Coronavirus, China and climate: where Australia’s foreign relations attention will be in 2021

Climate change will continue to be one of the world’s greatest challenges in 2021.
AAP/AP/David Goldman

Melissa Conley Tyler, University of Melbourne

Most of us can’t wait to see the back of 2020, a year that has been memorable for all the wrong reasons. While 2020 provided the ultimate stress test for countries to discover their vulnerabilities, we can confidently predict the New Year will bring its own challenges.

So what will dominate international affairs in 2021? I’m expecting to be watching four Cs: coronavirus, China, climate and crises.

Coronavirus

It should start to get easier, but the pandemic still has a way to play out. 2021 will be about adapting to living with the virus.

We’ll be hoping countries that managed the pandemic well can keep it up, and those that didn’t are helped by the roll-out of vaccines.

We’ll be watching who gets a vaccine and whether access is equitable. How effective the various vaccines are. And how quickly international travel recovers.

Australia will be focused on recovery. It dealt with the health challenge of COVID-19 well, but in the process it has cut itself off from the world. There’s been significant damage to major industries like education and tourism. And terrible experiences for international students, temporary visa holders and Australians stranded overseas.

Coronavirus has shaken many Australian industries, including tourism and education – it will be a long recovery starting in 2021.
AAP/Joel Carrett

While other countries have been worse affected – for example India’s growth trajectory has been knocked years off track – the effects on Australia will be long-lasting. With net negative migration this year, Australia is projected to be more than half a million smaller in 2022, with flow-on effects from construction to retail.

Australian Institute of International Affairs National President Allan Gyngell thinks Australia will be “poorer, weaker and more isolated” in the new COVID-19 world.

The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response will give us a first draft of the history of the COVID-19 virus, with discussion at the World Health Organization executive board in January, and a substantive report to the World Health Assembly in May.

In the best case scenario, the delayed Tokyo Olympics in July 2021 may be a symbol of renewal, with the global community united in relief and optimism having weathered the worst of the pandemic.

China

China will continue to be a preoccupation for Australia. According to former Department of Defence Secretary Dennis Richardson, Australia can expect to be in the dog house for all of 2021. There’s no sign the Australian government has a plan to repair the relationship.

We’re likely to see further deterioration after a new law was passed this week giving the foreign affairs minister the power to cancel international agreements by state governments, local councils and public universities. If, as expected, Canberra uses this to cancel Victoria’s agreement with China on the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing will see this as another instance of anti-China paranoia.

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Continuing tensions around foreign investment are built into the system. If Australia follows through on taking China to the World Trade Organization, it will be protracted. The trade war is unwinnable for both countries.

There will continue to be human rights issues, with attention on Xinjiang and Hong Kong, as well as on the cases of detained Australians such as Wang Hengjun and Cheng Lei.

Australian public opinion on China will likely continue its steep decline.

Once President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated in January, we’ll be watching to see the impact on US-China relations. I think it will be continued contestation, on which there is a bipartisan consensus, but with foreign policy conducted more normally and with more focus on areas of potential collaboration, particularly climate change.

With China-Australian relations taking a nose-dive, what will happen to detained Australian citizens such as Cheng Lei (pictured) and Wang Henjun?
AAP/AP/Ng Han Guan

Climate

This is where the US election result will have the greatest effect on Australia. The Biden administration has pledged to rejoin the Paris Agreement and convene a world climate summit in its first 100 days to persuade the leaders of carbon-emitting nations to make more ambitious national pledges. When it says it will “stop countries from cheating”, it’s thinking of us.

Australia will be increasingly isolated if it doesn’t fall into line, with its major trading and strategic partners – such as the US, UK, EU, China, Japan and South Korea – all having committed to net zero carbon targets. There will likely be pressure as negotiations for an Australia-EU free trade agreement head towards a conclusion, and negotiations for a post-Brexit Australia-UK agreement commence in earnest.

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There are already signs Australia is recognising it can no longer be such an outlier.

The next conference of the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) in Glasgow in November is likely to capture public attention, like Copenhagen in 2009, as countries with higher ambition push for greater action.

The results at Glasgow will have a huge impact on the trajectory of climate change globally. It’s not an exagerration to say it will be one of the most important international summits in history.

Crises

Beyond these focus areas, there will always be things boiling over. For people who work in international affairs, it feels like it’s always “Events, dear boy, events”: a quote attributed to UK Prime Minister Harold Macmillan when asked what blows governments off course.

We don’t know where or when, but we know there will be natural disasters. People fleeing. Massacres and terrorist attacks. These events draw attention away from slower-moving changes like some countries’ ongoing decline and others’ steady improvement.

There are plenty of situations that could reach a tipping point in 2021 – or stay where they are a bit longer. Unrest in Thailand. A China-India border standoff. Disputes in the South China Sea (or East China Sea). The flashpoint of Taiwan.

North Korea is capable of manufacturing a crisis any time it thinks it is to its advantage. Russia will stir the pot. Things will be delicate as the new US administration engages with Iran. There is a small but ineradicable risk of nuclear terrorism. Disinformation wars will continue.

Closer to home, Australia knows that it will be drawn into any significant regional crisis, whether that’s Bougainville or a PNG political crisis. Mass unrest in West Papua would be particularly challenging.

West Papua will continue to present one of the greatest foreign policy challenges for Australia.
AAP/AP/ Binsar Bakkara

There are not too many elections that could trigger crises, with Japan and Iran the major elections in 2021. (Australia’s next federal election can be called from August 2021).

Challenging assumptions – and inequities

It’s worth thinking about where our attention might not be in 2021: on the chronic problems that we’ve grown used to. Like more than 2 billion people who don’t have access to safe water and sanitation. Or the nearly 11 million children under five who die each year, mostly from preventable causes.

Ours is still a world of deep inequality. The massive improvements in human well-being over recent decades show that we have the tools to address the remaining pockets of misery. The start of this is to challenge the things we implicitly accept.

If you’re reading this, you’re in the group of people with relative advantage. Think about how you can contribute – whether that’s through your work, donating money or volunteering your time. Find something you think can be improved and decide to make a contribution.

We’re not just spectators in the world of 2021.

Melissa Conley Tyler, Research Fellow, Asia Institute, University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Joe Biden’s approach to the Middle East will be very different from Trump’s, especially on Iran

Tony Walker, La Trobe University

Canberra policymakers will be conducting a root-and-branch reassessment of Australia’s foreign policy following Donald Trump’s defeat in the US presidential election and ahead of an incoming Democrat administration.

Top of the list of items for review will be a leaden-footed China policy. Chinese trade reprisals for perceived Australian slights are doing real harm to Australia’s economic interests.

However, there are other areas of concern that demand attention in anticipation of Joe Biden’s presidency.

High on this agenda will be Middle East policy, which has suffered from the Trump administration’s transactional approach to a region in which America surrendered its traditional “honest broker” role in favour of an “Israel-first” approach.

US Secretary of State-designate Antony Blinken might say, as he did at a Hudson Institute event earlier this year, that “I think we would be doing less not more in the Middle East”.

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However, in the world’s most volatile region, history shows this aspiration is easier said than realised. Successive US administrations have endeavoured to pull back from the Middle East. Circumstances conspire to make this difficult.

From an Australian perspective, a Biden administration will inevitably shift the tone of America’s responses to Middle East challenges. This includes attitudes to the Palestinians.

Biden will not be showing the same tolerance for Israel’s settlement expansion as his predecessor, nor would he countenance unilateral Israeli annexation of territories under occupation.

The new administration will return to a two-state formula in its approach to Middle East peacemaking. This is a phrase that was sidelined during the Trump administration.

The incoming Biden administration, with Antony Blinken as secretary of state, will show less tolerance for Israel’s settlement expansion.
Carolyn Kaster/AP/AAP

Canberra policymakers will need to be agile as these shifts work their way through American Middle East policy, which will be less ideological and more focused on what might be described as core principles.

These principles will involve greater emphasis on human rights. This is not good news for serial human rights-abusing countries such as Saudi Arabia, or Israel in its treatment of the Palestinians, for that matter.

Climate issues will weigh, too. This will be awkward for laggards on climate like Saudi Arabia.

A Biden administration can also be expected to take a less tolerant view of inroads Russia and Turkey have made in the Middle East. Both countries have factored themselves into regional calculations in ways not apparent when Biden served as vice-president in the Obama administration.

Moscow and Ankara are now significant regional players down into the Gulf and west to North Africa in their extraterritorial meddling in fractured states such as Libya.

Regional architecture is vastly more complex and, if possible, more challenging than it was four years ago.

This brings us, inevitably, to Iran.

Biden has made clear that among his early foreign policy priorities will be to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA) signed in 2015 by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany and the European Union.

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An agreement to forestall an Iranian acquisition of a nuclear capability was the crowning foreign policy achievement of the Obama administration.

Trump irresponsibly abandoned the JCPOA in 2018.

In a September 13 essay on CNN.com, Biden said:

If Iran returns to strict compliance with the nuclear deal, the United States would rejoin the agreement as a starting point for follow-on negotiations.

In the process, the US would lift crippling oil sanctions imposed by Trump. These have done considerable damage to Iran’s economy.

US sanctions in Iran have crippled the country’s economy.
Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA/AAP

However, debate on rejoining the JCPOA without concessions from Iran will be fraught.

A Biden administration would come under considerable pressure to renegotiate aspects of the JCPOA after rejoining. This would include an extension of the original 15-year moratorium on Iran’s ability to produce a nuclear device.

US negotiators would be expected to pressure Iran to wind back its support for regional proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and the Palestinian territories.

Washington would also seek to curb Iran’s exports of precision guided missiles to allies in the region and further afield.

Tehran has said such issues would not be on the table in the event of a renegotiated JCPOA. These are highly complex matters.

What does make sense are indications a Biden administration would seek to involve other interested parties in a renegotiated JCPOA.

Biden’s foreign policy team has been talking about adding regional players like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. This would certainly help address nuclear proliferation concerns.

In an interview with the New York Times this month, Biden warned of the risks of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East involving Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey in the event that Iran acquires a breakout nuclear capability.

The last goddam thing we need in that part of the world is a build-up of nuclear capability.

Canberra will not have issues with this approach.

Australia’s response to the Trump administration’s abandonment of the JCPOA was cautious. The government conducted a review of Australia’s support and then quietly shelved any objections it might have had.

In any case, Australia hardly rates as anything more than a bystander, albeit one that has maintained diplomatic representation in Tehran since the days of the shah.

This has been useful, as was demonstrated recently by the role Australia’s ambassador in Tehran played in the release of Australian-UK researcher Kylie Moore-Gilbert from a two-year incarceration.

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With Australia’s trading relationship with China so stressed, further developing existing markets and seeking new opportunities will be a preoccupation.

While Australia’s trade with the Middle East is relatively small, it is significant. Two-way trade with the region, mostly in the Gulf, amounts to about 2.5% of total trade. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are the most prospective markets for Australian goods and services.

The Gulf region is also home to four of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds. At A$11 billion, the UAE’s investment in Australia is worth noting.

An Australian review of Middle East policy will inevitably involve assessments of what a Biden administration will mean for Australia’s involvement in Afghanistan.

The Trump administration has announced it will draw down its troop presence from the current 4,500 to 2,500 by early 2021. This follows a “peace agreement” with the Taliban struck in February.

Biden has been agnostic on Afghanistan. He was a dissenting voice in the Obama administration against a surge in troops in 2008-2009, but lost that argument.

He is thought likely to favour retaining a small, residual counter-terrorism force in Afghanistan. On his record, he would be most reluctant to increase numbers.

In Australia’s case, its combat troops have long gone. It retains a small training contingent with the Afghan army. This is likely to remain the case under present circumstances.

President-elect Joe Biden is unlikely to favour sending more US troops to Afghanistan.
Jalil Rezayee/EPA/AAP

Finally, in October, Canberra made an important decision about its role in the Middle East. This received little attention at the time.

Defence Minister Linda Reynolds announced Australia would end its naval presence in the Gulf, where the navy had been conducting patrols.

As part of its 2020 Defence Strategic Update, Reynolds said “an increasingly challenging strategic environment” was “placing greater demand on ADF resources closer to home”.

Given China’s continued rise, that would seem to be an understatement.

Tony Walker, Vice-chancellor’s fellow, La Trobe University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Timeline of a broken relationship: how China and Australia went from chilly to barely speaking

Ng Han Guan/AP

Tony Walker, La Trobe University

When the history of this latest low point in China-Australia relations is written, both sides will be blamed for mistakes.

Australia is not without fault. However, China is primarily responsible for the continuing deterioration in the relationship.

Its ruthlessness in asserting itself far and wide, by fair means and foul, means there will be no going back to the status quo that prevailed before President Xi Jinping emerged in 2013 as China’s most nationalistic leader since Mao Zedong.

Likewise, Beijing’s crude use of trade sanctions to penalise Australia for real or imagined slights signifies that a trading relationship born of mutual benefit risks being subject to persistent, politically-motivated interference.

This is the reality, whether we like it or not. China is done with “biding its time” in line with former leader Deng Xiaoping’s advice in pursuit of its big power ambitions. It may no longer be correct to describe China as a “rising power”. The power has risen.

China has increasingly sought to exert its power since Xi came to power.
Wu Hong/EPA

What is clear is that Canberra has vastly underestimated the velocity of change in the Asia-Pacific region, and, more to the point, the costs associated with an attachment to old models for doing business.

This is not an argument for sliding away from the American alliance, the cornerstone of Australian security. Rather, a more realistic assessment is required of what is and is not in the national interest.

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What is not in the national interest are policies that needlessly antagonise the nation’s dominant customer. Again, this is not making the case for excusing China’s bad behaviour, or somehow suggesting the customer is always right. It is simply saying that gratuitous provocations should be avoided.

The timeline below tracks the recent tensions between China and Australia. Multiple episodes stand out that have marked — and in some cases scarred — Canberra’s relations with Beijing since Xi came to power.

These moments have all contributed to the deterioration of the relationship to the point where Australia now risks long-term harm to its economic interests. This is policy failure on-the-run.

Timeline of a fraying relationship

Three particularly damaging episodes

Three episodes have been particularly damaging.

The first and almost certainly the most scarring was the decision in early 2019 for Australia to take the lead role in lobbying its Five Eyes partners to exclude the Chinese company Huawei from supplying technology for their 5G networks.

Australia’s decision to exclude Huawei from its own 5G roll-out is one thing, lobbying others to follow suit is another. What possessed decision-makers in Canberra to take it upon themselves to put Australia at the forefront of a global campaign against China’s economic interests remains a mystery.

To say this decision enraged Beijing would be an understatement, with the caveat that Australia had every right to exclude Huawei if it was deemed in the national security interest to do so.

The US and UK have followed Australia’s lead in banning Huawei from their 5G networks.
Ng Han Guan/AP

The second damaging episode involved Prime Minister Scott Morrison volunteering to lead the charge for an investigation into China’s responsibility for the coronavirus that emerged in the city of Wuhan in late 2019.

Again, why Morrison took it upon himself to coordinate such an inquiry — when one was in train anyway under World Health Organisation auspices — is unclear. Beijing’s furious response might have been anticipated, with the editor of the state-run Global Times referring to Australia as the “gum stuck to the bottom of China’s shoe”.

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The third damaging episode involved Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s decision to prevent the Hong Kong-listed China Mengniu Dairy from taking over the Japanese-owned Lion Dairy and Drinks in a $600 million acquisition.

In rejecting Mengniu’s takeover bid, Frydenberg overrode advice from the Foreign Investment Review Board and Treasury — both of which had supported the deal.

This was a politically motivated decision to satisfy critics of the sale of Australian assets to Chinese entities. It certainly reinforced a view in Beijing that Australia’s foreign investment approval process is tilted against Chinese companies.

The closed Huanan seafood market in Wuhan, believed to be the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak.
Koki Kataoka/AP

Does the government actually have a plan for China?

Likewise, the government’s foreign relations bill — passed by parliament this week — can be read as an attempt to reinforce Canberra’s control over a panoply of relationships between Australian states, territories and educational institutions and their Chinese counterparts.

The government might pretend this is an omnibus bill aimed at asserting federal government oversight of the foreign policy-making responsibilities of the Commonwealth. But in reality it is aimed squarely at contacts with Chinese entities.

Victoria’s Belt and Road agreement with Beijing is in the bill’s sights, along with the Northern Territory’s deal with the Chinese Landbridge Group for lease of part of the Darwin port.

There is a central question in all of this: does the Morrison government actually have an overarching game plan for dealing with China, or is it simply stumbling from one crisis to the next?

In the past week, Morrison has demanded an apology from China and sought a diplomatic reset.
Lukas Coch/AAP

Those responsible for Australia’s foreign policy clearly have not been able to navigate treacherous diplomatic terrain and avoid the pitfalls that have brought Sino-Australian relations to an all-time low.

Morrison’s foreign policy team has also proved ineffectual at facing down pressures from those in the government’s own ranks who have a particular animus towards Beijing. Such antagonism has proved to be a dead weight on constructive China policy-making.

This brings us to Morrison’s own reaction to the offensive tweet depicting a doctored image of an Australian soldier with a knife at the throat of an Afghan child. Soon after it was shared by a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Morrison went on television to denounce both the official and the crude caricature.

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No one could reasonably object to the prime minister’s outrage. However, he should not have lowered himself to engage a Chinese spin-doctor in an argument about a graphic piece of Chinese propaganda.

This should have been left to Foreign Minister Marise Payne, or, better still, the head of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Morrison further compounded the issue by vaingloriously demanding an apology.

Morrison’s clumsy handing of the issue speaks to a lack of China literacy among his advisers.

An Australian media echo chamber

The Australian media has also played a role in amplifying anti-Beijing viewpoints to such an extent, it has had a deadening effect on reasonable discussion about managing the country’s China policy more effectively.

The business community, for example, has been discouraged — even intimidated — from voicing its opinion out of concern it would be accused of pandering to Beijing for its own selfish reasons.

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All this adds to pressures on policymakers to pursue a one-dimensional “stand up to Chinese bullying” approach, not give ground and ascribe the worst possible motives to whatever China says or does.

This is hardly a substitute for a carefully thought-through, well-articulated, tough-minded approach to managing a highly complex relationship in the national interest.

As things stand, those in charge of framing Australia’s policies with China are failing to do this — and Australia’s best interests are clearly not being served as a result.

Tony Walker, Vice-chancellor’s fellow, La Trobe University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Biden will place Asia back at the centre of foreign policy – but will his old-school diplomacy still work?

Carolyn Kaster/AAP

Nick Bisley, La Trobe University

The election of Joe Biden represents not only a repudiation of Donald Trump and his divisiveness, but an embrace of centrism and a mainstream approach to government and policy.

On the global stage, as at home, Biden is likely to follow a familiar script. Most obviously, he will embrace America’s alliances and strengthen its engagement with multilateral institutions. Rhetorically at least, he will give human rights and democracy a much more prominent role in Washington’s approach to the world.

In short, he is likely to pursue a global role much more in line with how the US has acted globally since the end of the Cold War. While it might be tempting to assume Biden will run foreign policy as a continuation of the Obama administration, there will be some points of continuity but also key changes. And some very significant challenges will remain.

Asia, and particularly China, in focus

One area of continuity, with both Obama and Trump, will be the centrality of Asia to US global strategy. This is in part for the same reasons his predecessors made the region a priority: it will be the most consequential part of the world for decades to come. But it is also because stretched US finances will mean the country will be unable to sustain a significant European presence or the kinds of policies it has pursued in the Middle East.

For Obama, the “pivot” to Asia was a choice about where to focus efforts. For Biden, the scarcity of resources will focus the mind on Asia. It will also mean a scaling back of US activity in those other theatres.

The biggest foreign policy question facing Biden will be how to approach the People’s Republic of China. Under Trump, the US moved toward a posture, on paper at any rate, of full-spectrum strategic competition. The 2017 National Security Strategy described China as intent on eroding Washington’s global advantage, and the US would reorient the instruments of national power to contest that effort.

In practice, Trump’s China policy was incoherent and inconsistent. Trump himself pursued a peculiar relationship with Xi Jinping, even allegedly encouraging the herding of millions of Uyghurs into concentration camps.

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Biden is unlikely to move US China policy back to its “engage but hedge” setting of previous years – the mood in the US has hardened decisively, and not only because of Trump. However, the way the US competes with China is likely to change and there will be a need for co-operation. Biden won’t wind back the trade conflict significantly and moves to delink the two economies will continue, particularly in high-technology areas.

The US will continue to work to limit China’s ambitions to change Asia’s regional order, but it is likely to try to build on some areas of common interest to improve co-operation. The aim will be to advance their shared goals on that issue but also mitigate against the more damaging consequences of geopolitical competition.

This is most like to occur in relation to climate change. The Biden administration will put a very high premium on this vast threat and to advance that agenda meaningfully will require collaboration with China. So expect a more moderated approach to competition with the PRC but not an end to contestation in the region.

… and North Korea, too

North Korea was the scene of Trump’s most high-profile foreign policy gambit. While nuclear testing has stopped, it is increasingly clear that, in spite of protestations to the contrary from the president’s Twitter account, North Korea has a functional nuclear weapon capability.

The US-DPRK relationship, such as it is, has become highly personalised and the move away from Trump raises questions as to whether North Korea will revert to its bombastic past form – it has described Biden as a “rabid dog”. The most likely scenario will be a Biden administration that learns to live with a nuclear North Korea and, in contrast to Trump, works closely with its allies in South Korea to co-ordinate their approach.

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Resuming normal transmission

The return to normality in Washington will greatly hearten America’s allies. They will no longer be ignored or, in some cases, overtly disparaged by the president. The Biden administration will place a strong emphasis on the role allies play in its foreign policy ambitions. It will value the alliances, rather than debase them, and use the reach they allow and political support they create to drive a more strategic approach to managing China.

But this greater value will not come cost-free. A financially constrained US will expect allies to do more to advance their shared security interests than they have in the past. This will be most evident in Asia, where treaty allies like Australia, Japan and South Korea will be under renewed pressure to play a more expansive, risky and expensive role in the region’s geopolitics. For Australia this will be a challenge in terms of both its capacity and its risk appetite.

A Biden presidency will restore dignity to US leadership and bring a much more integrated approach to managing its global interests. It will also act in stable and predictable ways.

But Biden will inherit an America whose power and credibility are in decline. The global institutions that the US built to stabilise international order and advance its interests are in a parlous state, and not only because of the attacks of the Trump presidency. It faces a global stage with ambitious emerging powers that have shrewdly used the incoherence of the Trump presidency to advance their position.

Biden’s election symbolises a return to orthodox ways in Washington. His instincts, and that of his foreign policy team, will be in line with how the US has approached the world for many decades.

We know the Trump approach has undermined US power and prestige. What remains to be seen is whether Biden’s instincts are the right ones in a dangerous and unstable global environment.

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Nick Bisley, Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of International Relations at La Trobe University, La Trobe University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Burmese Officials Order Closure of Chin Church

Government punishes pastor for refusing to wear campaign T-shirt, amid other election abuses.

DUBLIN, November 18 (CDN) — Officials in Mergui Region, Burma, ordered a Baptist church to cease holding worship services after the pastor refused to wear an election campaign T-shirt supporting the military government’s Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).

The election commission summoned 47-year-old Pastor Mang Tling of Dawdin village, Gangaw township, Mergui Region on Nov. 9, two days after the election and ordered him to stop holding services and discontinue the church nursery program, the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO) reported yesterday.

The CHRO works against human rights abuses, including religious discrimination, for the Chin people, a minority group in Burma’s northwest estimated to be 90 percent Christian.

Village headman U Than Chaung had given the pastor a campaign T-shirt to wear in support of the USDP, and when he refused to wear it, the headman filed a report with local authorities accusing him of persuading Christian voters to vote in favor of an opposing party.

Under Burmese law, religious leaders can be penalized for “engaging in politics,” giving the pastor a solid legal reason to decline the T-shirt. The law also bans leaders of religious groups from voting in national elections, according to the CHRO, although lay members of those groups are able to vote.

“The election law is quite vague,” a CHRO spokesman told Compass today. “One of the things we were watching out for during the election was to see if church elders or council members might be excluded from voting. But these people were able to vote. The law seems to apply only to pastors, monks and imams.”

Officials interrogated Mang Tling in Gangaw until Sunday (Nov. 14), when he was allowed to return home.

Meantime, the USDP won the election amid widespread evidence of “advance” voting and other forms of voter manipulation throughout Burma.

Previously known as the Union Solidarity and Development Association, and before that the State Peace and Development Council, the USDP was formed by a ruling junta composed largely of army generals. The junta has ruled Burma without a constitution or parliament since 1998, although in 2008 they pushed through support for a new constitution that will take effect following this month’s elections, according to the 2010 International Religious Freedom report released yesterday by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.

The new constitution forbids “abuse of religion for political purposes,” the report stated. Election laws published in March also banned members of religious orders from voting for or joining political parties and reserved 25 percent of seats in the new parliament for members of the military.

The 2008 constitution “technically guarantees a degree of religious freedom. But then, it’s Burma,” a CHRO spokesman told Compass.

 

Voter Intimidation

The Chin National Party defeated the USDP in three electorates in Chin state despite reports of widespread voting anomalies, some of which were outlined in a CHRO press release on Nov. 7.

In Tedim township northern Chin state, for example, USDP agent Go Lun Mang went to the home of a local resident at 5 p.m. the day before the election and told the family that he had already voted on their behalf in favor of the USDP. He added that soldiers in a nearby camp were ready to arrest them if they complained.

On Nov. 5, the local government had already ordered village officials to instruct residents to vote for the USDP. On Nov. 7, the day of the election, USDP agents in campaign uniforms stood at the gate of the polling station in Tedim and asked voters if they intended to vote for the USDP. Those who said yes were allowed into the station, while those who said no were refused entrance.

USDP agents also warned Chin voters in Thantlang town that they should vote for the USDP “while the door was open” or they would regret it, Burma News International reported on Nov. 5.

David Mathieson, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch (HRW), said the intimidation indicated that the junta and the USDP knew how unpopular they were.

Reports by the CHRO show a long history of discrimination against the majority Christian Chin, including the destruction of crosses and other Christian monuments, state-sponsored efforts to expand Buddhism, forced contributions of finance and labor to Buddhist construction projects, arrest and detention, torture and particularly harsh treatment of pastors. In addition, officials have refused construction for all new church building projects since 2003.

A report issued by HRW in January confirmed serious and ongoing abuses against Chin Christians.

One Chin pastor interviewed by HRW described how soldiers held him at gunpoint, forced him to pray in a Buddhist pagoda and told him that Burma was a Buddhist country where Christianity should not be practiced. (See “Report Documents Abuse of Chin Christians,” Feb. 20.)

 

SIDEBAR

Suu Kyi’s Release Stirs Guarded Hope among Burma’s Christians

NEW DELHI, November 18 (Compass Direct News) – The release of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest in Burma on Saturday (Nov. 13) has sparked cautious optimism about human rights among Christians and the country’s ethnic minorities even as the junta does battle with armed resistance groups.

Freeing her six days after elections, the military regime of Burma (also known as Myanmar) kept 1991 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Suu Kyi from running in the country’s first election in 20 years, but ethnic minorities are still “very happy” and “enthused with hope and anticipation,” said Plato Van Rung Mang, who heads the India chapter of Chin Human Rights Organization.

Suu Kyi is the only leader from the majority Burmese community – predominantly Buddhist – who is trusted by the ethnic minorities, said Mang, an India-based Christian originally from Burma’s Chin state, which borders India.

“We have faith in Suu Kyi’s honesty and leadership, and she has been our hope,” he added.

The ethnic Chin, Kachin, Karen and Karenni people – many of whom are Christian – as well as mostly Buddhist ethnic Shan, Mon and Arakanese (some of them Muslim) people have been fighting for self-determination in their respective states and opposing the military junta’s policy of centralized control and Burmese dominion.

“We trust that Suu Kyi can fulfill her father’s ideal and political principles which have been subverted by the Burmese military junta’s Burmanization policy,” said Mang. Suu Kyi’s father, Aung San, was the nation’s leader at the time of independence and favored autonomy for ethnic minorities.

“Just as her father was trusted and held in high esteem by the ethnic people, Aung San Suu Kyi also has the ability to work together with the minorities to build a better, peaceful Burma where the human rights of all citizens are respected and protected,” said Garrett Kostin, a U.S. citizen who runs the Best Friend Library, built by a Buddhist monk in support of Suu Kyi, in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.

While sections of the ethnic communities have been involved in armed resistance against the junta’s rule, many local residents in the region remain unarmed but are also at risk of being killed in the post-election conflict.

In the wake of the Nov. 7 election, as expected (See “Burma’s Ethnic Christians Fear Bleak Future after Election, Oct. 22), clashes between armed ethnic groups and the Burmese army erupted in three of the seven ethnic states – Karen, Shan and Mon – mainly along Thailand and China border, reported Thailand-based Burma News International. The violence has resulted in an influx of over 20,000 people into Thailand – the largest flow in the last five years.

According to US-based Refugees International, the Thai government forced many of the asylum seekers back.

There are also tensions in Kachin and Karenni states, which could erupt at any time, between the Burmese army and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, the Karen National Union, the Kachin Independence Army, the Shan State Army-North, and the Karenni National Progressive Party.

Rights advocates, however, were still heartened by Suu Kyi’s release.

It’s “a wonderful opportunity for the ethnic minorities of Burma to unify in support of each other’s rights and desires,” said Kostin.

In September 2007, many Buddhist monks joined democracy activists in street protests against the military regime’s decision to cut fuel subsidies, leading to a sharp rise in gas and diesel prices. Known as the Saffron Revolution, the protests resulted in hundreds of deaths as government security personnel resisted it militarily.

In numerous clashes between the repressive military regime and political opponents and ethnic minorities, over 3.5 million Burmese have been displaced and thousands killed over the years.

Suu Kyi will continue to enjoy the trust of ethnic minorities because “she has been working so hard since the beginning [of her political career] to speak out about the plight of ethnic people with an honest and sincere commitment,” said Bangkok-based Soe Aung, deputy secretary for Foreign Affairs of the Forum for Democracy in Burma.

Chiang Mai-based Christian relief group Free Burma Rangers (FBR) recalled that Suu Kyi, the general secretary of the National League for Democracy, along with allies won more than 80 percent of the seats in parliament “in Burma’s only truly democratic election” in 1990. “The military regime, however, did not recognize the results and continued to hold power,” it said in a statement.

Last week’s election was “neither free nor fair,” FBR said, adding that “thousands of political prisoners [estimated at 2,200] are still in jail, ethnic minorities are attacked [on a regular basis], and the people of Burma remain under oppression.

“Still, we are grateful for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi as she is a leader who gives real hope to the people of Burma.”

An FBR team leader who spoke on condition of anonymity recalled Suu Kyi requesting his prayers when he met with her during a brief period when she was not under house arrest in 1996.

“The Global Day of Prayer for Burma and the ethnic unity efforts we are involved in are a direct result of that meeting,” the leader said. “As she told me then, one of her favorite quotes is, ‘You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’”

Some Christians, however, remained cautious.

“Although San Suu Kyi wants Burma to be a true federal country, there is no certainty in the hearts of the Karen people because they have suffered for very long, and the so-called Burmese have turned their backs on them several times,” said a Karen Christian from Chiang Mai who identified himself only as Pastor Joseph.

La Rip, a Burmese activist in China, also said that while Suu Kyi deserved to enjoy freedom, she and her party “do not seem to have a clear idea on how to solve the long-standing issues” related to ethnic minorities.

For her part, Suu Kyi spelled out a plan to hold a nationwide, multi-ethnic conference soon after she was freed. Her father held a similar meeting, known as the Panglong Conference, in 1947. Aung San, then representing the Burmese government, reached an agreement with leaders from the Shan, Kachin and Chin states to accept full autonomy in internal administration for the ethnic controlled frontier areas after independence from Britain.

Suu Kyi’s planned conference is seen as the second Panglong Conference, but it remains uncertain if the new Burmese regime, which is likely to be as opposed to ethnic minorities as the junta, will allow her plan to succeed.

In the awaited election results, the junta’s proxy party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), is likely to have majority in parliament to form the next government. Suu Kyi’s party had been disbanded by the military regime, and only a small splinter group ran in the election.

It is also feared that Suu Kyi, who was under house arrest for nearly 15 years since 1990 until her release last weekend, could face assassination attempts or fresh charges followed by another term under arrest.

Burma has a population of around 50 million, out of which around 2.1 million are estimated to be Christian.

Report from Compass Direct News

SOMALIA: KENYAN PASTOR BEATEN AT SOMALILAND BORDER

Immigration officials threaten to kill convert from Islam unless he renounces faith.

NAIROBI, Kenya, May 8 (Compass Direct News) – A pastor trying to visit Somalia’s autonomous, self-declared state of Somaliland earlier this year discovered just how hostile the separatist region can be to Christians.

A convert from Islam, Abdi Welli Ahmed is an East Africa Pentecostal Church pastor from Kenya who in February tried to visit and encourage Christians, an invisibly tiny minority, in the religiously intolerant region of Somaliland.

Born and raised in Kenya’s northern town of Garissa, Ahmed first traveled to Addis Ababa, the capital of neighboring Ethiopia. When he arrived by car at the border crossing of Wajaale on Feb. 19 with all legal travel documents, his Bible and other Christian literature landed him in unexpected trouble with Somaliland immigration officials.

“I was beaten up for being in possession of Christian materials,” Ahmed told Compass. “They threatened to kill me if I did not renounce my faith, but I refused to their face. They were inhuman.”

Ahmed said the chief border official in Wajaale, whom he could identify only by his surname of Jama, took charge of most of the torturing. Ahmed said their threats were heart-numbing as they struggled to subdue him, with Jama and others saying they had killed two Somali Christians and would do the same to him.

His pleas that he was a Kenyan whose faith was respected in his home country, he said, fell on deaf ears.

“I was abused, and they also abused my faith as the religion for pagans, which they said is unacceptable in their region,” he said. “I told them that I am Kenyan-born and brought up in Kenya, and my Christian faith is respected and recognized in Garissa.”

Jama ordered Ahmed’s incarceration, and he was locked up in an immigration cell for nine hours. The officials took from his bag three CDs containing his personal credentials and Christian educational literature. They also took his English Bible, two Christian books and US$400, he said.

Ahmed said he was released with the aid of an unnamed Ethiopian friend.

“They warned me to never dare step into or think of going to Somaliland again,” said Ahmed, who doubles as a relief and development worker.

On March 22 he sent letters of complaint to Ethiopian, Kenyan and even presumably less-than-sympathetic Somaliland officials; none has shown any signs of pursuing justice, he said.

Compass e-mailed a copy of the letter to Alexander O. Oxiolo, head of consular affairs at Ethiopia’s Foreign Affairs ministry, who subsequently denied receiving it. When Compass printed the letter and took a hard copy to him, Oxiolo said he could not act on it because the complainant had not signed it.

He also questioned whether Ahmed was a Christian because of his Muslim name, apparently expecting him to have changed it after conversion.

Ahmed converted to Christianity in 1990. Soon after he was baptized in 1995, Ahmed came under threat from Muslims and fled to Niger in 1996, where he married. He and his wife returned to Kenya in 2000, Ahmed said, and since then he has received a steady stream of threats from Muslims in Garissa. On several occasions he has been forced to leave Garissa for months at a time, he said, waiting for tensions to cool.

Ahmed was ordained in 2004.

Report from Compass Direct News