China and Political rebalancing-Tilting backwards

OVER the past couple of months, officials around the country have been summoned to briefings about a Communist Party circular known as “Document Number Nine”.  Its full contents have not been made public, but by all accounts it paints a grim picture of what the party sees as the threat posed by liberal ways of thinking. The message conveyed at these meetings has been a chilling one: stick to the party line and denounce any dissent.

The strident tone of this document, which is also called “A briefing on the current situation in the ideological realm”, has caused anxiety among liberal intellectuals, and confusion about the agenda of China’s new leader, Xi Jinping. On the economic front, signs remain strong that he wants to speed up the pace of reform. Caixin, a Beijing-based news portal, said on June 24th that a blueprint for this was “finally taking shape” and hinted that it would be unveiled at a meeting of the Party’s central committee in the autumn. It said history would “remember well those who lead China forward on its path to reform”. On the political front, however, the signs are pointing in the opposite direction.

Chinese leaders are past masters at juggling reformist tendencies in economics with hardline political ones (Deng Xiaoping, the founder of China’s “reform and opening” policy, was an exemplar). But the speed with which Mr Xi has moved to establish his conservative ideological credentials, having at first struck a somewhat more liberal tone, has still been a surprise to some observers. The party faces no unusual threats from dissident groups or disaffected citizens. Mr Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, took over at a far more troubled time a decade ago, following millions of layoffs in the state sector. But he waited longer than Mr Xi before showing a tougher side (see this report by the Washington Post in 2003).

The message of Document Number Nine can be divined from official accounts of the secret briefings given to officials. Many of these use similar language, which it is safe to assume reflects the wording of the circular. In Yueyang city in the central province of Hunan, for example, officials at such a meeting reached a consensus that because the situation at home and abroad was “complicated and changeable”, struggles in the ideological realm had therefore become “complicated, fierce and acute” (see here, in Chinese). The officials identified several threats, including calls for “Western constitutional democracy” and universal values (as Analects reported here); promotion of “civil society”; support for “neo-liberalism” (an attempt, the officials said, to change China’s “basic economic system”); and endorsement of “Western news values” (an attempt, they said, to loosen the party’s control over the news media and publishing). Such calls, the officials agreed, were “extremely malicious”.

At another such meeting, officials were reminded to uphold the “three forbiddens” (here, in Chinese): no public expression of disagreement with the party line, no spreading of “political rumours” and no making of remarks that taint the image of the party or state. At yet another, officials were given warning of what was described as an attempt by “Western forces” to undermine China’s “political stability” by sowing confusion in the ideological realm. They were told to “resolutely resist any erroneous way of thinking”.

The document’s nervous tone is also conveyed by a campaign that has been gathering momentum in recent weeks to persuade citizens to display “three self-confidences”:  confidence in the political system, in the party line and in party theory. The frequent repetition of these “self-confidences” in officials’ speeches (Hu Jintao first raised them in his final big address to the party, before stepping down in November) suggests that leaders worry about a widespread lack of conviction both among the public and within the party itself. At the end of May the People’s Daily, the party’s main mouthpiece, reminded readers that pursuit of the “Chinese dream”, a catchphrase of Mr Xi’s, had to be guided by Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong thought (here, in Chinese).

In March the People’s Daily published a three-volume study of the self-confidences. It is suffused with the rhetoric of hardliners, who entirely blame the West for the world’s economic troubles and who see China’s continued strong growth in recent years as a vindication of the “China model”. It says economic malaise in the West is the result of a “Washington consensus” involving “economic liberalisation and political democratisation”.

If this is Mr Xi’s thinking, it does not bode well for reform on any front. But optimists note that party newspapers such as the People’s Daily are heavily influenced by the thinking of the party’s propaganda apparatus, which is a notorious bastion of conservatism—so much so that Deng felt it necessary to travel about 2,000 km (1,200 miles) to southern China to relaunch his economic reform programme in 1992. Hope for political reform is fainter. Mr Xi’s fingerprints are more clearly visible on the recent ideological tightening. If he really intends to do battle in the economy, he might be shy of opening another front. But there is no sign he intends ever to become another Gorbachev. The Economist

A Win For West Papua In Melanesia

There's a long way to go - but Indonesia's acknowledgement of West Papua's independence push at a regional meeting last week was a breakthrough

West Papua has just won an extraordinary victory at the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) meeting in Noumea.

When the heads of government and distinguished persons from Melanesian nations gathered for the MSG annual meeting in late June, the most prominent item on the agenda was West Papua’s membership. It was the result of some 18 months work by John Otto Ondawame, Rex Rumakiek, Andy Ajamiseba and Paula Makabory, the coordinating group of the West Papua National Coalition of Liberation, a West Papuan umbrella group for resistance organisations inside and outside the country.

At the meeting, representatives of the Indonesian government (recently granted observer status by the MSG) publicly conceded that West Papua has become an international problem. This is extremely significant; for decades the Indonesian government has insisted that West Papua is an internal issue. Jakarta has repeatedly refused all offers of international assistance to resolve the longstanding conflict.

However, as noted by the West Papuan delegation, the Indonesian government is acutely aware that MSG members have successfully sponsored past pushes for decolonisation in Vanuatu, East Timor, Kanaky (New Caledonia) and now Ma’ohi Nui (French Polynesia which includes Tahiti).

In a formal statement, the Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister for the Indonesian Government, Djoko Suyanto invited MSG “foreign ministers to visit Indonesia to observe Indonesia’s development in general, which also includes the government’s policy on the acceleration of development in Papua and West Papua”. The senior minister said that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had endorsed the plan.

The governments of the Melanesian states – Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Fiji, Solomon Islands, and the FLNKS (Front de Liberation Nationale Kanak et Socialiste, the National Socialist Liberation Front for Kanaky, a coalition of four pro-independence bodies) – will likely visit Indonesia in around six months, depending on negotiations with the Indonesian Government.

Collectively the MSG nations could force West Papua back onto the list of countries not yet decolonised, thereby making it the concern of the United Nations Decolonisation Committee. That they have invited five foreign governments to view the situation inside West Papua shows how worried they are.

If they are to travel to West Papua, the foreign ministers must determine who represents the West Papuan people: the Indonesian government, the Federal Republic of West Papua or the West Papua National Coalition. The MSG took it upon themselves to decide this at the urging of Commodore Vorenqe Bainimarama, the head of Fiji’s military government, with the support of Sir Michael Somare from Papua New Guinea. The West Papua National Coalition's application to gain either observer or member status at the MSG was deferred after a last-minute intervention by West Papuan exile Jacob Rumbiak, who insisted they were not the legitimate representative of the West Papuan people.

All this makes the next six months very interesting indeed.

Some things we can predict with a high degree of probability. First, the Indonesian government will attempt to buy off Melanesian political leaders. With endemic corruption in many Melanesian countries, weak rule of law, varying degrees of media freedom and vested economic and political interests at stake, they may succeed. Certainly the Papuans will never be able to compete with Indonesian largesse.

Bainimarama’s military government already has a close relationship with the Indonesian government so he will be unlikely to rock the boat. Without a free press or democracy in Fiji it will be much harder for the Fijian people to insist that the Papuans should live their lives out from under the Indonesian jackboot.

Papua New Guinea is particularly vulnerable. Some Papua New Guinean politicians, notably Sir Michael Somare, are heavily invested in logging, palm oil plantations, and supermarket chains with the Indonesian government and military. Other PNG politicians will be worried about instability along the shared border with West Papua. The Indonesian military has repeatedly crossed over into Papuan New Guinean territory in hot pursuit of Papuan dissidents, including nonviolent activists seeking sanctuary. That could play into support for demilitarisation of West Papua, a position supported by some politicians in PNG.

The Solomon Islands are also vulnerable to Indonesian influence. Of all the Melanesian countries, the Solomons have the lowest level of awareness of the Indonesian government’s occupation of West Papua. They are the site of substantial Indonesian and Malaysian logging interests.

Having said that, it must be noted that Gordon D. Lilo, Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands, told members of the West Papua National Coalition for Liberation that “the West Papuan case is an incomplete decolonisation issue, it has been going on for too long; it must be resolved now”.

The Vanuatu government and the FLNKS will be much less responsive to Indonesian overtures. In Vanuatu last year the government was overturned largely over outrage at then Prime Minister Sato Kilman’s close relationship with the Indonesian government. The current Prime Minister, Moana Carcases Kalosil, is a strong supporter of West Papuan independence. The FLNKS also tie their own political fortunes to that of the West Papuan struggle for self-determination through a frame of Melanesian solidarity.

We can also guarantee that the Australian and New Zealand governments will wheel out their tired mantra that they “support the Indonesian government’s territorial integrity”. In an article in the June edition of The Monthly strategy doyen Hugh White recommended the Australian Government jettison any concerns for human rights over West Papua in favour of political and economic interests.

But ministers of both sides of the Tasman privately concede that their influence over Indonesian foreign policy on West Papua has receded. The MSG meeting in Noumea clearly showed how irrelevant Australian and New Zealand foreign policy on West Papua have become and how much the MSG is maturing as a regional political body.

However, familiar tensions between the West Papuan resistance groups came out during the Noumea meeting. The main fault line, exposed by an article in the Island Business, was between the West Papua National Coalition for Liberation and the Federal Republic of West Papua, who both claim to be the true representatives of the Papuan people.

Both the National Coalition and the Federal Republic applied to become members of the MSG. Representatives of the National Coalition are based in Vanuatu with easy access to the MSG secretariat in Port Vila, but the leadership of the Federal Republic is in jail, sentenced to three years prison for a dignified and nonviolent declaration of independence on 19 October 2011. Dialogue between the two groups is understandably difficult.

When Forkorus Yaboisembut, the President of the Federal Republic of West Papua learnt of the National Coalition's application earlier this year, he wrote to the Director General of the MSG. In the letter, Yaboisembut graciously withdrew his application, saying:

“Rather we request the letter be seen only as a letter of support from West Papua for the application for [the National Coalition's] MSG membership and as a means of introducing the Federal Republic State of West Papua to MSG for future purposes.”

This, and the fact that for a short time in late 2010-2011 both groups were part of a shared decision making structure, shows that cooperation is not beyond the realm of possibility.

Papuans now have six months to get their house in order. This might involve a political coalition between resistance groups, as was the successful model in East Timor and Kanaky, or unification under a shared vision similar to the African National Congress' Freedom Charter.

When the foreign ministers from the Melanesian Spearhead Group do visit West Papua they will be accompanied by the international media - a victory for Papuans who have long demanded their country be opened up to foreign media.

If, on the other hand, the Indonesian government insists on keeping journalists out during the MSG visit, they will only reinforce international perceptions that they do in fact have something to hide.

Either way, the Papuans, like the East Timorese before them who mobilised when Pope John Paul II visited in 1989, will seize this opportunity to register their cries for freedom in numbers never seen before.

Such a call may be heard further than West Papua, which has become an explosive political issue in Melanesia. The ties between Papuans and their Melanesian kin are closer than ever; what happens if citizens of Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Kanaky rise up and insist that their leaders support West Papua? The overturning of Sato Kilman’s government in Vanuatu is a cautionary tale.

How will the Indonesian state react? They will likely point to the money they have poured into West Papua – the benefits of which have gone mainly to transnational corporations and Papuan elites, while further impoverishing the Indigenous people. They will argue that West Papua is a democracy; that Papuans are elected by their own people. This is true, but the Indonesian government denies the Papuans the right to form their own political party. In reality West Papua is a colonial outpost ruled from Jakarta.

Papuan political prisoners fill the jails, evidence of systemic torture leaks out, and the bodies of Papuans killed by the police and military pile up (like the alleged massacre of 40 Papuans in the remote Puncak Jaya area in recent months).

Finally, the Indonesian government will call the Papuan dissent terrorism or a foreign-led ploy. This kind of propaganda is the last resort of all authoritarian rulers. Official Indonesian military figures say the armed guerillas number little over 1000 full time fighters, most of whom are not active. On the other hand, the nonviolent movement numbers tens of thousands and they are on the streets every week, if not every day. The West Papuan independence movement is a nonviolent civilian based insurrection against continued Indonesian rule.

The Indonesian government can no longer credibly be concerned that West Papua, like East Timor before it, will become an international issue. It is too late for that. West Papua has already become an international issue.

In the next six months Jakarta’s job will be to enforce the Papuans' obedience while trying to minimize repression. The Papuans' task is to undermine the Indonesian government’s legitimacy and raise the political and economic costs of the occupation. The stakes are high but the potential reward is great: freedom.

- See more at: http://newmatilda.com/2013/07/01/win-west-papua-melanesia#sthash.p0EB4tCB.dpuf

Will These Youth Protests Spread to Asia’s Corrupted Democracies?

Several have many of the same hallmarks as those that have recently experienced unrest

The last few years have witnessed a wave of youth protest in developing countries, reaching even to developed states. Democracies, or regimes at least posturing nominally as democracies, have been the general target. It is unclear if these movements are cross-pollinating one another, but the similarity in both the profiles of the protestors and their grievances is suggestive. To date, Asia’s democracies have missed this wave, but it is worth noting that the protest profile could easily apply there too.

The youth riots in Brazil, Chile, the European Union, the Arab Middle East, Turkey, and even the “Occupy” movement in the West all reflect what political theory broadly calls the “legitimacy crisis” of modern democracy – the notion that participation in democratic politics does little to change the actual process of government, that elites are dug-in and immoveable, that cronyism is endemic, and so on. Young voters particularly become cynical of the formal electoral process, either dropping out in disdain, or expressing their grievances “extra-parliamentarily”, i.e., on the street. (For example, see this on Australia; or this on Brazil.) To be sure, the Arab Middle East’s pseudodemocracies are something of an exception. Protest there includes far more foundational or revolutionary grievances. But insofar the area’s “republics”, rather than monarchies, have been hit, that too is suggestive of the hopes raised by democratic forms, and then dashed in the minds of younger citizens by corruption and cronyism.

Watching all these riots – particularly listening to articulate young people in Ankara, Rio, or Cairo – raises the question if this wave might spread to Asia’s similarly corrupted democracies. Asian states, too, have well-educated youth, exposed through modern technologies to the reality of better, cleaner governance elsewhere. And many of the problems these protests are identifying exist in spades in Asia: high-handed, out-of-touch governments; election-proof pseudo-technocracies that act as unaccountable oligarchies; shallow, clique-ish political parties that provide no meaningful transmission belt of citizen preferences; massive government and business corruption; wasteful white-elephant spending to capture global “prestige” while everyday services like health care and education are underfunded; closed political opportunity structures that regularly reward insiders and large corporations with crony connections to the state; wealthy, de-linking elites with 1% lifestyles wildly at variance with the rest of the population… That is not just Brazil, Turkey, Egypt, or the EU/Brussels. That is Asia too; there is more than enough sleaze to go around. Will this spread?

Transition expert Jay Ulfelder and I had a lengthy Twitter conversation on this question in recent weeks (here & here; and here). Jay runs an excellent website on the causes and consequences of social unrest, modernization, and democratization, and participates in the path-breaking “Good Judgment Project”, which seeks to answers exactly these sorts of questions. (This short essay can only scratch the surface, but interested readers can actually participate in the Project as forecasters.) Jay asked which countries might this apply to in Asia. My first thoughts were India, the Philippines, and South Korea among the democracies (given the obvious problems street protests face in non-democracies). Are those countries really governed better than Brazil? I doubt it.
India is infamous for its corruption, while simultaneously praised for its quality education. That contradictory combination practically guarantees disappointed youth lapsing into either apathy or street anger. India’s democracy is robust, but its political parties are poorly institutionalized, frequently rooted in ethnic and local affiliation, and prone to elite control – family control even, in the case of Congress. They are poor vehicles for the transmission of shifting policy preferences rather than tribal identities. And governance – the actual provision of services – in India is notorious, as the recent global attention on the poor police and state response to sexual violence has made clear. Indeed, one might argue that Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption campaign was a local analogue to the Occupy movement in the West and precursor to the recent events in Brazil and Turkey. The Diplomat

Indonesian Fishermen in ‘Australian’ Waters? Legalizing It

Australia’s Seasonal Worker Pilot Scheme initially allowed people from several Pacific nations to help Australian farmers with their harvests. This year it has been expanded, but extending it further to also allow Indonesian fishermen would provide a win-win solution for a big problem

Every year hundreds of Indonesian fishermen come to Australia’s northern waters. Of course, these are also Indonesia’s southern waters and the fishermen were coming here before the first fleet of European colonizers arrived. But that does not stop newspapers screaming about disease, drugs, terrorism, people trafficking and so on.

Fisheries officers also complain, legitimately, it seems, that this puts pressure on fish stocks.

At the same time, the Australian government spends millions of taxpayers’ dollars unsuccessfully trying to stop the fishermen. Up-to-date figures are hard to obtain, the most recent indication comes from 2006, when the Commonwealth had committed $390 million to the problem.

This includes $25 million on helicopters, $66 million on “processing centers,” and $19 million on mapping. A small part of these expenses are incurred by apprehending the fishermen, which according to Natasha Stacey in “Boats to Burn: Bajo Fishing Activity in the Australian Fishing Zone” includes the cost of prosecution, caretakers for detained crews, legal aid, jailing and repatriation. Australians are footing a $390 million bill, yet as Stacey notes, “Current Australian policies toward Indonesian fishermen are clearly inappropriate and ineffective.”

For Indonesian fishermen, coming down to Australia is no picnic. Often living in poverty, without basic infrastructure, and at the mercy of endemic diseases, many can’t afford to feed their kids properly, send them to school, or even to a good hospital. Again, up-to-date data are hard to find, but in 1994, after four weeks of work, the crewmen of an Indonesian fishing boat received just over Rp 400,000 — about A$8 (in those times) for a day’s work. Not many of us would risk life and limb on a small leaky boat for ten times that figure. Moreover, many of these fishermen are chronically indebted, so their take-home pay may have been significantly less. If there were better work opportunities, the fisherman would take them, but there aren’t. So he sails down to fish in Australian waters and risk losing his life if his leaky boat goes down in a storm. If he is lucky he returns to Indonesia slightly better than when he set off.

Current policies clearly aren’t working either for Indonesian fishermen or for Australia, so what about another solution?

One simple response might help us all: just allow people from Indonesian fishing villages to work in Australia. Currently, the government offers “457” visas for overseas skilled workers. 

However, almost none of the fishermen have the qualifications required. The new Seasonal Worker Pilot Scheme is a better option. This allows people from Pacific Islands to work in the agricultural sector and the program could easily be extended to Eastern Indonesia, where the fishermen sail from. I suggest we provide the fishermen with similar strictly-supervised visas to do the manual and domestic work such as laundering, cleaning, child-minding, laboring, mining or picking fruit. This is work Australians need done, but either don’t want to do, don’t have time to do, or can’t afford to pay for. Through this solution, Australia could help the fishermen, and, at the same time, help itself.

For Australia, the benefits would be great. Special visas for fishermen would help get the economy ticking again. Fishermen would prefer to work legally in Australia so it could free up the money wasted on efforts to keep them out. It would also reduce pressure on Australia’s protected fish stocks. And if this resulted in Australian job losses in any one sector, then, by all means, we should not provide visas for work in that sector.

For Indonesians on this program, working in Australia would be far more lucrative and safer. The minimum hourly wage in Australia is equivalent to at least several days laboring in an Indonesian village. Children of fishermen could grow up healthier and with an education that would provide opportunities far more appealing than sailing to Australia.

Not only the pay, but the conditions would be far better than they could expect in Indonesia. Indonesians have assisted the economies of Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and other countries by working as foreign laborers, but are continually underpaid and mistreated. 

Australian employers would be forced to treat Indonesian workers fairly or face the full force of the law.

Allowing Indonesian fishermen visas to work legally is more beneficial for Australians than trying to apprehend them in our northern waters. Indonesian fishermen are clearly willing to work hard, so Australia should give them a go.

Nicholas Herriman is a lecturer in anthropology at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia.