| Sreemoy Talukdar brings you the essential cheat sheet on foreign affairs covering India and the world |  | | Welcome to Firstpost's global brief. The COP26 Summit saw India make a 'net zero' pledge by 2070, but key polluter China was absent and rich nations again resorted to subterfuge to hide their inaction. Chinese censors, meanwhile, are removing furiously all traces of an explosive #MeToo allegation against a top former CCP leader brought by one of China's biggest sporting stars, former tennis world No.1 Peng Shuai (pic above, courtesy ChinaDaily). Elsewhere, Pakistan is sulking over India's invitation for Afghanistan talks, Imran Khan govt has cut a deal with banned Islamist group TLP, and Macron-Morrison fight is turning uglier with allegations of "lying", "leaking" flying thick and fast. | | TOP FIVE NEWS UPDATES | | PM Modi makes five big commitments at COP26 Summit, pledges 'net zero' by 2070 | | Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered the headline for the UN COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow, announcing that India will achieve 'net zero' or become carbon neutral (not adding to the amount of greenhouse gases in atmosphere) by 2070. While there was pressure on India from developed nations to announce a target, India had been pointing out that it is morally repugnant to expect an iron-clad commitment from poorer countries on reduction on carbon emission when rich nations have reneged on their commitment to deliver the promised finance of $100 billion a year for five years starting 2020 — a promise that was set in 2009. Now it appears that the donor nations will miss the target by three years. According to Hindustan Times, the delay "could be detrimental to the success of the summit as it may further erode the trust of developing countries such as India, which have been highlighting the lack of equity and justice in climate negotiations." As BBC points out, "India is the world's fourth-biggest emitter of carbon dioxide after China, the US and the EU, but its huge population means its emissions per capita are much lower than other major world economies. India emitted 1.9 tonnes of CO2 per head in 2019, compared with 15.5 tonnes for the US and 12.5 tonnes for Russia." But 'net zero' is only one of the targets that Modi announced the summit where more than 40 countries have committed to shift away from coal, but the list doesn't include big coal guzzlers like China or the US. PM Modi announced a five-point agenda at the summit (he called it Panch-amrit, or five elixirs), that includes a series of ambitious commitments. These are: One, a pledge to take India's non-fossil energy capacity to 500 GW by 2030. Two, to meet 50 per cent of India's energy requirements from renewable energy by 2030. Three, reduce the total projected carbon emissions by 1 billion tonnes from now till 2030. Four, reduce the carbon intensity of its economy by less than 45 percent by 2030 and fifth, achieve the target of 'Net Zero' by 2070. Modi said India is the only "big economy which has delivered in letter and spirit on the Paris Commitment" and pointed out that "despite being 17 % of the world's population", India's "responsibility has been only 5 percent in emissions." Finally, he panned the rich nations for not living up to their promises of climate finance and said "India expects developed countries to provide climate finance of $1 trillion at the earliest." | | #MeToo uproar in China as tennis star Peng Shuai accuses former top CCP leader Zhang Gaoli of sexual assault | | A #MeToo movement is raging in China with one of the country's biggest tennis stars bringing stunning allegations of sexual assault against a top Chinese Communist Party leader, leading to an explosion of reactions in Chinese social media and an equally severe effort by CCP's online censors to erase all traces of the development. In a post on Weibo (Chinese version of Twitter) from her verified account on Tuesday night, Peng Shuai, former tennis world No.1, two-time grand slam champion and one of China's biggest sporting stars, accused former Chinese vice premier Zhang Gaoli of forcing her into a sexual relationship several years ago. The social media post was deleted within minutes of it being posted but the screenshots and discussions spread like wildfire. Zhang, 75, was a vice premier from 2013 to 2018, and one of seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee — China's top decision-making body headed by president Xi Jinping. In the post (a screenshot is available here) Peng, a former doubles partner of Indian tennis star Sania Mirza, says: "I know that for someone of your eminence, Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, you've said that you're not afraid… but even if it's just me, like an egg hitting a rock, or a moth to the flame, courting self-destruction, I'll tell the truth about you." Peng, now 35, said the relationship started 10 years ago when Zhang was the Party boss in Tianjin province. "Peng said she had been invited home by Zhang, who was 65 at the time, and his wife had stood guard by the door when the sexual assault happened, which left her in shock and in tears. She said the two then began an intermittent affair, until Zhang was promoted to Politburo Standing Committee. Zhang, she said, resumed the affair after his retirement in 2018," reports The Hindu. Peng was angered about his insistence on keeping their relationship secret. The post added that Zhang had canceled a meeting with her on Tuesday to discuss her grievances. China has had its share of #MeToo movement, but never has a party member of the highest echelon been accused of assault. This explains why the ruling party's censors were busy removing all traces of the post and related discussion, including, as it turned out, removing even the word 'tennis' from Chinese firewalled internet. As SupChina observes, "It's worth highlighting the extreme nature of the censorship: Even the word "tennis" (网球) was unsearchable on Weibo for several hours, and Peng's Weibo account is unviewable. Despite this, anecdotal accounts from Shanghai, Beijing, Liuzhou, and Hangzhou indicate that the topic is being fervently discussed around the country." | | Pakistan NSA rejects India's invitation for a meeting of key stakeholders on Afghanistan | | India is holding an in-person meeting of national security advisors from key stakeholders in the region on Afghanistan next week, and had invited Pakistan too along with NSAs from China, Russia, Iran, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan but an insecure Islamabad has rejected the invite. In a news conference in Islamabad Tuesday, on being asked about India's invite, Pakistan's NSA Moeed Yusuf said: ""I will not be going… A spoiler cannot try to be a peacemaker," he added, in an apparent reference to India. According to a report in Hindustan Times, Yusuf said Pakistan has identified India as a hurdle to regional efforts to establish peace and security. "Pakistan has said repeatedly that if India is prepared to move forward, then we will also be ready. But there are some prerequisites and an enabling environment for moving forward," he said, and predictably added Kashmir as a prerequisite. Quoting an official, The Hindu in its report, adds, "the Chinese government has not yet confirmed that they will send a Security official to the conference, mainly because of strict quarantine regulations in place there, and India is pursuing a videoconference appearance if no Chinese delegate travels to Delhi. Iran, which did not include India in a meeting of foreign ministers from Afghanistan's neighbouring countries, and is believed to have taken external affairs minister S Jaishankar's participation in a quadrilateral with Israel-UAE-US amiss, 'welcomed the invitation', indicating it is likely to send a delegate," says the newspaper. India's invitations to the NSAs were sent out las month. Also in October, India had its first meeting with the Taliban regime since they seized power and during that meeting, which took place on the sidelines of the Moscow Format, India, according to a Taliban spokesperson, had "expressed readiness to provide extensive humanitarian assistance to the Afghans." | | Pakistan govt cuts a deal with radical Islamist group TLP, Opposition says it's a 'surrender' | | In a move that has been dubbed "surrender" by the Opposition in Pakistan, the Imran Khan government has been forced to cut a deal with the radical Islamist group Tehreek-i-Labbaik and release more than 2000 jailed activists despite their violent rioting for two weeks that resulted in the death of seven policemen and injury to hundreds. Under the deal, the rioters belonging to the banned Islamist group will be released, and TLP will be allowed to contest elections. "In return, TLP has agreed to shun the politics of violence and withdraw its longstanding demand to have France's ambassador expelled over the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad by a French satirical magazine," according to Reuters. But the terms of the deal indicate that the government negotiated from a position of weakness, after treating the radical Islamists with kid gloves for years despite their violence. The TLP's negotiating team said government has agreed to lift the ban. "The state has acknowledged that the TLP is neither a terrorist group nor a banned outfit," another member of the TLP negotiation team, Bashir Farooqi, separately told local Dunya News TV. Pakistan newspaper Dawn reports that the announcement was made on Sunday at a press conference held in Islamabad where Mufti Manibur Rehman, a cleric who enabled the talks, said: "The government of Pakistan and the TLP had a detailed discussion under an environment of mutual trust, and an agreement has been reached between the two sides… The agreement was reached after sense prevailed over aggression, rationality prevailed over sentiments, and all the participants demonstrated patience. I want to urge the entire nation that this is not the victory of any individual, but it is the victory of Islam, patriotism, and protection of human lives." Umair Jamal writes in The Diplomat that only "last week, minister Fawad Chaudhry had said that the government had 'taken a clear policy decision that the banned TLP will now be considered a militant organization.' Within days of that statement, the government thanked the TLP for coming to an agreement with it and described the deal as a win for Islam and Pakistan." | | Accusations of 'lying', 'leaked messages' drag France-Australia ties to "new low" | | The unholy drama between Australia and France refuses to die down. France has found it difficult to move past what it calls 'betrayal' by Australia who cancelled the submarine deal and struck an agreement with the US and UK for nuclear submarines. On Sunday, on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Italy, French president Emmanuel Macron accused Australia's prime minister Scott Morrison of lying to him about the cancelled $66 billion submarine deal. "I don't think, I know," Macron responded bluntly to a question about whether he thought Morrison had lied by not disclosing negotiations with the US and Britain that nixed Australia's deal with France. "We will see what he will deliver," Macron said about the prospect of rebuilding trust, reports Washington Post. Morrison has previously denied that he had lied to the French president. In retaliation, Morrison's office is believed to have "leaked" a private text message to show Macron actually knew about the agreement and wasn't surprised when it was announced by Canberra. The text message was published in The Daily Telegraph on Monday evening, and in it, Macron apparently asks Morrison, "Should I expect good or bad news for our joint submarines ambitions?" According to Sky News, Morrison dodged the question after he was asked directly whether he or his own office had leaked the private text messages. The apparent leaking of private message enraged the French even more. In a fiery speech on Wednesday, French ambassador to Australia Jean-Pierre Thebault said the leaking of the private text was a new low. "You don't behave like this on personal exchanges of leaders who are allies. But maybe it is just confirmation that we were never seen as an ally," he told Australia's National Press Club, according to a report in South China Morning Post. "Doing so also sends a very worrying signal for all heads of state: beware, in Australia, there will be leaks… And what you say in confidence to your partners will be eventually used and weaponised against you one day." | | | | | | | | | | TOP ANALYSES OF THE WEEK | | India's 2070 'net zero' pledge is pragmatic | | Rathin Roy, managing director of London-based think tank Overseas Development Institute (ODI), writes on COP26 Summit, "Narendra Modi's announcement that India would target net zero carbon emissions by 2070 is pragmatic, in a COP otherwise marked by bluster and artifice. The pressure is to grandstand for the climate herd who are fixated on announcements that carry very little credibility, as many rich countries have repeatedly reneged on solemn commitments." | | Rich countries' climate policies are 'green colonialism' | | Vijaya Ramachandran, director for energy and development at the Breakthrough Institute, writes in Foreign Policy magazine that the "Nordics and other rich countries are betting on achieving their climate ambitions without the need for harder-edged policies at home… Pursuing climate ambitions on the backs of the poorest people in the world is not just hypocritical—it is immoral, unjust, and green colonialism at its worst." | | Appeasing China in hope of a climate deal is a terrible strategy | | Jacob Helberg, senior advisor at the Stanford University program on geopolitics and technology, writes in Foreign Policy magazine that while "China is making diplomatic appeasement the price of collective climate action… a climate deal purchased through appeasement (by the Joe Biden administration) would be a geopolitical debacle. It would harm America's credibility as a superpower and reinforce perceptions in Asia and around the world that Washington isn't serious about counterbalancing Beijing's power." | | Climate alarmism has become an alternative religion | | Author Michael Shellenberger argues in Unherd that "no global problem has ever been more exaggerated than climate change. As it has gone from being an obscure scientific question to a theme in popular culture, we've lost all sense of perspective… climate alarmism is powerful because it has emerged as the alternative religion for supposedly secular people, providing many of the same psychological benefits as traditional faith." | | Pak's surrender to TLP indicates ceding of authority to religious forces | | C Raja Mohan of Singapore National University writes in Indian Express that "Pakistan's meek surrender yet again to the TLP underlines how hard it is for a state to regain the authority that it has ceded to religious forces. Given the power of religion, most states find a way to live with it. But giving too much space to religious or other extra-constitutional forces inevitably weakens the state." | | China is changing its strategy in Xinjiang | | Daria Impiombato, researcher at the Australia Strategic Policy Institute, writes in Foreign Policy magazine of Chinese Communist Party's changing strategy in Xinjiang. Sher writes, "Heavily militarized police patrols and sprawling reeducation facilities may be disappearing. But highly securitized prisons, intensive propaganda and indoctrination, ubiquitous surveillance, population control, and coercive labor assignments are there to stay." | | On Xi Jinping's gameplan to stay in power and choosing a successor | | China analyst Ling Li, who teaches at the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Vienna, tackles the question of Xi Jinping's future plans and his successor in Made In China journal. She writes that to stay in power, Xi could reactivate the office of the "Chairman of the Party Central Committee at the 20th CCP Congress in 2022." The author posits that "this would not only help to build legitimacy but also draw a roadmap of how to get there and the office would provide Xi with the best solution to deal with the succession issue." | | It'd be a fatal mistake if the US lets China have its way on Taiwan | | Geostrategist Brahma Chellaney writes in The Hill that "if the US were to put up with a Chinese conquest of Taiwan, it would make the same fatal mistake as the participants of the 1938 Munich Conference who, yielding to Adolf Hitler, transferred the predominantly German-speaking Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia to Germany. That concession paved the way for World War II." | | Joe Biden's legacy will be one of risk-aversion | | Tom McTague writes in The Atlantic on Joe Biden's legacy. He argues that "Like (German chancellor) Angela Merkel, Biden seems to want to make decisions in the US's selfish strategic interest, but without the consequences that come with doing so. | | Foreign aid won't help in changing Taliban's behavior | | Haley Swedlund and Romain Malejacq of Radboud University in the Netherlands, and Malte Lierl, a research fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies, write in Foreign Policy magazine that while conventional wisdom holds that foreign assistance could be "a strong motivator in bringing the Taliban to the bargaining table, but our research on foreign aid diplomacy, international intervention in fragile states, and state-building in Afghanistan suggests it's unlikely to incentivize the Taliban to uphold human rights and political freedoms in the long run." | | PODCAST WATCH | | China must be made aware of the costs of invading Taiwan | | We recommend The Spectator's 'Chinese Whisper' podcast, where host Cindy Yu speaks to Oriana Skylar Mastro, fellow at Stanford and the American Enterprise Institute, on, among other things, the signals that Washington is sending to Beijing, to the public opinion pressures that Xi is under. For Oriana, the way to deter China is to make it believe that it will achieve true pariah status internationally — that destructive economic sanctions will come their way if any attempt on Taiwan is made. | | | | Copyright © 2021.Firstpost - All Rights Reserved. | |
