| Sreemoy Talukdar brings you the essential cheat sheet on foreign affairs covering India and the world |  | | Pakistan is drowning, but even in its hour of desperation it cannot stop being delusional. In this eventful week, India has joined war games in Russia also involving China, raising eyebrows in Washington. Meanwhile, Communist Party of China has announced the dates for its twice-in-a-decade party congress where Xi Jinping's reign is set to be extended, Sri Lanka has struck a deal with the IMF and Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who presided over the end of Cold War and the collapse of USSR, has passed away at 91. | | TOP FIVE NEWS UPDATES | | Flood-stricken Pakistan in desperate need for funds, aid and help, but won't import food from India | | In its hour of desperation, Pakistan remains as deluded as ever. Struck by worst flooding in decades, the country is in desperate need for help from whoever is willing to come forward. As Guardian notes, "the floods, caused by heavy monsoon rains, have devastated three-quarters of Pakistan's districts, affecting an estimated 33 million people and leaving more than 6 million in desperate need of humanitarian aid. Rescuers are struggling to reach entire villages that have been cut off by flood water. Hundreds of health facilities have been damaged and bridges, roads, schools, crops and houses destroyed." Pakistan has received nearly 190% more rain than the 30-year average in the quarter through August this year, totalling 390.7 millimetres (15.38 inches). A third of the country, due to torrential rain and flooding, is under water. More than 1,100 people, including 380 children, have died. As Reuters reports, "colossal volumes of water are pouring into the Indus river, which flows down the middle of the country from its northern peaks to southern plains, bringing flooding along its length. Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said hundreds of thousands of people were living outdoors without access to food, clean water, shelter or basic healthcare." CNN cites satellite images, taken on August 28 from NASA's MODIS satellite sensor, to report that "an overflowing Indus River has turned part of Sindh Province into a 100 kilometer-wide inland lake." Calling it a "monsoon on steroids", the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a video message launched a "flash appeal" for $160 million to support the response, led by the Government of Pakistan." Amid this cataclysmic disaster, Pakistan remains comically undecided about taking help from India, driven by myopic geopolitics. On Monday, Pakistan finance minister Miftah Ismail said that the government can "consider importing vegetables and other edible items from India" but soon the Shehbaz Sharif government got itself in a twist, with PM Sharif virtually ruling out the possibility despite requests from international aid agencies requesting relaxation of imports. The reason? Sharif raked up Kashmir. Talk about misplaced priorities. | | US sounds 'concern' as India joins Russia and China in week-long 'Vostok' war games | | India is participating in Vostok-2022, a week-long joint military exercise starting September 1 with hosts Russia, China and several other countries and the United States is not happy about it. Indian participation, however, comes with riders. Hindustan Times reports that India will take part in the multi-nation military "but will stay away from its maritime component to avoid hurting the sensitivity of Japan. The Russian Navy's Pacific Fleet and the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) will take part in the drill in the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan as part of the Vostok 2022. India, however, will not attend the sea drill, which triggered protests from Japan." In a statement, the Army said "the exercise is aimed at interaction and coordination amongst other participating military contingents and observers" and that it has sent troops from 7/8 Gorkha Rifles who will "over the next seven days will undertake joint manoeuvres to include joint field training exercises, combat discussions, and firepower exercises." The Hindu reports, citing quotes from MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi, "that the Vostok exercises were routine". Bagchi was quoted, as saying that "India has been regularly participating in multilateral exercises in Russia, along with a number of other countries" while reacting to comments by the White House press secretary who said that "the U.S. has concerns about any country exercising with Russia while Russia wages an unprovoked brutal war against Ukraine". Chinese state media Global Times took a dig at the US. In an editorial, the 'wolf warrior' daily said, "the participation of countries like China and India in the Vostok 2022 strategic exercises is their 'sovereign decision.' And compared with those military drills launched by the US with targeted potential enemies, the Vostok 2022 strategic exercises are just normal military exchanges among different countries. Washington is in no position to point its accusing finger at any participating countries." | | Xi Jinping set to extend reign as CPC sets October 16 date for quinquennial party congress | | October 16 is a significant date in the calendar of Communist Party of China. For China and for the rest of the world as well. Chinese state media has announced that it will hold its national party congress, usually a week-long affair, on that date. This twice-a-decade meeting decides the top leadership of China, including that of its president. There's not much suspense on that front. It is widely expected that president Xi Jinping will extend his tenure for an unprecedented third term that will elevate him yet closer to Mao Zedong in the pantheon of CPC. South China Morning Post observes, citing Chinese state media Xinhua, that "the date was set during a monthly meeting of the Politburo, the party's decision-making body… The announcement usually indicates that most of the closed-door negotiations on key positions are over, though there could be last-minute adjustments. The most important decisions are usually made ahead of the party congress, which largely serves as a formal occasion to legitimise and communicate those decisions to delegates." Reuters reports that "about 2,300 party members from across the country will gather, mostly behind closed doors, at the cavernous Great Hall of the People on Beijing's Tiananmen Square… They will elect about 200 full members with voting rights to the party's elite Central Committee, plus about 170 alternates, drawing from a pre-selected pool." CNN says "Xi, who has consolidated enormous power since taking office a decade ago, is widely expected to seek an unprecedented third term as China's top leader, breaking with convention set by his predecessors since the early 1990s. It's a plan years in the making, ever since Xi removed the presidential term limits from the country's constitution in 2018. But for an authoritarian leader obsessed with stability, the months leading up to it haven't exactly been a smooth ride. Xi's insistence on a zero-Covid policy has seen cities across China imposing strict lockdowns to stamp out infections — an attempt that appears increasingly futile in the face of the highly infectious Omicron variant." On Thursday, the Chinese city of Chengdu ordered its 21 million residents to stay at home in a flash lockdown, sparking chaotic scenes that were caught on social media. | | Sri Lanka inks bailout deal with IMF for $2.9 billion; former president Gotabaya is set to return | | After months of turmoil, Sri Lanka has finally reached an agreement with the IMF for emergency funding. Bloomberg reports: "Sri Lanka reached a staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund for a $2.9 billion loan, a key step for the bankrupt country to unlock more funding and restructure its debt. The Extended Fund Facility will support Sri Lanka's program to restore macroeconomic stability and debt sustainability, the IMF said in a statement Thursday. The 48-month program will be subject to approval by IMF management and the board." New York Times quotes Umesh Moramudali, an economist at the University of Colombo, as saying that the "$2.9 billion in assistance would be welcome for a country scraping for any foreign exchange. But what is most important about the IMF deal is that it could help Sri Lanka regain some credibility with creditors to restructure its existing debt and secure further financing… Once you reach an agreement with the IMF, others are not too cautious to lend. Right up until now, the problem for many lenders was that they were not sure about Sri Lanka's path, as there was a lot of unpredictability, instability and ambiguity. But with an IMF program, they know that Sri Lanka is officially committed." In a measure of the tough road ahead, however, the IMF pointed out that "debt relief from Sri Lanka's creditors and additional financing from multilateral partners 'will be required' to help ensure debt sustainability and close financing gaps," reports The Hindu. The hint is towards China, one of Sri Lanka's principal bilateral creditors that has so far turned a deaf ear to all requests by Colombo for debt restructuring. Sri Lanka's beleaguered president Ranil Wickremesinghe said that "it is important to avoid the further decline of the economic and social standard of living of all social segments, as well as to recover from bankruptcy and rescue the country from the debt crisis." Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that the country's former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was ousted by surging anti-government protests in July, is returning to the country and is expected to stay in a house provided by the government in Colombo. | | Mikhail Gorbachev dies, leaves behind a complicated, polarising legacy; Putin won't attend funeral | | Mikhail Gorbachev has died at 91, the man who ended the Cold War and paved the way for the collapse of the USSR, ending seven decades of Communist rule. Lionized in the West for his twin principles of glasnost and perestroika, and equally reviled in Russia, Gorbachev's legacy is as complicated as the man himself. Reuters reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin will miss Gorbachev's funeral, denying the man who failed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet empire the full state honours granted to Boris Yeltsin. Gorbachev will be buried on Saturday after a public ceremony in Moscow's Hall of Columns, and Putin won't be present due to his "work schedule". In contrast, when Yeltsin died in 2007, Putin had declared a national day of mourning and, alongside world leaders, attended the grand state funeral in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. "In 2005, Putin had said the break-up of the USSR was "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] Century". However, in his telegram of condolences to Gorbachev's family on Wednesday, Mr Putin struck a more conciliatory note, describing him as 'a politician and statesman who had a huge impact on the course of world history'," notes the BBC. New York Times says that "it was not Gorbachev's intention to liquidate the Soviet empire, but within five years of coming to power he had presided over the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. He ended the Soviet debacle in Afghanistan and, in an extraordinary five months in 1989, stood by as the Communist system imploded from the Baltics to the Balkans in countries already weakened by widespread corruption and moribund economies. For this he was hounded from office by hardline Communist plotters and disappointed liberals alike, the first group fearing that he would destroy the old system and the other worried that he would not. It was abroad that he was hailed as heroic." Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has said that the people of Europe, as well as Russians, owe the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, a great debt of gratitude. Read The Economist's obit here. | | | | | | | | | | TOP ANALYSES OF THE WEEK | | Taking aid from India is not an act of treason | | Harinder Baweja writes in Times of India that no one expected Shehbaz Sharif to work any magic on the India-Pakistan front, but he surprised everyone, including his own finance minister by rejecting "aid" from India at a time when his country is reeling under the impact of a furious natural calamity. | | Putin is already changing the course of history | | Fiona Hill and Angela Stent of Brookings Institution write in Foreign Affairs that regardless of whether he prevails in Ukraine, Putin's mission is already having a clear and ironic impact, both on Europe and on Russia's 22 years of economic advancement. | | Sri Lanka is bankrupt due to the Rajapaksas, says former prez Chandrika | | Former Sri Lanka president Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga tells Meera Srinivasan of The Hindu that "today we are bankrupt only because of the corruption of the [Rajapaksa] family and their acolytes. There was no proper governance, no vision for the country except to enrich themselves." | | US-Iran nuclear deal may bring marginal benefits for India | | Former diplomat Mahesh Sachdev writes in Hindustan Times that if Iran, US sign nuclear pact, as Iran's neighbour and the world's third-largest crude importer, India would be a marginal beneficiary of the JCPOA-2, mainly from more moderate oil and gas prices. | | Build a 'non-alliance' alliance model for US-India ties | | Jeff M. Smith of The Heritage Foundation in his paper titled South Asia: A New Strategy, recommends that Washington should build a 'non-alliance' model for US-India ties. He writes that "the United States should continue to construct a new model of strategic partnership with India. That means accepting that India and the United States will diverge, sometimes widely, on geopolitical flashpoints—especially those outside the Indo–Pacific." | | The world has left Afghan women to their sorry fate | | Shaharzad Akbar, former Chair of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and an ex-deputy on the Afghan National Security Council, in her piece for Foreign Affairs says after the Taliban takeover last summer, Afghan women's lives (have) changed dramatically. For young women across the country, the situation presents a complete absence of hope. | | China's long-term goals in Afghanistan aren't just about trade | | Niva Yau, a Hong Kong–born scholar who lives in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, where she is a senior researcher at the OSCE Academy, tells Jeremy Goldkorn of SupChina in an interview that Chinese goals in Afghanistan are a little bit more than that. It's not just about trade — it's about image, it's about a long-term strategy in connecting the region and their role in it. | | Europe is certain to enter a recession | | Europe is heading for recession. How bad will it be?, asks The Economist. In its analysis, the newspaper says led by Germany, Italy and central and eastern Europe, European economy is certain to enter a recession. | | China is still spooked by Gorbachev's legacy | | Professor Minxin Pei of Claremont McKenna College writes in Project Syndicate that in the eyes of most leaders of the Communist Party of China, Gorbachev committed the unforgivable crime of causing the collapse of the Soviet Union. Despite more than three decades of success at avoiding a similar fate, China's rulers are still spooked by his legacy. | | Gorbachev had more in common with Putin than both would admit | | Con Coughlin writes in The Telegraph that Mikhail Gorbachev was no friend of the West and Vladimir Putin has a lot more in common with his Soviet predecessor than he might like to admit. | | PODCAST WATCHES | | One year of America's botched withdrawal from Afghanistan | | Former US national security adviser LTG (Ret.) HR McMaster joins host Bill Roggio of FDD's Long War Journal to discuss America's botched withdrawal from Afghanistan one year ago. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary — including an ongoing close relationship with al Qaeda, the United States designated the Taliban as "partners in peace" and handed the terrorist group keys to a state apparatus. | | | | Copyright © 2022.Firstpost - All Rights Reserved. | |
