Congo’s ill-disciplined and predatory armed forces — exploit impoverished miners and extort exorbitant ‘taxes’ from this trade. They use the profits to finance some of the worst human rights abuses in the world, including an epidemic of sexual violence that makes eastern Congo the most dangerous on the globe to be a woman or a girl.

Eastern Congo is the sight of the worst abuses in the supply chain for electronics products, but it is by no means the only one. From extraction in mining to unsafe and exploitative conditions in manufacturing facilities in Asia, the intricate supply chains that produce these products are opaque and electronics companies have yet to fully assume responsibility for the behavior of their suppliers or their suppliers’ suppliers.

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‘Nothing Is Agreed Until Everything Is Agreed’ »

Our guest blogger is Richard Parker, Executive Director of the American Foreign Policy Project*.

Today’s news that Iran has changed its mind and rejected a deal to send three-quarters of its low-enriched uranium stockpile to Russia no doubt will be heralded by opponents of engagement as proof that Iran is just stalling for time while it builds a nuclear weapon, so let the sanctions and bombs fly.

A much more plausible explanation, however, is that Tehran may have regarded the deal as a little too good (for the West) to be true. Think about it for just a moment from Tehran’s perspective, a feat of imagination that eludes most neocons. Under this deal, Iran would give away three-quarters of its biggest bargaining chip in the nuclear talks (its LEU stockpile) at the outset of talks. What Iran would get in return would be a status-quo negative: a tacit agreement that the West would not try to bomb or cripple Iran with sanctions for at least a few more months, during which time the West of course would demand further concessions.

I’ve never bargained with Tehran. But I did work as a trade negotiator at the Office of the US Trade Representative and remember well the mantra we practically lived and breathed by in trade talks: “Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.” The deal that Tehran just walked away from would have been a major departure from that rule, in the West’s favor. From public reports, what has not yet been agreed — or even seriously discussed — is the ultimate question of whether Iran, at the end of the day, will be allowed to enrich uranium to low levels under comprehensive IAEA safeguards, as Iran has maintained for six years that it has the right to do, and is determined to do.

With that huge issue still out there, unresolved, why should Iran make major concessions now? Is it really so totally incomprehensible that Iran might regard (a) a tacit western promise not to club Iran for a few more months as a less-than-adequate quid pro quo for (b) a very tangible concession on the disposition of Iran’s uranium stockpile? The promise will be much easier to reverse than the stockpile will be to replace.

Does this mean we can be confident that Iran is bargaining in good faith and has no weapons program? Of course not. But if we don’t trust Iran, the thing to do is not to fuss and fume over Iran’s open-safeguarded enrichment to low levels and Natanz. What we need to do is get into place, as rapidly as possible, a comprehensive safeguards agreement that applies nationwide and gives us the maximum chance of making sure there aren’t more clandestine facilities out there. Yet right now, while all eyes focus on Natanz, we have little or no reliable means of knowing or verifying what is going on across the rest of Iran.

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Obama’s New Sudan Policy: Sounds Good, But Implementation is Key

Our guest blogger is Laura Heaton, Writer-editor for the Enough Project.

In a press conference this morning, choreographed to show a unified front after months of internal bickering, Secretary of State Clinton, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, and Sudan special envoy Scott Gration released the official U.S. policy on Sudan.

For the past seven months, President Obama’s special envoy to Sudan, Maj. General Scott Gration, has led the U.S. response to Sudan’s multiple challenges –- ongoing humanitarian crisis and political deadlock in Darfur, growing tension between North and South over a 2005 peace deal that is largely unimplemented, and increasing violence in the South in which Khartoum seemingly has a hand. Absent an official policy line, General Gration has had the leeway to implement an approach that many longtime Sudan watchers feel is inappropriately soft on Khartoum. (He even described his strategy as one in which he would hand out “cookies and gold stars” to encourage Khartoum to abide by its commitments.)

Fortunately, the policy paper released today demands accountability and verifiable progress on a wide range of issues before incentives would be deployed — although these benchmarks are not spelled out in detail.

Now is when things get tricky.

The evidence from Gration’s tenure so far — and even more importantly, the heinous 20-year track-record of Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party, or NCP — is unambiguous: Khartoum is not a partner that can be cajoled into behaving in the interests of its people. U.S. diplomacy toward Sudan has tilted dangerously in the direction of appeasement of the NCP headed by a man wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

The policy on paper looks solid and seems to take into consideration recent lessons learned. Significantly, it states that “assessments of progress and decisions regarding incentives and disincentives must not be based on process-related accomplishments (i.e. the signing of a MOU or the issuance of a set of visas), but rather based on verifiable changes in conditions on the ground.” The policy on paper also blatantly shifts away from earlier indications that the U.S. approach would quietly ignore past state-sponsored atrocities in the interest of moving forward. For the millions of victims in Darfur and for the leaders who believed their culpability for past crimes could negotiated away in exchange for cooperation on counter-terrorism efforts, the acknowledgment that “accountability for genocide and atrocities is necessary for reconciliation and lasting peace” is critically important.

The new policy also calls for more formalized involvement of senior level administration officials, a welcome shift that will ensure that the day-to-day diplomacy on Sudan matches what senior administration officials have agreed to on paper.

Indeed, today’s policy roll out is a first step in changing the tenor of U.S. diplomacy toward Sudan. The de-facto strategy up until now has been deeply problematic, giving President Bashir and his close-knit circle of advisers (many of whom rose to power alongside Bashir after the 1989 coup) the chance to stall and make excuses, while fomenting violence and undermining peace efforts behind-the-scenes.

Allowing the status quo in Sudan to continue is a recipe for a return to war between the North and the South. If the Obama administration doesn’t build an international coalition around this policy, doesn’t recognize the dangers of the increasing attacks in the South and the ruling party’s efforts to stir up violence ahead of the South’s self-determination vote in 2011, and is not willing to use multilateral and unilateral pressures (which have a history of working) early enough to make a difference, Sudan will descend into war, with disastrous consequences for broader stability in the Horn of Africa. U.S. policy objectives, so sensible on paper, will go up in smoke as Sudan burns again.

Fixing Afghanistan’s Election »

Our guest blogger is Oren Ipp, a Senior Advisor to the Afghanistan Public Policy Research Organization and a Fellow of the Truman National Security Project.

As President Obama meets with advisers to decide whether to send more troops to Afghanistan, questions abound regarding the legitimacy of the government the U.S. is trying to support. How the debacle of the August 20 presidential election is resolved could very well provide the answers the administration is looking for.

Looking at Afghanistan’s recent election, it appears that sometimes the remedy can be worse than the ailment. While the ailment — a fraudulent election — threatens to undermine the credibility of the country’s democratic experiment, the remedy — a run-off election — may in fact inflict greater harm. While prevailing wisdom demands a second vote, is it really in Afghanistan’s best interest?

The case for a second round is strong. The Election Complaints Commission (ECC), the joint Afghan-international body charged with investigating electoral irregularities, has ordered recounts at more than 2,500 polling stations after it found “clear and convincing evidence of fraud.” The European Union alleged that up to 1.5 million ballots out of 6 million could be fraudulent.

Senior officials from the international community have also expressed serious reservations about the legitimacy of the election. Most importantly, Afghan voters themselves are questioning the credibility of the election, sapping what little faith they have left in the current government.

Popular attitudes are marked by a widespread belief that the Independent Election Commission (IEC), which oversees the ECC and whose senior officials are all appointees of current President Hamid Karzai, is anything but independent. It appeared that the ECC was taking its independent mandate seriously until it decided to examine only a statistical sample of contested ballots: just 10% of the total. This may lead many Afghans to perceive the work of the ECC as biased.

Should the ECC find that fraud did not significantly alter the results of the election, President Karzai would avoid a run-off. But given the public’s discontent with the electoral process, he would enter his second term in office with a serious legitimacy deficit. Considering the circumstances, it is difficult to imagine how an administration elected in this fashion would be able to govern effectively. More »« Less