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What is the Real Goal of the US Pivot Policy? Peace Pivot (I)

5/30/2015

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Dr. Wordman
The subject question has been in debate ever since the 'Pivot' policy was announced during the Obama-Clinton Administration. The recent hype of the Japanese Prime Minister's state visit to the United States to cement a revision of the U.S.-Japan Mutual Defense Treaty pushed the subject issue into a higher level of discussion among political analysts in the U.S. as well as elsewhere in the world. The unusually staged 'honor' bestowed to Abe Shinzo to let him address the joint session of the US Senate and Congress brought the subject question to the attention of US common citizens. The word 'honor' for Abe in quotation marks highlights that such an honor was first given to Winston Churchill, the British PM, who was the genuine ally of the U.S. and the strongest leader in the British history. Churchill was influential in cementing a US-GB partnership, fighting successfully against the Fascist Nazi and the Japanese Imperial Army during WW II. He was the first foreign leader addressed the US joint congress, December 26, 1941 and May 19, 1943. Is Abe in the same caliber of Churchill? Other than being a ‘Pivot’ supporter, what did Abe Shinzo accomplish to deserve such an 'honor'? What does the U.S. need so badly from Japan? Sell her beef and rice or complete the new US military base Camp Schwab in Okinawa? These are legitimate questions to ask, related to the subject question.

When the 'pivot' policy was first introduced by Obama-Clinton; the media, mainstream and organic were questioning its real purpose from the start. The U.S. administration repeatedly stated that the intension of the policy was for maintaining peace and stability in Asia Pacific            (AP), first by changing the word ‘pivot’ to ‘rebalance’ then emphasizing that the policy was “not targeting” at China”.  However, the interpretation of the real goal of “pivot’ persists into the Obama-Kerry administration,  and it is still puzzling to the world. The recent actions, such as redefining the U.S.-Japan Mutual Defense Treaty, organizing with Japan to define a 12 member Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) excluding China and howling like a lone wolf with Japan opposing the China led Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), all cast doubt on the U.S. AP-policy regarding its officially stated real intension.


The recent developments happening prior to 2016 presidential election compel anyone who cares about the US-China relation to think deeper about the subject question, one of the most important US foreign policy questions. There are different opinions in interpreting the real goal of ‘pivot’. I am devoting this column space to do an analysis on ‘pivot’, dissecting two opposite theses regarding her real goal. Hopefully such an analysis can provide us some food for thought in plain language instead of diplomatic jargons so to allow fellow Americans to formulate a clear understanding on the pivot policy, in turn, to influence the U.S. AP policy to move on to a desired and correct path.

Unquestionably the U.S. is still the strongest nation on Earth, but she is struggling financially. The U.S. is in enormous debt, her economy has long shifted away from manufacturing with tangible productivity to services, especially financial services where the U.S. relies on making money based on money as the principal element. The US government relies on the US Dollar to be the world's trade instrument so that her debt burden can be relieved by printing more US dollars and issuing more government bonds and treasury bills based on the US dollar. Americans are ingenious in financially engineering their economy. In the post WW II era, especially the last three or four decades, many countries in the world including the U.S. have experienced serious financial crises, recessions and hyper inflations, but the US economy has been maintained with a reasonable GDP growth rate ever after coming out of the depression. The U.S. economy was managed continuously to be the number one economy and the most attractive investment environment in the world owing a large extent to her successful monetary policy.


China had miraculously risen in economy from a very poor state. Her great success dwarfs that of the four little Asian Dragons. China survived the Asian financial crisis because of her manufacturing focused economical policy, poor and hard working people with strong tolerance to recession and an unsophisticated 1.3 billion people/market extremely lucrative to foreign investments. China has sustained her high digit GDP growth for the last three decades advancing her economy to be the number two in the world surpassing Japan. This fact naturally causes concerns in the U.S. and Japan. Japan’s economy has been stagnant and her population is aged. Abe’s three arrows did not seem to solve Japan’s economic problems. It appears that Abe is playing the Japanese die-hard right wing political card – Japan must return to her Pre-war glory by directing the Japanese youth’s attention to external affairs rather than their domestic economy.

The U.S. survived the worst financial crisis occurred in 2008 - the collapse of a housing and credit market bubble, again because of her ingenuity in financial engineering. So long the U.S. maintained the dollar as the world trade instrument, her bail-outs and Quantitative Easing will work and the U.S. economy can still be the most attractive investment environment absorbing the needed money to pump up her economy. China and Japan are the largest two US debt holders. China’s trillions of dollars of foreign exchange reserve would lose value at the mercy of the US monetary policy. Keep buying and selling US treasury bills or bonds with low or negative yield is definitely not the way to keep her hard earned dollars. So China needs to find a way to put their money to use rather than just to finance the US governments.

The above is the background situation under which the ‘pivot’ policy operates. It is this background and observations of current events in Asia that cultivated different theses regarding the goal of the US AP policy.

The U.S. is recovering well from the recent recession despite of the Euro crisis and her slow recovery and despite of the long stagnant Japanese economy. The most serious issue hurting the U.S. is her huge expenditures in military and foreign wars that are draining the US coffer and skyrocketing her debt. Logically, the U.S. should definitely exit wars and maintain peace so the U.S. could nurse her economy to stay no. 1 in the world. Under this logic, one would interpret and accept the sincerity in the US AP foreign policy statements - wanting to balance power and maintaining peace in AP so to avoid a collapse of the fragile world economy. This is the ‘peace theses’ under which one might interpret the US call for China to shoulder more world responsibility as part of the ‘rebalance’ goal. However, China seems to have her own formula to conduct her peaceful rise rather than just providing funds supporting the US foreign policies; especially when the U.S. is conducting an ambiguous diplomacy towards China, sometimes warm and sometimes cold, seemingly purposefully tolerating Japan’s ambition to take sovereignty of Diaoyu Islands. On the other hand, Japan’s economy had grown to no. 2 before threatening to surpass the US economy, but it is stagnant now facing tough competition from China and South Korea. Japan, apparently behaving very differently from China, is eager to support the US call to shoulder more world responsibility by engaging militarily to relieve some of the US financial stress. Japan, an export oriented country, depends heavily on external markets, especially China. The Japanese businesses and industries would naturally want to maintain a good relationship with China under a peaceful environment.

The ‘peace thesis’ simply interprets the real goal of the US ‘pivot policy’ as genuinely for maintaining peace in Asia Pacific. However, this is not very convincing to China or to many US political analysts. Therefore, there is an opposite thesis, an ‘evil thesis’, that will be discussed in the next column.
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To Cooperate or Not to Cooperate (with China on Her 'Red' Interpol Notice)

5/23/2015

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Dr. Wordman
The cooperation among nations regarding law enforcement and criminal justice dates back a century ago. In 1914, the idea of INTERPOL was born at the first International Criminal Police Congress, held in Monaco. The official International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC) was created in 1923, headquartered in Vienna, Austria, on the initiative of Dr Johannes Schober, president of the Vienna Police. In 1935, a police radio network was established but the mission of ICPC was interrupted from 1938-1945 by WW II. In 1946, Belgium led the effort to rebuild the organization, with Interpol as its telegraphic address and Paris its headquarters. In 1956, ICPC became International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO-Interpol or Interpol). In 1971, UN recognized Interpol as an international organization eventually accepted a liaison office and representative at the UN HQ in New York in 2004. Interpol is the second largest international organization next to the UN, supported by its member fees. Interpol progressed with time from radio network to X-400 electronic communication system (1990), then to a web-based I-24/7 system (2002) and established a cutting edge R&D, Interpol Global Complex for Innovation, in Singapore (2013). Interpol employed 756 staff representing 100 members as of 2013 with total of 190 members including China, Russia and the United States.

Notably, the first UN special notice was issued by Interpol in 2005 for individuals subject to UN sanction against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Besides the UN Special notice, Interpol classifies seven types of notices, color coded, Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Black, Orange, and Purple. Information disseminated via Interpol notices concerns individuals wanted for serious crimes, missing persons, unidentified bodies, possible threats, prison escapes and criminals' modes of operation. The red notice seeks the location and arrest of a person wanted by a judicial jurisdiction or an international tribunal expecting his/her extradition. Interpol publishes notices either on its own initiative, or based on requests from its member states' National Central Bureaus (NCBs) or authorized international entities such as the United Nations and the International Criminal Court. All notices are published on Interpol's secure website and extracts of notices may also be published on Interpol's public website if the requesting entity agrees. Interpol can only publish a notice that adheres to all the proper legal conditions under Interpol constitution. Notices can be issued in any of the four official languages of Interpol: English, French, Spanish, and Arabic. Chinese perhaps should be included as an official Interpol language since China has just issued a red notice for 100 criminals all involved in swindling money on a large scale. (Using Chinese language is not an honor but practicality.)

Most Interpol member countries would consider a red notice a valid request for provisional arrest, except those countries having additional internal legal requirements or a bilateral extradition treaty to be satisfied. The United States and Canada are such significant examples because most of the corrupt officials on the Chinese red notice are likely hiding there. The United States has extradition treaties with 109 countries or territories but not with China. So the effectiveness of this red notice does depend on whether the United States and Canada would cooperate or not cooperate with China regarding this global warrant issued by China. The US extradition treaty with another country is established based on each country’s internal law to safeguard the due judicial process rendered to a citizen or permanent resident. This protection is especially important if the individual fled the country was under religious or political reasoning. The extradition treaty would generally spell out such protection clauses.    

The USNCB focuses on fugitives, financial fraud, drug violations, terrorism and violent crimes. It can refuse to respond to any of the 200,000 annual inquiries from other nations and, as required by INTERPOL bylaws, it does not assist in the capture of suspects, particularly those coming into the U.S. from a country having no extradition treaty with the U.S. The 100 wanted corrupt Chinese officials including 23 women on the Chinese red notice have most probably escaped to the United States and Canada. Some have been in exile for as long as a decade, hence likely they have become permanent resident or even citizen in a foreign country. Therefore, some of these fugitives could hire lawyers to engage complicated legal procedures to delay bringing them back to China for trial due to a lack of extradition treaties between China and their hiding countries. I might point out though the existing extradition treaty between Hong Kong and the U.S., perhaps, could be helpful before US and China sign an extradition treaty.  

Listing people, fled more than ten years ago, on the Interpol notice seems to illustrate Chinese government’s resolve in cracking down corruption and not as a political purge as some China critics claim. Sixty percent of the 100 wanted allegedly committed bribery and graft with evidence showing tens of million dollars involved. The red notice provided names, sex, nationality, crime committed and identification features including color of hair and eyes with a head and face photo. For example, on top of the list is Yang Xiuchu, while serving as deputy of construction bureau of Zhejiang province she had enriched herself through construction projects up to 253.2 million Yuan (>$40M). In 2003 after her brother was probed for corruption, she fled with daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter to the U.S. via Singapore. The red list will be updated every five years and will be effective permanently until the criminals are brought to justice. So the list definitely will have a positive effect on bringing criminals to justice and deterring corruptions in China.

Following the initial contact between two presidents, Xi and Obama,  the US and Chinese officials will meet in August to discuss the possibility of repatriating Chinese officials who fled to America with billions of dollars of allegedly stolen government assets, a State Department official said. The absence of an extradition treaty between the US and China makes America an attractive destination for the fleeing Chinese, and a haven for the assets they allegedly stole. As a law abiding country, the U.S. must cooperate with China even at the loss of billions of dollars the corrupt officials had brought to the U.S. In the past, western governments had been reluctant to extradite suspects because of China’s murky judicial system. With the new leadership as seen in China’s 18th People’s Congress, judicial reform and anti-corruption were their serious reform agenda for saving the CCP party and the country. As more cases of trial are brought to light and more Chinese people are supporting the government’s reform, there is no reason for the U.S. not to cooperate with China on extradition.  

Canada, which also has no formal extradition treaty with China, has already cooperated with China in extraditing suspects wanted by Beijing. In 2011, Canada sent Lai Changxing, a businessman wanted for corruption and smuggling, back to China on the promise that he would not be executed. He was sentenced to life in prison. China has no reason not to agree with the U.S. on conditions of fair due process, humane treatment and constitutional legal sentences, after all, these corrupt officials are not international spies who often get tortured to extract information. As a law abiding country, we shouldn’t harbor criminals. Alternative to extradition, deportation for violating US immigration law or business ethics law can be applied as well. Neither country has publicly announced how much money has been smuggled from China into the U.S., but according to the Washington-based Global Financial Integrity group, $1.25 trillion of illicit cash might have left China from 2003 to 2012, a mind boggling figure and a significant portion landed in the U.S. and Canada.

We urge the U.S. to cooperate fully with China on the Interpol red notice and we also urge China to use some of the recovered money on education including offering international student scholarships under the name ‘XO grant’ signifying a Xi-Obama beneficial cooperation.
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