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Bangladesh, owing to its geostrategic significance, has for some time faced immense pressure from both the United States and China regarding its stance on their competition. Due to its neutral, balancing policy, it has been stuck in the middle of the power rivalry.

For instance, a former Chinese envoy has warned the country not to join in Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, while the United States has expressed its desire for Bangladesh to support the US Indo-Pacific strategy on several occasions. Regional politics and the Sino-Indian rivalry have also brought new challenges.

Amid such a complex political space, Bangladesh’s neutral and balancing “Indo-Pacific Outlook,” released two months ago, is a fine example of its practice of self-determination. On April 24 – one day before Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina visited Japan – the country’s foreign ministry formally announced the much-awaited document.

The outlook highlights Bangladesh’s independence, self-determination, guiding principles, and firm belief in the existing liberal international order. Against this backdrop, it is worth assessing the document, which positions Bangladesh as an example for other small states on how to participate in the liberal order yet remain neutral in an era of great power competition.

Bangladesh’s ‘Outlook‘

The outlook’s announcement holds a great deal of significance for the country’s foreign relations. The Bangladeshi prime minister’s Japan visit was crucial for both nations, as eight memorandums of understanding were signed during the visit. Moreover, Hasina visited the United States and the United Kingdom directly afterward.

The 15-point outlook views security as a prerequisite for economic prosperity. In it, Dhaka clarifies that it has no intention of picking sides in the ongoing geopolitical rivalry between China, on the one hand, and the United States and its allies on the other.

It should be noted that the term “Indo-Pacific” is, itself, of Western origin, and China has criticized its use as part of a strategy to contain China. However, as Bangladesh has traditionally practiced a balanced foreign policy, it appears unconcerned about the Chinese reaction to such a concept – and China has, thus far, not reacted to Bangladesh’s outlook.

Bangladesh does believe in a free, open, peaceful, secure and inclusive Indo-Pacific and considers the stability and prosperity of the region essential to its Vision-2041, which expresses its aspiration to emerge as a developed nation by 2041.

In the outlook, clearly with a view to the increasing pressure put on “swing” states to join the sides of great powers, Bangladesh also clarifies that it believes in international relations based on the principles of respect for national sovereignty and equality, political independence, non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations and peaceful settlement of international disputes.

Bangladesh also reaffirms adherence to the relevant UN treaties and international conventions such as the United States Convention on the Law of the Sea. It also emphasizes the strengthening of mutual trust and respect, forging partnerships and cooperation and promoting dialogue among the nations. Moreover, it calls for strengthening existing mechanisms on maritime safety and security in the Indo-Pacific.

Bangladesh’s outlook also prioritizes enhancing physical, institutional, energy, digital and human connectivity, facilitating the movement of goods, services, capital and people across state boundaries.

Across the region, Bangladesh’s outlook also calls for fostering cooperation among Indo-Pacific countries. The 15 points also include collaboration with sub-regional partners and relevant organizations for regional cooperation and mutual benefits.

Balancing the great power rivalries

A look at the 15-point document suggests that Bangladesh reaffirms its belief in the liberal order. Accommodating the free and open Indo-Pacific and reaffirming its belief in the peaceful settlement of disputes is an example of such claims. Bangladesh’s belief in liberal values and norms facilitates the interests of Western countries, such as the United States and its allies, in maintaining the status quo.

On the other hand, Bangladesh’s emphasis on connectivity and free movement of goods and services facilitates the interests of emerging powers such as China and India. Hence, the outlook may allow the country to equalize tensions among great powers, especially amid the current geopolitical rivalry.

The outlook also emphasizes sub-regional and other relevant organizations for mutual benefit. For the past few years, Bangladesh has deepened its engagement with ASEAN and attended mini-laterals such as the Colombo Security Conclave. It is also the current chair of the Indian Ocean Rim Organization.

Such subregional and minilateral organizations will help the country to ensure security in the region without picking any sides. And, lastly, Bangladesh’s incorporation of multilateralism and sustainable development goals also suggests that the country is likely to rely on global platforms and forums for its security. Emphasis on these organizations will allow Bangladesh to remain neutral while ensuring security at the same time.

Moreover, to assure the great powers of its intentions, Bangladesh has incorporated both the “connectivity” philosophy of emerging great powers – such as China and, to an extent, India – to expand their connections with the world through infrastructure, mobility and cooperation in various sectors, but also liberal values such as the free and open Indo-Pacific valued by Western powers.

Perhaps it is tough for a neutral state to embrace both. The efficacy of such an outlook is largely dependent upon its diplomacy and national power.

In any case, this stance is in keeping with Bangladesh’s long-practiced principles such as friendship to all, malice towards none, balanced and neutral foreign policy, and multilateralism.

An example for other littoral and small states?

It seems Bangladesh’s outlook may emerge as successful for the foreseeable future. Through the outlook and subsequent tilt towards Japan, perhaps the country aims to balance between Chinese and Western states. Like many other countries, Bangladesh prefers to sit on the fence in current great power rivalries.

Hence, the country aims to manage great power interest geo-economically – a much-neglected yet very relevant approach.

Two major actions by Bangladesh – joining China’s Belt and Road Initiative and approving a deep-sea port project with Japan – suggest that Dhaka aims to provide equal geo-economic opportunity for both blocs while satisfying its infrastructural demand. But success will largely depend on the country’s diplomatic prudence and policy execution.

In the present context, the littorals and small states require peace and security for their nation’s prosperity. Amid such complex interdependence, they rely almost entirely on the great powers and powerhouses for their wide-ranging commercial, economic, and security activities. Therefore, picking a side becomes a zero-sum game and poses a challenge to their interdependence.

Bangladesh’s Indo-Pacific Outlook has the potential to ensure both in this context. It promotes a positive-sum game and stays away from any side-picking. Its reliance on multilateralism and neutral policy is also beneficial for cooperation. Hence, it is an exemplary outlook for states such as Sri Lanka or Maldives or any other small and littoral Indo-Pacific states.

A small state that cannot afford side-picking should maintain a balance between the great powers, as Bangladesh has done, and mobilize its geo-economic means to equalize the stakes among them.

Doreen Chowdhury ([email protected]) is a doctoral researcher at the University of Groningen.

This article was first published by Pacific Forum. Asia Times is republishing it with permission.

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China’s government is urging the nation’s fusion energy physicists to redouble and accelerate their efforts in view of recent key breakthroughs in the field made by US and Japanese scientists.

Chinese state media reported that Science and Technology Minister Wang Zhigang inspected the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) experimental fusion reactor and met with local scientists at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) where it is housed earlier this month.

Wang did not say whether the Chinese government will provide more funding for fusion projects, though it is expected that if scientists develop sound proposals with clear goals the government will direct state-owned enterprises to invest.

“How can scientific technology be applied in power engineering? What stage is our fusion power technology at?” Wang, who studied telecommunications in Xidian University from 1978-1982, asked physicists in a closed-door forum on June 7.

Wang said Chinese scientists must study Party General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important speech about China’s goal of technological self-sufficiency and try to realize the potential of fusion energy.

“We need to discuss which fusion technology to adopt. Magnetic confinement fusion, fusion-fission hybrid or hydrogen-boron fusion have their pros and cons and timetables for breakthroughs,” he said. “Everyone is now talking about the commercial applications of fusion power. We should plan backward from this and see what to do in the next steps.”

Magnetic confinement fusion is what most countries, including China, are currently pursuing. Plasma particles flow and fuse in the magnetic field of a tokamak, a donut-shaped machine first developed by Soviet scientists in 1958. 

Fusion-fission hybrid is similar but the fast neutron created by fusion will hit and split up uranium-238 or thorium-232, creating nuclear waste. This reaction can be seen in the explosion of a hydrogen bomb. Some scientists have tried to use this technology to reduce nuclear waste.

Hydrogen-boron fusion combines proton and boron to become helium and release energy. It was achieved in February in Japan’s Large Helical Device, which is similar to a tokamak but as the name suggests has a helical shape.

Wan Yuanxi, an 84-year-old academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said China has already proven the feasibility of using a tokamak to develop fusion power and that the next step is to achieve power generation.

Wan said China needs to invest more in scientific research, develop core technologies and build related infrastructure while setting a clear roadmap with improved regulations to realize fusion energy use as soon as possible.

Since the 1970s, China has built small and medium-sized tokamaks such as the HL-1 and HL-1M in the Southwestern Institute of Physics (SWIP) in Chengdu and the HT-6B and HT-6M at the Institute of Plasma Physics (ASIPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Hefei.

The government had included a fusion-fission hybrid project in its 863 program, a high-technology development plan launched in 1987, but terminated the project in 2000.

In 2006, China joined the France-based International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) – the world’s largest fusion project supported by the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the US. Its stated goals are to commence deuterium-tritium operations by 2035 and make power generation for commercial use by 2050.

China agreed in 2006 to take up 10% of the collaborative effort’s scientific research tasks and that same year launched the EAST (HT-7U).

In May 2021, the EAST achieved 101 seconds of steady-state high-confinement mode (H-mode) operation at 120 million degrees. In December 2021, it maintained a stable plasma at 70 million degrees for 1,056 seconds. On April 12 this year, it achieved the world’s first 403-second steady-state H-mode plasma.

By comparison, the France-based Tungsten Environment in Steady-state Tokamak (WEST), formerly called Tore Supra, achieved 390 seconds at 70 million degrees in 2003. Japan’s JT-60SA achieved 28.6 seconds at 100 million degrees in 2006. It sustained plasmas of up to 200 million degrees for 100 seconds. It can reach up to 522 million degrees.

Li Jiangang, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a physicist at ASIPP, said his team has failed in experiments at least 50,000 times over the past 20 years. Li said it is a long process to boost the EAST’s temperature from several million degrees to over 100 million degrees.

Song Yuntao, director of ASIPP, said the unit had worked with 120 fusion research institutes from 45 countries in the past and is visited by about 500 foreign experts each year. Chinese media said EAST owns 2,000 patents and that 80% of its core parts and raw materials are supplied by Chinese firms.

On December 13 last year, the US Department of Energy (DOE) and its National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced that scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) achieved a net gain of energy by delivering 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy to a target, an experiment which produced 3.15 MJ of fusion energy output.

The DOE said the experiment demonstrated for the first time a fundamental scientific basis for inertial fusion energy. Scientists have said if a reactor can achieve 10 ignitions per second, fusion power generation is possible. Media reports said the LLNL experiment used about 200 lasers and did not use a tokamak to enable a fusion reaction.

Last month, Helion Energy, a US startup backed by Sam Altman, who has also invested in artificial intelligence firm OpenAI, said Helion plans to supply Microsoft with 50 megawatts of fusion electricity in 2028. The firm said it will use a self-developed tool called Polaris, which points two laser beams at each other to create plasmas.

“The LLNL’s ignition has an important meaning as it is a big step for mankind to realize fusion energy,” a Guangdong-based technology columnist wrote in an article. “But there is a very long way to go before people can actually use fusion power.”
 
Citing a CNN report, the columnist said the amount of energy produced by the ignition was still small, likening it to just enough to boil 10 kettles of water. He claimed the US spent a decade and several billion dollars to achieve such a small ignition, demonstrating how difficult the process is.

He also says people should not directly compare the progress of the US and China as the latter will use another ignition method.  

Last September, Peng Xianjue, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, was quoted by the South China Morning Post as saying that fusion power will be available in China by 2028. In fact, he was referring to a fission-fusion hybrid plant in Chengdu, not a pure hydrogen fusion one.

Read: China to make its own quantum computer fridges

Follow Jeff Pao on Twitter at @jeffpao3

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Of all the dramatic events to occur during Russia’s year-plus war on Ukraine, few approach the sensationalism of last weekend.

After months of increasingly vitriolic complaints and threats against Russia’s military leadership, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group, acted. His men first took over the southwestern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don before marching on Moscow, shooting down multiple Russian helicopters that tried desperately to halt their progress. 

Finally, just 200 kilometers from the capital, Prigozhin agreed to end his march and go into exile in Belarus, in an outcome whose ultimate contours are still very much unclear.

One of the groups that rallied around Russian President Vladimir Putin was led by Ramzan Kadyrov, the mercurial Kremlin-appointed warlord of Chechnya, whose men headed to both Rostov and Moscow to confront Wagner. In this instance and future such mutinies, Kadyrov’s troops could play a crucial role in defending the Kremlin – but only to a point.

Perhaps none of the many politicians and security chiefs in Russia who owe their positions solely to the backing of Putin have benefited from this personal relationship more than Kadyrov. 

Kadyrov came to power after the 2004 death of his father, Akhmad Kadyrov, with whom Putin had forged a deal to lead Chechnya as a loyal satrap after Russian forces reconquered the rebellious province in the Second Chechen War. 

Widely despised by the Russian military and other siloviki (those in charge of Russian security services), the younger Kadyrov nevertheless received the full backing of Putin to run Chechnya nearly autonomously. The only caveat was that he needed to crush the region’s separatist movement. 

Massive state subsidies, forming nearly nine-tenths of the Chechen government budget, were provided as both reward and incentive.

While Kadyrov and his cronies in Grozny enjoyed unparalleled autonomy, the Chechen leader was never without powerful enemies. Wagner was destined to become one of these almost from the start.

Many of Wagner’s professional soldiers were veterans of the Chechen wars, where they fought against Chechen rebel forces that, at one time, included Kadyrov himself. Ethnic Chechens are even explicitly banned from joining Wagner.

There was a degree of mutual support over the past year between Kadyrov and Prigozhin in public messaging on the Ukraine war, with both men casting aspersions on the Russian Defense Ministry and verbally attacking top Russian generals to cast the army leadership as hapless and only their own semi-privatized forces as effective.

But this was a marriage of convenience, something thoroughly illustrated by a June 1 threat from Dmitry Utkin, Wagner’s top military commander, to Kadyrov’s top deputy, urging the latter to face him “man to man.”

Kadyrov’s role in rebellion

Kadyrov had significant motivation to challenge Prigozhin’s mutiny and prevent any possibility of Putin being toppled. Not only is his position dependent on Putin’s continued financial and political support, Kadyrov also holds long-running acrimony toward the Wagner Group.

Driven by this calculus, he duly deployed his men to both of Saturday’s hotspots, sending one armored column to Rostov while directing another to the outskirts of Moscow, where Russian forces and other loyalist troops were setting up hasty defensive positions. In Rostov, Kadyrov’s Chechens nearly came face-to-face with Wagner forces, entering the city amid a tense standoff. 

Crucially, however, the Kadyrovtsy didn’t engage. They never fired on Prigozhin’s men, while in Moscow, they arrived after the abrupt truce between Wagner and the Kremlin had been agreed. Kadyrov demonstrated his loyalty to Putin by immediately deploying his men, but stopped short of anything resembling combat, choosing instead to wage a war of words and loudly proclaiming Prigozhin a traitor.

In many ways, Kadyrov’s response to Prigozhin’s march was like his role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine – demonstrating loyalty but stopping short of risking any more of his own men than necessary. In the early stages of the war, the Kadyrovtsy took part in the initial drive on Kiev, while also playing a role in storming the Donbas city of Severodonetsk and (to a lesser extent) Mariupol.

But that was it. After losses, Kadyrov largely withdrew his men to rear positions, if not back to Chechnya itself. Since last summer, they’ve rarely fought in Ukraine at all.

This now is the essence of Kadyrov’s role beyond Chechnya’s borders. Even in quieter times – the eight years or so between the final crushing of the insurgency in Chechnya and the Russian invasion of Ukraine – Kadyrov has always been paranoid, worried about any potential uprising against him and any possible challenge from Moscow and the Russian security services that so despise him.

With the remnants of Chechnya’s extirpated rebel movement reconstituted in Ukraine and openly planning to return and overthrow him, Kadyrov is even more loath to risk his brutal, personally loyal security apparatus. Despite his dependence on Putin’s continued rule, it’s difficult to imagine the Chechen leader ever deploying more than a token amount of his own troops to safeguard the Russian president.

Kadyrov may declare himself a “foot soldier of Putin,” but he has little interest in degrading his own combat power, power he may need in any potential future breakdown of the existing order in Russia – or in Chechnya itself.

This article was provided by Syndication Bureau, which holds copyright.

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