Entangled Alliances

photo credit: imedagoze

The big news in international diplomacy is that the Americans have managed to get the Chinese to come on board with potential sanctions against Iran. This is quite a coup, given that relations between the two countries have recently been about as warm as Pingu’s handshake. But if this article in the Guardian is true, then it seems that the bargaining chip the Americans used to get the Chinese to be so agreeable is the threat of the U.S. branding them a currency manipulator.  China, who have been pursuing a cunning plan of devaluing their currency by buying up American dollars in order to boost their exports, do not want to be called out on their trickery. All of which means that America has a pretty high-value bargaining chip which they can use to extract some concessions from the Asian dragon.

What a pity, then, that they’ve chosen to waste it on an agreement over Iran sanctions, which, for reasons put more eloquently by an actual expert on the subject here, are a bad idea. In a more perfect world where the major powers weren’t so cockeyed on the subject of how to contain Iran, the bargaining chip could be used to get so many worthwhile concessions out of China. For example, if the Copenhagen Summit was anything to go by, the Chinese are going to be a real thorn in the side of any potential international treaty on climate change. Then there’s China’s alleged cyber-attacks and scary censorship of the internet, which has led to Google basically abandoning it. And of course there’s China’s awful human rights record and habit of sticking their fingers in their ears and going LALALA when it comes to the issue of Tibet, not to mention their habit of trading with and selling arms to the likes of Sudan, Zimbabwe and other friendly African dictatorships. The list goes on. And on.

So there are many useful concessions America could have squeezed out of China. Instead they wasted what is quite  a potent threat on more pointless and counter-productive posturing on Iran. Great.  Obama’s had a good couple of weeks on the domestic and international scene, but for me this hits a real sour note. China is going to be a big problem in the next few years and it seems America just threw away an excellent bargaining chip. The question is, how many more does  it have up its sleeve?

The run up to Copenhagen has begun and by all accounts it was a little more fiery than expected. I’m not referring to the Climate Camp in London, whose location was kept so secret, nor am I referring to Sen. Chuck Grassley’s remarkable comments that there are an increasing number of scientists who have doubts about Climate Change…really? This sounds a little like Sen Inhofe’s infamous list, many of whom were horrified to learn they were including on his list ( yes, he basically made it up). All of these are mere broadsides in the contemporary Climate Change debate.  The fire in this debate, which we’ve only seen glimmers on touches on the elephant in the room for environmentalists and even governments, Population control. India’s Environmental Minister Jairam Ramesh issued a response to efforts by the US to bring India’s population into the debate:

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Newcomers tuning in to the G8 meeting may have been surprised by recent events. On balance it looks like an event where things get done, everything about it oozes action and dynamism. Firstly, just who they are ought to be enough: USA, UK, Russia, France, Germany, Canada, Japan and errr Italy ( it is rich at least). Secondly, there are as the name would suggest, only 8 of them. 8 is quite small, not like the UN, a system perfectly matched to ensure gridlock if any real global policy ever had to take place. Just 8, market based democracies this ought to be packing with leadership and vision.

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It’s crunch time on capital hill as the Obama administration puts its political capital on the line for the House to pass the Waxman-Markey bill. For those of you who don’t know, the Waxman-Markey bill is the first Climate Change bill to be introduced in the US ( on a federal level).

So what does it promise? (See here for a more comprehensive overview)

• To reduce US emissions on 2005 levels by 17% by 2020
• To bring US emissions down by 80% by 2050
• 25% of US energy by 2025 must be renewable
• A Cap and Trade system, 85% of permits will be auctioned off
• 2 Billion tons worth of carbon offsets
• A whole host of other measures from building efficiency, fuel standards and even a new technology bank!

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It’s perhaps a truism that if you want to understand a country, you need look no further than the way it teaches history.  Most countries are engaged in subtle yet constant processes of constructing a meta-narrative which legitimates the regime and institutions of the present.  In France, for example, the Revolution (of 1789) is appropriated as good solid secular republicanism (which is a hazy proposition at best), while the socialist Paris Commune is excluded, remembered only in the “group memory” (rather than the national, or “collective” memory) of a few pilgrims who trudge defiantly each May to the tombs of the fédérés in the Père Lacahise cemetery.  Equally, the German notion of Vergangenheitsbewältigung (coming to terms with the past) has been a crucial one in the post-war generational evolution of the nation’s self-image and has had implications for Germany’s affinity for European identity, the generational conflict of ‘68 and resurgent nationalism around the time of the 2006 World Cup.  Drawing on history lessons, the tempting contrast is, of course, between a Germany racked with “guilt” and a Japan defiant about its wartime actions until very recently.  The way in which collective memory treats events in a country’s history is, then, an enlightening insight into the way in which it is evolving in the present.

Take a fascinating and often harrowing account in this week’s New York Times about modern-day Cambodia:

As it struggles to leave its past behind, Cambodia today suffers from a particularly painful generation gap: those who survived the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, and their children and grandchildren, who know very little about it.

photo credit: Strevo

Under the leadership of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge killed around a fifth (most likely around 1.8 million) of the Cambodian population, engaging in radical social engineering which, in its persecution of anyone with the slightest education and its emphasis on a purely agrarian social model, not only had a massive human cost, but also social, economic and cultural consequences which will be felt for decades to come.  That, as the NYT article reports, 80% of under-30 year olds (who make up 70% of Cambodia’s population) know “little or nothing” about this period clearly has massive implications, generationally and in terms of an historical healing process.  Despite the ongoing trials of Khmer Rouge figures, under UN pressure, the Prime Minister, Hun Sen is clearly a proponent of historical oblivion: “[he] once proposed that Cambodia “dig a hole and bury the past.”*

[...] the Khmer Rouge period has not been taught in school, causing some teachers who are survivors to feel orphaned by their students.

A new high school text book that discusses the Khmer Rouge years has been prepared, but it will reach only a portion of the country’s students

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photo credit: JFabra

If you Read Ed’s article on the need for stimulus packages in Europe you may have come across a debate Ed and I had over the nature and merits of a stimulus. Regardless of which side you fell on, there were further issues at stake than just economics. Economists like to see their subject as a science: numerical and evidence based, rational and objective. No doubt,  many of their research tools are scientific but economics is also the backbone of the modern world and often not an end in itself, more a vehicle for achieving other ends.

As James Surowiecki argues in the Financial Page of the New Yorker, economics is by no means a science and as the recession draws on, we’re able to examine the cultural memories that can and do direct economic courses of action. From recessions and inflations, each country will have its own preferences and fears that alter the importance attached to different parts of the economy.

In the US, the focus has fallen on the stimulus package and Paul Krugman has made the case that europe should follow suite. He makes a convincing case for a European stimulus package, but is it correct to lampoon European economic policy and decision making as woefully inadequate or to equate US economic policy so readily with Europe? Well in some sense yes, it’ s perfectly fair, the rationale for the stimulus is not so difficult,  it could even lead to greater gains if correctly invested in infrastructure which could grow economies in the future, from transport to broadband aswell as tiding Europe over during a recession. In fact, many economists, (despite what many think) advocate deficit spending. They argue that if done correctly it will more than pay itself back through the higher tax-receipts of the economic growth it will yield.

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photo credit: mohammadali

As Mark announced on the update to his post, Cameron has formally reasserted his desire for the Conservatives to leave the European People’s Party, the centre right coalition for the European Parliament. Then he will attempt to form a new bloc, which  supports the economic benefits of Europe but keeps away from the federalist leanings underpinning that the EPP displays.

The problem as the FT’s Brussels Bureau Chief, makes clear is that the alternative to the EPP doesn’t look that  promising and worse, where there is promise for a new bloc, that may cause Mr Cameron as many problems. Yet the Conservative Party’s European alliances are only a small part of the bigger picture. Cameron’s move away from the EPP is not unusual or without precedent in British politics but it is one that has been tried and tested before and has invariably come up short. Furthermore, Cameron risks isolating the UK from Europe precisiely at a time when greater cooperation is, and will be necessary, all to secure control of a rebel wing of his party.

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photo credit: PappaJack

Tuesday marked the anniversary of Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia. I meant to write about this sooner – but the day passed off largely without event, with none of the ugly scenes in Belgrade of a year ago.

In the extended entry, I’ll look at the effect of this declaration – both in Kosovo and on the wider international system – as well as the mood on the ground, from a visit I made there a couple of months ago.

(and I will definitely return to my mini-series on the EU in 2009 shortly – I should also have a post on Norway coming up in the next few days)

This post has become quite large so I’ve divided it up into the following sections if you’d prefer to read it that way.

• The International System
  • and Serbia
• Inside Kosovo
  • Division of Kosovo?
  • Mitrovica
  • Civil Society

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In a follow up to my top heavy article, I wanted to bring attention to the fantastic news covered in Huff Post, that 350 European cities have signed up to reduce emissions by 20% by 2020. Dafydd Ellis at Climactico has some excellent analysis.

photo credit: doug.siefken

Another issue puts this into a wider context. Back in 2005 141 US Mayors  signed the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement.  By 2007, 500 US Mayors had signed. The pact agreed to aim to meet Kyoto limits and was a slap in the face to the Bush administration, who throughout its 8 years opposed or held up any serious Climate Change agreement.

What marks both out is their decision to create policy outside of national Government and beyond their national borders  indicating a remarkable shift in traditional political power structures. While the US has always had stronger support for the Mayoral system than the UK, the gap may be coming to an end as a new era of urban self-determination could become increasingly prominent in 21st century politics.

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photo credit: Compound Eye

Amid an awful lot of recessionary gloom, Europe may have taken a small but significant step forward with a new report out by the New Carbon Finance group, which shows that the EU’s ETS (Emission Trading Scheme) may actually be working. I don’t know how authoritative this report is, and the difficulties of tracking carbon  emissions across Europe force us to take each report with a grain of salt.  Indeed, I would hesitate to call this authoritative until further reports can confirm.  However, if it is true, this could well be a turning point in the struggle against Climate Change.

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