China’s leaders set out their intention to push forward with policy reform following the Third Plenum. The full decision released on 15 November makes clear the aim to loosen constraints on the market, and suggests a dilution of state-owned enterprise influence. A new national security committee could also lead to greater policy integration between domestic security and international affairs.

The Third Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party’s 18th Central Committee took place in Beijing from 9−12 November. Initial reactions based on the communiqué released on the last day of the meeting were mixed. However, on 15 November the authorities published the detailed decision approved by the plenum, and an explanation given to the plenum by Party General Secretary Xi Jinping – in which he acknowledged major problems facing China.

These documents make the implications of the plenum much clearer. In sum, it offers a clear political signal that as China’s fifth-generation Party leadership enters its second year, it is intent on taking forward a ‘comprehensive deepening of reform’ across a wide range of issues. As an indication of the importance of this, a new high-level ‘leading small group’ will be established to coordinate and oversee this process. The decision spells out various new measures, and reiterates many which are already part of the government’s agenda.

More market in the economy

The most important material is on the economy, where the decision makes clear that the leadership envisages a ‘decisive’ role for market forces, and the establishment of ‘fair and equal’ competition in the economy. This will provide a guiding principle for policy-making over the coming years.

One of the ways of achieving this is to reorganize the functions of government. Here the decision reiterates the themes which the government has been working on since Premier Li Keqiang took over in March this year, namely reducing or removing the need for government approvals to businesses, freeing up the investment environment, and allowing businesses and the market to take the lead unless there is a strong reason for government intervention. Better governance is a wider theme of the decision, covering the judicial system and reforms to the party’s disciplinary organs which would clarify leadership and accountability in anti-corruption investigations.

SOE reform

A possible impediment to market reforms is the power of China’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and the original communiqué gave the impression that nothing much would be done about SOEs. However, the ability of these so-called ‘vested interests’ to stymie market reforms has been weakened by the targeting of a number of senior SOE-related cadres in the party’s latest anti-corruption campaign, which began at the end of 2012.

Further, the detailed decision suggests further reforms are in the offing. Although the relevant section of the document begins by restating the leading role for state ownership, a series of subsequent policy aims could serve to dilute it, such as ensuring equality in property rights protection and competition; developing mixed (state and non-state) ownership through cross-shareholding and bringing private capital into state-led projects; shifting from managing SOEs to managing state investments in enterprises; better supervision of SOEs which operate in natural monopolies; and removing administrative monopolies.

International affairs

The decision talks about further opening of China’s economy, but the vast majority of the issues covered in the decision are domestic in nature, and announcements such as a further relaxation of birth control policies have attracted most attention. Even the points on military and defense issues relate more to internal management than external capacity.

There was, however, one announcement which could have important implications for China’s foreign policy, which will be watched carefully outside China, the establishment of a ‘national security committee’. Xi said that this was being set up in response to external pressures to protect national sovereignty, security and development. He also cited internal pressures to maintain political security and social stability. It is too early to judge what the exact remit of this body will be, but it could lead to greater policy coordination and integration between domestic security issues and international affairs, at a time when China is playing a more important role across the international spectrum.

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Rapid economic growth and more widespread political stability have catalyzed increased international engagement with Africa in the past decade, as African states develop more significant roles in the global economy and political cooperation in geopolitics. Accompanying this is a shift in British engagement with African states from one with a development aid emphasis to one focused on trade and political cooperation.

HE Professor Kwaku Danso-Boafo will reflect on his time in London, developments in UK-Africa relations, the role of diplomatic engagements in informing and strengthening bilateral relations and the prospects for intergovernmental cooperation on African and global issues.

Attendance at this event is by invitation only.

On 3 March, 14 members of the UN Security Council denounced the 15th member, Russia, in unprecedentedly strong terms for the violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and use of military intimidation. Even China followed suit.

The Russian ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, who is used to getting his way in the Security Council, was dumbfounded. With surprising confidence, Churkin had asked for the emergency discussion over Ukraine. Each of his arguments was swiftly dismissed as inacceptable with regard to international law, or in bad faith. He got his way with a shameful nyet to Security Council resolutions on Syria, but not here.

The Russian state has been facing growing criticism from many governments and multilateral organizations since it launched an armed incursion into Crimea. NATO, the OSCE, the EU and the Council of Europe have condemned Russia’s resort to military force in Crimea. Sanctions are being discussed very seriously. And the economic and financial backlash is hurting the Russian currency, treasury and major corporations. The Kremlin has stumbled on international legal norms, which it wrongly believed it could interpret in its own free manner, with the support of China.

On 4 March, President Putin chose to express himself on Ukraine, at last. He looked nervous even though he was addressing a small and carefully selected group of young journalists for a ‘discussion-like press conference’. He told an odd story of the war he had threatened everyone with, but had never intended to wage. He repeated arguments that Churkin had already lost in New York the day before. And, with his never-abating desire to rewrite recent history, he condemned both Ukraine’s independence and the Orange Revolution of 2004.

He kept changing his mind about deposed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich’s position. He first said that Yanukovich was ‘politically dead’, but later justified Russian military ‘protection’ of Crimea’s population with Yanukovich’s supposed written request to Moscow on 1 March. Such a pretext is less convincing to the US and Europe by the day, just like Yanukovych’s use of a hastily passed anti-terrorism law to attempt to justify his order to shoot at civilian protesters on the Maidan. Today, Yanukovich is a former despot on the run. The Kremlin’s propaganda has backfired.

Negotiation is now beginning to reassert itself over confrontation. The Russian and Ukrainian governments have just renewed a fragile communication line. Kyiv and Simferopol are setting up a commission to discuss a common strategy out of the military standoff, and the status of the autonomous republic of Crimea in the Ukrainian state. The war scare is not quite over, but it now looks clear that Moscow bears the responsibility for raising the stakes all the way to the brink of armed struggle, with civilians as potential victims. Most powers, together with international organizations, agree that Russia’s behaviour has been dangerous and that the new interim Ukrainian government is legitimate.

The priority, now that armed violence is abating, is quick and robust support to the Ukrainian economy and society. And, as a necessary corollary, Western governments will have to devote time to helping the Russian president save face and stay quiet behind the Kremlin walls.

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Professor John Ikenberry will examine the challenges to global order that are posed by the rise of China and current shifts in global power. He will argue that a liberal-oriented international order, as championed by the United States and Europe over the last century, remains the best hope for stability and growth in the 21st century.

Professor Ikenberry will contend that, while non-Western rising states seek greater voice and authority in the global system, they – perhaps surprisingly – still embrace the basic principles and institutions of liberal world order. Thus, the United States and Europe have powerful incentives to work together to reform the world’s governance institutions to accommodate new stakeholders and tackle problems of rising economic and security interdependence.

ASK A QUESTION: Send questions for the speaker by email to questions@chathamhouse.org or using #askCH on Twitter. A selection will be put to him during the event.

This event will be followed by a reception.

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This event will present the findings of the Transatlantic Academy’s new report, Liberal Order in a Post-Western World, which examines the future of international liberal order in a world shaped by the rise of emerging powers and a transatlantic community dealing with internal challenges. Produced by collaboration between scholars from Europe and North America, it recommends ways to build an enduring rules-based order for the 21st century.

This report serves as a record of the inaugural London Conference on Globalization and World Order, convened by Chatham House on 2–3 June 2014 at Lancaster House in London.

The London Conference has three aims: to be comprehensive in debating how best to manage the profound economic and political rebalancing taking place across the world; to go behind the headlines and debate the trends underlying and connecting current events; and to build an international community of experts with a shared understanding of the major challenges accompanying globalization.

This inaugural conference was fortunate to draw together high-quality speakers for each session, who offered perspectives reflecting their geographic and sectoral diversity. It benefited enormously from the ideas for themes, speakers and participants suggested by its steering committee. The conference would not have been possible without the generous support of its two founding partners – Accenture and Chevron – and its supporting sponsors – Bloomberg and Rio Tinto – as well as the generous cooperation that we received from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in hosting the event at the historic Lancaster House in St James’s. And the quality of the debate, insights and ideas generated over the course of the conference was driven largely by the input from its 200 participants. Steering committee members, sponsors and participants are all listed in the next section, along with speakers’ details and the conference programme.

The report itself opens with a short essay which explores one of the main conclusions of the conference: the loss of trust that appears to be permeating relationships between governments, and between governments and their citizens, as a result of the pressures they are all under from the process of globalization. This is followed by the key insights from each of the five main sessions of the conference on 3 June.

The final section brings together the five papers written by members of Chatham House’s in-house research teams in advance of the conference in order to stimulate participants’ thinking. Even following an eventful six months since these were written, their insights and proposals retain an important salience for the future.

We look forward to hosting the second London Conference on 1–2 June 2015.

 

Robin Niblett
Director 

China’s rise was highlighted again recently by reports that World Bank calculations of purchasing power parity could put the Chinese economy ahead of the US this year. China’s global influence has clearly spread substantially over recent decades, though the extent and impact of the country’s rise remain debated, and its economic size is not yet matched by influence in other areas.

Within China itself, the idea that the country has become a major power has become stronger. Put alongside Chinese analysis of global flux, this has resulted in changes in China’s approaches to foreign and security policy.

The impact of these changes remain uncertain. As set out in a new report on China’s Global Personality , there are several debates in China about the country’s approach to international affairs: around the implications of its rise for its continued identity as a developing country, whether it should become more ‘revisionist’ towards international affairs, and how assertive Chinese foreign and security policy should be.

So far, China’s post-2012 leadership has taken forward a number of areas of policy change. Institutionally, the creation of a new National Security Commission, chaired by Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping, is likely to strengthen policy coordination and integration across a broad range of domestic and external issues.

The Chinese leadership has also promoted a much-discussed ‘new type of major power relationship’ in its approach to the US. The aim here is to avoid conflict between the US and a rising China, and to work towards a relationship characterized by equality, including in Asia – this therefore does not imply a desire to be a regional hegemon. The outcome, however, remains to be seen, and US responses so far have been cautious.

In dealing with disputes in East Asia, Chinese policy has become more assertive since around 2010, though the leadership has also set out its desire to deepen relations with its neighbours, and Beijing has been among the first to reach out to new Indian Prime Minister Modi. However, there are clear limits to this: relations with Japan in particular are likely to remain poor, and those with Vietnam have deteriorated substantially over recent weeks.

These issues are not simply bilateral, but should be seen as part of a wider renegotiation of regional order, involving not just China, but Japan, the US, and others. The last few years have seen changes in US approaches to the ongoing evolution of the international order and in particular to East Asia – the so-called ‘rebalance’ strategy, including ongoing – but slowing – negotiations for a trade and investment Trans-Pacific Partnership. And Japan’s security policy has been changing under Prime Minister Abe.

The idea of renegotiation can also be seen in the debates around institutions of global economic governance, such as the International Monetary Fund. Our research finds that China’s engagement with the existing international order remains strong, but there is also a growing element of gradual revisionism from China (and maybe others) within that order. China’s approach is consistent with the open and rules-based way that international institutions have developed, but it looks for its voice to be considered more in the setting of those rules.

The view from Europe

The implications of this analysis are that the questions policy-makers need to address should not be framed simply in terms of dealing with the rise of China and the changes in Chinese approaches this brings. Instead, the framework should be one which takes account of global flux and policy changes by other actors.

This means that there is space for European governments, for example, to engage in shaping the future global and regional order. In doing so, there could be particular challenges if strategic difficulties in the US-China relationship continue − the perceptions of opportunities and threats in Asia as seen from Europe may increasingly diverge from Washington’s. As China’s rise continues, it will not just affect relationships with China – Europe’s relationships with the US, and their stances on questions of regional order and governance in Asia, will also be called into question.

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The US derives significant geopolitical power by issuing the dominant reserve currency. Not surprisingly, China would like to wield similar power and is successfully promoting the use of the renminbi to settle trade. The speaker will argue that the RMB’s chances of becoming a major reserve currency are poor, as financial liberalization, although a necessary condition, is insufficient. China must also earn the unquestioning trust of global money managers. History suggests this takes decades even for a rules-bound democracy, let alone an opaque, unpredictable single-party state.

Nigeria’s prospects, with its rise to international prominence as Africa’s largest economy, are tempered by the many development and security challenges the country faces. While essential reforms in the power and agriculture sectors are underway, such efforts are balanced against the Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast, significant concerns around youth unemployment, and an increasingly contentious political environment in the run-up to the February 2015 elections. 

Dr Doyin Okupe, Senior Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan, will discuss what steps the presidency is taking to address the country’s most urgent challenges, and how the political environment can be managed to overcome tensions that may impede progress.

Africa is now recognized for its vast potential as well as its political influence in international fora, and there has been a growing number of Africa-focused summits, with China, India, the European Union, South Korea and Turkey all hosting such events in recent years. The US has in the past given precedence to bilateral engagements in support of its ‘four pillars’ approach to implementing its Africa strategy. The first US-Africa Leaders’ Summit, held in August, marked a shift towards a complementary continent-wide engagement. 

At this roundtable, Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield will discuss US policy and priorities in Africa and the significance of the summit for enhanced US-Africa relations.

Attendance at this event is by invitation only.

The umbrella revolution in Hong Kong, precipitated by the announcement of the decision on how to hold the 2017 elections for chief executive in September, has now sprung several leaks. The passion of the initial protests which convulsed the centre of the city, and which even heavy downpours of rain could not dampen, has evaporated. Street protests only get you so far. The activists have to engage now in the delicate art of politics and compromise. This is where either the real achievements are gained or everything is lost. Street protests belong to the world of theatre. They only make a difference if they give impetus and energy to what happens afterwards, in the establishment of long term arrangements and real outcomes.

The political vision of the leadership in Beijing about the Hong Kong issue is pretty clear. The idea that China talked about 'One country, two systems' on the basis of each part of this balanced clause having equal weight is now over. It was an illusion. In fact, for the Beijing leadership, there was only ever one important part of that four word phrase – the first two words. 'One country' trumps everything. And the preservation of their idea of that one country and its best future is key. A Hong Kong which would be able to march off with a political system increasingly at odds with that presiding just over the border was never on the cards.

Now both the Hong Kongese democrats, and the outside world, are relieved of their illusions, how best to deliver a future for Hong Kong in an age when the airy empty promises of its old colonial masters, the British, are no longer relevant. First of all, there has to be a shift in thinking. Like it or not, Hong Kong figures as a province in the thinking of Beijing leaders around Xi Jinping – a special province, one that has a unique status, and significant value for them, but a province all the same. In that context, it lines up with all the other issues and problems they have to deal with, from restive western provinces to fractious and demanding central ones, to placating the demands for more freedom and space of boom towns like Shanghai or Guangzhou. Hong Kongese have to think about how they relate to all these domestic issues, and pragmatically accept that they are irrevocably tied to a system that has to handle these – its success or failure in the management of this is also their success or failure. Hong Kongese have a vested interest in the Beijing government. They have to start thinking of far smarter ways of being allies in this, rather than camping outside of it and resting on loud declarations of their privileges. A sense of entitlement inherited from the British will get them no traction in China anymore, where there are far larger priorities and battles going on.

Current Chief Executive C Y Leung has been a failure in almost every respect. He has proven poor at promoting Hong Kong’s interests in Beijing, the one place where he needs to deliver – and even poorer at delivering palatable messages back in Hong Kong. That Hong Kongese at least have some form of representation in 2017 is not much, but at least it is something. A good politician could have made something of this, messaged it differently, and used it as a basis on which to build. But Leung simply wasn’t up to this. It is hard to see him having a political life after 2017.  In many ways, he is already finished.

For the protestors, they now need to think deeply about their future strategy. They have made their point, and at least proved that the myth of Hong Kong’s apolitical population can be safely consigned to a trash can. Having politicized the city, they now need to argue, mobilize and build constituencies to support developments beyond 2017. Business is important here – the one constituency the Beijing leadership probably listen to and take seriously – so having an engagement strategy with them is crucial. Framing a demand for better quality leadership in the future is all-important here, because business, political and social constituencies all want to see this. If the Xi leadership in Beijing insists on a system where only two or three people can go through and then be voted on by the electorate, then the protesters at least have the negotiation space to demand far better quality candidates than the ones that have led the city since 1997 and its reversion to Chinese sovereignty. All three of the chief executives so far have been disappointments. Hong Kong now has the right to ask for a better deal, and insist that the people put forward are at least up to the job asked of them – something that the current incumbent evidently is not.

Does all this prove that Xi Jinping is a strong, forceful leader? Perhaps. Perhaps not. One could argue that a really strong leader would have had the courage and vision to let Hong Kong adopt a more open system in elections after 2017, and the confidence not to fear kickback from this into the mainland. What it does show is that, underneath all the heat and noise, Xi is as risk averse as his predecessor Hu Jintao, and has taken, at least domestically, a very safe option. If he had gone to Hong Kong and dared to explain directly to the people there what the Beijing government’s thinking was on this issue, that would have been even more impressive. At most, we can conclude that the Xi leadership is not radically different from their predecessors, but just aware of a vast menu of challenges they need to face domestically, of which Hong Kong is one of the least important. Beyond that, recent events over Hong Kong have shed little light into the real soul of the current Chinese leaders. At most it has proved what has long been known: that if you really want to see what they believe and what they want, then you cannot do that from Hong Kong but have to look at what they do over the border. In that sense, and only that sense, Hong Kong continues to occupy a unique position as the last place in China where its leaders can truly be themselves.

This article was originally published by IB Tauris.

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How is China’s growing international status likely to affect the future trajectory of global governance? Will it operate within the confines of liberal order, or attempt to substantively revise the existing global framework? The speaker will argue that China is now playing an active role in shaping the rules, norms, and institutions of global governance. She will offer some fresh insights into this new trend in Chinese foreign policy by placing a lens upon key global policy-making realms, including the maritime commons, where conflicts over international norms and national interests are most stark.

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The speaker will argue that Chinese foreign policy should be viewed as an extension of domestic policy to a degree not seen in other countries. China's foreign policy aims to support domestic growth and employment, must be aligned with nationalist and narratives of ‘rejuvenation’ and the ‘China Dream’, and must help dilute hostile foreign values. The ‘One Belt, One Road’ project, also known as the ‘New Silk Road’, exemplifies this. The speaker will illustrate its origins and development, discuss how it promotes the Communist Party’s domestic agenda, as well as look at (secondary) geostrategic aims and difficulties. Finally, he will look at the lessons for Europe, and why and how this Chinese initiative should be welcomed.

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It has become routine for China’s leaders to use high profile international events as a means of projecting a preferred image of what China stands for and how it will act as  a great power, one that is perhaps now second only to the US in the league table of global powers. So it is no surprise that Xi Jinping has used his interventions at the UN development summit and his address to the General Assembly to showcase China’s growing role as a global aid actor, and to call for greater ‘democratization’ of global governance institutions (or, in other words, a greater role and say for China and other developing countries). China’s alleged and self-proclaimed (and challenged) predilection for peace, a desire to build a ‘new type’ of (vaguely defined) international relations, and support for the UN as the sole arbiter of when sovereignty might possibly be put aside (instead of the US or a coalition of the willing) are also now relatively well-established and rehearsed Chinese positions.

In addition to wielding China’s financial power in support of this national image projection, Xi’s activities also represent a move towards mobilizing discursive power (话语权) as well. To date, and for a number of years, this discursive power has been primarily deployed in a defensive manner, with the aim of denying the supposed universal nature of many of the norms and principles of the international order. These norms, as articulated by both Chinese government officials and some supportive academic scholars, are not universal at all, but merely the product of a small number of Western countries’ histories, philosophies and developmental trajectories. So, in this formulation, while it is important to have a common set of principles and responsibilities as the basis for international interactions, each country should be free to develop its own nation-specific definitions based on its own unique histories and contexts. And it is only these Chinese-inspired definitions and aspirations – of human rights, for example, or development – that China should be judged against.

But this position has changed under Xi, with China’s leaders increasingly keen on promoting Chinese understandings and definitions as the basis for international debates and international action. Hot on the heels of Chinese attempts to take a leading role in defining the basis for global cyber diplomacy,  China is now seeking to shape the way that development is defined and understood – which of course has massive implications for how development, thus defined, might be attained.

Leading on development, missing on security

Xi’s willingness – or should that be desire – to establish Chinese potential global leadership was less apparent when it came to solving the major security challenges of the day. To be sure, there was talk about the need for new ways of dealing with insecurity that recognize the consequences of globalization and that no country can solve problems on its own – including, presumably, the United States. The pledge of more peacekeepers will cement China’s position as one of the world’s major contributors to UN overseas activities, and the promise of a military assistance fund to the African Union shows that Beijing really is an important security actor beyond its own borders. But when it comes to conflict in places like Syria, China seems content to maintain its back seat and allow Russia to take the lead in a crisis that is admittedly some distance from China’s own backyard. Expect a Chinese-led agenda for the G20 summit in 2016 in China that reinforces this differential willingness to assume leadership roles depending on the specific issue at hand.  

So for the time being, the aim seems to be primarily to confirm the idea that China is a new and very different type of great power; one that is a friend and supporter of those smaller developing states and emerging powers that had previously suffered from the asymmetric economic and military power of great powers in the West (or in some cases, still do). As part of this ‘difference’ a second related objective seems to be to establish China as a global leader on development issues.

But simply asserting something does not mean that it is true, and its something of an understatement to suggest that China’s pacific and non-interventionist self-identity has not been accepted by everybody, particularly in East and Southeast Asia. China’s developmental achievements have also been questioned. The response in Beijing to Hilary Clinton’s tweet that it was ‘shameless’ that Xi was co-host of a meeting on women’s rights shows that the defensive nature of Chinese policy remains in place: ‘those in the best position to judge the state of women's issues in China are Chinese people, particularly Chinese women’, according to the foreign ministry. And Clinton’s comments also show that the field of ideas is not being left open for China to do whatever it wants just yet; gaining widespread acceptance for Chinese preferences is not going to be an easy task and will likely face considerable resistance. But the suggestion here is that the world is likely to see a growing Chinese presence over the coming years not just as a global development and aid provider, but also as a putative developer of new global norms.

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Professor Brown will examine how Xi Jinping has consolidated authority since becoming head of the Communist Party in 2012 and explore what his goals are for the future of China. Is Xi trying to cement his own power or protect the interests of the party by guiding it towards a more sustainable rule?

This talk will introduce the key arguments in CEO China: The Rise of Xi Jinping, the speaker’s full-length, English language study of Xi, his background, current position and core beliefs.
 

Parag Khanna will draw on the themes of his new book, Connectography, to explain how the future of geopolitics lies less in determining national borders and territory but more in controlling infrastructure, supply chains and market access.

Khanna argues that new energy discoveries and innovations have eliminated the need for resource wars, global financial assets are being deployed to build productive infrastructure that can reduce inequality, and regions such as Africa and the Middle East are unscrambling their fraught colonial borders through ambitious new transportation corridors and power grids. He will contend that beneath the chaos of a world that often appears to be falling apart is a new foundation of connectivity pulling it together.

This event will be followed by a reception open to all attendees.
 

The arbitration between the Philippines and China on the dispute in the South China Sea is coming to an end. The Permanent Court of Arbitration is to issue its decision on 12 July. This meeting will discuss the notable points of the tribunal’s award and the next steps. 

Attendance at this event is by invitation only.

The ruling by an arbitral tribunal of five members based in The Hague was simple and devastating. It declares that ‘China’s claims to historic rights… with respect to the maritime areas of the South China Sea encompassed by the relevant part of the “nine-dash line” are contrary to the [The UN] Convention [on the Law of the Sea, UNCLOS]’. This is a result that Southeast Asia’s maritime countries have long sought. The way is now clear to resolve all the disputes in the region, if the participants choose to do so.

For decades, countries around the South China Sea lived under the shadow of a quasi-territorial claim that no one really understood. What did the U-shaped, nine-dashed line marked on Chinese maps actually mean? In 2009, the Chinese government attached a copy of the map to an official submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf and the region became alarmed. For the first time, it seemed that China was serious about asserting a claim to all the land and water inside the line.

On Tuesday that claim was dismissed as entirely incompatible with international law. Moreover, the Arbitral Tribunal ruled that not one of the Spratly Islands qualifies as an ‘island’. This ruling is at least as significant: it means none of the features in the archipelago are entitled to an exclusive economic zone. Theoretically it should now be simple to resolve all the maritime disputes in the southern part of the South China Sea. The Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and the Philippines can, in principle, draw lines up to 200 nautical miles out from their coasts and agree compromises where they overlap. China is now irrelevant to this process because its nearest coastline is simply too far away.

All the 50 or so features in the Spratly Islands that are naturally above water at high tide would be granted a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea. The resulting settlement would resemble a Swiss cheese: large areas of exclusive economic zone measured from national coastlines punctuated by a few dozen ‘bubbles’ of disputed territory. This would not resolve the disputes about which country is the rightful owner of those ‘bubbles’ but it would settle the maritime disputes in the sea around them.

Of course, there are still wrinkles. Not least is the Philippines claim to the Malaysian province of Sabah in northern Borneo. This means that, for the time being, those two countries can’t settle the maritime boundary between them. They could, nonetheless, agree how far it projects offshore.

The bigger problem will be China’s attitude. Its response to the tribunal’s ruling has been angry but curiously misdirected. State media have focused their ire on questions of territorial sovereignty – even though the tribunal was barred from even considering this subject. China’s territorial claims to the rocks of the Spratly Islands are entirely unaffected by Tuesday’s ruling. There must be separate processes to resolve those questions.

China has many interests in the South China Sea – including defence, trade routes, fisheries and hydrocarbons – so it’s not surprising that it pursues whatever approach it thinks practical in order to protect them. However, the whole purpose of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea was to create an international order that defended the rights of countries to exploit the resources off their own coasts without threat from other states further away. China was a full participant in the negotiations between 1973 and 1982 that created UNCLOS and, at that time, was a strong defender of the rights of coastal countries.

While it may feel that it has lost out from this week’s ruling, China has much to gain from a strong community of regional order in the South China Sea. Most Southeast Asian countries remain alarmed by China’s intentions − which is why, in the past few years, they have been strengthening their ties with the United States and increasing military spending. China’s wider interests would benefit from a de-escalation of this tension. Reassuring its neighbours would give them less reason to rely on the US.

Putting a new maritime order in place, based upon UNCLOS and commitments between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, would be a major step towards this. It would also bring many associated benefits – not least cooperation to protect the region’s fish stocks, which are facing disastrous collapse. The first step is accepting the implications of Tuesday’s ruling.

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President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has responded with an iron fist to last Friday’s failed military coup attempt in Turkey by detaining, dismissing or suspending, so far, 60,000 military officers, police and intelligence officials, judges, teachers, academics and civil servants, and imposing a widespread travel ban and a three-month state of emergency. He is vowing to reintroduce the death penalty, abolished in 2004 as part of reforms required for opening EU accession negotiations.

This uncompromising approach in the post-coup period will have profound negative implications on Turkey’s domestic politics, security and foreign policy in the foreseeable future to the detriment of its stability and prosperity.

Fractured politics

Erdogan’s indifference to the unprecedented political unity against the coup is, regretfully, a missed opportunity to dilute the deepening polarization and divisiveness bedeviling Turkish politics. His determination to use the putsch to consolidate political power in the presidency and to erode or eliminate the secular character of the Turkish state by means of a new constitution will widen the ideological and ethnic divide between, respectively, secular and conservative Turks and Turks and Kurds. Just a few months ago, Ismail Kahramam, speaker of the Turkish parliament and Erdogan ally, exhorted that ‘secularism cannot feature in the new [religious] constitution’.

His policies and rhetoric, in other words, will undermine even more the almost imperceptible presence of ‘interpersonal trust’ in Turkish society - the willingness of one party to rely on the actions of another party – seen as incongruent with a robust polity and cohesive society. According to a 2010 OECD survey Turkey’s levels of interpersonal trust are considerably lower than OECD averages and it stands out among the 20 surveyed countries as the only one where higher educational attainment correlates with lower feelings of trust. That posture can only breed even more discord and mistrust between the different segments of the Turkish electorate and entrench personality-based and top-down politics, the root cause of political turmoil in Turkey.

Diminished state capacity

Turkey’s NATO partners fear that the purges of experienced military and security personnel have the potential to diminish its capability to thwart the threat posed by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other militant groups and to better manage its long and porous borders with Syria and Iraq. Thus far, Turkish authorities have incarcerated nearly one-third of Turkey’s senior military commanders and more than 7,000 police and intelligence officials. This constitutes a major loss of expertise and institutional memory at a time of heightening security challenges. After all, Turkey witnessed 14 bomb attacks over the last year, many of them carried out by ISIS or the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Similarly, the removal of tens of thousands of school teachers, both in private and state schools, university academics and education ministry officials will severely disrupt the provision of adequate educational services to enable future generations to succeed in an increasingly complex global economic environment. This ‘cleansing’ operation did not spare even the elite and renowned state and private universities considered bastions of liberalism and cosmopolitan values in Turkey.

In all probability, the government’s replacements of key staff with less qualified loyalists will rupture the institutional integrity and professionalism of the military establishment and the state institutions. Such a hollowing out process was already underway prior to the coup but post-coup decision-making has greatly accelerated the speed. Sadly, under the best case scenario, it will take Turkey years, if not decades, to restore a modicum of rule of law and public services’ delivery at pre-coup standards to which the Turkish citizenry have been accustomed.

Foreign policy challenges

Erdogan’s endorsement of the death penalty might signal the end of Turkey’s (already nearly non-existent) EU accession prospects and a more troubled relationship with Europe and the US. He was, before the coup, a prickly and challenging partner for the US and NATO to handle, a recalcitrant member of the US-led anti-ISIS coalition and vociferously against the US cooperation with PKK-affiliated Syrian Kurdish fighters targeting ISIS in northern Syria. After the coup, he will probably become more disagreeable to US and European foreign policy and security objectives.

His disagreeability will probably extend to Turkey’s deal with the EU to stem the flow of Syrian migrants across the Aegean Sea and Greece into mainland Europe, which looks increasingly unsustainable. A pugnacious Erdogan may utilize the forthcoming EU refusal to abolish visas for Turkish travellers to the Schengen borderless zone by end-October to wring out more concessions from an Erdogan-sceptical Europe. Despite their exasperation, they should decipher from his rapprochement with Israel and Russia that he tends to compromise with muscular diplomacy as opposed to diplomatic niceties.    

Turkey will be so convulsed and self-absorbed by internal political machinations and its security and military capabilities so compromised that it cannot afford to deploy sizeable assets to promote regime change in Damascus. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian backers are, naturally, the prime beneficiaries while the armed largely Sunni opposition are the biggest losers. Arguably, Assad must now feel very secure in power and confident that he will enlarge his territorial acquisitions at the expense of the Sunni groups. Equally, the Syrian Kurds will seek to strengthen and, perhaps, extend the quasi-autonomous zone along the Turkey−Syria border commensurate with Turkey’s declining influence in the Syrian quagmire.

Europe’s lesson

Turkey is a bitter testimony to the ill-effects of sacrificing progressive values to political expediency, fear and interests. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French president Nicolas Sarkozy demonstrated a lack of strategic foresight by stymying Turkey’s desire to join the EU in 2005. Had the EU engaged Turkey in a credible accession process, however arduous it may have been, the coup would probably have never occurred. Turkish political leaders would have been forced to implement deeper and wider reforms to strengthen democracy, secularism, human rights and a functioning market economy. Instead, Europe is reaping what it sowed: a coup-rattled and more unstable Turkey on its doorstep.

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The field of Indian foreign policy is rich and wide ranging, offering new empirical material across a broad array of topics and relationships. This article reviews three recent books on the subject, with an eye towards evaluating change amid continuity in the pursuit of Indian foreign policy. This scholarship calls out for a new paradigm to understand India’s changing position and actions at global, regional and domestic levels. I argue that Indian foreign policy can and should be seen through the prism of an open border, interdependence framework, wherein both the domestic and global levels are analysed in a linked manner. While the literature surveyed here does not yet offer a new paradigm, some common findings suggest the need for new approaches. We also need to find and use new sources of data and seek ways to measure institutional effects in foreign policy. The task of measurement and theoretical modelling is made more challenging by the need to theorize the linkages across levels and to measure foreign policy variables in different countries simultaneously.