Asia & Pacific Archives - Foreign Policy In Focus

Jiang’s Game and Hu’s Advantages

by Cheng Li | Nov 1, 2002

The much-anticipated 16th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which ended in early November, followed the classic rhythm in China studies: optimism alternating with cynicism, certainty giving way to ambiguity. Many observers believed that Jiang Zemin would step down, thus signifying the first institutionalized transition of power in the country. Yet this optimistic view was undermined by Jiang’s decision to pass on only his post of general secretary of the Party to his successor, Hu Jintao, but to retain his chairmanship of the Central Military Commission (CMC). Combined with the fact that Jiang’s cronies now occupy two-thirds of the seats on the newly formed nine-member standing committee of the Politburo makes observers even more cynical about this political succession.

Collateral Damage Means Real People

by Ben Kiernan | Nov 1, 2002

When U.S. bombs hit a civilian warehouse in Afghanistan last year, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld responded: “We’re not running out of targets, Afghanistan is.” There was laughter in the press gallery.

Good Cop, Bad Cop at the UN

by Ian Williams | Nov 1, 2002

Resolution 1441 is more an alternative “legal” road to war rather than an alternative to war itself. Extrapolating from Saddam Hussein’s previous behavior, the Security Council resolution will lead to war as surely as a position of unilateral U.S. belligerence. The Iraqi ruler will need an unprecedented political and psychological makeover to eat the copious and indigestible helpings of humble pie that the UN resolution prescribes being shoveled down his maw.

North Korea is Asking for Too Much in the Nuclear Crisis–Or is It?

by Anthony DiFilippo | Nov 1, 2002

Although it is generally known that the recent North Korean crisis has deep roots, what is not understood is just how these roots have grown over the past several years.

Violence in Papua: The Role of Military Elements in Perpetuating Violence

by Anthony L. Smith | Nov 1, 2002

Two Americans and one Indonesian were killed on August 31 at the hands of an unknown assailant near the Freeport mining operation in Timika, Papua. Initially the Indonesian army blamed a radical wing of the Free Papua Movement. However, according to a report by FBI officers investigating the case, the army fabricated evidence. Also, the Indonesian police have stated that they believe soldiers were very likely involved in this attack. This incident has occurred against a backdrop that raises serious questions about the nature of Indonesia’s rule over the province, and the role of the military in particular, since Indonesia took effective control in 1962.

In Afghanistan, Paying for War is Easier than Paying for Peace

by Frida Berrigan | Nov 1, 2002

As Washington prepares for war in Iraq, officials are trying to reassure Afghanistan that it will not be lost in the shuffle. Muhammad Ali, heavy weight champ and UN Messenger of Peace, recently completed a three-day tour of Afghanistan where he tried to focus international attention on the country’s plight and gave volleyballs and jumping ropes to children. U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill also came, bearing promises that the war in Iraq would not derail Washington’s commitment to rebuilding Afghanistan.

Afghanistan: Donor Inaction and Ineffectiveness

by Mark Sedra | Oct 1, 2002

The fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in November 2001 presented the international community with an unprecedented opportunity to restore peace and security to a perennial trouble spot. Almost one year later it appears that it has failed.

After Bali, The Need to Understand

by Paul Rogers | Oct 1, 2002

The massacre in Bali was the most terrible in a series of recent incidents that reveal Al Qaeda’s continuing activity. From Yemen to Kuwait and Pakistan, is the entanglement of the U.S. in the Islamic world actually serving the group’s long-term strategy? If so, the vital need at this critical moment in the war on terror is not more rhetoric, but deeper understanding.

The Arrogance of Power

by Jim Lobe | Sep 1, 2002

Two years after the passage by a unanimous House of Representatives and all but two senators of the August 7, 1964, Gulf of Tonkin resolution, and amid continuing escalation of the Vietnam War, then Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman J. William Fulbright published The Arrogance of Power, in which he attacked the war’s justification, Congress’ failure to set limits on it, and the dangerous and delusional impulses that gave rise to it. Fulbright’s critique, to which he had already given voice in unprecedented hearings on the war, legitimized the growing anti-war movement in a way that had not been possible before the book’s publication and shattered what until then had been an elite consensus that U.S. military intervention in Indochina was necessitated by cold war geopolitics.

Afghanistan Quagmire

by Jim Lobe | Sep 1, 2002

Afghanistan is beginning to look like a quagmire rather than a victory, with echoes of the confusion and uncertainty and persistent bloodshedding of Vietnam. Compounding the complications of the U.S. goal of hunting down the Taliban and Al Qaeda while stabilizing a fragile government is the swirl of ethnic tensions in Afghanistan fueled by competing warlords.