Illustration by Dandy/John J. Custer; Photo by Doug Mills/The New York Times
Donald Trump's meeting with his Chinese counterpart this week will be the most important diplomatic encounter of his presidency so far. His two days of talks at Mar-a-Lago with President Xi Jinping will test whether the two men — Mr. Trump an unpredictable novice, Mr. Xi a tightly scripted, experienced leader — can begin to effectively manage the world's most significant bilateral relationship.
By undoing American support for an international agreement on climate change, repudiating an Asia-oriented trade deal and calling for funding cuts for the United Nations, Mr. Trump has already ceded leadership in key areas to Mr. Xi, who is eager to expand Beijing's role as an international power and has increasingly positioned his country as a competitor of the United States. It will be disastrous for America and the world if Mr. Trump continues on this disengagement path.
Mr. Trump does seem to appreciate the threat from North Korea's rapidly advancing nuclear and missile programs, putting that matter at the top of his agenda. He could hardly avoid it, given the fact that the North conducted another missile test on Tuesday as Mr. Xi was en route to the United States.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly made clear that he expects China, the North's main supplier of food and fuel, to increase pressure beyond what it has been willing to do so far to force an end to the weapons programs. In an interview in The Financial Times on Monday, he was even more demanding, warning that the United States would take unilateral action to eliminate the nuclear threat if Beijing fails to act, presumably by curbing trade and assistance.
Analysts say China may be willing to increase pressure somewhat on North Korea, but well short of causing the regime in Pyongyang to collapse. Most experts believe that the North will not abandon its nuclear program unless the leadership at the top changes. China opposes this because it fears a surge of refugees into its territory and wants to keep North Korea as a buffer against a potentially unified Korean Peninsula dominated by the American military.
The United States and China may have a long-shot chance at an achievable solution if they agree to increase sanctions on North Korea and pursue more modest goals — halting North Korean missile tests and curbing the production of additional nuclear weapons — but there has been no serious sign of interest from the Trump administration.
Trade is another area where agreement is likely to be difficult, especially since these issues are still being fiercely debated inside the administration. During the campaign, Mr. Trump talked tough on China, promising to impose heavy tariffs on imports. But he has not followed through, and recently told The Financial Times that he hoped to reach some kind of deal with Mr. Xi. Administration officials said they hoped the summit meeting might produce concrete results, though that may be a lot to ask of the first encounter.
The risk in this meeting is that Mr. Trump knows little about diplomacy with China and does not have a team of China experts in place. He has already had to correct one major error; after calling into question America's longstanding one-China policy, he retreated and told Mr. Xi in February that he would respect Beijing as the sole government of China and not recognize Taiwan.
The meeting is also a test for Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump's son-in-law and close adviser, who, while also lacking foreign policy and government experience, has played a dominant role as the primary interlocutor with the Chinese, thus eclipsing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Administration officials are confident that Mr. Trump can hold his own; Chinese officials say the same of Mr. Xi. Much is riding on whether they can do business.
Michel Demare, right, chairman of the Swiss farm chemicals giant Syngenta, with Ren Jianxin, the chairman of ChemChina, during a news conference in Basel in 2016. Michael Buholzer/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
LONDON — The Chinese government wants to make sure its food supply is reliable and safe as it works to feed a rapidly growing middle class. So it was a coup on Wednesday when a Chinese company won approval to take over one of the world's largest suppliers of seeds and pesticides.
By clearing the deal with European Union regulators, China National Chemical Corporation is close to the $43 billion takeover of Syngenta, the Swiss farm chemical and seed company. It would be the largest Chinese takeover of a foreign company and is one of three proposed mergers in a stop-and-go international race seeking greater influence over the world's food supply.
"China has been trying to develop its own seed industry — and agricultural chemicals as well — for decades, and the progress has been slow," said Fred Gale, a senior economist at the United States Department of Agriculture. "This is an attempt to upgrade productivity."
The deal between China National Chemical Corporation, a state-owned company known as ChemChina, and Syngenta comes as trade relations between China and the West have become increasingly tense. The situation has been made worse by President Trump's sharp talk on the issue.
President Trump hosts the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Thursday, and trade is certain to be on the agenda.
Syngenta's clearance from the European Union is part of an international competition that includes Dow Chemicals and DuPont, who are still working to close their merger. Though best known as chemical companies, Dow and DuPont, both based in the United States, also have huge agricultural businesses.
Bayer AG, the German industrial conglomerate, is also trying to complete its multibillion takeover of Monsanto. That deal would give Bayer control of the company most closely associated with the rise of genetically modified foods.
And ChemChina's takeover of Syngenta would give Beijing more influence over many of the seeds and chemicals it needs to feed its swelling population.
If all three deals are completed, they would reshape the global agricultural chemical business, reducing competition in the industry.
It is an important play for China, which has struggled to maintain and upgrade its food supply in recent years. China hopes to better feed its increasingly affluent population, but several food scandals have made Chinese citizens suspicious of domestic supply chains.
Those scandals have fueled anxiety about genetically modified food, even as China wants to use the science to increase production. Although China has poured money into research, it still bans cultivation of genetically modified food for human consumption, and knowledge about genetically modified organisms is limited.
The ChemChina deal could bolster China's efforts to become a major player in genetically modified food. But Mr. Gale said Chinese consumers would probably remain wary.
"The general public has become very suspicious of seeds," he said. "That will be an obstacle to Syngenta becoming a pipeline for G.M.O. seeds in the China market."
ChemChina will have to sell prized assets to take control of Syngenta.
To appease European officials, it must sell substantial parts of its European businesses that make pesticides and substances that stimulate or slow plant growth.
"It is important for European farmers and ultimately consumers that there will be effective competition in pesticide markets, also after ChemChina's acquisition of Syngenta," Margrethe Vestager, the European Union commissioner in charge of competition policy, said in a statement. "ChemChina has offered significant remedies, which fully address our competition concerns."
The European Union granted its approval a day after ChemChina received the go-ahead from the United States Federal Trade Commission. The F.T.C.'s approval hinged on ChemChina selling parts of a subsidiary's business in the United States to an agricultural chemical company based in California. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which focuses on national security issues and was also regarded as a significant potential obstacle, cleared the deal in August.
The ChemChina deal for Syngenta is part of a spate of consolidation in the agricultural chemical industry globally, as companies have tried to meet the challenge of falling crop prices.
Their efforts to win new customers are being made more difficult by consumer resistance. Widespread suspicion of genetically modified foods in Europe means that protests against Monsanto can draw thousands, and several European countries ban their cultivation.
The approval of antitrust agencies would be seen as promising for others seeking deals, said Dale Stafford, the head of mergers and acquisitions for the Americas at Bain & Company, a business consultancy.
"This sends a strong signal that even though there needs to be concessions, with the right strategic deals, they can happen," Mr. Stafford said.
The ability to complete another agricultural chemicals deal, however, could be diminished by the huge deals that have been done.
"As markets get more concentrated, the impact on competition gets amplified," said Elai Katz, who leads the antitrust practice at the law firm Cahill Gordon & Reindel. This could make it harder to get deals past agencies or to find buyers for divestitures.
In recent years, Chinese companies have been on an acquisition binge, buying major strategic assets like copper mines and oil deposits, and investing in flashier, if less economically or geopolitically important, deals for marquee names like the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Manhattan.
Lately, there have been signs that the shopping spree might be ending. China has tightened limits on how much money it is allowing past its borders, and that has threatened purchases that some Chinese officials have criticized as frivolous.
Far fewer overseas acquisitions by Chinese companies have been announced this year than by this time a year ago. The value of these deals has also fallen to about $31 billion this year compared with $87 billion at the same point last year, according to Dealogic, the financial data company.
American and European companies alike have criticized China's ambitious plan to build up its own technology industries, which the overseas businesses worry could create global competitors and potentially weaken their business in the big Chinese market.
And in the United States, takeover watchdogs have blocked several deals that they say could affect national security, while some lawmakers are calling for even tighter reviews.
Yet Chinese companies have shown a willingness to be aggressive when it matters. And for China, food matters.
"On one hand they want to have the best technology, but at the same time they don't want their markets to be dominated by international companies like Monsanto, Dupont or Bayer," Mr. Gale said. "So that's the fastest way to do it, buy the technology. That seems to be China's strategy now."
U.S. Secretary of State Tillerson to Visit Russia April 11-12
by Naharnet Newsdesk 14 hours ago
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will make his first visit to Moscow next week, Russia's foreign ministry said Wednesday, as the Kremlin looks to improve ties with Donald Trump's administration.
The ministry said the visit on April 11-12 would include talks with counterpart Sergei Lavrov covering international security, including the fight against Islamic State and conflicts in Syria and Ukraine.
"We positively rate the stated aim of the new leadership in the U.S. to change the situation for the better, but we think we should judge from real actions," a statement said.
The State Department confirmed the visit and said that Tillerson will discuss "Ukraine, counterterrorism efforts, bilateral relations and other issues, including the DPRK (North Korea) and Syria."
Tillerson's visit comes as contacts with Russia remain a highly sensitive issue for Trump's administration, with law enforcement agencies and lawmakers probing alleged ties between his campaign and the Kremlin.
Relations between Moscow and Washington plummeted to their lowest point since the end of the Cold War after Moscow's seizure of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
Moscow is keen to see the U.S. drop punishing economic sanctions over the crisis in Ukraine and join forces in Syria.
The British Government has made discreet approaches to Moscow in an effort to improve frayed relations between the two countries, The Independent has learned. The move is said to follows Donald Trump's arrival at the White House and the anticipation that his administration will forge ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
London's decision to engage more with the Kremlin came in early March as Boris Johnson prepared to be the first British foreign secretary to visit Russia in five years, according to senior diplomats. The range of issues due to be under discussion include the ongoing crisis in Syria, Ukraine and Libya as Islamist terrorism.
In the event, Mr Johnson's trip was cancelled because of the rescheduling of a Nato foreign ministers meeting which followed the decision by the US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, to remain in America for the state visit of the Chinese President, Xi Jinping. But it is expected to go ahead in a few weeks' time.
Members of the new administration in Washington, including Defence Secretary Gen James Mattis and Mr Tillerson, have taken a tough public stance on Russia. But the belief in diplomatic circles is that this was to be expected with the Trump election team facing investigations for links to the Kremlin, and that there will be a drive to build bridges in the future reflecting Mr Trump's expressions of admiration for Mr Putin.
A number of Western European governments had been concerned about what they viewed as Britain's confrontational stance towards Russia which, they claimed, was damaging the chances of dialogue with Moscow on issues of mutual concern. Officials of some of these allies have been privately told of the new British initiative.
One senior Western European diplomat based in London said: "The UK had to look at its relation again with Russia in the light of what is likely to be the Trump administration's attitude towards Russia in the future. We characterise the British position now as pragmatism taking over from dogmatism.
"This is essential considering Russia's growing presence in the Middle East and North Africa. We are not backing away from our condemnation of things like Russia's annexation of Crimea [from Ukraine]. But at the same time it is obvious that we need to talk to Moscow."
The British Government's line, when Mr Johnson's visit was first announced, was that he would be "robust" with Moscow. Another Western diplomat commented: "We expected them to say that and criticism should be made if it's warranted. But the UK also know that they have to improve relations with Russia, if only because that's what the Americans are going to do. This will be especially important to them after Brexit; we have seen the UK echo the Trump administration on a number of matters.
"There is a need for dialogue. We have seen in the terrible events in London and St Petersburg what a common threat terrorism is. And you cannot really discuss terrorism and measures to control it without discussing and trying to resolve what is going on in places like Syria and Libya."
The government's legislative programme for 2016-17
One issue over which Britain may have to change its stance is the crisis in Libya, of particular concern to countries in southern Europe that have become the destination for hundreds of thousands of refugees using the lawless North African state as a staging post to cross the Mediterranean.
Britain and France, under David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy, were instrumental in Nato embarking on the military campaign that deposed Muammar Gaddafi from power, a key factor that pushed Libya into its current state of semi-anarchy and the southern European states hold that London and Paris should be playing a greater role in attempts to find a settlement in the country.
Russia is taking a rapidly expanding role in Libya, backing General Khalifa Haftar, a former commander who is heading a force opposed to the UN-backed government in Tripoli. In the latest move, Moscow is said to have sent special forces to a base in Egypt near the Libyan border.
Sir Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, recently warned Russia against interfering in Libya, declaring: "We don't need the bear sticking his paws in ... Putin is testing the West, he's testing the alliance. At any point where he sees weakness, he pushes home." The Russian defence minister, Sergey Shoygu, kept to the anthropomorphistic theme in his response: "What is on Britain's coat of arms – a lion, isn't it? We do not think there is an animal in their zoo that can tell a bear what to do."
Members of Sir Michael's own party appear to be taking a different view from him over Libya. A group of British Conservative MPs met Gen Haftar in Benghazi, in a meeting organised by a right-wing think tank, in early March. This was followed by a meeting between the general and Peter Millett, the British ambassador to Libya who is based in Tunis, also in Benghazi. A Foreign Office spokesman in London said: "This was a positive meeting and part of the UK's wider diplomatic outreach to promote stability in Libya through peaceful dialogue and to encourage all Libyans to work together to alleviate the suffering of the Libyan people."
Russia is not the only foreign backer of Gen Haftar: he has long enjoyed the support of Egypt and the UAE whose warplanes have bombed his enemies. General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, now on an official visit to the US, was the first foreign leader to congratulate Mr Trump after his victory and the Egyptian President had been pressing Washington to back Gen Haftar. Some of Mr Trump's advisors are said to look upon the proposal favourably.
General Mattis: Russia has been 'mucking around inside other people's elections'
Barack Obama had refused to deal with General Haftar but the Libyan commander and his backers, the parliament in Benghazi, one of the country's three governments, say they are also now optimistic that they will eventually get the support of the new administration.
The European Union would like to see deal between the UN sponsored government of Fayez al-Sarraj, which it supports, and Gen Haftar, which the commander has so far refused to accept. Western officials believe that Moscow, with resources devoted in Syria and Ukraine, would not want to overstretch its resources with a Libyan commitment and may persuade Gen Haftar to accept an accommodation. This, however, means constructive dialogue with Moscow rather than the belligerent tone used by some British ministers, they hold.
On Syria, the US will continue and extend the liaison already taking place, the diplomats believe. Mr Johnson is expected to raise concern with Moscow about civilian casualties caused by air strikes by the Assad regime and the Russians, with the chemical attack in Idlib the latest horrific example. Britain and the European Union held the regime culpable, while Damascus and Russia maintain that it was the resulted from air strikes on a rebel factory storing "toxic substances". But, on a wider basis, the UK has in effect dropped its demand that President Assad must go before any peace deal can take place, something that had been a fundamental point of contention with the Russians.
Britain has been one of the strongest supporters of Ukraine in its confrontation with the Kremlin, a key voice for continuing sanctions against Russia over the annexation of Crimea and interference in the separatist east of the country. London is also providing military training and advice on anti-corruption measures.
But the Trump administration is said to have been angered by what it saw as the government of President Petro Poroshenko siding with Hillary Clinton, who had taken a strong anti-Russian stance over Ukraine, during the US election, and relations between Washington and Kiev are frayed at present. It remains to be seen just how much the UK's dealings with Ukraine will depend on what approach Mr Trump decides to take towards Ukraine and Russia in the longer term.
Marines desplegados en la provincia Helmand en Afganistán, donde se observa una importante reducción de las tropas estadunidensesFoto Ap
u Ning, del portal chino Global Times (10/1/13), sintetiza un reciente reporte estrujante de la afamada Academia China de Ciencias (ACC) que expone la escalofriante cifra de 7.4 billones de dólares (millones de millones: trillones en anglosajón) que valen los beneficios del sistema global que le aporta su hegemonía a Estados Unidos.
Los 7.4 billones de dólares no son peccata minuta: constituyen 9.36 por ciento del PIB global, prácticamente de 79 billones de dólares (medido por el poder adquisitivo, cifras del FMI para 2011).
Estados Unidos goza el mayor bono hegemónico del mundo: la monopolización de ganancias en forma directa o indirecta que gana el país hegemónico mediante el sistema global que domina.
Vale la pena definir tal sistema en forma sucinta desde los acuerdos de Bretton Woods que fincaron la hegemonía de Estados Unidos, vencedor de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, que impuso organismos internacionales (que han ido evolucionando en su nomenclatura) para controlar a países derrotados y fallidos de la semiperiferia/periferia: FMI, Banco Mundial, OMC, OCDE y sus excrecencias regionales.
Que Nixon en forma unilateral haya roto en 1971 la estabilidad monetaria y su fijación al patrón oro acordada en Bretton Woods no varió en absoluto la hegemonía del sistema global por Estados Unidos. Todo lo contrario: exhibió que con los mismos organismos internacionales bajo su férula, Estados Unidos es capaz tanto de dominar mucho más intensamente bajo la inestabilidad cambiaria y su caótica flotación de divisas, concomitante a crisis financieras intermitentes, como de profundizar su hegemonía financierista mediante la globalización neoliberal anglosajona respaldada por su pletórico arsenal nuclear y afianzada por sus triunfos en la Segunda Guerra Mundial y la guerra fría.
Justamente las derrotas militares de Estados Unidos en Afganistán e Irak en la primera década del siglo XXI han puesto en crisis la hegemonía de Estados Unidos, que se acentuó con su debacle financiera de 2008, lo cual ha llevado a la creación disfuncional del G-20 y a la eclosión de los BRICS (Brasil, Rusia, India, China, Sudáfrica), que no han podido, dígase lo que se diga, transformar el ancien régime del sistema hegemónico que sigue dominando Estados Unidos, aunque se encuentre en su fase agónica.
El reporte de marras sintetiza 10 formas que usa Estados Unidos para ganar su bono hegemónico, entre las cuales se encuentran la hegemonía del dólar (nota: el dolarcentrismo financierista, que maneja alrededor de 65 por ciento de los intercambios globales de divisas), el comercio inequitativo y los beneficios de los derechos de propiedad intelectual.
La ACC construyó un modelo que arrojó el azorante monto del bono hegemónico de Estados Unidos. Yu Ning aduce que su naturaleza científica y su precisión requieren más pruebas, pero que a favor de su investigación se encuentra que arroja luz de la percepción global de que Estados Unidos ha dominado extensamente el sistema internacional y que, especialmente, el dolarcentrismo le genera considerables beneficios económicos.
Yu Ning trae a colación que desde los acuerdos de Bretton Woods, el mundo ha estado bajo la hegemonía del dólar durante 68 años.
Han existido reticencias notables, como la del general Charles de Gaulle, quien calificó de un privilegio exorbitante al estatuto favorable al dólar, lo cual –quizá– le valió su defenestración.
Yu Ning coloca el dedo en la llaga: Estados Unidos puede todavía pagar sus facturas imprimiendo billetes, mientras el dólar permanezca la divisa mundial, pese a que su presente economía estancada disminuya su influencia económica en el mundo.
Pese al optimismo inicial para la creación de una divisa BRICS, no será sencillo suplantar el dolarcentrismo y Estados Unidos, a mi juicio, es capaz de forzar una tercera guerra mundial con tal de mantener su estatuto privilegiado. Incluso, al yuan chino, como divisa competitiva del dólar –cuando el euro ha sido vapuleado en los mercados teledirigidos por la bancocracia anglosajona–, le tomará mínimamente una década para su posicionamiento global, mientras los otros miembros restantes de los BRICS sufren los embates de la guerra de las divisas dentro del sistema internacional dominado por el dolarcentrismo.
En paralelo, Samir Saran y Vivan Sharan, funcionarios de Observer Research Foundation, con sede en Nueva Delhi, exponen seis razones por las que los BRICS son relevantes, ensayo al que el portal chino Global Times (10/1/13) le ha dado mucho vuelo como réplica al artículo tóxico en The New York Times (30/11/12) del hobbesiano Ian Bremmer, presidente de Eurasian Group (vinculado a Bank of America y Pricewaterhouse), quien redujo a los BRICS a un vulgar acrónimo sin fundamento.
Para el neoliberal hobbesiano Bremmer los BRICS se reducen a un solo país: China. El ultrarreduccionismo de Bremmer no captura que la multipolaridad de China se mueve en el seno de los BRICS mientras que la unipolaridad de Estados Unidos pasa por la demolición del grupo pentapartita. Esta es la batalla del destino que tiene como foco de atención la vigencia del dolarcentrismo.
Yu Ning acepta que el declive de Estados Unidos se ha vuelto un tema de discusión, a grado tal que cita el célebre reporte de diciembre de 2012 del estadunidense National Intelligence Council (ver Bajo la Lupa, 19, 23 y 26/12/12), que sentencia que en 2030 no existirá ningún poder hegemónico cuando el ascenso de China lo colocará como la mayor economía e influencia de la cultura asiática que superaría la cultura de Estados Unidos y Europa.
Admite también que el liderazgo global de Estados Unidos ha sido afectado y su hegemonía es crecientemente desafiada como consecuencia de sus dos guerras frustradas en el Medio Oriente y su crisis financiera.
Pese a todos los tropiezos de Estados Unidos, Yu Ning es precavidamente realista: Estados Unidos no se resignará fácilmente a un estatuto declinante. Luchará para mantener su hegemonía en su economía, en su militarismo, tecnología y cultura. ¡Sin duda!
Yu Ning lanza un mensaje de apaciguamiento para no indisponer al gigante herido estadunidense: El ascenso de China coloca amenazas a Estados Unidos, pero China no tiene la intención de asumir el poder hegemónico de Estados Unidos. Cierto.
Estados Unidos ha sido hegemónico desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial, cuando pervivió de la bipolaridad con la URSS hasta 1991 y, a partir de entonces, de la unipolaridad, hoy desfalleciente. Mientras el ascenso de China se insinúa en el incipiente nuevo orden multipolar, lo cual, de cierta manera, serena cualquier veleidad hegemónica.
Muy realista, Yu Ning aduce que es improbable que algún país sustituya a Estados Unidos en un corto (sic) periodo. China y los otros países deben permanecer sobrios, pero Estados Unidos puede crear más disturbios en la región (sic) para mantener su antigua hegemonía. Se ha de referir por región a la doctrina Obama del pivote y a la preocupante escalada de tensiones de Japón con China.
En China sus geoestrategas han de haber leído cuidadosamente la obra que nunca será suficiente recomendar: Caos y orden en el sistema-mundo moderno, de Giovanni Arrighi y Beverly Silver, que aduce que en Occidente desde el siglo XVIII, fase de la hegemonía mundial holandesa, los cambios del orden financiero del momento se han definido, desgraciadamente, por la vía militar.
With the appointment of Hindu cleric Yogi Adityanath (C) as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Amit Shah aim to appease their base supporters.(SANJAY KANOJIA/AFP/Getty Images)
Forecast
Newly installed Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will walk a fine line between appeasing his Hindu nationalist supporters and inflaming communal tensions.
Sweeping support on religious and cultural issues will give the new government space to shift focus to economic development.
The realities of governance will force Adityanath to moderate his hard-line views in favor of a more pragmatic approach.
Analysis
Just as a wave of conservative populism is sweeping across Europe and the United States, a similar pattern is unfolding in the world's largest democracy. During recent state elections, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's center-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a commanding victory in the all-important state of Uttar Pradesh. As a result, about three of every five Indians — 740 million people — now live under a state government run by the BJP or an allied party — seven times the number who live under the six state governments ruled by India's historically dominant Congress Party and its allies.
Emboldened by its sweeping success in the country's heartland, the BJP is doubling down on its Hindu nationalist platform — as evidenced by the party's choice of Hindu cleric Yogi Adityanath as the new chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. Adityanath wasted no time in pursuing Hindu nationalist priorities, immediately launching a crackdown on beef sellers in the state. Such moves will help sustain the support of the BJP base as the new government takes on the task of reviving the state's languishing economy. But economic motives — along with the heightened risk of widespread communal unrest — will also limit how far Adityanath's administration can push its nationalist advantage.
To Unite or Divide?
Adityanath's appointment is controversial for a several reasons. As the head priest of a politically influential temple, Gorakhnath Math, Adityanath was known for stoking anti-Muslim sentiment. For example, he once said that 100 Muslims should be killed to avenge every killing of a Hindu. At one point, his divisive rhetoric earned him a ban from from Allahabad, a holy city located at the confluence of the Ganges and Jamuna rivers that hosts a massive pilgrimage of Hindus every 13 years. Adityanath's temple was also involved in the 1992 campaign to demolish the Babri Masjid, a mosque in Ayodhya believed to have been built on the birthplace of Ram, a prominent deity in the Hindu pantheon. The incident sparked a spasm of violence across India that left at least 2,000 people dead.
Communalism is a common factor in India's identity-driven politics. During the Uttar Pradesh election campaign, in fact, Modi himself subtly stoked Hindu-Muslim divisions by asserting that every village with a Muslim graveyard should feature a Hindu cremation ground as well. The appointment of Adityanath was a more overt nod to the state's Hindu nationalist base — and one that will likely encourage firebrand supporters on contentious issues such as calls to rebuild the Ram temple.
But as was demonstrated in 1992, such flashpoints are capable of triggering wider communal tensions. And this highlights the core challenge facing Adityanath and the BJP more broadly: how to reap the political benefits of communalism without provoking widespread instability that would undermine the party's ability to govern. Adityanath, a five-time member of the lower house of India's parliament who campaigned doggedly for the BJP in eastern Uttar Pradesh, has no executive experience in government. Nonetheless, he is running a state that has a population exceeding Russia's and that suffers from high poverty rates and low levels of infrastructure and economic development. The state's current gross domestic product per capita is $876, roughly half the national average.
Adityanath focused his inaugural speech on development and steered clear of the temple issue. Given the challenges of governance, he likely will be forced to moderate his image somewhat — particularly as he attempts to cultivate the sort of investment-friendly climate needed to boost industry. Indeed, Modi likewise rose to power carrying an anti-Muslim stigma (he was accused of complicity in riots pitting Hindus against Muslims in the western state of Gujarat in 2002) before shifting his narrative largely to development upon taking office.
Still, progress on the economic front will likely be slow, giving Adityanath and the BJP powerful political incentives to keep the party's base focused on cultural and religious issues while moving to expanding support among the state's Hindu population. For example, Adityanath is taking on two deputy chief ministers — a first for the Uttar Pradesh state government — in part because of the scope of development tasks at hand, but also to secure Hindu support from outside his Thakur caste. (One deputy, BJP state-level president Keshav Prasad Maurya, hails from the non-Yadav OBC — a lower-caste community. The other, former Lucknow Mayor Dinesh Sharma, is an upper-caste Brahmin.) This combination is part of the BJP's strategy of maintaining Hindu cohesion in the state ahead of the 2019 national elections.
The Sacred Calf
The BJP's attempt to balance Hindu nationalist political priorities with economic concerns is already being illustrated in the contentious politics of beef in Uttar Pradesh. Shortly after taking office on March 19, Adityanath's administration launched a campaign to shutter slaughterhouses and meat shops across the state operating without a licence. (According to rough estimates, there are 50,000 unlicensed meat shops in Uttar Pradesh.) The move was applauded by Hindu nationalist group Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which demands a total ban on beef consumption.
The slaughter of cattle, taboo among Hindus, has long been an explosive issue in Hindu-majority areas of India, particularly Uttar Pradesh. In 2015, the National Green Tribunal ordered the closure of all illegal slaughterhouses in the state on environmental grounds, citing concerns about improper disposal techniques. But the Samajwadi Party, which ruled the state at the time, did not prioritize the issue, largely because the lower-caste party relies heavily on the support of Muslims, which are well-represented in the meat industry. The BJP has no such political concerns. Of the 312 state assembly seats the party bagged in the recent election, none will be held by a Muslim.
Naturally, Adityanath's crackdown mobilized the meat industry. Earlier this month, industry groups such as Lucknow Bakra Gosht Vyapar Mandal organized a statewide strike by meat purveyors that lasted five days. The move was not necessarily a defense of unlicensed slaughterhouses — some meat sellers welcomed the crackdown — but rather over claims that even licensed slaughterhouses were being subject to harassment by overzealous supporters of the operation.
The state, which is home to more than half of India's 75 government-approved slaughterhouses and processing plants, accounts for around 50 percent of the country's meat exports. And the importance of the industry appears to have tempered how forcefully Adityanath is willing to cater to his base. According to the industry groups, the meat sellers agreed to stand down from their strike after the chief minister agreed to issue licenses to illegal slaughterhouses within 20 days.
The issue demonstrates how the demands of office will push Adityanath toward a more moderate version of Hindu nationalism, adopting rhetoric that, while more strident than that of his predecessors, is less belligerent than what was featured in the election campaign. He will resort to highlighting religious and cultural issues when needed to placate a base that otherwise would grow restless with the sputtering pace of economic progress. But if taken to lengths that spark extensive social instability, such rhetoric would hinder the ruling party's momentum in the state and open a window of opportunity for the three main opposition parties — the Indian National Congress, the Bahujan Samaj Party, and the Samajwadi Party — to put aside their own differences and unite against Modi and the BJP in the 2019 elections. As it stands, Adityanath's appointment reflects Modi's momentum and the ruling party's position of strength in Uttar Pradesh. The BJP remains the party to beat.
The independence movement in Scotland stands to gain momentum from the Brexit.(JEFF J. MITCHELL/Getty Images)
Analysis
Splitting from the European Union will inevitably strain the United Kingdom's territorial integrity. Those pushing for Scotland and Northern Ireland to secede from the United Kingdom are using Brexit to justify their agendas. Brexit will also open a debate between the central government in London and the country's devolved governments about who will control the powers that will be repatriated from Brussels. With authority over policy areas such as agriculture, fisheries, industry and the environment returning to the United Kingdom after Brexit, the administrations of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland will push London to transfer many of those attributions to them.
The United Kingdom has a devolution system, according to which different policy powers from the United Kingdom's Parliament have been transferred to assemblies in Cardiff and Belfast, and to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. The system was created to acknowledge the United Kingdom's distinctive cultures and identities. So in addition to the negotiations it faces to determine its status after it departs the European Union, the central government must also prepare for the issues that will arise among the United Kingdom's constituent countries.
An Independence Push in Scotland
When Scotland held an independence referendum in 2014, 55 percent of voters chose to remain in the United Kingdom. One of the main arguments against secession was that an independent Scotland would not automatically become an EU member and thus would lose access to free trade with the bloc.
After the Brexit referendum passed in 2016, Scottish authorities lobbied for the United Kingdom to remain a member of the EU's single market (an area where people, goods, services and capital move freely) to minimize the effect of leaving the bloc. But Prime Minister Theresa May's government says it will withdraw from the single market to negotiate a free trade agreement with the European Union instead. In response, Scotland's governing Scottish National Party said that such a change in the status quo justifies holding another independence referendum. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the vote should take place in late 2018 or early 2019, before the Brexit negotiations are over. She hopes that by gaining independence before the Brexit process is resolved, negotiators would be forced to consider Scotland in the final agreement, ideally fast-tracking its accession to the European Union.
However, Scotland's referendum cannot happen without authorization from the United Kingdom's Parliament. May has said that now is not the time for another Scottish referendum, because she does not want it to interfere with the Brexit process. The British government faces a dilemma: If it continues to reject a referendum, nationalism in Scotland could grow; but if it authorizes a new vote, the result would be impossible to predict. According to an opinion poll published on March 13, support for independence among Scots is at 48 percent. There likely will not be another Scottish referendum before the Brexit process is over. But Scotland will continue to use the threat of a referendum as a negotiating tool with May's government, both to look for ways to remain in the single market and to get concessions from London.
The Complications of Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland receives millions of pounds in farming, fishing and structural subsidies from the European Union, as well as money to preserve the Good Friday peace deal. In 2015, the European Union sent Northern Ireland 320 million pounds ($402 million) in subsidies and around 50 million pounds in peace funds. This money will no longer be available when the United Kingdom leaves the bloc, meaning that the British government would probably need to seek ways to replace it. The United Kingdom's membership in the European Union also allows Northern Ireland to keep its border with the Republic of Ireland open, contributing to the pacification of the island. After Brexit, there is a chance that some kind of border controls will have to be introduced. The letter delivered by the British government formally triggering the Brexit included Northern Ireland as one of the main topics for its upcoming negotiations. In the meantime, an internal EU document with draft guidelines for the bloc's talks with the United Kingdom suggests that "flexible and imaginative solutions" will have to be found to preserve the Good Friday Agreement.
Northern Ireland is going through a phase of political turbulence. The Good Friday deal, finalized in 1998, brought decades of sectarian violence to an end. But the political system it created, in which unionist and nationalist forces share power, has also frequently led to inefficient governments. Frictions between the two largest parties, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the nationalist Sinn Fein, precipitated the fall of the government in early 2017. In the snap elections that followed, Sinn Fein performed strongly, potentially indicating a surge in nationalist sentiments in Northern Ireland.
When the period allotted to form a government expired March 27 without success, the British government gave the parties until April 18 to reach agreement. On the surface, the DUP and Sinn Fein are divided by issues such as a nationalist proposal to give Irish language official status in Northern Ireland. But Sinn Fein believes that its strong electoral performance and Brexit have improved Northern Ireland's chances of unification with the Republic of Ireland. According to the Good Friday Agreement, a unification referendum can happen if a majority of voters in Northern Ireland express their wish for it. A survey taken in late 2016, put support for a unification referendum at around 40 percent.
If the parties cannot form a government, the British government is legally authorized to take direct control of Northern Ireland, but this is something that May wants to avoid. Even if there is an agreement to temporarily unblock the current stalemate, the Good Friday Agreement is showing signs of exhaustion, and the Brexit process will create frictions between unionists and nationalists, which means that political instability will probably continue.
In late February, the Republic of Ireland's prime minister, Enda Kenny, said that the final Brexit agreement with the European Union should include a provision to let Northern Ireland automatically become a member of the European Union if it unifies with the republic. Then in early March, Fianna Fail, the Republic's main opposition party, announced that it is working on a plan to prepare the north and the south for unification. While both parties have said that unification is still a distant possibility, these moves show the extent to which Brexit will reopen discussions about the territorial and political future of the British Isles.
Seeking Advantage in Wales
Support for Welsh independence is low, with polls persistently showing less than 10 percent of the population in favor. Like their English peers, a majority of Welsh voters supported leaving the European Union in the 2016 referendum. But while independence is not an immediate threat, Welsh leaders are looking for ways to benefit from the Brexit process. First Minister Carwyn Jones recently warned that regulations on issues that affect Wales such as agriculture, which is currently an EU prerogative, should be transferred to Cardiff instead of London after Brexit.
Wales also expects to gain from whatever concessions London makes to Scotland. In the months leading to the Scottish independence referendum of 2015, for example, London promised to grant Scotland additional powers over taxes, welfare benefits and energy. In the coming months, London may offer new sweeteners to Scotland to appease secessionist sentiments. This will open the door for Wales to make its own demands. While the Welsh issue will not be nearly as pressing as the Scottish or Northern Irish questions, it will create yet another headache for May's Cabinet.
A Tussle Over Gibraltar
In Gibraltar, 96 percent of residents voted to remain in the European Union. It is a British Overseas Territory that participates in the EU's free movement of people, services and capital; but not in the free movement of goods or in programs such as the Common Agricultural Policy. The main activities of Gibraltar's services-based economy include financial services, tourism and online gaming. Roughly half of its workforce consists of EU citizens (mostly Spanish) who are daily commuters, and most tourists arrive to the territory by land. To make things more complicated, Gibraltar's territory is claimed by Spain.
Brexit poses two risks for Gibraltar. The government is worried that Gibraltar's exports will no longer have tariff-free access to the EU single market, especially because a free trade agreement will be easier to negotiate for goods than for services. It is also concerned about Spain unilaterally closing the border and isolating the territory (since the United Kingdom is not a member of the passport-free Schengen Agreement, identity checks already take place at the border). The government of Gibraltar excluded the possibility of leaving the United Kingdom and joining Spain, but it recently held talks with Scotland to jointly seek ways to remain in the single market.
According to a draft of EU guidelines for the Brexit talks, the Brexit deal would not apply to Gibraltar without a separate agreement between the United Kingdom and Spain. But Madrid will probably not pressure London too much over Gibraltar, at least during the early stages of the Brexit negotiations. Madrid and London will be interested in reaching a deal to protect the rights of the 300,000 British citizens who live in Spain and the 200,000 Spaniards who live in the United Kingdom, as well as to preserve their strong bilateral trade and investment ties. In the future, however, Madrid will gain some leverage it could use to negotiate the status of Gibraltar. To win approval for a free trade agreement would require the unanimous support from all EU members, which would give Spain veto power over the final deal.
Legal and Political Issues
The Scottish government has said it will seek to remain in the single market, either through independence or by a special agreement with the European Union as a member of the United Kingdom. Should Scotland become independent, it would not automatically become an EU member. The Scottish government has suggested that if it does become independent, while it applies for EU membership it could in the meantime become a member of the European Free Trade Association, a club of non-EU countries (including Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland) that participate in the single market. Should Scotland remain in the United Kingdom, Scottish authorities have suggested emulating Denmark, where parts of its territory are in the EU, while others (such as Greenland and the Faroe Islands) are not.
In Northern Ireland's case, secession from the UK would almost certainly lead to EU membership. Northern Ireland would join the Republic of Ireland, which already is a member of the EU. A similar situation occurred in 1990 after German reunification.
Without leaving the United Kingdom, it would be difficult for Scotland or Northern Ireland to remain in the single market, because any free trade deal between the European Union and United Kingdom would probably generate contradictions. The free trade agreement likely would cover a shorter list of goods and services than the single market agreement. To solve these contradictions, border controls would have to be introduced to ensure that goods and services moving across the borders comply with the existing trade agreements in each territory. If Northern Ireland leaves the single market with the rest of the United Kingdom, a border control with the Republic of Ireland would have to be introduced. And should Scotland manage to remain in the single market, border controls with England would have to be instituted.
Migration issues should be easier to solve, as neither the United Kingdom nor the Republic of Ireland are members of the passport-free Schengen area. This means that both countries could agree on joint migration controls at airports and ports. There would still be some issues to solve connected with working rights, because under this scenario EU citizens would be free to work in Scotland and Northern Ireland, but not in England or Wales.
A Political Question
Even if there were technical solutions to these issues, the negotiations between the United Kingdom and the European Union will be mostly political. EU officials have said that Britain cannot selectively pick the aspects of EU integration it wants to keep. At a time when Euroskeptic sentiments are on the rise in Europe, EU leaders want to send a message home that leaving the EU is not a painless process. In addition, EU members like Spain in which domestic secessionist movements are strong would also be against making concessions to Scotland or Northern Ireland, out of fear that local independence groups could feel encouraged to demand the same. The British government also is unlikely to accept a settlement that would involve the introduction of internal border controls and differentiated visa systems among the devolved governments, out of fear that it could be the prelude to secession.
The British government will seek to find a balance between appeasing political discontent in the devolved administrations and remaining in control of the Brexit process. London will reassure regional governments that their interests will be represented during negotiations with the EU, and will keep them updated on the status of negotiations. London will also promise subsidies, investment, tax breaks and the assignment of EU prerogatives to the devolved governments. Considering the extensive list of policy areas that are currently under EU control but will soon be sent back to the United Kingdom, London will have a long list of topics to choose from when it comes to devolving powers. But London is unlikely to give Scotland or Northern Ireland a decisive role in the Brexit negotiations, or to make moves that would jeopardize the country's territorial integrity. As a result, in the coming years secessionist pressures could become hard to contain in the United Kingdom.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu visit military exercises in Kirillovsky. MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV/AFP/Getty
Russia's aggression in Europe — its invasion of Ukraine, its military flights up the noses of NATO states, its nuclear saber rattling — has faded from the news. But it's still very much a threat, which is why the US is planning to quadruple its military spending in Europe, something NATO's European members have welcomed, to deter Russia.
In other words, the dynamics that brought Cold War–style military tension to Europe in 2015 are still with us. And that tension can be dangerous.
This summer, I wrote about a small but alarmed community of analysts and experts in the US, Europe, and Russia who earnestly worried that the risk of an unintended war had grown unacceptably high. A survey of 100 policy experts yielded an aggregate assessment of 11 percent odds of war and 18 percent odds that such a war would include nuclear weapons. (A subsequent, larger survey backed this up.)
Since then, my informal check-ins with my sources have led me to believe that this concern has not dissipated. And, in late January, scholars with the Zurich-based Center for Security Studies produced a map, as part of a longer report that you can read here, that helps show why this is still a real issue:
Martin Zapfe and Benno Zogg, Center for Security Studies
The map shows military exercises held by Russia and by NATO in 2014 and 2015. Each circle represents an exercise, and the larger circles mean more troops participated.
Obviously, both Russia and European states have been holding military exercises since before tensions spiked last year. And that's exactly the point: Military volatility is baked into Eastern Europe, such that when tensions do spike it has the capability to make the continent suddenly much more precarious.
I want to call your attention to the Baltic Sea, the body of water tucked between Sweden and the NATO-allied Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. (Recall that all NATO members, including the US, have pledged to go to war to defend any other NATO member that is attacked.) That little region is the focus of all this.
The geography of the Baltics make it enormously insecure for both Russia and for NATO, and this is why nearly every expert I spoke to warned that it is a potential tinderbox, where some unforeseen accident, miscalculation, or provocation could, in an unlikely but real worst-case scenario, send both sides careening into a conflict that neither wants.
The Kaliningrad problem
Look at the little red spot sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania: That's a part of Russia called Kaliningrad, which Russia took over after World War II. Kaliningrad is heavily militarized, partly because Russia uses it as a base for projecting power and partly because Moscow's conspiratorial-minded leaders fear that Europe is bent on retaking Kaliningrad.
Russia worries that in the case of any conflict small or large, Europe and the US would exploit it as an excuse to seize and pacify Kaliningrad. (If that sounds crazy to you, it doesn't to Russian leaders, who after all just seized and annexed part of a foreign country, and who earnestly believe the US is bent on Russia's destruction.) So it has built up Kaliningrad's defenses.
But Kaliningrad is completely isolated from the rest of Russia; it's surrounded by NATO states. And after Ukraine, NATO began putting a lot more troops and tanks in those NATO states. This was meant to defend the Baltics from a possible Ukraine-style provocation, but it also ended up cutting off Kaliningrad even more. There's other stuff happening as well — for example, the Baltics are moving onto a separate power grid, which could make Kaliningrad more reliant on Europe to power itself.
Russia clearly feels it needs a plan to defend Kaliningrad in the case of a conflict. So it's done two things, which are likely meant as defensive but also have offensive capability — hence their destabilizing danger.
First, Russia has installed a kind of weapon that it's been very good lately at developing: area-denial weapons, such as anti-air missiles, that give Russia the ability to shut down an entire region and prevent NATO from moving in. These are indicated on the map with blue-line circles around Kaliningrad.
Second, Russia has conducted exercises near the Baltics that look at least potentially like they're designed to, if necessary, open a ground corridor from mainland Russia to Kaliningrad. This includes, for example, Russian military flights across or into Baltic airspace, which appear meant to test NATO response times.
The idea would be to prevent NATO from overrunning or isolating Kaliningrad by opening basically a giant military highway to it. But that would mean cutting through the Baltic states that separate them. In other words, it would mean invading them.
The Baltics problem
The dynamic here is that even if Russia's agenda here is purely a worst-case-scenario defensive plan to protect Kaliningrad, it also looks exactly like a plan to invade and seize the Baltic states. As NATO sees Russia building up around the Baltics, it is doing the same.
It's not that US and European leaders think Moscow is going to just up and occupy Latvia out of the blue. Rather, they are in the same situation as Russia is with Kaliningrad: The Baltic states are insecure in ways that require NATO to build them up, and this looks offensive to Russia.
The Baltic states are physically isolated from the rest of Europe. Baltic militaries are very weak compared with Russia's much larger force. And Baltic leaders are convinced, not without reason, that Moscow has designs to launch some sort of Ukraine-style hybrid quasi-war against them — not an all-out invasion, but some sort of potentially violent meddling.
This is why the US has been conducting military exercises in the Baltics and part of why it is quadrupling military investment in Europe: to build up the Baltics as a deterrent against Russia. But the effect of this buildup is to further isolate Kaliningrad, potentially increasing Moscow's paranoia and helping to motivate its own buildup, and so on.
The Eastern Europe security dilemma and the potential for war
These Baltics dynamics are, taken together, a classic example of what political scientists call a security dilemma, in which each side feels insecure and builds up to reach parity, which prompts the other side to do the same.
Because neither side can know the other's intentions for sure, defensive measures are seen as at least potentially offensive, and buildups lead to buildups, which can lead to war.
This is especially dangerous in Eastern Europe because both sides are developing not just stronger but faster military measures, such as air-launched cruise missiles, meant to fight and win any conflict as quickly as possible. This drastically reduces response time, meaning that in case of some provocation or accident that could be misread as something bigger, both sides could have only minutes to decide whether to escalate or deescalate.
The scenarios that could lead to war are discussed in greater depth here. But an accident or misstep is not impossible, given that Russian military jets are already flying in or near NATO airspace with some regularity.
And, yes, this is made all the more dangerous by the presence of nuclear weapons — particularly given Russia's development of small-scale "battlefield" or "tactical" nuclear weapons, and its nuclear doctrine that sets a lower bar for launching warheads than does America's.
To be clear, it is not remotely the case that war is likely. Russian and NATO leaders all want very badly to avoid war, and this is by far the most determinative factor in whether war happens. But this map helps to illustrate how this possibility, while remote, is not unthinkable, either. That, after all, is why the buildup is happening to begin with.
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