Tag Archives: China

Will President Lungu Re-Open Zambia To Chinese Companies?

Today, the recently elected Zambian president Edgar Lungu arrived in China for a state visit and to attend the Boao Forum for Asia annual conference. The BFA conference is a premiere forum for leaders in Asia. President Lungu is expected to personally address the conference and to conduct talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Given the importance of mining to Zambia’s economy, and China’s need for raw materials, it is likely that such talks will involve trade of raw materials, especially copper.

As mentioned earlier on Free Fire, Lungu’s predecessor Michael Sata imposed severe labor laws that interfered with the operations of Chinese mining companies. President Lungu’s visit and talks with President Xi could indicate that Lungu intends to repeal Sata’s laws, especially with how President Lungu will be feted in Beijing.

As stated here:

The President (Edgar Lungu) will on Tuesday meet China Nonferrous Metal Mining Corporation (CNMC) top management, the owners of Luanshya Copper Mines (CLM), and tour the exhibition hall at 10:05 hours local time before delivering a speech at the Zambia-China Economic, Trade and Tourism Forum.

The President will later fly to Shenzhen and is on Wednesday expected to visit Shekou Industrial Park on a conducted tour around 09:00 hours local time.

Mr Lungu will later meet managements of Huawei Technologies Company Limited and ZTE Corporation at 10:30 hours and 10:45 hours local time, respectfully before meeting Shenzhen municipality leaders.

It would be safe to assume that President Lungu’s trip to China indicates a reopening of Zambia to Chinese mining interests, as Zambia has recently had economic troubles due to the difficulty of foreign mining companies doing business in the country. This may also be supported with President Lungu meeting with Chinese electronics companies Huawei and ZTE Corporation, as Zambian copper would be a key component in electronics.

China Moves To Protect Interests In Iraq

On March 22nd, Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi and Vice President Li Yuanchao visited Baghdad on the request of the Iraqi government to discuss economic and humanitarian aid. Yang met with several Iraqi officials including the President and Prime Minister, stating that China is willing and able to aid with the reconstruction of Iraq’s economy. The details of Vice President Li’s meeting was kept confidential, but Iraqi sources indicated that it covered economic and security developments.

China has good reason to be concerned over developments in Iraq. In summer 2014, the Chinese embassy in Iraq estimated that around 10,000 Chinese nationals were working in Iraq, mainly for Chinese-owned oil companies. Most of these Chinese nationals are concentrated in southern Iraq, where serious fighting has yet to reach. However, China’s significant investment in the oil fields of Iraq mean that an Iraqi collapse could possibly jeopardize the Chinese economy; Iraq is China’s fifth largest source of oil and China National Petroleum is the single largest foreign investor in Iraq. By 2035, it’s predicted that 80% of Iraq’s oil exports will go to China. As China imports around 60% of all crude oil used in the country, any fluctuation in oil prices would have significant ramifications.

Though unsubstantiated by official sources, reports from both the Türkmeneli Cooperation and Cultural Foundation as well as the Cuban newspaper Prensa Latina imply that China is planning to aid Iraq militarily in the conflict against Islamic State, citing specific quotes from Councilor Yang that China is prepared to battle against Islamic State if necessary. This may not be surprising given China’s recent actions against their home-grown Uyghur Islamist threat, some of who are accused of working with Islamic State.

The Chinese are showing in Iraq that they are willing to deploy force if necessary to defend their interests abroad (as they have in South Sudan), safeguarding strategic investments acquired at minimal cost following the greater expense of American blood and treasure required to make such investments possible.

U.S. policy makers need to work to insure that American action in Iraq (and elsewhere) is furthering long term national interests broadly defined, rather than limiting ourselves to focusing solely on preserving a peace and status quo which only competitor nations (like China) are in a position to take advantage of.

Hostile Activity Grossly Underreported in the Western Hemisphere

General John F. Kelly, United States Marine Corp Commander for Southcom, presented to the Senate Armed Service Committee last week his report on the dangers of foreign influence in Latin America. While the General did a great job at identifying the key players, the report fell short in showing the extent at which these parties play a role in Latin American politics.

The following report will examine the growing role that the three main outside actors – China, Russia, and Iran – play in the current decline of regional stability.

China

While General Kelly mentions the Chinese have invested nearly $100 billion over the past decade, he fails to mention President Xi Jinping’s recent pledge of nearly $250 billion to Latin America over the next ten-years. China has surpassed the United States in trade with Brazil, Argentina, and Peru – all of whom used to be strong allies of the US.

Beyond the obvious financial interest in Latin America, the Chinese military has also set their sights on precious geostrategic locations on the continent. Last month, the Argentine Congress rubber-stamped the presence of China’s first satellite-tracking base outside of the People’s Republic. The base will be located in Neuquén, part of the Patagonia region. Even though congress just approved the bill, construction hastily began last September without congressional approval.

While Argentina’s President Cristina Kichner claims there will be no military presence on the base, there will be no way of knowing what is going on in the 200-hectare area.

An important caveat is the fact that the agreement includes a clause that prevents the Argentine government from having any control over what happens on this base. This has fueled the growing fear that the base in fact will house Chinese military personnel. Multiple politicians, including the Presidential candidate Senator Fernando Solanas, have stated their concerns that the base will serve a dual civilian-military purpose.

Clearly China has greater intentions than just economic partnership in the region.

Russia

General Kelly touches upon Russia’s stated goals of an increased presence in order to weaken the United State’s influence in the hemisphere. The report describes how Russian envoys have “courted” the idea of gaining access to airbases in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua. Additionally, he mentions Russian spy ships docking in Havana and increased surveillance runs by the Russian air force.

While the report did cite valid fears regarding Russian influence in the region, it lacked the detailed insight needed to elevate those fears to serious concern. Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu conducted a tour of Nicaragua and Peru at the beginning of the year, where he was able to secure sales of Russian aircrafts in exchange for simplified port protocols in Nicaraguan harbors.

Not only is this an old strategic plan cut from the Soviet Union’s playbook, President Reagan went to great lengths to prevent such a dangerous deal from happening. Vladimir Putin is winning strategic deals for possible future leverage, while the United States does nothing to secure our hemisphere from their influence.

Iran

General Kelly’s assessment of Iranian involvement in Latin American cannot be dumbed-down to simply stating they have opened over “80 cultural centers” in the region. This is the grossest underestimation of the hemispheric security threat posed to the United States.

Iran has had a long and deadly involvement in Latin America both overtly through these “cultural centers”, as well as covertly via their proxy Hezbollah. Over the last 23 years, Hezbollah has been cited with planning and executing the Israeli Embassy bombing and the AMIA bombings in Buenos Aires. In addition to those successful attacks, there have been failed attempts in other Latin American countries.

The accused mastermind behind the terror attacks in Buenos Aires, Mohsen Rabbani, is funding these cultural centers. Currently serving as the head of the Oriental Thought Culture Institute, this former cultural attaché to the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires is able to recruit, indoctrinate, and return Islamic extremist to their home countries in Latin America.

In addition to the aforementioned examples, Iran has played an important role in Argentine politics. It has been reported that Iran, through their hemispheric partner Venezuela, donated money to Cristina Kirchner’s presidential campaign. In exchange for financial support, Iran demanded Argentine support in lifting Interpol’s red notice on convicted Iranian terrorists, as well as material and technical support for their nuclear weapons program.

Downplaying Iranian involvement in Latin America, either through their proxy Hezbollah or direct involvement, cannot be overlooked so carelessly.

Venezuela

While the report highlights the current instability of Venezuela, General Kelly fails to discuss their role in fomenting instability throughout Latin America. Even though Venezuela is not included in the list of outside forces influencing regional security, they serve as the middleman who connects these actors to Latin American leaders. For this reason, Venezuela should be included in any discussion involving the Chinese, Russians or Iranians.

Beyond their already established involvement in helping create the Argentine-Iranian nexus, the Venezuelan regime has taken steps to harm the United State’s influence in the region, while also attempting to undermine security operations in neighboring countries.

General Kelly mentions the damaged relations between the United States and Venezuelan security agencies. However, he fails to cite the two major events that have taken place since the Chavista ideology took power in 2001. In 2005, President Hugo Chavez took aim at the United States by expelling the DEA from the country. Last month, President Nicolas Maduro took it a step further by limiting the size of the US embassy and labeling American politicians enemies of the Bolivarian ideology.

This reduction of American presence coincides with the rise of Venezuelan relations with Iran. The importance of this nexus involves that fact the United States now has diminished abilities to conduct intelligence operation that could save American lives at home and abroad.

Not only has Venezuela taken direct action against the United State’s interest in the region, they have also been directly undermining the Colombian-American war against the narco-guerillas known as the FARC. It has long been known that the Venezuelan regime has actively trained, funded, and supplied the Colombian based narco-guerillas. Now, after decades of Colombian efforts to secure a peace treaty, it is being reported that the ceasefire is at risk of collapsing. Were it not for the support of the Venezuelan regime, the FARC would have been decimated years ago.

While General Kelly’s work is a step in the right direction, the underreporting of Chinese, Russian, and Iranian involvement in Latin America, as well as the growing importance of Venezuela, needs to be drastically changed. These issues will continue to play a major role in regional stability, and need to be moved closer to the top of the list of American national security interests.

It’s Official: Islamic State is in Central Asia

Two weeks ago we wrote about reports indicating Islamic State expansion into Central Asia. A recent message from Islamic State’s spokesman Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Adnani to their supporters dated January 26 confirms that the terrorist group has expanded into the region of Khorasan, which includes Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and other Central Asian states. The message states that several groups in the region have sworn allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has appointed Sheikh Hafidh Sa’id Khan as the Wali of the Vilayet (province) Khorasan, and Sheikh Abdur-Rauf Khadim Abu Talhah as his deputy.

The Islamic State letter goes on to exhort fighters in Central Asia to abandon factionalism and join the forces of the new Caliphate.

“You have fought the English, the Russians, and the Americans, and upon you today is a new fight; a fight to enforce tawhid (monotheism) and vanquish shirk (polytheism).”

The letter goes on to describe the battle and victory against the “crusaders,” mentioning a meeting in al-Quds (Jerusalem) and an “appointment” in Rome after a victory over the crusaders in Dabiq. Further taunts are thrown at the “crusaders” and President Obama in particular. Al-Adnani writes:

(Y)our dog Obama, out of his cowardice and feebleness, continues to warn against being dragged into a ground war, and because of your weakness and incapability, he continues to emphasize the role of the murtabb Arab rulers…

Most importantly, al-Adnani calls for further violent jihad from Muslims in Western countries, calling it a religious duty to do whatever they can to harm the crusaders. “We will argue, before Allah, against any Muslim who has the ability to shed a single drop of crusader blood but does not do so…” al-Adnani approvingly cites the attack on the Canadian Parliament as well as the attacks in France, Australia, and Belgium, going so far as to threaten further attacks on the west, concluding:

“And what lies ahead will be worse – with Allah’s permission – and more bitter, for you haven’t seen anything from us yet.”

Al-Adnani closes the letter with news of celebration over the recent death of King Abdullah of Sa’udi Arabia, and further condemnation over both the deceased monarch and his successor, King Salman. As al-Adnani wrote,

“…the real rulers of the lands of al-Haramayn are the Jews and crusaders, not Salman or Bin Nayef (may Allah disgrace them both).”

In addition to Adnani’s statement, Chinese authorities recently arrested Uighurs and Turkish nationals attempting to fly from Shanghai to Syria, to join the Islamic State, and there has been a dramatic increase of arrests in Xinjiang province over terrorist activity. Taken together, Adnani’s claim of growing ISIS support in Central Asia could be more than bluster.

Edgar Lungu Elected President of Zambia

On January 25th, Edgar Lungu of the Patriotic Front party was elected president of Zambia, succeeding the temporary president Guy Scott. Scott was ineligible to be president as Zambia’s constitution requires that the president have both parents of Zambian ancestry; Scott is of Scottish and English ancestry. Lungu, a former defense and justice minister, assumes the role of president at a delicate time for Zambia. Zambia, one of the world’s largest producers of copper, is struggling with an economic recession caused by the decline in demand for copper as well as a series of disputes over taxation with mining companies.

Earlier on the Free Fire blog we reported on former Zambian president Michael Sata’s death, and what it could mean for Zambian mineral policy. It remains to be seen whether Edgar Lungu will continue the policies of the deceased former President Michael Sata. After a shooting of striking miners by Chinese supervisors, Michael Sata forced all foreign mining companies operating in Zambia to operate by a strict set of labor laws. However, with the recent depreciation of copper prices, Zambia has found itself in tough economic straits; earlier this month Zambia raised mining royalties up to 20%, forcing several mines to operate at a loss. As Lungu takes  over the presidency he will be faced with a number of hard decisions regarding the mining industry. How he responds to those challenges may set the stage for his entire presidency.

Russia Rescues Genocidal Regime

The publication African Armed Forces reported today that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met last week with top officials in Sudan including President Omar Al-Bashir.  The purpose of the meeting was to declare intentions to build on the military to military relationship between the two countries.  This is not only despite Khartoum’s unapologetic practice of using military hardware against Sudanese and South Sudanese civilians it is rather because of Sudan’s weakened state after so many years of sanctions brought on by their systematic military approach to exterminating civilians.

The Russians also have economic rehabilitation in mind for Khartoum.  The piece reported that oil exploration permits where on the table as well.  This could mean exploration and drilling permits for Russian companies of which Khartoum would get a cut.  With Russia injecting new life into the Sudan economy and China as a competing and likely more influential broker in the conflict with the South, U.S. leverage is being directly countered and dissipating at an alarming rate.

China Wins the Influence Game in South Sudan

The 2005 creation of South Sudan as the newest nation began as one of the great U.S. diplomatic successes during the Bush administration.  The Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the SPLM and Khartoum called for the 2011 referendum that created the new nation.  Back then the U.S. put some skin in the game and it paid off.  The other major player in South Sudan today is China.  Since the outbreak of civil war in South Sudan in 2013, U.S. meddling has done more harm than good in regards to reaching peace.

It seems now that the force for peace will be China who sent seven hundred troops to the U.N. peacekeeping mission in September.  Why? China owns forty percent of the oil stake in South Sudan and has invested billions.  Keep in mind the the U.S. tax payer provides for twenty seven percent of U.N. peace keeping missions.  That means we are paying for China to protect its vast oil interest in a nation we helped to create and then helped to divide when John Kerry signaled favoritism for Riek Machar, a rival of the South Sudanese president who was also a former and current proxy of the genocidal Khartoum.

U.S. meddling wasn’t the only factor in the divide in South Sudan but the State Department is often deliberate in downplaying the impact of their careless favoritism.  China helped fuel the conflict between Khartoum and the various groups in the South as a major weapons supplier for Khartoum.  Particularly of note are the advanced long range Wei Shi missiles Khartoum used in 2011 to attack innocent civilians.  The Wei Shi is not your run of the mill small arms that media consumers have become immune to, but a long range surface to surface missile system.

If the U.S. had a big picture strategic view of our interests in South Sudan it might have recognized that, with all its faults, South Sudan was united under President Salva Kiir and could have been nurtured into a strong and prosperous democratic ally.  Now it is at the mercy of the geo-political interests of Khartoum and China with U.S. diplomatic fumbling making things worse.  Khartoum will continue to supply (Chinese made) weapons to Machar while China pretends to play the peacemaker role.  Both undermine South Sudan’s self-determination but China will protect its interest without being challenged as new colonialists.

China’s Building Pacific Hegemony

This summer, Dinesh D’Souza released a terrific film exploring what a world without America would look like. The answer is taking shape in the South China Sea’s remote Spratly Islands. And it isn’t pretty.

Communist China is building there a new island complete with an airfield suitable for high performance airplanes and a harbor that can accommodate large warships.

From this man-made platform, China will be able to enforce its claim to vast stretches of international waters and the airspace above and the abundant mineral wealth and other natural resources beneath them.

At the same time, China is promoting its new “Asia for Asians” policy as a vehicle for formalizing hegemony over East Asia and the Western Pacific.

No good can come of all this. But will President Obama oppose it?

Iran’s No China

The Obama administration will never abandon its courtship of Iran. On the eve of the extended deadline in the US-led six-party talks with Iran regarding Teheran’s illicit nuclear weapons program, the one thing that is absolutely clear is that courting Iran is the centerpiece of US President Barack Obama’s Middle East policy. Come what may in Geneva, this will not change.

To be clear, Obama does not seek to check Iran’s rise to regional hegemony by appeasing it. None of the actions he has taken to date with regard to Iran can be construed as efforts to check or contain Iran.

Their goal is to cultivate a US alliance with Iran. As Obama sees things, Iran for him is what China was for then US president Richard Nixon. Nixon didn’t normalize US relations with the People’s Republic of China in order to harm the Chinese Communists. And Obama isn’t wooing Iran’s Islamic revolutionaries in order to harm them.

Unfortunately for the world, China is not a relevant analogy for Iran. Nixon sought to develop ties with Beijing because he wanted to pry the Chinese out of the Soviet orbit. Courting China meant harming Moscow, and Moscow as the US’s greatest foe.

There is no Moscow that will be weakened by the US’s empowerment of Tehran. The only parties directly and immediately harmed by Obama’s policy of courting Iran are America’s allies in the Middle East. The Allies’ appeasement deal with the Nazis in 1938 had three victims: Czechoslovakia, the rest of Europe, and the rest of the world.

Obama’s policy of courting Iran also has three victims: Israel, the Sunni Arab states, and the rest of the world.

Obama’s initiation of the six-power nuclear talks with Iran harms Israel because the talks facilitate Iran’s nuclear program. That is, Obama is enabling Iran to develop the means to attack Israel with nuclear weapons.

According to press reports of the content of the negotiations, the US has already abandoned its major red lines. It has abandoned its demand that Iran dismantle its centrifuges. Late last week the US was reportedly about to abandon its demand for Iranian transparency to the International Atomic Energy Agency regarding its past work on atomic bomb development.

In other words, the deal the US was hoping to conclude this week with Iran, and will now continue negotiating next month, involves taking no serious action to curtail Iran’s progress in developing nuclear weapons.

And in exchange for taking no action to curtail its nuclear progress, Iran demands and will likely receive a complete abrogation of binding UN Security Council economic sanctions against it. Those sanctions were passed in response to Iran’s illicit nuclear progress. The deal the US is now willing to sign renders Iran’s nuclear program legitimate.

Then there are the rest of the states in the region. The Saudis and their Sunni brethren are not the Czechs. They are Poland, Belgium France and Holland. Like the Nazis and the European states in late 1938, Iran threatens all Sunni states in the region.

As the Americans have engaged in obsessive-compulsive nuclear negotiations with Iran, the Iranians have divided their attention between nuclear development and regional expansion. In September they took over Yemen.

Houthi militia from northern Yemen took over Yemen’s capital city Sana’a that month. The Houthi are Shi’ite, and are to Yemen what Iran’s Lebanese Shi’ite proxy Hezbollah is to Lebanon. The Houthis, who are already a major force in the US-trained Yemeni armed forces, are demanding control over them.

In addition to its proxy’s takeover of Yemen, as Middle East analyst Tony Badran reported earlier this month, the Iranian leadership is orchestrating a major information campaign to present itself as the regional hegemon to regional actors.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps Commander Qassem Soleimani has had his picture taken with Kurdish peshmerga in Iraq as well as with Iraqi regular military forces. Iranian security chief Ali Shamkhani went to Lebanon in late September and offered to arm the Lebanese Armed Forces.

Iran, these photo-ops and visits signal – is the new boss of the region. Yemen shares a 1,700 km border with Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis already fought a border war with Saudi Arabia in 2009. The Iranian proxy’s control over much of the border today is a clear threat to Saudi sovereignty. In light of the close ties the Houthis have spent the past decade cultivating with Saudi Arabia’s Shi’ite minority, it is also a threat to the internal political stability of the kingdom.

As the Obama administration has erased red line after red line in the nuclear talks, and sided with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and other Iranian Sunni allies against US allies, Iran’s leaders have gloated that their hegemony over Yemen raises to four the number of Arab states under their dominion, that list including Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

Iran’s control over Yemen is a direct threat to the world economy. Before the Houthis marched on Sana’a, Iran was able to threaten global oil markets with its sovereignty over the Straits of Hormuz that controls naval traffic between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. With the Port of Aden, Iran will also control maritime traffic between the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.

It is true that massive increases in US oil sales due to its shale oil development will reduce some of the Middle East’s power to dictate oil prices. But Middle Eastern oil sales still constitute 40 percent of the world market and will continue to be a massive force in the global economy in the coming years. As the force controlling the flow of that oil, Iran will exert massive influence over the global economy.

Add to that the fact that Iran’s Hezbollah has sleeper cells in every major city in Europe and in several hubs in North America, and that Iran has strategic alliances with Venezuela and Nicaragua, a nuclear- armed Iran exerting hegemonic control over the Middle East and its oil exports will become a strategic danger to the global economy and global security.

One of the many eyebrow raising aspects of Obama’s courtship of Iran is that it isn’t tied to a US retreat from the region. The US isn’t retreating.

Obama has ordered hundreds of air strikes on Islamic State targets to date, and more will undoubtedly follow. The US participated in the NATO overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. US power remains a major factor in regional affairs, and Obama has not shied away from using it during his tenure in office.

The problem is that in all cases, his use of US power has helped Iran more than it has helped US allies. And in the case of Libya, US power has directly threatened US allies and empowered al-Qaida and it associates.

With the rise of China today, some US analysts question the wisdom of Nixon’s opening to Beijing.

But there is little argument that his China gambit caused strategic damage to the Soviet Union and contributed to the US victory in the Cold War.

Not only will Obama’s Iran opening not redound to the US’s benefit in the short term. Its inevitable result will be a decade or more of major and minor regional wars and chronic instability, with the nuclear-armed Iran threatening the survival of all of America’s regional allies. It will also lead to shocks in the global economy and massively expand Iran’s direct coercive power over the word as a whole.

Not only is Obama no Nixon, compared to him, Neville Chamberlain looks like a minor, almost insignificant failure.