Chinese investors flock to Riyadh conference seeking new markets, capital
Robert Mogielnicki, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, said one key reason for Saudi-Chinese linkages strengthening is that the Arab country is looking for major growth areas via international partnerships. “The calculation here is that there (is) much to gain from more cooperation with China,”Continue Reading
Thousands evacuated in China’s Tianjin after cracks appear near high-rises
BEIJING: Thousands of people were evacuated from several high-rise apartment buildings in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin in recent days after land collapses created large cracks on nearby streets, according to state media and the local government. Large fissures appeared on roads near a residential complex in Tianjin’s JinnanContinue Reading
Thereâs history behind S Koreaâs nuclear desire
If you’re American and, like most Americans, you don’t pay much attention to South Korean politics, you may have been surprised by the announcement Joe Biden and South Korea’s Yoon Suk Yeol made when Yoon visited Washington in April.
The two presidents issued a “Washington Declaration” that gives South Korea a say in any US use of nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula and commits the South Koreans not to develop their own nukes.
It’s fair to say most Americans were unaware that the South Koreans were thinking about getting the bomb. But they were – and, although Yoon signed, it’s by no means certain that the declaration has extinguished those thoughts.
South Korea is a solid US ally, a free-market democracy that both hosts 28,000 American troops on its soil and has sent its own troops to fight alongside the US in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. It paid 90% of the US$10.8 billion to build up the base south of Seoul used by US troops.
South Korea is an important country for US farmers and ranchers. It’s the number 6 overseas market for US ag products, having bought $9.34 billion worth in 2022. Whereas many countries only import commodities from the US, the South Koreans’ biggest purchase, to the tune of $2.7 billion, was a value-added product, beef.
According to Pew Research Center, 89% of South Koreans have a favorable view of the United States, the most in Asia and second worldwide only to Poland. Think about that: The South Korean public views the US favorably but prefers not to rely on the US nuclear umbrella.
Despite the strong ties, the south Korean president was talking earlier this year about developing nukes. Polls showed 71% of South Koreans in favor.
It’s not hard to guess why. The unimpressive US withdrawal from Afghanistan couldn’t have inspired confidence in South Korea. There’s also concern that a re-elected Donald Trump might resume his push to withdraw US troops from South Korea.
And with North Korea having missiles capable of reaching the continental US, South Koreans naturally wonder: Would the US put San Francisco at risk to save Seoul?
US reliability was also in question the last time South Korea contemplated developing nukes. That was during the 1970s, when the US was pulling out of South Vietnam and Cambodia.
Seoul backed off when Washington said South Korea could have either a US alliance or nuclear weapons but not both. Seoul chose the alliance.
Back then, South Korea was a poor developing country ruled by a dictator. Today it’s a developed country that elects its rulers. For some South Koreans, having nuclear weapons is about national prestige as much as security. Their starving, backward cousins to the north have nukes. Why shouldn’t they?
Perhaps as important as worries about US reliability is the increasing seriousness of the threat. North Korea is clearly not going to be talked out of its nukes. The US has all but stopped trying.
What about MAD?
Would it really be such a bad thing if South Korea developed its own nuclear weapons? It would clearly be a blow to nuclear nonproliferation, a policy supported by every president for the last seven decades, including Trump.
Although that policy hasn’t stopped proliferation, it has limited it. In the early 1960s, President John F Kennedy predicted that by 1975, 10 to 20 countries would have nuclear weapons. The world only got to nine recently, when North Korea got the bomb.
A devil’s advocate might say, “Let mutually assured destruction work its magic.” India and Pakistan defied the nuclear nonproliferation consensus and neither has used nukes against the other. Might not a South Korean bomb actually lessen the risk of nuclear catastrophe by deterring North Korea?
Non-proliferation advocates have a ready answer. The greater the number of countries that have nuclear weapons, the greater the chances of a nuclear catastrophe owing to accident or miscalculation or the increased risk of terrorists getting nukes.
President Biden has stressed that the US umbrella provides deterrence, vowing that any North Korean nuclear attack on the US or its allies would “result in the end” of the regime in Pyongyang.
By offering South Korea more say in the use of US weapons, the Biden administration hopes to prevent yet another country from going nuclear. Graham Allison, a noted Harvard expert, calls the Washington Declaration a “big deal.”
Whether it’s a big enough deal to head off further nuclear proliferation remains to be seen.
This article, originally published on June 2 by the latter news organization and now republished by Asia Times with permission, is © Copyright 2023 DTN/The Progressive Farmer. All rights reserved. Follow Urban Lehner on Twitter: @urbanize
The divisive debate over California’s anti-caste bill
Prem PariyarA bill introduced to make caste discrimination illegal in California is set to come up for discussion in the state assembly this week. Savita Patel, a California-based independent journalist, speaks to those supporting and opposing the bill becoming a law.
Sukhjinder Kaur*, a nurse at a hospital in California, works long and tiring hours serving patients. But whenever it’s break time, things become oppressive.
She is a Dalit (a community that is placed at the bottom of India’s deeply discriminatory caste hierarchy) and says she often faces casteist insults from her South Asian colleagues.
Dalit rights activists say scores of caste-oppressed Californians face housing, educational, professional, and social discrimination.
In March, Senator Aisha Wahab, a lawmaker from the Democratic Party, authored and introduced the SB-403 bill – legislation that seeks to add caste as a protected category in the state’s anti-discrimination laws alongside gender, race, religion and disability.
The bill was passed by the state’s senate in May with a 34-1 vote. If it goes through in the state assembly, California will become the first US state to ban caste discrimination.
“Nurses from upper castes pass slurs about chamars [a pejorative term for Dalits] being dirty and polluting,” says Ms Kaur, who is among those who are in favour of the law.
In February, Seattle became the first city in the US – and outside South Asia – to outlaw caste discrimination, generating momentum for the legislation in California. It is being propelled by the same broad multi-faith, inter-caste, multi-racial coalition of over 40 American and international Dalit and human rights activists and organisations, led by California-based Equality Labs.
California has a large South Asian diaspora and is home to some of the world’s biggest tech companies.
The state is home to more than half of the 500,000-plus Sikh population in the US and gurudwaras (Sikh temples) in California have been mobilising momentum to outlaw caste discrimination.
Two of the community’s largest advocacy groups – The Sikh Coalition and Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund – support the bill. Among Sikhs, it is the Ravidasia community – the largest Dalit community in the state with approximately 15,000-20,000 members – which is advocating for the bill at grassroots level.
Renu Singh, who follows the Ravidasia tradition and is also a women’s rights activist, has been urging women to speak about their own experiences of caste discrimination and those they see around them so that lawmakers understand the gravity of the issue.
Data from an Equality Lab study shows that one in four caste-oppressed people from the South Asian American diaspora have faced physical and verbal violence; one in three has faced discrimination in education, and two out of three have experienced workplace discrimination.
It was the first extensive study of caste distribution and its effects in the US and had over 1,500 respondents. The findings, published in 2018, say that those from “lower castes” fear retaliation and worry about being “outed” and hence “hide their caste”.
However, a significant section of the Indian diaspora rejects caste discrimination claims.
Deepak Aldrin, a San Francisco-based Dalit activist is not in favour of the bill. “I’ve lived here for 35 years. No Hindu has ever asked me what caste I belong to,” he says.
The bill is meeting strong opposition from many Indian-American individuals, religious and professional groups, who argue that even though it does not specifically name their religion, it will “discriminate against Hindus, their places of worship and even make them less hiring worthy”.
They say the existing laws in California are sufficient to address any discrimination and are mobilising the community to urge their lawmakers to disallow the legislation to proceed.
Many businesses and Hindu temples under HinduPACT – an American Hindu grassroots advocacy initiative – have appealed to California lawmakers to reject the bill. Its convenor Ajay Shah says that the legislation is “deeply flawed, ill-intentioned and targets children and youth from the Indian subcontinent and those who follow the Hindu dharma [Hinduism].”
Suhag Shukla, co-founder and executive director of the Hindu American Foundation, says this bill is already creating an “undesirable” awareness about caste. She says she has been “hearing inappropriate queries from workers, especially in tech, who are being asked about their caste by non-South Asians”. She says if this becomes a pattern, it can be grounds for ethnicity-based harassment.
The foundation has sued the state in a federal court for an “unconstitutional definition of caste” and has also challenged the addition of caste to its non-discrimination policy, saying that it “singles out one community for ethnic profiling and additional policing”.
Those opposing the bill say they are also perplexed as to how the state plans to identify an individual’s caste since it’s a very complex issue, .
The bill, Ms Wahab explains, does not include details for identifying caste, similar to other protected categories.
“There is no language on how caste will be determined. This is simply an anti-discrimination bill. When somebody takes a matter up to the courts, that is usually when subject matter experts are engaged, the type of discrimination potentially that has taken place [is investigated].”
Ms Wahab says she has received “death threats” after proposing the bill. She now faces a recall campaign and a possible re-election. She adds that the “visceral reaction” to the bill is “disheartening” and has urged Californians to read the bill.
“Whether you’re upper caste or lower caste, it does not matter, it will protect you as well,” she says.
*Some names have been changed to protect identity.
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Rice Dept in Move Forward Party’s crosshairs
The Move Forward Party (MFP) has launched its own investigation into claims of irregular spending for an event organised by the Department of Rice, saying state officials should be warned that the incoming government will not tolerate corruption in office.
At a press conference on Thursday, Karoonpon Tieansuwan, MFP deputy spokesman, said the party had received a complaint from officials in the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives about the lack of budgeting transparency for an event dubbed “Rice Day and National Farmers”, which was held from June 5-7 at the department’s headquarters.
Mr Karoonpon said the budget request becomes even more suspicious when the event’s entire timeline is considered.
On Feb 20, the department earmarked 15 million baht to stage the event, which is aimed at sharing knowledge and best practices among rice farmers nationwide, at an event hall in Pathum Thani. A few weeks after, the department decided to hold the event at its headquarters, bringing down the budget needed to 7.5 million baht.
However, on May 9, it was decided that the event would be a three-day event instead of two. On the same day, the department revised its budget request to 12.5 million baht — a five-million-baht jump for organising an extra day of activities — a decision that was questioned by the complainants.
Later, the party discovered only one company out of the four invited took part in the bidding for the event. Mr Karoonpon said this company had won many contracts from the Department of Rice. Furthermore, a team of MFP members who visited the event said the number of visitors was far less than the 30,000 the department had claimed would attend the event in the bidding terms of references (TOR) and that many of the event’s participants had been paid to show up at the event.
The party had previously estimated that state-owned agencies had spent over a billion baht to organise events in a year.
“In a MFP-led government, it will not happen. Any improper budget must be cancelled, as they should be used to fund the country’s development and improve the quality of life,” he said.
Meanwhile, department chief, Nattakit Kongthip, said everything followed ministerial regulations and the cabinet resolution.
Meddling claim sparks excise probe
The Excise Department has come under fire after it was claimed that one of its high-ranking officials attempted to persuade the police to release a truck which had been seized for carrying 15,000 litres of smuggled oil.
Deputy director-general of the department, Kriangkrai Pattanapon, said a committee had been formed on Wednesday to look into the claim, which surfaced following the arrest of a 47-year-old truck driver identified only as Sombat in Prachuap Khiri Khan’s Muang district.
The truck driven by Mr Sombat was intercepted by the police on Phetkasem Highway in tambon Koh Lak as it made its way to the Central Plains on Saturday evening. Officers discovered the truck was loaded with 15,000 litres of oil of unknown origin.
Right after he was arrested, one of the officers at the scene reportedly received a phone call from the high-level Excise Department official, who was trying to secure the release of both the truck and its driver.
However, the police rejected the request, he said, adding the department and the police’s Anti-Corruption Division will be jointly conducting an investigation into the matter.
“If there is evidence which implicates a high-level executive, the department will verify it and take disciplinary action without any leniency,” the deputy director-general said.
On Thursday, anti-crime activist Atchariya Ruangratanapong urged the Anti-Corruption Division to expand the investigation into the case.
Speaking to the press at the Anti-Corruption Division headquarters, he said the official in question is a deputy director-general and that the truck was en route to Pathum Thani in the Central Plains from Songkhla in the South.
He said excise officials in Prachuap Khiri Khan had been instructed to let the truck and the driver pass, but they were unable to do so because the police had already impounded the truck.
He added that oil smuggling from the South occurs almost nightly, before raising questions about the whereabouts of the impounded truck.
India attempts to revive its dwindling rubber industry
Getty ImagesFor more than 30 years Babu Joseph has been tending rubber trees on his small farm in the southern Indian state of Kerala.
Kerala used to be home to thousands of producers like him, who made a living extracting latex from small plantations of rubber trees, but over the last decade those numbers have dwindled.
“Rubber was once the state’s prime cash crop but over the past decade, prices have plunged,” he explains.
Tapping rubber trees is a labour-intensive activity. In the evening or early morning workers slice through the bark with cuts deep enough to allow the latex to run out and be collected in buckets – a process that is repeated on each tree every few days.
It requires some skill to make the incisions to the correct depth without damaging the tree.
Paying workers to do that amid falling prices has made plantations an unattractive business.
“Poor returns and high labour costs have forced many of the growers like me to give up their rubber plantations,” says Mr Joseph.
India’s rubber production peaked in 2013 at 913,700 tonnes, according to figures from the country’s Rubber Board.
Production then fell dramatically to 562,000 tonnes in 2016. Since then it has seen a modest recovery but remains well below the 2013 peak.
The boom years were fuelled by favourable weather and the rising price of natural rubber, which peaked on the international markets at 540 cents/kg in 2011.
But as Mr Joseph noted, prices have plunged – trading this year at 130 cents/kg.
While domestic production has stuttered, demand for natural rubber in India has soared. Around 70% of India’s natural rubber is consumed by the tyre industry, which has grown rapidly in recent years and is forecast to grow further.
“Consumption growth is expected to race ahead of production growth,” says Rajiv Budhraja, director general of the Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association (ATMA).
“The wide gap between natural rubber production and consumption… is a major concern for the Indian rubber goods sector,” he adds.
He says tyre manufacturers are not happy to rely on imports for such a crucial material and also want to support the government’s Make In India initiative.
Importing rubber has hurt Indian producers, says Prasad Purushothama from the Rubber Board.
Usually, he says, international rubber prices are lower than those in the domestic market. So imports tend to drive down prices, further discouraging domestic producers.
The industry is trying to revive domestic production. Four members of the ATMA in partnership with the Rubber Board have a plan to create 200,000 hectares of new rubber plantations in Northeast India and West Bengal.
“The project is progressing as planned,” says Mr Budhraja. “In about four to five years from now, the Northeast will emerge as a large natural rubber production base in India.”
There’s also hope that India’s rubber growers can become competitive again with the help of technology.
On the outskirts of Guwahati in the state of Assam, a Rubber Board research farm is growing the world’s first genetically modified (GM) rubber plants, tailored for the climatic conditions of Northeast India.
Rubber plants originate from the Amazon, so favour warm, humid climates.
But the genes of the experimental plants have been tweaked so that they can survive in hotter, colder or drier conditions.
“GM technology is the future of rubber plantations,” says Jessy MD, deputy director at the Rubber Research Institute of India.
“It will add on qualities to the existing cultivated clones, which is not possible through conventional methods,” he says.
That’s going to be particularly important as weather conditions in Kerala, the traditional area of rubber cultivation, are changing.
“Climate change is one of the major challenges that will affect rubber farming in the coming years,” says Mr Purushothama.
The hope is that the new trees will mean rubber production can expand to new areas.
The rubber trees of Assam are under evaluation and it will be some years before they make much of an impact on India’s domestic production.
In the meantime some rubber producers are turning to other technology.
Chinmayan MK has an 18-acre rubber plantation in Kerala, where he uses machines to tap the rubber.
“The machines are costly but once used it’s much better than traditional techniques,” he says.
With the machine, workers with no experience can start tapping rubber. With a little practise they can tap as fast, or faster, than workers using knives.
The motorised tapping machine is the solution to the lack of tapping workers, says Mr MK.
According to him, the machines have resulted in a 60% rise in output on his plantation, while costs have fallen by 40%.
“In the beginning I was reluctant, but today my entire plantation works on machines,” he says, adding that innovation is needed to reverse the decline of Kerala’s rubber plantations.
“Many of the plantations have become old and need to be revived. But most of them are selling their land instead of finding a way to increase the production.”
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DLT targets licence vendors
The Department of Land Transport (DLT) has lodged complaints with the police after an elected MP from the Move Forward Party (MFP) revealed the names of people selling driver’s licences illegally.
On Wednesday, MP-elect Wiroj Lakkhanaadisorn posted on his official Facebook page that he had found several people advertising online how they can provide driver’s licences for people who do not wish to take the driving test but are willing to pay for the service.
Mr Wiroj posted screenshots of customers who had received valid driver’s licences certified by the DLT, even though they had not taken the driving test.
“People who did not pass [the DLT’s] driving test can hold a driver’s licence and drive along with everybody else on the road. This will increase road accidents for both drivers and pedestrians,” Mr Wiroj wrote.
DLT deputy director-general Seksom Akaraphan said the department had lodged complaints with the police to try and stamp this out.
He said the DLT had filed 458 reports about unauthorised driver’s licence services, and it will consistently hunt down those who violate the law.
The DLT filed reports with the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB) on June 6. It also sent its undercover staff to get those offering the illegal service to reveal their mule accounts before submitting evidence to police, reports said.
Mr Seksom said that information about applications for and authorisations of driver’s licences can only be found on the DLT’s website or its official Facebook page — PR DLT News.
He said applicants must submit their documents, such as a health certificate and the results of their driving test, at transportation offices or DLT-certified driving schools in person.
People can make online appointments via the DLT Smart Queue mobile app. The fee to register for a licence for a personal car or motorbike ranges from around 100 to 500 baht, said Mr Seksom.
40 police transferred over ‘bribe stickers’
High-ranking police ensnared in dragnet
About 40 highway police allegedly involved in a scheme to take kickbacks from illegally overloaded trucks by issuing so-called “bribe stickers” will be transferred to inactive posts, Pol Maj Gen Jaroonkiat Pankaew, the Counter Corruption Division (CCD) commander, said on Thursday.
Speaking in his capacity as the acting Highway Police Division (HPD) commander, he said the suspects were both commissioned and non-commissioned officers up to the rank of lieutenant colonel.
They will be ordered to perform temporary duties at the HPD this week, said Pol Maj Gen Jaroonkiat.
Meanwhile, the Office of the Inspector-General (OIG) of the Royal Thai Police is being urged to wrap up its probe into the matter within 15 days.
According to Pol Gen Visanu Prasarttong-Osoth, a police inspector-general, both legal action and disciplinary measures will be taken against any officers found to have been involved in the scheme.
The statement came after Move Forward Party (MFP) MP-elect Wiroj Lakkhanaadisorn and Land Transport Federation of Thailand (LTFT) chairman Apichart Prairungruang submitted evidence regarding the matter to the OIG on Thursday.
Mr Wiroj, who brought the matter to light on his social media accounts last week, said the evidence was compiled from the LTFT and members of the public.
He said he received positive feedback from the OIG and the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) regarding the evidence, adding he is now relying on the police to probe deeper into the case.
Yet Mr Wiroj expressed concern about how the police would handle such a case that impugns their reputation, for example, by using the truck drivers as scapegoats or trying to pin the blame on lorries being “accidentally overweight”, especially for those that broke the law by up to 200 kilogrammes.
Mr Apichart said this is the first time in 20 years that personnel from the OIG had heard of such bribes.
Commenting on an open letter that some LTFT members sent this week to the MFP expressing their disappointment at the federation’s apparent lack of transparency, Mr Apichart said he hopes to engage in dialogue with them.
In other news, MFP leader and prime ministerial candidate Pita Limjaroenrat met with the Anti-Corruption Organisation of Thailand (ACT) on Thursday to discuss adapting AI to fight graft on public-invested projects, especially vis-a-vis site inspections.
The policy should be ready within 100 days, said Mr Pita, adding that more discussions with the ACT are needed first to hammer out details.