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That the asian giants will keep increasing their influence to the point where they end up at the top is a very safe prediction. beyond that, in terms of the timeframe, is just sticking a finger in the wind.Sridhar.E wrote:^^^ How successful were we??
I think we haven't become a colossal that we should have been by now. It seems most of the political problems that we used to have in the 80s (when this article was written) has only degraded, so has quality of life and relationship between the people. Infact, I would say, in the name of modernism, we even lost out what we used to have in the 80s. I don't really care about Asia's rise, but India's (or Bharat as I would like to call it). It's my dream to have a people that are staunch culturalists (like japanese) as well as socially disciplined (again like japs) with the hardwork and intelligence of of a bharatiya. I only see the problem becoming worse as each day passes. Sorry to be bitter, but I sincerely worry about these issues regarding desh.KrishnaK wrote:That the asian giants will keep increasing their influence to the point where they end up at the top is a very safe prediction. beyond that, in terms of the timeframe, is just sticking a finger in the wind.Sridhar.E wrote:^^^ How successful were we??
Serbians were seriously scared and were ready to extradite the murderers. They were about to accept all Austrian demands. But then the Russians asked them to stand strong and ignore Austria/Germany. Once they got the Russian support, Serbia went back to its unreasonable Paki-type behavior.ramana wrote: After all it was Serbia's reluctance to extradite Duke Ferdinand's murderers to Austria that started the Great War that unraveled the European social order.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton outlined the Obama administration's foreign policy philosophy in a 2,700-word essay entitled "The Art of Smart Power" in the New Statesman on Wednesday. The article also appears to be a summary of Clinton's legacy in some ways, as she nears the end of her term as America's top diplomat.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies provides a succinct definition of Smart Power: "...an approach that underscores the necessity of a strong military, but also invests heavily in alliances, partnerships, and institutions of all levels to expand American influence and establish legitimacy of American action."
Many experts see Obama's strategy of "leading from behind" in Libya as the quintessential example of smartly combining soft and hard power, for the U.S. applied force by tomahawking Tripoli while it leveraged the NATO alliance to unseat Gaddafi.
In her piece Clinton stresses that the world is a much different place than it was during the Cold War. Hence, the U.S. must "fundamentally change the way we do business" in order to deal with an emerging international system in which power is more distributed and countries are more interconnected like never before.
It is no longer enough to be strong, she asserts – great powers must also be persuasive and “savvy”. Critics will argue that the U.S. hasn’t been very persuasive with the likes of Russia and China on issues such as Syria, Iran and exchange rates.
"legitimacy" meaning "consensus"; get the world to rally behind the sheriff.The Center for Strategic and International Studies provides a succinct definition of Smart Power: "...an approach that underscores the necessity of a strong military, but also invests heavily in alliances, partnerships, and institutions of all levels to expand American influence and establish legitimacy of American action."
http://en.ria.ru/world/20120727/174804220.htmlBy Associated Press, Published: July 27
MOSCOW — Russia is talking to Cuba, Vietnam and the Indian Ocean island country of Seychelles about housing Russian navy ships, the nation’s navy chief said in remarks reported Friday.
Vice Admiral Viktor Chirkov told the state RIA Novosti news agency that Russia is in talks about setting up maintenance and supply facilities for Russian ships in those countries but wouldn’t give any further details.
Russia’s only existing naval base outside the Soviet Union is located in the Syrian port of Tartus. A squadron of Russian navy ships, including several assault ships carrying marines, is currently heading to Tartus in a show of support for a longtime ally whom Moscow protected from international sanctions and continued to supply with weapons.
Chirkov’s statement marked a sharp about-face for Russia, which closed a Soviet-era naval base at Vietnam’s Cam Ranh Bay and a spy base in Lourdes on Cuba in the early 2000s during President Vladimir Putin’s first term.
PS:What has happened to the IN's plans?Vietnam will allow Russia to set up a ship maintenance base at its port of Cam Ranh, Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang said on Friday.
Sang, speaking to the Voice of Russia radio station ahead of a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, stressed that the port would not be a Russian military base. But he also said that Cam Ranh would be used to help develop “military co-operation” between the two former Cold War allies.
Sang also said Hanoi was planning to develop the capacity to provide maintenance services to any foreign ship docking at Cam Ranh, a former Soviet naval base.
Russia currently has only one foreign military base outside the former Soviet Union – in Tartus, Syria. But officials say the base is little more than a re-fuelling stop for Russian warships.
Russia’s naval chief, Vice Admiral Viktor Chirkov, confirmed on Friday that Russia was in talks on obtaining naval bases in Cuba, Vietnam and in the Seychelles.
“We are indeed continuing work to ensure the stationing of Russian Navy forces outside the Russian Federation,” he said in an interview with RIA Novosti. “As part of this work at the international level, we are discussing issues related to the creation of [ship] maintenance stations in Cuba, in the Seychelles and in Vietnam.”
The Russian Navy saw that it badly needed foreign bases after 2008, when Russian warships joined international anti-piracy efforts in the Gulf of Aden. Russia has also discussed the possibility of using ports in Djibouti for its warships in the past.
Hindi Chini bhai bhai. Chini bhai was displeased. But you should check with those who have the inner ear of our master strategists : it could also be a case of long previous difficulties in infratsructural problems from the vietnamese side, or the INA base actually already exists, but cannot be seen - since it is under 24/7 secrecy protection, out of tactical considerations.Philip wrote:Russina Navy returns to Cold War basing plans.
PS:What has happened to the IN's plans?
By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs Correspondent
8:45PM GMT 20 Nov 2010
Comments200 Comments
After decades of fierce opposition to the use of all contraception, the Pontiff has ended the Church’s absolute ban on the use of condoms.
He said it was acceptable to use a prophylactic when the sole intention was to “reduce the risk of infection” from Aids.
While he restated the Catholic Church’s staunch objections to contraception because it believes that it interferes with the creation of life, he argued that using a condom to preserve life and avoid death could be a responsible act – even outside marriage.
Asked whether “the Catholic Church is not fundamentally against the use of condoms,” he replied: “It of course does not see it as a real and moral solution. In certain cases, where the intention is to reduce the risk of infection, it can nevertheless be a first step on the way to another, more humane sexuality.”
He stressed that abstinence was the best policy in fighting the disease but in some circumstances it was better for a condom to be used if it protected human life.
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“There may be justified individual cases, for example when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be … a first bit of responsibility, to redevelop the understanding that not everything is permitted and that one may not do everything one wishes.
“But it is not the proper way to deal with the horror of HIV infection.”
The announcement is in a book to be published by the Vatican this week based on the first face-to-face interview given by a pope.
In the interview, he admits he was stunned by the sex abuse scandal that has engulfed the Catholic Church and raises the possibility of the circumstances under which he would consider resigning. The 83-year-old Pontiff says in passages published exclusively in The Sunday Telegraph today that he is aware his “forces are diminishing”.
However, he appears determined to fight for the place of faith in the public domain.
His language in attacking the use of recreational drugs in the West and its impact on the rest of the world is particularly striking.
He describes drug trafficking as an “evil monster” that stems from the “boredom and the false freedom of the Western world”. Most significant, however, are his comments on condoms, which represent the first official relaxation in the Church’s attitude on the issue after rising calls for the Vatican to adopt a more practical approach to stopping the spread of HIV.
The Pope’s ruling is aimed specifically at stopping people infecting their partners, particularly in Africa where the disease is most prevalent.
However, it will inevitably be seized upon by liberal Catholics in Britain who oppose the Church’s stance against contraception.
This may be a precursor for the claimants of South China Sea to take a similar route.abhishek_sharma wrote:Japan headed to World Court over dispute with Korea?
PD:The British threat to storm the embassy has created a huge backlash internationally.Behaving like a "gangsta regime",more akin to Uncle Sam's Wild West and Dodge City,rather than the country that gave the world the Magna Carta,illustrates the mendacity of some of minds in the British establishment today.Some of these Foreign Office mandarins have had an overdose of being brainwashed about the servile "special realtionship" with the US,and the gangsta/outlaw acts that the Blair regime in particular displayed in the invasion of Iraq based upon a lie.
Julian Assange case: Ecuador pushes for neighbours' support
Quito insists embassy is inviolable as Hague says WikiLeaks founder will not be allowed safe passage out of countr
Peter Beaumont
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 18 August 2012
Julian Assange extradition
A pro-Julian Assange protest outside the embassy of Ecuador, in Knightsbridge, central London. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA
The international diplomatic row over WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange – who is avoiding extradition to Sweden by taking refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London – was escalating as Ecuador continued to push for the support of its South American neighbours.
Having secured an emergency meeting of the Organisation of American States over what Ecuador says is Britain's threat to invade its embassy in London to arrest Assange, the Ecuadoreans are pushing for similar meetings of the Union of South American Nations, the left-leaning Alba association of Bolivarian states and the UN.
On the agenda for the OAS meeting will be both Ecuador's claims that the UK has threatened the principle of "inviolable" status of its embassy in the UK and demands that the UK grant "safe passage" for Assange out of the UK.
As Assange prepared to give a statement on his situation – reportedly outside the embassy, where he could face arrest for breach of his bail conditions – the row over Britain's veiled threat that it could enter the embassy to arrest him appeared to escalate.
On Friday the OAS voted to hold a meeting next Friday following Ecuador's decision to grant political asylum to Assange. Assange has described the move as a "historic victory" but the foreign secretary, William Hague, made it clear that the Australian would not be allowed safe passage out of the country.
The latest developments came as the Australian government released redacted logs under a Freedom of Information request detailing its deliberations over the Assange case. Included in the documents is the Australian government's legal view that any US attempt to prosecute Assange under the Espionage Act – which Assange says he fears – would face "serious obstacles".
The released cables also appear to directly contradict Assange's claims that he had sought asylum with Ecuador because Australia had "abandoned" him by refusing to intervene in his planned extradition.
Officials claim he has been contacted eight times by consular officials while in the embassy. The sources added that far from refusing Assange help, it was Assange who had declined Australian assistance.
Assange has been in the embassy for two months after facing extradition to Sweden to be questioned on claims of sexual assault. He denies the claims and says he fears being sent to the US if he goes to Sweden.
The decision by the OAS to debate the affair follows a letter from the Foreign Office to Ecuadorean authorities, warning it believed it had a legal basis to arrest Assange in the embassy, interpreted by Ecuador as a threat to raid the building – although this has been denied by the UK which says it prefers a "negotiated outcome".
The US, Canada and Trinidad and Tobago opposed the resolution, but 23 members voted in favour of the meeting. There were five abstentions and three members were absent. OAS secretary general José Miguel Insulza said the meeting would be about "the problem posed by the threat or warning made to Ecuador by the possibility of an intervention into its embassy".
He added: "What is being proposed is that the foreign ministers of our organisation address this subject and not the subject of asylum nor whether it should be granted to Mr Julian Assange. That will be discussed between Great Britain and Ecuador. The issue that concerns us is the inviolability of diplomatic missions of all members of this organisation."
Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, said in a radio interview on Friday that his nation was not trying to undermine Sweden's attempts to question Assange. He said: "The main reason why Julian Assange was given diplomatic asylum was because his extradition to a third country was not guaranteed; in no way was it done to interrupt the investigations of Swedish justice over an alleged crime. In no way."
Hague has said that diplomatic immunity should not be used to harbour alleged criminals. He said it is a "matter of regret" that the Ecuadorean government granted the WikiLeaks founder political asylum but warned that it "does not change the fundamentals" of the case.
The case could go on for some "considerable" time, Hague said, adding: "We will not allow Mr Assange safe passage out of the United Kingdom, nor is there any legal basis for us to do so."
Ecuadorean ministers have accused the UK of threatening to attack the embassy to seize Assange, after it emerged that the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987 could allow revocation of a building's diplomatic status if the foreign power occupying it "ceases to use land for the purposes of its mission or exclusively for the purposes of a consular post".
But Hague said: "There is no threat here to storm an embassy. We are talking about an Act of Parliament in this country which stresses that it must be used in full conformity with international law."
The Swedish foreign ministry said that it had summoned Ecuador's ambassador over the Latin American country's "unacceptable" decision to grant asylum to Assange.
All the people wanted by other countries take asylum in Britain. Why is that a person wanted by Sweden, for silly accusations, can't take asylum in another country, if not Britain?Samudragupta wrote:It will be a huge disaster if they actually do this because that will create precedence for British embassies in Iran and Pakistan
The long arm of Khan has planned for Assange to be eventually interrogated at Guantanamo Bay. Then nobody can accuse the US of being anti-Muslim.shyam wrote:All the people wanted by other countries take asylum in Britain. Why is that a person wanted by Sweden, for silly accusations, can't take asylum in another country, if not Britain?Samudragupta wrote:It will be a huge disaster if they actually do this because that will create precedence for British embassies in Iran and Pakistan
By Julian Ryall, Tokyo and Malcolm Moore in Beijing
2:57PM BST 19 Aug 2012
The most serious protests appeared to be in Chengdu, where the mob overturned a Japanese-made police car, and in the southern city of Shenzhen, where rioters smashed the windows of Japanese restaurants and businesses.
In one image posted on Sina Weibo, China's version of Twitter, the crowd in Chengdu appeared to be tens of thousands strong. One banner said: "Even if China is covered with graves, we must kill all Japanese."
In another demonstration, an estimated 1,000 people chanted anti-Japanese slogans in the city of Hangzhou and caused damage to Japanese cars and restaurants.
Other disturbances were reported in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenyang, Harbin and Qingdao.
The demonstrations were sparked after a group of Japanese nationalists landed on Uotsuri island, part of an uninhabited archipelago that is claimed by both nations.
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Both China and Taiwan lodged diplomatic protests with Japan after the activists landed on the islands.
The 10 Japanese swam from a flotilla carrying about 150 people anchored off Uotsuri, the largest land mass in an archipelago of islets and reefs that are marked on Japanese maps as the Senkaku islands. Once ashore – in defiance of a Japanese government directive that only permits government officials and the private owners of the islands to land – the protesters raised Japanese flags.
China, which calls the chain the Diaoyu Islands, announced later in the day that it had issued a "strong protest" with the Japanese Embassy in Beijing.
"Japanese right-wingers illegally violated China's territorial sovereignty," Qin Gang, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, said in a statement on the ministry's website.
"The foreign ministry has already lodged solemn representations and expressed a strong protest to the Japanese embassy in China and urged Japan to stop actions which harm China's territorial sovereignty," the statement added.
Taiwan's foreign ministry described the incident as a "provocative act" that had dramatically escalated tensions in the region. In
Timothy Yang, the Taiwanese foreign minister, added that the isles – which Taiwan knows as the Tiaoyutai islands – are part of Taiwan in terms of history, geography, geology and under international law.
The Japanese activists landed on the islands just days after seven Hong Kong Chinese leapt from a boat and swam to Uotsuri to underline their claim to the territory.
More than a dozen Chinese nationals were taken into custody by the Japan Coast Guard. Tokyo moved quickly to try to defuse the situation by extraditing them back to China, which claimed the arrests were "illegal".
There have been no mass protests in Japan to underline the nation's claim to the islands, which were incorporated into the territory of Okinawa in 1895.
And while China has stated that the islands were part of its territory in ancient times, Tokyo insists that Beijing and Taipei only laid claim to the islands and the water that surrounds them after significant deposits of oil and natural gas were found nearby in the early 1970s.
The simmering dispute has boiled over into a major territorial row with none of the governments involved showing any signs of backing down.
In Japan, the government is coming under increasing pressure to better protect the territory and there are suggestions that Tokyo will station military personnel on the islands, a move that is likely to escalate the situation further.
Chinese authorities have allowed anti-Japanese protests in the past, to let people blow off steam and to spur national pride. On Sunday, some observers noted that several protesters in Shenzhen were wearing matching T-shirts, a sign that they had been organised from above.
Generally the protests are brought swiftly back under control, in case the attention of the mob switches back to the Chinese government.
Comment is free
The west's hypocrisy over Pussy Riot is breathtakingOur courts now jail at the drop of a headline – for stealing water or abuse sent on Twitter. So who are we to condemn Russia?
Simon Jenkins
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 21 August 2012 20.30 BST Jump to comments (327)
Illustration by Belle Mellor
Anyone in England and Wales with a dog out of control can now be jailed for six months. If the dog causes injury, the maximum term is to be two years. I have no sympathy for such people. Keeping these beasts is weird, and those who do it probably need treatment. But the Defra minister, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, complained in May that fewer than 20 people were in jail for dangerous dog offences. The sentencing council has duly told courts to raise the threshold to two years, "to send a message".
The same sentiment a year ago motivated magistrates to play to the gallery by jailing 1,292 people for stealing bottles of water or trainers or sending idiot incitements during the dispersed rampage dubbed "urban riots". Hysterical ministers raced home from holiday to tell judges to send messages. Judges duly ruined the lives of hundreds of young people, at great public expense and to no advantage to their victims. I have no sympathy for these people either, but again the politicised response to crime was disproportionate.
A month before, a London court jailed a stoned Charlie Gilmour after he swung on a union flag from the Cenotaph and tossed a bin at a police car, thus causing widespread outrage in the offices of the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail. The judge sent him down for 18 months to send a message carefully designed to wreck his university career. Yet again we need have no sympathy for Gilmour. But there is no such thing as a rap over the knuckles in jail. Judges know that any term in prison is a sentence for life.
How can British politicians, whose statements clearly seek to influence pliable judges, criticise other sovereign states for doing likewise? Last week the Foreign Office professed itself "deeply concerned" at the fate of Russia's Pussy Riot three, jailed for two years for "hooliganism" in Moscow's Christ the Saviour Cathedral. They had staged what, by all accounts, was an obscene publicity stunt, videoing an anti-Putin song defamatory of the Virgin Mary in front of pious worshippers.
Good for free speech, we might all say. That the act outraged public decency is an understatement. In a Levada poll of Russian public opinion, just 5% thought the girls should go unpunished and 65% wanted them in prison, 29% with hard labour. Artists round the globe may plead free speech, but to treat the Pussy Riot gesture as a glorious stand for artistic liberty is like praising Johnny Rotten, who did similar things, as the Voltaire of our day. There can be disproportionate apologias as well as disproportionate sentences.
Artists can look after their own. For the British and US governments to get on high horses about Russian sentencing is hypocrisy. America and Britain damned the "disproportionate" Pussy Riot terms. In America's case this was from a nation that jails drug offenders for 20, 30 or 40 years, holds terrorism "suspects" incommunicado indefinitely and imprisons for life even trivial "three strikes" offenders. Last week alone a US military court declared that reporting the Guantánamo Bay trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would be censored. Any mention of his torture in prison was banned as "reasonably expected to damage national security". This has no apparent connection to proportionate punishment or freedom of speech.
The British security establishment during the Tony Blair-Gordon Brown regime tried to censor history books for possible "terrorist" incitement. It introduced control orders, restricted courts and long-period detention without trial. It made unlicensed demonstrating an offence and has since sought prosecution of Twitter and Facebook abuse. British ministers and courts are craven to what passes for public opinion. The idea that, whenever a crime or antisocial action hits the headlines, "the courts must send a message" is politicised justice. At times, especially in tragic cases involving children, it gets near to a lynch mob. Again the only message sent is to the media. If Britain's draconian sentencing were effective, British jails would not be bursting at the seams.
There is of course a difference between the liberties enjoyed in most western democracies and the cruder jurisprudence of modern Russia, China and much of the Muslim world. It would be silly to pretend otherwise. But the difference is not so great as to merit the barrage of megaphone comment from west to east. Pussy Riot may have attacked no one physically, but no society, certainly not Britain, legislates on the basis that "words can never hurt". If a rock group invaded Westminster Abbey and gravely insulted a religious or ethnic minority before the high altar, we all know that ministers would howl for "exemplary punishment" and judges would oblige.
Commenting on the social mores of other countries may offer an offshore outlet for the righteous indignation of politicians and editorialists. It has no noticeable effect. Western comments on the treatment of women in Muslim states, dissidents in China or drug offenders in south-east Asia are dismissed as imperial interference. But then how would we feel if Moscow or Singapore or Tehran condemned the treatment of Cenotaph protesters?
British courts jail at the drop of a headline. One of the few cabinet ministers in recent years to show a sincere desire to relate punishment to crime and imprisonment to consequence is the justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke. He is now being bad-mouthed out of his job by Downing Street's dark arts, frightened not of Clarke but of the rightwing press. Clarke is, with Iain Duncan Smith, a rare minister intellectually engaged with his job and eager courageously to see it through. Why are the Lib Dems not defending him? For David Cameron to sack Clarke would indeed send a message. Of the worst sort.
They see PRC everywhere without understanding that nature hates unipoles. There is bound to be a dual pole if not a multi-polar world.Iran: Clarification and update. Iran will host 30 leaders at the Non-Aligned Movement summit from 26 to 31 August, including Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi; Cuban President General Raul Castro; Lebanese President Michel Suleiman and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
North Korea's Kim Yong-nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, will also attend. Reuters reported that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon would attend, a spokesman for Iran's UN mission said. Israeli and U.S. officials previously made statements encouraging Ban not to attend.
Comment: Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, NAM meetings have had slight significance. The timing of this meeting coincides with the emergence of a new aggregation of state and non-state interests against those of the US. The so-called Arab spring has been the mid-wife of this new arrangement of state powers. The NAM summit has a rare opportunity to crystalize the power shifts and reinvigorate its shopworn credo.
It is important to note that none of the Arab spring countries or other non-aligned countries is hostile to US investment or to Americans. Theirs is a reaction to a unipolar global system, dominated by the US, in which they are minor powers. The system of nation states appears to be moving in the direction of multi-polarity, led by Iran as the point-man, fronting for China.
I love it when there is ample evidence provided just right after my post on the Panchatantra story to describe the US, PRC and the world relationship!Ben Potter AFR correspondent Washington
The top US diplomat for the Asia-Pacific region has conceded that the Obama administration’s decision last year to focus more on Asia had unnerved traditional allies around the world and overemphasised military ties, particularly with Australia.
The Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs, Kurt Campbell, said the Asian “pivot” had the “unintended consequence” of causing America’s European allies to think that Washington’s refocusing towards Asia implied a move away from traditional allies.
But Dr Campbell rejected the idea that America was a declining power on a futile mission to contain China, and that Australia would have to choose between the two giants.
He told The Australian Financial Review that the US had been and would remain a “strong and dynamic” power in the region for many years, and its role in fostering peace, stability and rising prosperity was “recognised by all the players in the region”.
The US was seeking to “intensify and deepen” its relationship with China and the idea that its renewed focus on the region – including upgraded military ties with Australia – was designed to exclude or contain China was “patently false”, he said.
Rather than try to force regional partners such as Australia to choose between their growing relations with China and some “contrary path” with the US – which he said would be “foolhardy” – Washington counted on productive relations between Canberra and Beijing.
But a Chinese strategic commentator, Ruan Zongze, said during a visit to Sydney yesterday that the time would come when Australia would have to make choices between its economic partner in China and its security partner in the US.
“The US likes to keep a certain tension in the region. It’s good for them,” he said in an indication of strategic rivalry between the two countries.
Dr Campbell said the US had turned to Australia “time and time again” on regional matters and “more recently directly on how to think about China, how to work with China, how to engage with China”.
He disagreed with academic Hugh White, who argues in his recent book The China Choice: Why America should share power that America must be prepared to share power in the region with China for the sake of stability, and that Australia would have to choose between them.
“We think some of this debate is both inaccurate and overwrought,” he said, while stressing his professional respect for Professor White.
Referring to the way the pivot to the Asia-Pacific region had been presented and misinterpreted during President Barack Obama’s tour of the region that included Australia last November, Dr Campbell said the US had addressed these concerns by bringing “our European friends much more into the dialogue with Asia” to make it clear the US “is not leaving Europe behind”.
In Asia it had put to rest the concerns about growing US-Australian military ties by explaining its strategy not just to China but to all the players in the region, and the problem had not been raised recently “in extensive dialogues” with China.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had also toured the region to highlight the “diversity of our engagement” in economic and personal relationships.
Mr Obama used speeches in federal Parliament and to soldiers in Darwin during the tour to announce that US Marines would be rotated through Darwin for training, and to warn China that the US was back in Asia.
Dr Campbell’s remarks show how Washington and Beijing are having to grapple with economic and strategic relationships of unprecedented complexity, in particular avoiding the traps of so-called “great power transitions” or challenges.
In the Obama administration and “in bipartisan circles in the US there is a very strong desire to see not only a better relationship between the US and Australia, but Australia having a firmly fixed relationship with Asia as well, including a strong and dynamic relationship between Canberra and Beijing”, he said. “This should not be the subject of false and unnecessary choices.”
He said the Washington and Beijing leaderships had the benefit of learning from history – in particular the consequences of Germany’s isolation before World War 1 and World War II – and were not destined to repeat those mistakes.
Dr Campbell said that in Beijing and Washington and surrounding strategic circles “quite an inordinate amount of time and attention” was being devoted “to the whole hegemonic riddle of the rise and fall of great powers”. He said he would “reject out of hand” the idea that the US was a declining power.
“People have lost a lot of money betting against the US. The US is going to be a dynamic and powerful player in Asia for many decades,” Dr Campbell said.
He did not question the rise of China but said governments were putting effort into new ways of great-power engagement to avoid some of the traps of “hegemonic transitions”.
Dr Campbell said the key to avoiding conflict was to make it clear it would be “utterly unproductive and destabilising” not only for the US and China but also for the surrounding region and the globe.
“I think there’s a very broad recognition [of this] in the leaderships in the US and China.”
Dr Campbell dismissed the suggestion by former prime minister Paul Keating that America should allow China more “strategic space” as a “19th century colonial division”.
In the 21st century the key issue was the role that emerging countries like China were encouraged to play in multilateral organisations, in the global economy and “across the spectrum of issues” such as Iran, Syria, North Korea and nuclear non-proliferation.
{The idea is to give the Chinese some space to play in areas run by US. Note in all those areas the PRC has been playing the role of the thief in my example posted above. Its PRC that proliferates and US ruwrings their hands! Now PRC mfg capacity is being used to drive the others into US arms.]
“There are ample opportunities for China to play a larger role in global politics,” Dr Campbell said. He said no country had done more than the US in seeking to boost China’s role in international governance.
“We have if anything sought to give China more responsibility”
The US had also sought to “embed the relationship in a larger multilateral context” of institutions such as the East Asia Summit and military-maritime and military-to-military arrangements “which seek to prevent misunderstandings from getting out of hand”. “That doesn’t mean we don’t believe this relationship is challenging. It’ll be one of the most challenging relationship we ever have and it’s inevitable there’ll be both co-operation and tensions, as there are today,” he admitted.
One area where China has not taken on the level of responsibility sought by the US and other countries in the region is the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. Beijing last month established Sansha City as the islands’ administrative centre, drawing protests from Vietnam and the Philippines, which lay claim to some of the islands, as well as Washington.
Dr Campbell welcomed signs that the Association of South-East Asian Nations had reached a consensus on how it would like the competing claims to be dealt with, and that some progress was being made towards a code of conduct for resolving the issue.
See how they could create this facade right in front of the world and Indians.ramana wrote: Its PRC that proliferates and US ruwrings their hands! Now PRC mfg capacity is being used to drive the others into US arms.
Hay Festival - Norman Davies: Britain has lost its identity
Leading historian Norman Davies says Britain is losing its common sense of identity and there is a danger of the United Kingdom dissolving.
History lessons: the UK could break up says Norman Davies
Professor Davies, one of the keynote speakers at the Hay Festival Winter Weekend, said: "There is a real danger of the United Kingdom breaking up.
There is a loss of common identity.
"At present, there is a worrying English nationalistic attitude towards our non-English people of 'Us and Them' and it is going to end up driving out the Scots and Welsh. The Euro Sceptics are the English National Party in disguise and they have poor old David Cameron over a barrel.
"They are not looking at what effect this could have on the United Kingdom. We could have a situation as early as 2014 where Scotland breaks away, followed by Northern Ireland and finally Wales in due course.
"Some of the old Labour Scots, people like John Smith, saw the danger years ago. Gordon Brown was aware of the problem but did not have a clue what to do about it, even if there is such a thing as a quick remedy. But we are in a situation where the divide is getting worse because London is becoming a monster in the southeast and dominating England, which itself is dominating the British countries."
Davies, a leading English historian of Welsh descent, added: "Devolution was supposed to be the answer but it has worked in the opposite way as intended and Scotland's First Minister Alex Sammond is the beneficiary."
"The Scottish National Party know this. They are very Europhile. They know that if the European Union survives there could be a reasonable future for smaller countries like Scotland. Every austerity measure that Cameron and George Osborne make is being presented in Scotland as the English starving us. And the Euro Sceptics, these dinosaurs, these ostriches with their heads in the sand, are nearly all English. You don't get any Euro Sceptics in Scotland."
He said that most Euro sceptics were boosted by the "illusion that we are still a great power and won the war. They simply have a multi-layered delusionary world view".
Davies said that a proper examination of the Second World War showed that it was Stalin's Red Army that smashed to pieces the Germans, with latest estimates suggesting that the British Army was responsible for only around five per cent of German losses in all.
Davies, whose new book Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe is already in its fourth re-print only five weeks into publication, said knowledge of Britishness and the evolution of the United Kingdom is as low as ever. He added: "It's unimaginable to meet a Pole or a German who does not know about the history of their country. But lots of English people don't know the difference between Britain and England. Take the recent row over wearing the Poppy symbol on football shirts."
"The poppy isn't the English national symbol of war. The Poppy is the symbol of the British Legion. Saying otherwise offends all the non-English people. It's why you get to a situation where teams don't even know what to sing - hence the English rugby fans taking up the song 'Swing Low Sweet Chariot' It is the same with the Queen who is routinely just referred to as the Queen of England."
"All other countries teach their children the origins of the state in which they live. There is no common history syllabus that teaches the history of the United Kingdom. That's one of the reasons the UK does not have a coherent sense of identity. Many of the pillars of Britishness have simply gone. Take the Royal Navy. That was once a great British institution. Now its disappeared and is decrepit. There are more admirals than ships now."
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