Demilitarised Zones?
Korean armistice lessons, Cambodia China policy unchanged, Ukraine counteroffensive struggles, China-Japan-S.Korea talks, Indo-Pacific NATO?, Was colonisation "lucky" for Australia?
UPDATE: The 70th anniversary of the armistice, signed at Panmunjom on 27 July 1953, offers lessons for the present situation on the peninsula.
In the new mandated government, Cambodia's policy toward China remains unchanged, based on the spirit of traditional friendship, mutual trust and win-win cooperation.
As Ukraine’s counteroffensive struggles to make headway, was Gen. Mark A. Milley right about a negotiated settlement?
China and Japan have agreed to resume high-level trilateral talks with South Korea at the end of this year, the first time in four years.
The heads of state from Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea (AP4), participated in the annual NATO Summit.
Colonisation was "the luckiest thing that happened" to Australia, the nation's second-longest serving Prime Minister John Howard has said.
70 years on, lessons from the Fatherland Liberation War
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attended a grand celebratory performance to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the victory in the country's Fatherland Liberation War. The Chinese Party and government delegation led by Li Hongzhong, vice chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, and the Russian military delegation led by Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, also attended the event.
According to Chinese sources, China and Russia sending senior delegations to attend the events in Pyongyang not only shows the unity and traditional friendship among the Chinese, Russian and North Korean peoples, but contributes to the peace and stability of the peninsula.
As China, Russia and North Korea continue to face pressure and threats from the US-led military alliance in the Korean Peninsula, the 70th anniversary of the armistice, signed at Panmunjom on 27 July 1953, offers lessons for the present situation on the peninsula, which is becoming increasingly tense due to US deployment of strategic weapons including nuclear-armed submarines and strategic bombers.
The 1953 armistice brought a fragile peace following the US invasion of Korea in 1950. The United States invasion caused the death of millions of Koreans and countless Chinese volunteers during three years of bloody and exhausting fighting in what the North called the Fatherland Liberation War and the Chinese call the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea (1950-53).
The front line between the liberation armies and imperialist US forces had been fought to a stalemate roughly along the 38th parallel where the United States had partitioned Korea following the withdrawal of Imperial Japanese forces that occupied and colonised Korea between 1895 to 1945. Thus, the armistice set a line of demarcation on the 38th Parallel that would become known as the demilitarised zone (DMZ).
While the Korean peninsula remains fraught, there are other flash points in East Asia that are equally, if not more, worrying. These include the US-led assault on the East China Sea, just northeast of Taiwan, US missile and military deployments in the Philippines, just southeast of Taiwan, further deployments of nuclear armed bombers and submarines in northern Australia and continuing provocations in the Taiwan Strait, South China Sea and in the airspace along the entirety of China’s eastern seaboard.
Washington’s approach of engaging in persistent harassment to erode resolve and yet avoiding crossing a kinetic threshold into open warfare - seems to be a tactic of playing for time as it attempts to increasing its provocative and dangerous military activities in the Asia-Pacific region. Moreover, the US has pushed NATO eastwards toward Russia and ruined the security structure in Europe and caused the terrible ongoing Ukraine crisis. Clearly, the US has not learnt the lessons from the Korean peninsula or Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria and is repeating its mistakes in Ukraine bringing tragedy to the world and great damage to US national strength.
The US-led formation of a US-Japan-South Korea military alliance not only creates bloc confrontation in the region, but undermines the post-WWII international order, which still benefits the US, as because its financial and military advantages still remain. However, if the US continues to challenge, contain and confront North Korea, China and Russia on core interests, US national strength will continue to decline and it will lose its position in the international order.
Unlike the invasion of Korea in 1950, theUS should not expect its allies to unconditionally serve its hegemonic aims. Increasing opposition from the Global South and fractures among NATO and EU members will only increase as economic woes follow US hegemonic actions.
By jointly commemorating the armistice anniversary, North Korea, China and Russia are sending a strong reminder to the world that the US continues to challenge peace in the region and around the world from its hegemonic acts that have killed millions of innocents since the end of the Cold War.
Compiled from reports.
Cambodia's China policy remains unchanged
In the new mandated government, Cambodia's policy toward China remains unchanged, based on the spirit of traditional friendship, mutual trust and win-win cooperation.The commitment was reassured by Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen, caretake Prime Minister and President of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), in separate thank-you letters dated July 26 to H.E. Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and H.E. LI Qiang, Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China.
Samdech Techo Hun Sen thanked the Chinese leaders for their congratulations on the CPP’s landslide victory in the General Election of Members of the National Assembly, 7th Legislature, held on July 23, 2023 and for commendation of Cambodia's achievements in the past years under the CPP’s leadership.
He took the opportunity to congratulate China, under the strong CPC’s leadership, for achieving rapid development in all aspects, which will serve as a catalyst in order to realise the 2nd Centenary Goal toward the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation in the near future as well as secure China's significant role in the regional and international arena.
Samdech Techo Prime Minister also spoke highly of the close cooperation between the two parties and governments and reaffirmed his readiness to working closely together with the Chinese leaders to further strengthen cooperation between both parties and governments, deepen the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Cooperation and jointly build a high-quality, high-level and high-standard Cambodia-China Community of Shared Future to mutually benefit the two countries and peoples, thus contributing to peace, stability and prosperity in the region and beyond.
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Gen. Mark Milley was right about Ukraine
By Jason Willick (edited)
As Ukraine’s counteroffensive struggles to make headway against fortified Russian lines, I found myself going back to remarks late last year by Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Milley spoke at the Economic Club of New York in November 2022 just as Ukrainian troops were pushing Russian forces from the southern city of Kherson. Kyiv had repelling Moscow’s initial invasion — forcing Russia back to roughly the lines of control in place today— and the top U.S. general made news by floating a negotiated settlement to the war.
He compared the situation in Ukraine to World War I. Around Christmas of 1914, Milley said, “you’ve got a war that is not winnable anymore, militarily.” Yet European leaders decided they had no choice but to push for total victory. One million deaths became 20 million by the war’s end.
“Things can get worse,” Milley said, adding: “When there’s an opportunity to negotiate, when peace can be achieved, seize it. Seize the moment.”
The next week, Milley again suggested that time was ripe for negotiations. In a news conference, he said that despite Ukraine’s heroic success in driving the Russians from Kharkiv and Kherson, it would be “very difficult” to evict Russia’s army from the entire country by force. There might be an opening for political solutions, however: “You want to negotiate from a position of strength,” Milley said, and “Russia right now is on its back.”
Milley’s trial balloon fell to the ground. The Biden administration promptly distanced itself from his remarks. We don’t know whether Russia could have been open to negotiations. But even the idea of exploring a political settlement was cast in Washington policy circles as undercutting Ukraine’s goal of a total victory. Expectations for Ukraine’s prospects of pulling off a decisive counteroffensive against the remaining Russian positions in the East swelled through the winter and spring.
Powered by infusions of American arms, the offensive finally began early last month. But the hoped-for breakthrough hasn’t materialized. The military analysts Michael Kofman and Rob Lee, who recently returned from the front, describe a grinding war of attrition with entrenched Russian forces holding their ground while relatively inexperienced Ukrainian soldiers are struggling to synchronize their offensive operations.
In public, Western leaders are urging patience. Ukraine’s counteroffensive is far from over. Yet Milley’s skepticism about Ukraine’s ability to achieve total victory appears to have been widespread within the Biden administration before the counteroffensive began.
The Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Michaels reported this week that “Western military officials knew Kyiv didn’t have all the training or weapons — from shells to warplanes — that it needed to dislodge Russian forces.” That tracks: In April, The Post reported on a leaked U.S. intelligence document forecasting only “modest” territorial gains for Ukraine. “Enduring Ukrainian deficiencies in training and munitions supplies probably will strain progress and exacerbate casualties during the offensive,” the document said.
If this is representative of intelligence and military assessments in government, why has the Biden administration not been quicker in providing advanced arms to Ukraine?
One answer is that there is no magical “wonder weapon” that could make a decisive difference. Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum last week, national security adviser Jake Sullivan pointed out that the high quality of air defenses on both sides have made air superiority unachievable. He said American military commanders doubt “the notion that F-16s would play a decisive role in this counteroffensive.”
Another answer is that the West is straining to meet Ukraine’s existing needs, as its military industrial base is not on a war footing. The shortage of 155mm artillery shells is apparently so bad that the Biden administration was forced to send cluster munitions to fill the gap. Sending Ukraine the Army’s ATACMS missile system — one of the last major weapons the administration is holding back — could hurt U.S. readiness elsewhere in the world.
It’s worth posing the question Gen. David Petraeus famously asked ahead of the Iraq War in 2003: “Tell me how this ends.” If Ukraine’s counteroffensive falters, the path of political least resistance is probably not negotiation with an emboldened Russia. It’s for the West to gear up for another Ukrainian offensive in 2024, and another one after that. After all, there are worse outcomes than a grinding stalemate in eastern Ukraine, which — while costly — is neither physically risky nor politically humiliating for the United States.
But if the prospects for Ukrainian military victory are in fact remote — and if American leaders know it — then let’s hope they can show more wisdom and flexibility than the World War I leaders of whom Milley spoke last November.
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China, Japan and S.Korea resume talks
China and Japan have agreed to resume high-level trilateral talks with South Korea at the end of this year, the first time in four years. The trilateral talks, if successfully convened, could at least inject impetus to economic cooperation between Northeast Asia's three biggest economies and pave the way for regional stability, said Chinese observers. Yet for the talks to yield concrete result, leaders from both Japan and South Korea are facing the ordeal of excluding extraterritorial pressure, experts said.
Speaking at a regular press conference on Tuesday, Japanese foreign minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said on Tuesday said he and Wang Yi, director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the agreement on the sidelines of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting in Indonesia earlier this month.
"It's highly meaningful for the leaders of China, Japan and South Korea, which share a big responsibility toward the region's peace and prosperity, to get together" to discuss cooperation and other issues, Hayashi was quoted by Reuters as saying.
The next trilateral summit will be chaired by South Korea, which is aiming to hold it by the end of this year, media reported.
The last trilateral summit meeting was held in December 2019 in Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan Province. Subsequently, strained relations between Japan and South Korea over issue of wartime labor and COVID-19 forced a hiatus in the meetings.
The resumption of trilateral talks between Northeast Asia's three biggest economies will inject much needed impetus to global economic recovery and send a positive signal for regional stability and peace, Lü Chao, an expert on the Korean Peninsula issue at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.
During the past three years, tensions between Japan and South Korea thawed to please the US and to cooperate with Washington's Asia-Pacific strategy to counter China. Meanwhile, bilateral relations between China and Japan and China and South Korea have soured due to Tokyo and Seoul's willingness to serve as US vassals in region.
According to the data released by the General Administration of Customs of China, the trade volume between China and South Korea reached $362.2 billion in 2022, an increase of 0.1 percent. China-Japan trade was $357.4 billion, down 3.7 percent from a year earlier. As a result, South Korea moved up one place from China's fifth largest trading partner, replacing Japan to become China's fourth largest trading partner in 2022.
"If you look at it from a geopolitical perspective, China's relationships with Japan and South Korea are now laden with red flags, while at the economic level, cooperation is everywhere," Da Zhigang, director of the Institute of Northeast Asian Studies at the Heilongjiang Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times. He believes economic collaboration will dominate the talks and serve as a cornerstone of trilateral ties.
Leaders from South Korea and Japan are facing obstacles to realize the talks, since the two have succumbed to US pressure on thwarting China's rise, and this has fractured the foundation for cooperation between Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo, Lü said.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol are leaning closer to NATO, an alliance in which the US plays a central role, after having attended the NATO summit two years in a row. Moreover, the two countries are closely following the US' Asia-Pacific strategy to counter China on issues ranging from the Taiwan question, chip industry to other domains.
The US certainly does not like to see the three Northeast Asian countries join hands and cooperate, and politicians from Japan and South Korea should show sincerity and resolve their discrepancies with China within themselves and stay clear of outside influence, according to Lü.
During his speech at the 2023 International Forum for Trilateral Cooperation in Qingdao, Shandong Province earlier this month, Wang Yi said that China, Japan and South Korea, as well as other Asian countries, should practice open regionalism, promote inclusive Asian values, cultivate strategic autonomy, safeguard regional unity and stability, resist the Cold War mentality, and avoid coercion by hegemony.
Da, on the other hand, urged Japan not to speak with China in two voices, hoping to strengthen economic ties but at the same time challenging China's hot-button issues.
While the Japanese foreign minister praised the trilateral talks as "highly meaningful," the country's State Minister of Defense Toshiro Ino told the Telegraph in an interview published on Sunday that Japan would likely come to Taiwan's aid if Beijing attacks. His remarks were rebuked by a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, who urged Japan to stop playing with fire on the Taiwan question, adding that Taiwan is China's territory and the Taiwan question is purely China's internal affair, which brooks no interference by any external force.
"Self-contradictory gestures like those make it hard for China to believe that Japan has enough sincerity to participate in the talks. For the talks to convene smoothly, more sincere moves from Japan and South Korea are expected," Da said.
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NATO’s Indo-Pacific front
By Jonathan Fenton-Harvey (edited)
For the second consecutive year, the heads of state from Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea, informally known as the four Asia-Pacific partners (AP4), participated in the annual NATO Summit. This recurring attendance highlights the increasing importance of the Indo-Pacific region for NATO and the organization’s growing engagement with regional partners.
Over the past year, discussions between NATO and its Indo-Pacific partners have progressed amid the war in Ukraine and concerns regarding China and the Taiwan issue. During the Vilnius Summit, Japan and Australia reaffirmed their support for Ukraine and pledged assistance to Kiev. Additionally, NATO ratified individual partnership agreements with Japan and South Korea, focusing on areas such as cyber security, defense, and cooperation in the Indo-Pacific.
However, proposals to establish a NATO liaison office in Japan were struck down after France vetoed them, resulting in disappointment among several member states and officials. While discussions to enhance NATO and Indo-Pacific cooperation have remained mostly symbolic thus far, they indicate increasing desires to connect security and cooperation between Europe and the Indo-Pacific.
Last year, NATO unveiled its comprehensive strategy, emphasizing that China was indeed its primary concern in the Indo-Pacific region. This strategic approach goes beyond concerns regarding Chinese investments in critical infrastructure in Europe; it also highlights the growing proximity between Beijing and Moscow, which raises apprehension among NATO officials and member states.
Naturally, China has strongly criticized NATO’s portrayal of it as a threat and has explicitly demanded that NATO refrain from involvement in East Asia. China has also issued a warning of a “resolute response,” indicating further regional tensions may arise because of these developments. While there are desires to expand NATO’s presence, there is also evidently a level of wariness over provoking China, prompting more moderate tones regarding NATO’s potential expansion.
Skepticism over the establishment of a liaison office indicates that caution may persist over how NATO’s expansion in the region will unfold. This delicate dynamic could potentially slow efforts to facilitate closer cooperation between NATO and its regional partners, meaning it may remain at the consultation level.
Should NATO officials seek to push for a deeper physical presence in the Indo-Pacific, the success of doing so would also depend on support from member states and regional countries. From the US’ perspective, NATO’s engagement would aim to supplement existing US-led initiatives in the region, such as AUKUS, a three-way strategic defense alliance between Australia, the United Kingdom (UK), and the US, and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD).
Paris’ veto of the liaison office reflects states’ desire to balance economic relations with China with security concerns, which is particularly evident among the AP4 countries. Japan and Australia may welcome the security benefits of aligning with NATO, yet they may be unwilling to forgo their robust trading ties with Beijing.
India, while often seen by US and NATO officials as a desirable counterbalance to China in the region, pursues an independent foreign policy and also maintains strong economic relations with Beijing, despite ongoing border disputes with China. India will likely cautiously engage with NATO while maintaining a certain distance, as it has also maintained open relations with Russia throughout the Ukraine war.
Currently, these ongoing discussions serve as testing grounds for deeper engagement between Europe and the Indo-Pacific. For now, the rise of China has prompted NATO to reevaluate its role in the region, with its presence contingent upon the desires of countries in both Europe and the Indo-Pacific.
While a multilateral approach may not be guaranteed, bilateral cooperation between individual partner states could prevail, particularly in enforcing regional cooperation measures. Nonetheless, considering shared and overlapping security concerns, the exploration of direct security cooperation between NATO and its Indo-Pacific partners is likely to persist.
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Colonisation by British 'luckiest thing' to happen to Australia - John Howard
Colonisation was "the luckiest thing that happened" to Australia, the nation's second-longest serving Prime Minister John Howard has said. His remarks were made in relation to a historic referendum due to take place this year on Indigenous recognition. If successful, the vote will change Australia's constitution to give First Nations peoples a greater say over the laws and policies that affect them. But the debate has seen a surge of divisive commentary.
Speaking to the Australian Newspaper about the upcoming vote, Mr Howard described colonisation as "inevitable".
"I do hold the view that the luckiest thing that happened to this country was being colonised by the British," he said. "Not that they were perfect by any means, but they were infinitely more successful and beneficent colonisers than other European countries."
He also predicted that the Voice to Parliament initiative would fail to pass, leaving a "new cockpit of conflict" over "how to help Indigenous people" in its wake, while accusing its proponents of failing to sell it to the Australian public.
The Voice vote, Australia's first referendum since 1999, was announced by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the start of 2023. If passed, its supporters say it will lead to better outcomes for Australia's First Nations people, who face lower life expectancy, and disproportionately poorer health and education outcomes than other Australians.
But those against it argue - among other things - that the Voice is a largely symbolic gesture which will fail to enact reform, while also undermining Australia's existing government structures. Recent polling has also shown a steady - yet dramatic - decline in public support for the Voice, as the debate grows more protracted.
Mr Howard is one of the most influential conservative figures to throw his weight behind the No campaign, but his own legacy on Indigenous affairs remains controversial. His government weakened First Nations land rights, suspended Australia's racial discrimination act, and refused to apologise to the Stolen Generations - tens of thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who were taken from their families by the government until the mid-1960s.
And in 2007 he was the architect of "the Intervention", a set of policies which saw Australia's military deployed to seize control of daily life in 73 remote Indigenous communities across the Northern Territory. The now disbanded scheme - which was enacted following a government report on the sexual abuse of children in Aboriginal communities - has been criticised as "coercive" and culturally insensitive.
Mr Howard defended the policy in his interview on Wednesday as "a good old-fashioned dose of proper governance". He also claimed that if the Voice succeeds, it could prevent the government from intervening in Indigenous communities when it is deemed necessary. Mr Howard's remarks come amid a wave of controversy that has gripped the referendum's official No campaign.
This week, one of its leaders faced calls to resign after doubling down on comments that Indigenous Australians should undergo blood tests to prove their lineage, to receive welfare payments. And earlier this month, the campaign was accused of using a "racist trope" in a newspaper ad, after it paid for a full-page cartoon depicting a prominent Indigenous Voice campaigner dancing for money.
Senior figures within the No camp's ranks have also been accused of intentionally spreading falsehoods about the vote. Among them is federal opposition leader Peter Dutton, who warned that the vote would have an "Orwellian effect" on Australian society, by giving First Nations people greater rights and privileges.
It is a claim that has been further distorted online - and debunked - with social media users suggesting the vote would divide Australians into "settlers" and "original custodians" resulting in a "two-tier government". If the Voice referendum passes, it will change the nation's constitution for the first time in over 46 years.
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