KASHMIR POLITICS Despite strong words, a Biden-Harris administration is unlikely to change US position on Kashmir There are few expectations in the Valley.(R)

SOURCE

https://scroll.in/article/978599/despite-strong-words-a-biden-harris-administration-is-unlikely-to-change-us-position-on-kashmir

KASHMIR POLITICS

Desphite strong words, a Biden-Harris administration is unlikely to change US position on Kashmir

There are few expectations in the Valley. 

By

                                       Ipsita Chakravarty

If United States President Donald Trump takes time off from golfing to concede the election, the country will soon have a Democrat government. Observers in the Indian establishment may have greeted this news with mixed feelings.

Trump had come to power in 2016 declaring he was a “big fan of Hindu” and a “big fan of India”, comments that chimed well with the Bhartiya Janata Party government at the Centre. Four years of high-octane camaraderie between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Trump followed. Earlier this year, Modi even endorsed a second “Trump Sarkar” while the visiting president maintained a tactical silence on India’s new citizenship laws and human rights violations in Kashmir. The awkward moment came a few months later, when Trump breezily offered to mediate between India and Pakistan to sort out tensions between the two.

The Biden-Harris campaign has been different in tenor, especially when it came to human rights in Kashmir. In 2019, soon after the Centre stripped Jammu and Kashmir of special status under Article 370 and split it into two Union Territories, Harris did not mince words. “We have to remind Kashmiris they are not alone in the world,” she said. “We are keeping a track on the situation. There is a need to intervene if the situation demands.”

In the Biden campaign’s agenda for Muslim Americans, India’s National Register of Citizens and Kashmir featured in the list of threats to Muslim populations across the world. “In Kashmir, the Indian government should take all necessary steps to restore rights for all the people of Kashmir,” said the campaign agenda. “Restrictions on dissent, such as preventing peaceful protests or shutting or slowing down the Internet, weaken democracy.”

Despite these strong words, the US stance on Kashmir is unlikely to alter with a change of guard in the White House.

US in Crisis

As political scientist Paul Staniland pointed out, “The US is in a massive political crisis that won’t end even when Biden takes power.” Which means, the old priorities are unlikely to change, especially after an election fought largely on domestic issues.

First, the need of the US to find a counterweight to China in the region. While Indian and Chinese forces are massed along the frontier in Eastern Ladakh, Washington and Beijing fight for control in the South China Sea and Taiwan. The US has also viewed China’s drive for primacy in the economic and technological realms with growing alarm. A Biden administration might not pursue Trump’s aggressive trade war with China and is likely to seek cooperation in other spheres. But it will not be radically different in its impulse to contain China. “The last thing a domestically beleaguered US administration facing the rise of China has any appetite for would be a major diplomatic offensive in South Asia,” said Staniland.

Second, Indian markets remain important to American firms. Despite the shrinking of the Indian economy, even in March, top US diplomats were urging Indian markets to open up. Last year, the US notched up $34 billion in exports to India, and that’s not counting what Indians spend on US technology, travel and other services. Though it is far behind China, India’s markets have an outsized presence compared to its economy.

Staniland also added that Indian coverage of the Kashmir statements overestimated US domestic-political interest in South Asian politics: “On Kashmir specifically, it’s largely fallen out of the US media compared to summer/fall 2019.”

A paramilitary soldier guards a street in Srinagar. Credit: Tauseef Mustafa/AFP

Indifferent Valley

Indeed, American interest in the region has long faded. According to this article by Arun Joshi in Greater Kashmir, in the 1990s, the White House and the US State Department kept a close watch on the daily violence in the Valley. US diplomats made regular visits to the Valley and Frank Wisner, then US ambassador to India, developed personal relationships with Kashmiri politicians, including the separatist Hurriyat leadership. Since then, the diplomatic visits have dwindled. In a post 9/11 world, the US has been distracted by other wars.

This waning interest is also reflected in public discourse in the Valley. According to popular mythology in Kashmir in the heyday of the militancy, Delhi was known as the “markaz”, or power centre pulling strings. Islamabad was another “markaz”. The US was the ultimate “markaz” dictating operations. This time, as news of Trump’s defeat trickled in, a few political parties in Kashmir issued statements, expressing the hope that the “politics of polarisation” was over and that the Biden-Harris government would focus on the “wrongs that are being done” in Kashmir.

But the wider public appears to have to have shrugged it off, even though the president’s anti-Muslim policies had made him unpopular in Kashmir. China’s incursions in Ladakh gave rise to far greater interest and some black humour in the Valley.

Few expect much from the change at the White House. After the sweeping changes of 2019, Joshi notes, “Kashmiris were in shock over the silence of the world. Now it does not shock them anymore.”

A fine balance

While the White House may remain tight-lipped, there may be more sound and fury in the US Congress. Even under a Trump administration last year, the House Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing on human rights in South Asia where Democrat Congresswoman Ilhan Omar grilled US government representatives and speakers from India on the state of affairs in Kashmir.

Two resolutions were moved in Congress. One, by Democrat representative Pramila Jayapal, raised concerns about the communications blockade while speaking of “dire security challenges” faced by the Indian government. It found bipartisan support. The other, pushed by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, held that India had “unilaterally changed the status of Jammu and Kashmir without a direct consultation or the consent of the Kashmiri people”. It condemned human rights violations and spoke of “supporting Kashmiri self-determination”. It had few takers even within the Democratic party.

Going forward, Staniland predicted, the US might adopt the kind of balance reflected in the Jayapal resolution – talking about human rights rather than “making deeper claims about Kashmir’s political status or suggesting actual coercive measures”.

The longstanding US position on Kashmir, as this Congressional paper from last year noted, was that it should be settled through “negotiations between India and Pakistan while taking into consideration the wishes of the Kashmiri people”. But for years, the US government has done little to push that position. 

Biden may not provide the kind of “political cover” that Trump did to Modi, but he is unlikely to rock the boat.

USA FOREIGN POLICY - Biden Doctrine: In Search Of The Biden Doctrine (r)

 SOURCE

https://www.eurasiareview.com/12112020-in-search-of-the-biden-doctrine-analysis/

Former U.S. Vice President and President-elect Joe Biden addresses the nation. Photo Credit: Screenshot

                   

 What Would Joe Biden's Foreign Policy Look Like? 

VIDEO : CLICK/GOOGLE TO OPEN 

                         [ https://youtu.be/d2OL12XoQas ]

 Analysis

       In Search Of The Biden Doctrine  

                                 By

                         Dominic Tierney*

   Published by the Foreign Policy Research Institute 

November 12, 2020

Every election season, commentators search for the Holy Grail of American foreign policy, the presidential doctrine, or a leader’s defining set of diplomatic beliefs. The George W. Bush doctrine was to hunt down terrorists and spread democracy, if necessary, at the point of a bayonet. The Barack Obama doctrine was to avoid “dumb” wars like Iraq. The Donald Trump doctrine was to stop allies and international institutions from taking America for a ride. What’s Joe Biden’s doctrine? It should be easy enough to figure out, given his long career as a senator and vice president. Some on the left see the Biden doctrine as a hawkish agenda, while Trump supporters describe Biden as a proponent of “activist liberalism” and endless wars. Meanwhile, others on the right hammer Biden as a consistent dove. In reality, there’s no fixed Biden doctrine—and that’s probably a good thing.

The idea that presidents somehow stamp a unique doctrine on foreign policy is a version of the “great man” theory of history. But even the greatest man is also a creature of his age. During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln seemingly held the destiny of the nation in the palm of his hand. And yet, Lincoln wrote: “I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.”

Biden’s personality also blurs the idea of a distinctive Biden doctrine. He’s not a visionary thinker but a pragmatist. His strongest views on foreign policy are often about the means rather than the ends—the importance of conciliation, deal-making, and alliances. His governing style is closer to the collegial model of John F. Kennedy than the top-down approach of Richard Nixon. Whereas Trump once revealed that his main foreign policy advisor is “myself,” Biden has mobilized a brigade of 2,000 diplomatic gurus. And Biden’s bridge-building doesn’t stop at the water’s edge. He puts great weight on cultivating personal relationships with foreign leaders and prefers to use force alongside international partners. If elected, he’ll be “schmoozer-in-chief.”

It’s no surprise, therefore, that Biden has rarely strayed far from mainstream Democratic Party thinking on foreign policy, or from wider public opinion. However, if Biden doesn’t control the current, he does steer within it, and at key moments, his personal experience profoundly shaped his thinking.

Biden the Moderate

Biden’s foreign policy journey is a story in three chapters, each in the shadow of war. The opening chapter began in the wake of Vietnam in the 1970s, when Biden was a youthful senator, and lasted through the Gulf War in 1991. “I ran the first time as a twenty-nine-year-old kid against the war in Vietnam,” recalled Biden, “on the grounds that the only way to take a nation to war is with the informed consent of the American people.” Still, he didn’t identify with the peacenik protesters and thought that the Vietnam War was dumb, rather than immoral.

During this time, Biden was a middle-of-the-road Democrat on foreign policy. He backed the invasions of Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989, but opposed funding the Contra rebels in Nicaragua, and in 1991, voted against authorizing the Gulf War. Saddam Hussein did not pose an immediate threat to U.S. national interests, he said. Just as Washington was ignorant about Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, now it didn’t understand the Middle East. The goal of stabilizing the region was a pipe dream, which “has never in 5,000 years been accomplished for very long.”

Biden’s wariness about fighting Iraq was in sync with the Democratic Party mood and wider public opinion. He was one of 45 (out of 55) Democratic senators who voted against the Gulf War (the resolution authorizing war only narrowly passed 52 to 47). In the buildup to Desert Storm, the American public was also cautious about hostilities, and only became enthusiastic about war after the fighting started.

Biden the Hawk

The second chapter of Biden’s foreign policy thinking is the hawkish phase, from 1991 to 2003, in the shadow of the Gulf War and the end of the Cold War. Biden quickly regretted his vote against war in 1991 and criticized Bush senior for ending the campaign too soon and leaving Saddam in power, causing “immense human suffering within Iraq.” Buoyed with confidence about seizing the sword, Biden championed U.S. intervention in the Balkans, called Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević a war criminal to his face, and described the Bill Clinton administration’s inaction in the region as, “a policy of despair and cowardice.” Biden supported the Kosovo War in 1999 as well as the Afghanistan War in 2001. He also sought to check Saddam’s “relentless pursuit of weapons of mass destruction,” and in October 2002, voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq.

Is the Biden doctrine really a hawkish manifesto, as some on the left claim? Biden’s bellicose pivot in the 1990s reflected the broader American zeitgeist. The rapid U.S. victory in the Gulf seemed to bury the Vietnam syndrome in the Arabian sands. From 1991-2003, over one hundred polls asked Americans whether to remove Saddam by force, and every single one found majority support. After the 9/11 attacks, Washington was gripped by fears of a potential alliance between terrorists and tyrants, and Biden was one of 77 senators who authorized the use of force to topple Saddam.

Biden the Dove

The Iraq War opened a new chapter: Biden the dove. The senator saw the invasion of Iraq as a national and personal failure. He had hoped that congressional backing for war might spur a tougher United Nations response and avoid hostilities entirely, but the hawks surrounding Bush were set on fighting. “I made a mistake,” he explained. “I underestimated the influence of Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and the rest of the neocons. I vastly underestimated their disingenuousness and incompetence.” His fears about the aftermath of regime change in Baghdad proved prescient, as the war became a costly quagmire.

Since 2003, Biden has been generally skeptical about the use for force. He opposed the surge of troops in Iraq in 2006-2007, the surge in Afghanistan in 2009, and the Libyan War in 2011. He raised doubts about the raid to kill Osama Bin Laden in 2011, as well as the decision to draw a red line against the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Biden did back the campaign against ISIS and favored the escalation of drone warfare, but he criticized Trump’s decision to kill Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.

Have we finally found Biden’s true nature? Perhaps—but again, his dovish turn is bound up with the wider “Iraq syndrome” in American society, where even Donald Trump and the Republican Party rail against forever wars. Biden is no kite in the wind, however. As vice president, he was consistently more dovish than Obama—on Afghanistan, on Bin Laden, on Syria, and on Libya (an intervention that Obama later called his biggest mistake). Biden’s personal experiences powerfully reinforced his awareness of the cost of war. In 2015, his son Beau died of brain cancer, and Biden said the disease may have been caused by exposure to military burn pits in Kosovo and Iraq.

Is the real Biden the dove of 1991, the hawk of 2002, or the dove of 2020? The answer is all of them. And so, in the end, the Biden doctrine may be a mirage. He’s not an ideologue who seeks to impose a foreign policy program. Neither is he a narcissist who views every diplomatic issue in terms of his individual benefit. Rather, Biden is a man of his time, a man who shares many of his party’s and his country’s strengths and weaknesses, a man who has lived and learned in the shadows of war, a man once tempted by the possibilities of power and now tempered by the realities of force. Biden’s foreign policy journey is not over. As president, he may pivot in a more hawkish direction, as memories of the Iraq War fade and new challenges emerge from China and Russia. Biden recently wrote:

“The triumph of democracy and liberalism over fascism and autocracy created the free world. But this contest does not just define our past. It will define our future, as well.”

Biden’s desire to reach agreement with opponents across the aisle and allies across the ocean makes it hard to decipher a unique foreign policy creed. But rigid doctrines are overrated. The record of recent presidents who tried to personalize and dominate foreign policy is not encouraging.

America needs Biden more than it needs a Biden doctrine.

                              ==================================

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a non-partisan organization that seeks to publish well-argued, policy-oriented articles on American foreign policy and national security priorities.

*About the author: Dominic Tierney is a Templeton Fellow with FPRI’s Program on National Security and associate professor of political science at Swarthmore College.

Source: This article was published by FPRI

These 4 Countries Will Stop China From Ruling A Disputed Sea(R)

SOURCE:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphjennings/2017/07/14/these-4-countries-will-resist-chinas-rising-power-in-a-disputed-sea/#14dbd528c714

  India On High Alert After China Moves

        Military Equipments To Tibet

                     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJrVGJ0QuRY

These 4 Countries Will Stop     China From Ruling A Disputed Sea

                   PREVIEW   

                     REVENGE OF GEOGRAPHY

THE DAY VIETNAM  FALLS TO CHINKS 
THERE WILL BE NOTHING  TO STOP CHINA CAPTURING MALAYSIA  ARCHIPELAGO. IT WILL BE A REPEAT
                                  OF 
WORLD WAR II BURMA CAMPAIGN .

                 CHINKS HAD BEEN

EYEING  "THIBET" SINCE THE ADVENT                                    OF
                          BIG GAME.

AFTER THE QUICK SUSPECT DEATHS                                        
                              OF 

7th DALAI LAMA  TO 12 th  DALAI  LAMAs

 IN 1886  BEFORE 13th DALAI LAMA 

COULD  CONSOLIDATE  HIS RULE 

 BRITAIN BARTERED AWAY "THIBET" 

TO CHINESE IN EXCHANGE FOR 

 BRTISH  RULE OVER  "BURMA". 

 CHINESE WERE EYEING BURMA IN 1886                                         & 
 AS  A PART OF BIG ASIAN  GAME

 THEY ARE STILL EYEING BURMA . 

       INDIA LOST BURMA IN 1939 
                                     &
    IF INDIANS  DO  NOT  MODERNIZE

                      "ARMED FORCES"

TO FACE CHINA THAN INDIA SHOULD  

              BE PREPARED FOR INDIAN 

                      "BALKANIZATION"

                                       & 
                               
                              BYE BYE  

                                     TO 

"DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF  BHARAT "

       THIS IS CALLED REVENGE OF                                         GEOGRAPHY

                                                        -Vasundhra

                                   --------------------------------------------------------------------------

China Moves Tonnes Of Military Equipments To Tibet

        

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB5ZBfLRc2s

CHINKS HAVE TO BE CAUGHT BY  YAK (TIBETAN) HORNS &  IT  SHOULD BE MADE CLEAR TO THEM THAT TIBET IS AUTONOMOUS  REGION OF INDIA.                               'INDIAN DIPLOMACY' 
IS A TOTAL FAILURE ON ALL FRONTS                                     EXCEPT  IN                             
                             SELF PRAISE

              --------------------------------------------


Convention relating to Burmah and Thibet, July 24th 1886 between the British Government and the Government of China) Extract: 
   

      1876, Zhifu Agreement - Britain

            http://www.chinaforeignrelations.net/node/147

                                                     &

        1886, Burma-Tibet - Britain

                 in 

• British treaties
• 
  
             http://www.chinaforeignrelations.net/node/148

Convention relating to Burmah and Thibet, July 24th 1886 between the British Government and the Government of China) Extract: Inasmuch as inquiry into the circumstances, by the Chinese Government, has shown the existence of many obstacles to the Mission to Thibet provided for in the separate article of the Chefoo Agreement, England consents to countermand the Mission forthwith. With regard to the desire of the British Government to consider arrangements for frontier trade between India and Thibet, it will be the duty of the Chinese Government, after careful inquiry into the circumstances, to adopt measures to exhort and encourage the people with a view to the promotion and development of trade. Should it he practicable, the Chinese Government shall then proceed carefully to consider trade regulations: but if insuperable obstacles should be found to exist, the British Government will not press the matter unduly.


 The remainder of the Convention was concerned with the recognition of British supremacy in Burma and the above clause about Tibet appears to be in the nature of a concession to facilitate the principal object of the Convention. 

These 4 Countries Will Stop                             China 

From Ruling A Disputed Sea

                       BY

               Ralph Jennings

An activist shouts anti-China slogans during a rally marking the 42nd anniversary of the 1974 naval battle between China and then-South Vietnamese troops over the Paracel Islands, in Hanoi on January 19, 2017. (HOANG DINH NAM/AFP/Getty Images)

China claimed to be king of the widely disputed sea off its south coast before a world arbitration court ruled a year ago that it lacked legal grounds for the massive maritime claim. A year after that ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, Beijing has become only more dominant over the South China Sea despite competing claims by Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, the Philippines and Vietnam. That’s because China rejected the ruling but to make sure no one squawked, it stepped up economic cooperation with some of the other countries.

China has the world’s third largest military and second biggest GDP, making its maritime control hard to challenge especially if you’re a smaller Southeast Asian state. But not everyone is just standing by. Here are four countries that are able and likely to throw water on China’s increasing control over the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea that’s rich in fisheries, fuel reserves and shipping lanes:

1. India

India has no claim in the South China Sea but hopes to stop China from consolidating its own. The well-armed Western ally that disputes two border regions with China established an “Act East”policy in 2014 to improve ties with fast growing Southeast Asian nations. Supposedly it would act economically, but maybe there's more.

In May the country was exploring placement of a tsunami warning system in the South China Sea for regional use even though Beijing is working on one, as well. In 2014 the overseas subsidiary of India’s state-run firm ONGC reached a deal with Vietnam to explore under a tract of sea that Beijing covets. China is not opposing India’s tsunami alert system idea but is less thrilled about the oil deals.

2. Japan

Acting as China’s balance-of power counterweight in Asia, Japan gave Vietnam six ships in 2014 and last year agreed to lease five military aircraft to the Philippines. Those are just just two examples of how it has supplied nations with South China Sea claims that overlap those of Beijing.

Some see Japan as an Asian proxy for Western influence against Chinese expansion. From May 1 its Izumo helicopter carrier began escorting a U.S. supply ship. It was probably headed to the South China Sea through August for port calls and drills with India and the United States in the Bay of Bengal.

China has a separate maritime dispute with Japan over Tokyo-controlled islets in the East China Sea. It’s very wary of Japanese military expansion in the future. No wonder a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson told Japan in March via the official Xinhua News Agency not to cause trouble in the region.

3. United States

U.S. President Donald Trump looked the other way at China’s maritime expansion through April as he hoped his Chinese counterpart would help rein in North Korea’s ballistic missile development. But as that cooperation shows signs of thinning, since late May the U.S. Navy has passed two vessels through the South China Sea to refute Beijing's idea that the whole sea is theirs. China objected to both passages.

The United States doesn’t claim any of the sea, but Beijing frets because of the well-armed U.S. government’s ease in forming military alliances with Asian countries that do. The prime example is joint U.S. naval patrols with the Philippines since 2014.

4. Vietnam

This is the only country with a competing South China Sea claim that is likely to go against China’s maritime expansion, which includes land reclamation at some of the sea’s bigger features and infrastructure for military use. Like other states in Southeast Asia, the Vietnamese value their trade relationship with China, which totaled $95.8 billion in 2015.

But they fundamentally dislike China and aren’t afraid to risk its wrath despite a smaller military. Consider centuries of land border disputes, a deadly 1974 battle over the sea’s Paracel Islands(China controls them now) and a boat-ramming incident three years ago over a Chinese oil rig. Vietnam can count on India and Japan for support if needed. So it’s OK reclaiming its own isletsand drilling for oil in waters that may fall inside China’s “nine-dash line” that it uses to demarcate its maritime claim. China will bellyache -- a military official cut short a visit to Hanoi last month -- but Vietnam has enough resolve and backing to resist.

APPENDIX FOR  INFO



Legal Materials on Tibet

Treaties & Conventions Relating to Tibet

Numbers in brackets (e.g. [1]) indicate page in print version.

Sino-Tibetan Treaty, 821/823 A.D. [371]

Peace Treaty Between Ladakh and Tibet at Tingmosgang (1684) [372]

Ladakhi Letter of Agreement (1842) [374]

Agreement Between Tibet and Kashmir (1852) [375]

Treaty Between Tibet and Nepal (1856) [376]

Treaty Between Nepal and Tibet (1856) [378]

Chefoo Convention (1876) [380]

Convention Relating to Burmah and Thibet (1886) [381]

Convention Between Great Britain and China Relating to Sikkim and Tibet (1890) [382]

Convention Between Great Britain and Thibet (1904) [385]

Convention Between Great Britain and China Respecting Tibet (1906) [389]

Convention Between Great Britain and Russia (1907) [391]

Agreement Between Great Britain, China and Tibet Amending Trade Regulations of 1893 (1908) [393]

Treaty of Friendship and Alliance Between the Government of Mongolia and Tibet (1913) [397]

Anglo-Tibetan Declaration (1914) [399]

Convention Between Great Britain, China, and Tibet, Simla (1914) [400]

Anglo-Tibetan Trade Regulations (1914) [403]

Agreement for the Restoration of Peaceful Relations Between China and Tibet (1918) [406]

Supplementary Agreement Regarding Mutual Withdrawal of Troops and Cessation of Hostilities Between Chinese and Tibetans (1918) [409]

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