foreignpolicy--2020-05-14--Japan’s Halfhearted Coronavirus Measures Are Working Anyway

In its battle with the coronavirus , Japan appears to be doing everything wrong .
It has tested just 0.185 percent of its population , its social distancing has been halfhearted , and a majority of Japanese are critical of the government ’ s response .
Yet with among the lowest death rates in the world , a medical system that has avoided an overloading crisis , and a declining number of cases , everything seems to be going weirdly right .
Officials said early in the crisis that they would limit testing to those who likely needed hospitalization and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the number of people who died .
“ The goal of this strategy is to slow the speed of expansion of transmission and to reduce mortality , ” Shigeru Omi , a former World Health Organization official who is a key figure in the government ’ s planning , said in mid-February .
The results have been impressive .
As of May 14 , Japan had 687 fatalities directly attributed to COVID-19 nationwide , equal to 5 per million people .
That compares with a total of 85,268 deaths , or 258 per @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 584 per million in Spain .
Even Germany , seen as another success story in the pandemic , has 94 deaths per million .
These almost miraculously low figures come despite Japan being close to China , with a large number of tourists .
It is also the world ’ s fastest-aging society—yet has escaped , it seems , being severely hit by a virus that is particularly deadly to older people .
While Japanese medical experts admit that the official count may understate the real total , they say other related causes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have not seen any unexpected surge .
It is difficult to know if the country has just been lucky or if it ’ s a matter of good policy .
Even senior officials have often given guarded forecasts .
“ Unfortunately the number of those infected keeps rising , ” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said just two weeks ago in late April .
“ The situation remains severe , ” he warned .
Even more worrying have been comments about a potential collapse of the health care system , even amid a relatively @ @ @ @ @ @ @ feel that the collapse of the emergency care system is already here , ” the Japanese Association for Acute Medicine said in a statement in mid-April , leading to understandable concerns about a health care system that is seen as a pillar of Japanese society .
That pressure has eased in the past few weeks with the number of reported cases now showing a clear downward trend .
Daily new cases peaked on April 12 at 743 and by May 14 fell to 57 , breaking below the 100 mark .
This has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
A survey by the Kyodo news agency on Sunday found that 57.5 percent of those polled were critical of the government ’ s measures , with only 34.1 percent approving of the steps taken .
Confusing the situation is that the range of testing has been well below the international norm , creating uncertainty over the real scope of the problem .
As of May 14 , there had been just over 233,000 tests carried out across the country , or 2.2 percent of the U.S. total .
Part of this was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ diagnosed as having COVID-19 , they were sent to a specially designated hospital for isolation and care .
An influx of those who had only light or no symptoms would have quickly swamped the system far beyond what has been seen .
Instead , people were advised to seek a test only if they had shortness of breath and fatigue or a fever of 99.5 degrees for four days .
These rules were administered with a strict bureaucratic efficiency , leading to stories of those in distress still being denied even the access @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by a foreign woman trying to help a friend through a medical gauntlet garnered international attention after the saga was .
Officials admit another motive in all this .
They didn ’ t have the infrastructure in place for widespread testing .
“ The capacity was not sufficient , ” said Yoshitake Yokokura , the president of the Japan Medical Association , who was among those pushing for more .
With private facilities now brought into the mix , the government has now expanded the criteria for testing , with immediate tests available @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Even with this , experts say they will still be largely in the dark on the true picture .
One Tokyo medical official said the true rate of infection was likely to be around 6 percent of the Tokyo populace .
Another problem is the mundane issue of how the data is collected .
Reports of new cases must be submitted by doctors , who fill in a form by hand that is then faxed to the local health departments .
This is then compiled and sent to the central government .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ valuable time filling in the detailed information , the minister in charge of Japan ’ s information technology policy said he would “ address the problem.
” The data flow is also haphazard , with reports on Sunday and Monday showing fewer cases but with an increase through the week to peak on Friday or Saturday .
Yet that seems unlikely to be the case , with countries that have seen far higher numbers of deaths finding , through antibody testing , rates of infection among the whole population at just 1 or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ avoided serious outbreaks have hot temperatures or young populations , often pointed to as a possible firebreak .
Japan has neither—yet the deaths simply aren ’ t coming .
Japan ’ s voluntary lockdown is also much less stringent than in the majority of countries , save the United States .
Even with the declaration of a national emergency , the government is not able to force people to stay at home or to order businesses to close , a legacy of the ( American-drafted ) post-World War II constitution that sought to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , social distancing is left up to the goodwill of the individual , along with a little social shaming .
When Tokyo first laid out its voluntary measures , government workers walked through the Shinjuku nightlife area with English and Japanese signs asking people to go home .
The purpose of the English was not clear since foreign tourists had long headed home amid the spreading pandemic .
Restaurants have been ( politely ) asked to close up shop by 8 p.m. and to stop serving alcohol an hour earlier , a blow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ night of drinking until the last train to get over the stresses of the office .
The goal was ambitious , with authorities seeking a 70-80 percent reduction in social interaction .
The data suggests they got close to that figure and also managed to keep people from their usual annual pilgrimage home during the early May “ Golden Week ” holidays .
Japan Rail said its high-speed train network operated at around 5 percent of capacity over the holiday period , compared with the typical 105 percent .
Getting people to work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , showing just an 18 percent reduction , but in the streets of central Tokyo , crowds have fallen by around 60 percent , according to mobile phone data .
Masks are in use by almost everyone , a request that has invoked few complaints since people here regularly wear masks when ill or to avoid spring pollen .
While Japan likes to picture itself as a law-abiding place and a society with close attention to health matters , not everyone has taken the isolation measures seriously .
One clear area of concern @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which offer a form of gambling that is a mixture of pinball and slots .
While many closed down voluntarily , some operators refused to shut .
The government responded by publicly naming the miscreants , only to see long lines forming outside the stores that were still open .
In another case , national media carried in Tokyo who took a highway bus 70 miles back to her hometown even though she felt ill , was told by the health office while there that she had COVID-19 , and then took another @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worried about her dog .
In general , however , Japan ’ s culture of concern for others , keeping a distance , avoiding handshakes , and good personal hygiene appears to have played a significant , if difficult to measure , part in the low numbers .
A more worrying aspect of the culture has also come out , unfortunately , in sometimes negative treatment toward health care workers and patients .
In contrast to the celebrations for those on the front line elsewhere , nurses and other health care workers in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on their children attending nursery schools , and general disdain from those worried that they are carriers of COVID-19 .
Yokokura of the Japan Medical Association said he has been pleading on behalf of the workers and that some discrimination has declined .
In an attempt to keep the numbers on the right trend , Abe has extended the state of emergency until the end of May but , in a nod to growing public fatigue with the restrictions , has eased some of the rules .
Parks and other public facilities will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interaction targets will be lowered for regional areas that have not been hit as hard as Tokyo and other big cities .
Businesses have responded by starting to reopen with various limits on how they operate .
As everywhere , the big question will be whether Japan can safely take its foot off the brake without creating a new crisis—but perhaps also why it didn ’ t have one in the first place .

In its battle with the coronavirus, Japan appears to be doing everything wrong. It has tested just 0.185 percent of its population, its social distancing has been halfhearted, and a majority of Japanese are critical of the government’s response. Yet with among the lowest death rates in the world, a medical system that has avoided an overloading crisis, and a declining number of cases, everything seems to be going weirdly right.
In its battle with the coronavirus, Japan appears to be doing everything wrong. It has tested just 0.185 percent of its population, its social distancing has been halfhearted, and a majority of Japanese are critical of the government’s response. Yet with among the lowest death rates in the world, a medical system that has avoided an overloading crisis, and a declining number of cases, everything seems to be going weirdly right.
Officials said early in the crisis that they would limit testing to those who likely needed hospitalization and that their overarching goal was to reduce the number of people who died. “The goal of this strategy is to slow the speed of expansion of transmission and to reduce mortality,” Shigeru Omi, a former World Health Organization official who is a key figure in the government’s planning, said in mid-February. The results have been impressive. As of May 14, Japan had 687 fatalities directly attributed to COVID-19 nationwide, equal to 5 per million people. That compares with a total of 85,268 deaths, or 258 per million, in the United States and 584 per million in Spain. Even Germany, seen as another success story in the pandemic, has 94 deaths per million.
These almost miraculously low figures come despite Japan being close to China, with a large number of tourists. It is also the world’s fastest-aging society—yet has escaped, it seems, being severely hit by a virus that is particularly deadly to older people. While Japanese medical experts admit that the official count may understate the real total, they say other related causes of death, such as pneumonia, have not seen any unexpected surge.
It is difficult to know if the country has just been lucky or if it’s a matter of good policy. Even senior officials have often given guarded forecasts. “Unfortunately the number of those infected keeps rising,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said just two weeks ago in late April. “The situation remains severe,” he warned. Even more worrying have been comments about a potential collapse of the health care system, even amid a relatively small number of cases. “We feel that the collapse of the emergency care system is already here,” the Japanese Association for Acute Medicine said in a statement in mid-April, leading to understandable concerns about a health care system that is seen as a pillar of Japanese society.
That pressure has eased in the past few weeks with the number of reported cases now showing a clear downward trend. Daily new cases peaked on April 12 at 743 and by May 14 fell to 57, breaking below the 100 mark. This has not been enough to assuage public opinion. A survey by the Kyodo news agency on Sunday found that 57.5 percent of those polled were critical of the government’s measures, with only 34.1 percent approving of the steps taken.
Confusing the situation is that the range of testing has been well below the international norm, creating uncertainty over the real scope of the problem. As of May 14, there had been just over 233,000 tests carried out across the country, or 2.2 percent of the U.S. total. Part of this was by design. When a person was diagnosed as having COVID-19, they were sent to a specially designated hospital for isolation and care. An influx of those who had only light or no symptoms would have quickly swamped the system far beyond what has been seen. Instead, people were advised to seek a test only if they had shortness of breath and fatigue or a fever of 99.5 degrees for four days. These rules were administered with a strict bureaucratic efficiency, leading to stories of those in distress still being denied even the access to a test. One harrowing account by a foreign woman trying to help a friend through a medical gauntlet garnered international attention after the saga was chronicled on Facebook.
Officials admit another motive in all this. They didn’t have the infrastructure in place for widespread testing. “The capacity was not sufficient,” said Yoshitake Yokokura, the president of the Japan Medical Association, who was among those pushing for more. With private facilities now brought into the mix, the government has now expanded the criteria for testing, with immediate tests available for older people or those seriously ill. Even with this, experts say they will still be largely in the dark on the true picture. One Tokyo medical official said the true rate of infection was likely to be around 6 percent of the Tokyo populace.
Another problem is the mundane issue of how the data is collected. Reports of new cases must be submitted by doctors, who fill in a form by hand that is then faxed to the local health departments. This is then compiled and sent to the central government. Faced with criticism that doctors were wasting valuable time filling in the detailed information, the minister in charge of Japan’s information technology policy said he would “address the problem.” The data flow is also haphazard, with reports on Sunday and Monday showing fewer cases but with an increase through the week to peak on Friday or Saturday.
Read More Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wearing a face mask attends a press conference at the prime minister's official residence on April 7 in Tokyo. Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wearing a face mask attends a press conference at the prime minister's official residence on April 7 in Tokyo. Japan Is Testing the Limits of Pandemic Economics Can the world’s most indebted country afford a $1 trillion stimulus? Argument | William Sposato Laborers wearing hats and neon safety vests pause their work to look at the camera. They stand in front of a scaffold-covered building with a cement truck beside it. Laborers wearing hats and neon safety vests pause their work to look at the camera. They stand in front of a scaffold-covered building with a cement truck beside it. Japan Might Have an Answer to Chinese Rare Earth Threats Tokyo successfully built alternative supply chains after tensions rose. Analysis | Joseph Rachman Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg , and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, all men wearing dark suits, stand behind a table and look to the side at other participants at the NATO summit. Small Australian and Japanese flags sit on the table. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg , and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, all men wearing dark suits, stand behind a table and look to the side at other participants at the NATO summit. Small Australian and Japanese flags sit on the table. NATO Is on the Back Foot in the Indo-Pacific By exploiting an information vacuum about its intentions, China is setting the region against the Western alliance. Argument | Lynn Kuok
Yet that seems unlikely to be the case, with countries that have seen far higher numbers of deaths finding, through antibody testing, rates of infection among the whole population at just 1 or 2 percent. Other countries that have avoided serious outbreaks have hot temperatures or young populations, often pointed to as a possible firebreak. Japan has neither—yet the deaths simply aren’t coming.
Japan’s voluntary lockdown is also much less stringent than in the majority of countries, save the United States. Even with the declaration of a national emergency, the government is not able to force people to stay at home or to order businesses to close, a legacy of the (American-drafted) post-World War II constitution that sought to constrain the power of government.
Instead, social distancing is left up to the goodwill of the individual, along with a little social shaming. When Tokyo first laid out its voluntary measures, government workers walked through the Shinjuku nightlife area with English and Japanese signs asking people to go home. The purpose of the English was not clear since foreign tourists had long headed home amid the spreading pandemic. Restaurants have been (politely) asked to close up shop by 8 p.m. and to stop serving alcohol an hour earlier, a blow to Japanese office workers used to a night of drinking until the last train to get over the stresses of the office.
The goal was ambitious, with authorities seeking a 70-80 percent reduction in social interaction. The data suggests they got close to that figure and also managed to keep people from their usual annual pilgrimage home during the early May “Golden Week” holidays. Japan Rail said its high-speed train network operated at around 5 percent of capacity over the holiday period, compared with the typical 105 percent. Getting people to work from often cramped apartments was less successful, showing just an 18 percent reduction, but in the streets of central Tokyo, crowds have fallen by around 60 percent, according to mobile phone data. Masks are in use by almost everyone, a request that has invoked few complaints since people here regularly wear masks when ill or to avoid spring pollen.
While Japan likes to picture itself as a law-abiding place and a society with close attention to health matters, not everyone has taken the isolation measures seriously. One clear area of concern were the typically crowded pachinko parlors, which offer a form of gambling that is a mixture of pinball and slots. While many closed down voluntarily, some operators refused to shut. The government responded by publicly naming the miscreants, only to see long lines forming outside the stores that were still open. In another case, national media carried the story of a female office worker in Tokyo who took a highway bus 70 miles back to her hometown even though she felt ill, was told by the health office while there that she had COVID-19, and then took another bus back to Tokyo because she was worried about her dog.
In general, however, Japan’s culture of concern for others, keeping a distance, avoiding handshakes, and good personal hygiene appears to have played a significant, if difficult to measure, part in the low numbers. A more worrying aspect of the culture has also come out, unfortunately, in sometimes negative treatment toward health care workers and patients. In contrast to the celebrations for those on the front line elsewhere, nurses and other health care workers in Japan have complained of discrimination, bans on their children attending nursery schools, and general disdain from those worried that they are carriers of COVID-19. Yokokura of the Japan Medical Association said he has been pleading on behalf of the workers and that some discrimination has declined.
In an attempt to keep the numbers on the right trend, Abe has extended the state of emergency until the end of May but, in a nod to growing public fatigue with the restrictions, has eased some of the rules. Parks and other public facilities will be allowed to open, and social interaction targets will be lowered for regional areas that have not been hit as hard as Tokyo and other big cities. Businesses have responded by starting to reopen with various limits on how they operate. As everywhere, the big question will be whether Japan can safely take its foot off the brake without creating a new crisis—but perhaps also why it didn’t have one in the first place.


foreignpolicy--2020-05-14--Annexation Could Be the Final Blow to the Israel-Jordan Relationship

Annexation Could Be the Final Blow to the Israel-Jordan Relationship On April 30 , Jordan ’ s foreign ministry announced that Israeli farmers would no longer be allowed to work their fields in an enclave of southern Jordan , putting a discordant end to an arrangement long seen as a symbol of the peace agreement signed between the countries in 1994 .
According to that agreement , Israel returned to Jordan two small areas of land along their common border held by Israel since 1948 .
As a gesture of good will , Jordan granted Israel a 25-year lease on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the confluence of the Yarmouk and Jordan rivers in the north , Israel developed the Island of Peace park , visited by tens of thousands of tourists each year .
Jordan demanded that land in November 2019 , agreeing to postpone the return of the other area farther south until now .
In March , Jordanian Prime Minister Omar Razzaz warned that relations between the countries had reached their “ lowest level.
” The situation is still likely to get worse .
Under the recently agreed unity coalition led by Prime Minister @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Israel could move forward with plans to annex the Jordan Valley .
Annexation would dash any hopes for peace with the Palestinians , on which the Israeli-Jordanian relationship relies .
The situation is compounded by U.S. President Donald Trump ’ s Middle East peace plan , which includes a call for annexation .
The historic 1994 agreement between Israel and Jordan is formally still in place .
But Jordan ’ s refusal to extend the lease on the two enclaves , along with the fact that neither side held any ceremony to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the accord , indicates just how far Israeli-Jordanian relations have deteriorated .
The 1994 peace agreement formally put an end to a 46-year state of war .
Both Jordan ’ s monarch at the time , King Hussein , and then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin regarded it as central to their foreign policies , and their grand gestures set a tone of mutual trust .
When King Hussein flew back to Amman after the second ceremony , an honor squad of Israeli fighter jets accompanied his plane as it crossed over Jerusalem @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jordanian soldier crossed the border and killed seven Israeli schoolchildren in the Island of Peace in 1997 , the king flew to Israel , visited their families , and humbly asked for forgiveness .
With the signing of the accords , Israel had struck an agreement with a second Arab nation , after signing a peace deal with Egypt in 1979 .
Israelis soon flocked to Jordan ’ s tourist sites and conceived of joint business ventures .
In contrast , Jordan ’ s public viewed the agreements as a necessary evil at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Jordan ’ s chronic water shortages , stronger ties with the United States , and potential economic advantages such as free trade zones .
But much has changed .
Rabin was assassinated just one year after the accords were signed .
King Hussein never formed the same warm relationship with Netanyahu , who took office in 1996 .
Netanyahu and Jordanian King Abdullah II , who succeeded his father , have met publicly on occasion but issued no joint statements .
Israel and Jordan settled into a cold peace , with no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Connections are maintained at a tactical level by midlevel diplomats , advisors , and security and economic personnel .
Describing the status of Jordan-Israel relations , Abdullah said in a recent interview , “ The rhetoric coming out of Israel is creating tremendous concern .
… [ The Israelis ] are moving off into a new direction that can only create more instability.
” This direction includes the lack of progress on a Palestinian-Israeli agreement , the unqualified support provided to Israel by the Trump administration , and the failure of joint @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aggressively pro-Israel , including unequivocal support for the right-wing Likud government .
Trump moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem , in violation of the Oslo Accords , and his Israeli-Palestinian peace plan was written with little or no consultation with the Jordanians or the Palestinians .
In Jordan , Israel ’ s relations with and treatment of the Palestinians are viewed as a domestic issue .
More than half of Jordan ’ s citizens are of Palestinian origin , and more than 2 million are registered as refugees from Israel ’ s 1948 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Israel recently approved plans to build what former Defense Minister Naftali Bennett calls the “ sovereignty road , ” which would bisect the West Bank to allow a quick route from Jerusalem to Jewish settlements and prevent the future establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state .
The plan makes it even more difficult for Abdullah to justify the relationship with Israel to Jordan ’ s citizens .
The Haram al-Sharif site in Jerusalem ’ s Old City—which is home to the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque complex—is the third-holiest site @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Temple Mount , the site is a perennial source of tension .
In the 1994 accords , Israel promised to respect Jordan ’ s historic role in the Muslim holy shrines in Jerusalem .
Jews are permitted to visit the Haram al-Sharif but are not allowed to pray there ; they are restricted to the Western Wall , the holiest site where Jews can pray , which lies beneath the al-Aqsa complex .
But Israeli religious hard-liners have demanded a greater presence on the Mount , including the right to visit regularly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plan calls for maintaining the status quo—but it also contradicts itself , stating that “ People of every faith should be permitted to pray ” at the site .
The coronavirus pandemic led to rare cooperation between Israel and the Waqf , the Muslim religious trust that manages Islamic holy sites in Israeli territory on behalf of Jordan , allowing the Haram al-Sharif to close down to slow contagion .
The move was a rare exception : Most interactions surrounding the site have been tense , especially since 2017 , when Palestinian gunmen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ site .
Among the Jordanian public , anger against Israel is rising .
“ Israel is led by right-wing nationalist extremists and does not respect the rights of the Palestinians or of any other country .
The Israelis take us for granted , and they are arrogant , ” Omar , a Jordanian journalist who asked to be identified only by his first name , told Foreign Policy .
“ The relationship feels like a long series of broken promises.
” The sentiment is echoed by Oded Eran , a former Israeli ambassador @ @ @ @ @ @ @ peace treaty serves as a glue for the opposition ’ s disparate components , and as a socially and politically acceptable vehicle for criticizing the ruling family , ” he told journalists last year .
Jordan , however , is bound to the 1994 peace agreements by its own financial and security concerns .
Because of its small size , lack of resources , large refugee population , and chronic debt , Jordan is highly dependent on international financial aid , especially from the United States .
Many of the promises that followed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to fruition .
But many of the promises that followed the 1994 agreement haven ’ t come to fruition .
Then , Israel pledged to build a canal to transfer water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea to ease Jordan ’ s frequent water shortages .
It subsequently became clear that the was too expensive to be feasible .
Another plan to establish a joint industrial area in Israel as a free trade zone has also failed to move forward , although Israel does allow Jordan to use the port of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jordan ’ s national electricity company has said that Israel is the “ only available source ” for natural gas , and the countries recently finalized a 15-year import deal that should stabilize energy prices and help to reduce Jordan ’ s chronic budget deficit .
Despite the apparent advantages to the Israel-Jordan pipeline , there were large-scale demonstrations in Amman against the deal .
On Jan. 19 , Jordan ’ s parliament approved a draft law to ban the import of Israeli gas , and one member even called on Jordanian citizens @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the gas .
At the same time , Israel provides crucial intelligence to Jordan ’ s government , which fears regional instability and domestic insurgency .
“ Jordan is in an untenable position , ” said Ksenia Svetlova , a former member of the Israeli Knesset and an expert in Israeli-Arab affairs .
“ The king is torn in many different directions .
He needs American financial support , despite the administration ’ s one-sided support for Israel .
He needs Israel for security , despite the hatred for Israel on the street.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Jordan , too .
The 1994 agreement means that Israel has a buffer zone with Iraq and Syria .
“ Israel ’ s security border is not on the east with Jordan , but hundreds of miles farther to the east , ” Nimrod Novik , a former senior foreign-policy advisor to the Israeli government , said at a press briefing in Jerusalem in January .
If the regime in Jordan collapsed , he added , the cost to Israel ’ s security would be “ unimaginable.
” So both Israel and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agreements , but the deteriorating situation means that the resumption of high-level strategic dialogue isn ’ t likely , according to Svetlova .
“ The new Israeli government is not likely to be any less hard-line than the previous one and , with Trump ’ s support , it is likely to maintain the same policies , or at a minimum the same rhetoric , ” she said .
Gantz , who will replace Netanyahu as prime minister after 18 months , has frequently stated his opposition to annexation .
But he has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on April 21 includes a provision that allows Netanyahu to bring an annexation bill before the Knesset , where it will have a majority .
The ball is in Israel ’ s court , since it is Israel that has changed its political direction , Svetlova said .
“ Israeli policymakers have to ask themselves what is more important : sovereignty in the Jordan Valley and Jerusalem and annexation of the territories , or our vital interests in maintaining our relationship with Jordan , ” she said .

On April 30, Jordan’s foreign ministry announced that Israeli farmers would no longer be allowed to work their fields in an enclave of southern Jordan, putting a discordant end to an arrangement long seen as a symbol of the peace agreement signed between the countries in 1994.
On April 30, Jordan’s foreign ministry announced that Israeli farmers would no longer be allowed to work their fields in an enclave of southern Jordan, putting a discordant end to an arrangement long seen as a symbol of the peace agreement signed between the countries in 1994.
According to that agreement, Israel returned to Jordan two small areas of land along their common border held by Israel since 1948. As a gesture of good will, Jordan granted Israel a 25-year lease on the land. On the 250-acre area at the confluence of the Yarmouk and Jordan rivers in the north, Israel developed the Island of Peace park, visited by tens of thousands of tourists each year. Jordan demanded that land in November 2019, agreeing to postpone the return of the other area farther south until now.
In March, Jordanian Prime Minister Omar Razzaz warned that relations between the countries had reached their “lowest level.” The situation is still likely to get worse. Under the recently agreed unity coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his opponent-turned-deputy Benny Gantz, Israel could move forward with plans to annex the Jordan Valley. Annexation would dash any hopes for peace with the Palestinians, on which the Israeli-Jordanian relationship relies. The situation is compounded by U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan, which includes a call for annexation.
The historic 1994 agreement between Israel and Jordan is formally still in place. But Jordan’s refusal to extend the lease on the two enclaves, along with the fact that neither side held any ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary of the signing of the accord, indicates just how far Israeli-Jordanian relations have deteriorated.
The 1994 peace agreement formally put an end to a 46-year state of war. Both Jordan’s monarch at the time, King Hussein, and then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin regarded it as central to their foreign policies, and their grand gestures set a tone of mutual trust. When King Hussein flew back to Amman after the second ceremony, an honor squad of Israeli fighter jets accompanied his plane as it crossed over Jerusalem’s Old City. When a Jordanian soldier crossed the border and killed seven Israeli schoolchildren in the Island of Peace in 1997, the king flew to Israel, visited their families, and humbly asked for forgiveness.
With the signing of the accords, Israel had struck an agreement with a second Arab nation, after signing a peace deal with Egypt in 1979. Israelis soon flocked to Jordan’s tourist sites and conceived of joint business ventures. In contrast, Jordan’s public viewed the agreements as a necessary evil at best that promised security, a solution to Jordan’s chronic water shortages, stronger ties with the United States, and potential economic advantages such as free trade zones.
But much has changed. Rabin was assassinated just one year after the accords were signed. King Hussein never formed the same warm relationship with Netanyahu, who took office in 1996. Netanyahu and Jordanian King Abdullah II, who succeeded his father, have met publicly on occasion but issued no joint statements. Israel and Jordan settled into a cold peace, with no high-level strategic talks in over a decade. Connections are maintained at a tactical level by midlevel diplomats, advisors, and security and economic personnel. Describing the status of Jordan-Israel relations, Abdullah said in a recent interview, “The rhetoric coming out of Israel is creating tremendous concern. … [The Israelis] are moving off into a new direction that can only create more instability.”
This direction includes the lack of progress on a Palestinian-Israeli agreement, the unqualified support provided to Israel by the Trump administration, and the failure of joint economic projects. The Trump administration is aggressively pro-Israel, including unequivocal support for the right-wing Likud government. Trump moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, in violation of the Oslo Accords, and his Israeli-Palestinian peace plan was written with little or no consultation with the Jordanians or the Palestinians.
In Jordan, Israel’s relations with and treatment of the Palestinians are viewed as a domestic issue. More than half of Jordan’s citizens are of Palestinian origin, and more than 2 million are registered as refugees from Israel’s 1948 War of Independence and their descendants. Israel recently approved plans to build what former Defense Minister Naftali Bennett calls the “sovereignty road,” which would bisect the West Bank to allow a quick route from Jerusalem to Jewish settlements and prevent the future establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state. The plan makes it even more difficult for Abdullah to justify the relationship with Israel to Jordan’s citizens.
The Haram al-Sharif site in Jerusalem’s Old City—which is home to the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque complex—is the third-holiest site in Islam. Known to Israelis as the Temple Mount, the site is a perennial source of tension. In the 1994 accords, Israel promised to respect Jordan’s historic role in the Muslim holy shrines in Jerusalem. Jews are permitted to visit the Haram al-Sharif but are not allowed to pray there; they are restricted to the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray, which lies beneath the al-Aqsa complex. But Israeli religious hard-liners have demanded a greater presence on the Mount, including the right to visit regularly and to pray.
Trump’s plan calls for maintaining the status quo—but it also contradicts itself, stating that “People of every faith should be permitted to pray” at the site. The coronavirus pandemic led to rare cooperation between Israel and the Waqf, the Muslim religious trust that manages Islamic holy sites in Israeli territory on behalf of Jordan, allowing the Haram al-Sharif to close down to slow contagion. The move was a rare exception: Most interactions surrounding the site have been tense, especially since 2017, when Palestinian gunmen killed two Israeli police officers at the site.
Among the Jordanian public, anger against Israel is rising. “Israel is led by right-wing nationalist extremists and does not respect the rights of the Palestinians or of any other country. The Israelis take us for granted, and they are arrogant,” Omar, a Jordanian journalist who asked to be identified only by his first name, told Foreign Policy. “The relationship feels like a long series of broken promises.”
The sentiment is echoed by Oded Eran, a former Israeli ambassador to Jordan. “Opposition to the peace treaty serves as a glue for the opposition’s disparate components, and as a socially and politically acceptable vehicle for criticizing the ruling family,” he told journalists last year. Jordan, however, is bound to the 1994 peace agreements by its own financial and security concerns. Because of its small size, lack of resources, large refugee population, and chronic debt, Jordan is highly dependent on international financial aid, especially from the United States.
Many of the promises that followed the 1994 agreement haven’t come to fruition.
But many of the promises that followed the 1994 agreement haven’t come to fruition. Then, Israel pledged to build a canal to transfer water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea to ease Jordan’s frequent water shortages. It subsequently became clear that the was too expensive to be feasible. Another plan to establish a joint industrial area in Israel as a free trade zone has also failed to move forward, although Israel does allow Jordan to use the port of Haifa for access the Mediterranean Sea.
Jordan’s national electricity company has said that Israel is the “only available source” for natural gas, and the countries recently finalized a 15-year import deal that should stabilize energy prices and help to reduce Jordan’s chronic budget deficit. Despite the apparent advantages to the Israel-Jordan pipeline, there were large-scale demonstrations in Amman against the deal. On Jan. 19, Jordan’s parliament approved a draft law to ban the import of Israeli gas, and one member even called on Jordanian citizens to blow up the pipelines that transfer the gas.
At the same time, Israel provides crucial intelligence to Jordan’s government, which fears regional instability and domestic insurgency.
“Jordan is in an untenable position,” said Ksenia Svetlova, a former member of the Israeli Knesset and an expert in Israeli-Arab affairs. “The king is torn in many different directions. He needs American financial support, despite the administration’s one-sided support for Israel. He needs Israel for security, despite the hatred for Israel on the street.”
Israeli experts say that Israel relies on Jordan, too. The 1994 agreement means that Israel has a buffer zone with Iraq and Syria. “Israel’s security border is not on the east with Jordan, but hundreds of miles farther to the east,” Nimrod Novik, a former senior foreign-policy advisor to the Israeli government, said at a press briefing in Jerusalem in January. If the regime in Jordan collapsed, he added, the cost to Israel’s security would be “unimaginable.”
So both Israel and Jordan have an interest in maintaining the agreements, but the deteriorating situation means that the resumption of high-level strategic dialogue isn’t likely, according to Svetlova. “The new Israeli government is not likely to be any less hard-line than the previous one and, with Trump’s support, it is likely to maintain the same policies, or at a minimum the same rhetoric,” she said. Gantz, who will replace Netanyahu as prime minister after 18 months, has frequently stated his opposition to annexation. But he has little leverage. The coalition agreement signed on April 21 includes a provision that allows Netanyahu to bring an annexation bill before the Knesset, where it will have a majority.
The ball is in Israel’s court, since it is Israel that has changed its political direction, Svetlova said. “Israeli policymakers have to ask themselves what is more important: sovereignty in the Jordan Valley and Jerusalem and annexation of the territories, or our vital interests in maintaining our relationship with Jordan,” she said.


foreignpolicy--2020-05-14--Ukraine, Not Russia, Will Sue for Peace as Pandemic Pressure Rises

Ukraine , Not Russia , Will Sue for Peace as Pandemic Pressure Rises There has been rising optimism that the COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis that has hit both Russia and Ukraine have shifted strategic priorities in the Kremlin , presenting an opportunity to end the ongoing war in eastern Ukraine , where Russia has propped up separatist forces in the Donbass region since 2014 .
In a recent op-ed , three former U.S. ambassadors to Ukraine argue that the current crisis could lead to a resolution of the conflict on terms acceptable to both Kyiv and Washington .
Whereas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bear the costs of U.S. and European retaliatory sanctions , the authors argue that the pandemic ’ s economic fallout could elevate this burden to the point where Russian President Vladimir Putin feels compelled to sue for peace .
This is wishful thinking .
Their argument both overestimates the economic pressures facing Russia and understates the political , noneconomic rationale driving Russian policy toward Ukraine .
It also ignores the likelihood that Kyiv , not Moscow , may soon feel compelled to capitulate .
To be sure , the Kremlin will face new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ COVID-19 cases have surged , and the country now finds itself in the inevitable recession brought about by the twin shocks of collapsing oil and commodity prices and the government-imposed shutdown of economic activity in response to the pandemic .
While the recent agreement on production cuts between Russia , Saudi Arabia , and other oil-producing countries seeks to stabilize prices , there is only so much that can be done on the supply side of global energy markets .
As the virus continues to depress global economic activity , the demand for—and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ longer , even with production cuts .
Russia ’ s budget depends on oil revenues and is designed to balance with a price of $ 42 per barrel .
( Urals crude , the standard Russian grade , hit a low of $ 16.55 in April and currently sells for around $ 30 . )
The resulting deficits have been exacerbated by a weekslong nationwide work holiday that has stifled economic activity and will result in massive losses in tax revenue while requiring new expenditures to keep civilians afloat .
However , Russia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ brunt of the crisis , at least for now .
Thanks to many years of conservative macroeconomic policy , the government has built up a massive $ 560 billion strategic reserve of gold and foreign currency .
That amount is more than the entire external debt of both the government and Russian companies and serves as an insurance against the kind of balance-of-payments crisis that might strike other petrostates or emerging markets .
Russia has also used surplus oil revenues in past years to amass a $ 150 billion National Wealth Fund , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ budget deficit .
Furthermore , the Russian ruble ’ s floating exchange rate provides an additional shock absorber : As the ruble weakens due to the economic troubles , the cost of producing oil and other commodities in Russia goes down relative to the revenues generated by selling these commodities , which are priced in dollars .
This doesn ’ t mean that Russia will remain unscathed .
The International Monetary Fund ( IMF ) projects that Russia ’ s GDP will contract by 5.5 percent this year , and the Russian government @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to 10 percent , though some experts have warned that it could reach as high as 15 percent .
Relief from Western sanctions—the reward for ending the war—could lessen this decline , though there is disagreement about how much it would help .
In their op-ed , the ambassadors link to a 2019 IMF report to argue that sanctions have contributed to a 1 percent annual reduction of Russian GDP growth since 2014 .
However , that same report acknowledges that falling oil prices have been the most significant factor in this decline @ @ @ @ @ @ @ account for only a 0.2 percent reduction in Russia ’ s annual growth .
Nonetheless , any relief would be welcome , and Russia has already called for sanctions to be lifted on humanitarian grounds .
But while Russia certainly seeks that reprieve , it is not desperate for it .
Given the country ’ s macroeconomic fortitude and the relatively low impact of sanctions , it becomes very difficult to believe that the Kremlin would abandon key strategic priorities for such minor relief .
Ukraine is certainly among those key strategic priorities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to fall within its historical sphere of influence , but it sees the territory as a critical buffer against what Moscow believes to be an encroaching Western threat .
The Kremlin thus views Kyiv ’ s desire to distance itself from Russia and move toward Western institutions such as the European Union and possibly NATO as a threat to its national interests .
By intervening in the Donbass , Russia has sought to prevent Ukraine from asserting its independence and withdrawing from Russia ’ s sphere of control .
The emergence of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who has been willing to accept diplomatic isolation and sanctions to prevent it .
The Kremlin also knows that withdrawing from the Donbass could cause a severe backlash at home .
Abandoning the conflict would be seen as a capitulation to the West and an abdication of Russian power abroad .
For a regime that has staked its legitimacy on its unyielding strength—in a country where 88 percent of people believe maintaining Russia ’ s superpower status is important—such a blow to its domestic image and international prestige would do more damage than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pressures produced by the pandemic may harden the Kremlin ’ s resolve on Ukraine .
The coronavirus has already forced Putin to postpone indefinitely a referendum on constitutional amendments that would extend his right to remain in power .
More painfully , the pandemic forced the Kremlin to cancel the May 9 celebrations commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany , the historical memory of which has become central to the regime ’ s legitimacy and its moral claim to great-power status .
The loss of these two immediate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ standing will only make Putin more reluctant to accept any unnecessary shocks to the system , such as surrender on Ukraine .
Meanwhile , the crisis could compel Ukraine , and not Russia , to capitulate first .
While Ukraine has reported significantly fewer cases of COVID-19 than Russia , it is much less prepared to deal with the fallout .
President Volodymyr Zelensky ’ s government has also shut down economic activity , but the resulting pain will be worse than in Russia .
Ukraine ’ s per capita GDP is less @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and its economy is projected to be hit even harder , facing an estimated 7.7 percent contraction this year .
Furthermore , the country lacks the hard currency reserves or sovereign wealth fund to help mitigate the crisis .
It is currently waiting desperately for an $ 8 billion loan from the IMF , which will be necessary to keep the country afloat but will likely prove insufficient to cover the country ’ s ballooning needs .
The pandemic is also preoccupying Ukraine ’ s European and American allies , accelerating so-called @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long left Kyiv without enthusiastic partners willing to expend diplomatic capital or jeopardize their relationships with Moscow for its sake .
Frustrated with the lack of progress in peace talks and eager to repair relations with Russia , Europe and the United States have already begun to take some of the pressure off Russia , with French President Emmanuel Macron taking the lead in calling for rapprochement with Putin .
These factors could soon compel Ukraine to seek an end to the war .
Ukraine currently spends 5.5 percent of its GDP on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of maintaining military operations on the front lines may soon prove unsustainable .
Unilaterally disengaging from the conflict and freezing the line of contact between government- and separatist-controlled territories would free up resources for nonmilitary needs throughout the rest of the country .
While this would provide Kyiv some necessary breathing room , it would also effectively solidify the fracturing of its territory and indefinitely postpone efforts to expel Russian forces .
If this happens , Moscow will have won a major victory .
The perpetuation of a frozen conflict within Ukraine—a method @ @ @ @ @ @ @ influence countries seeking to leave the Russian sphere—will likely continue to hinder any further integration into Western institutions , accomplishing Russia ’ s primary objective .
And while the Kremlin may be left supporting the separatist republics , those costs amount to only 0.1 percent of Russian GDP , a seemingly acceptable price to pay for avoiding defeat .
As the Russian and Ukrainian economies fall deeper into recession , both governments will face increasing pressure to bring relief to their economies and populations .
Resolving the Donbass conflict would help do that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stand down .
Unfortunately for the three ambassadors and for Ukraine , that is unlikely to be Russia .

There has been rising optimism that the COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis that has hit both Russia and Ukraine have shifted strategic priorities in the Kremlin, presenting an opportunity to end the ongoing war in eastern Ukraine, where Russia has propped up separatist forces in the Donbass region since 2014. In a recent op-ed , three former U.S. ambassadors to Ukraine argue that the current crisis could lead to a resolution of the conflict on terms acceptable to both Kyiv and Washington. Whereas Russia has thus far been willing to bear the costs of U.S. and European retaliatory sanctions, the authors argue that the pandemic’s economic fallout could elevate this burden to the point where Russian President Vladimir Putin feels compelled to sue for peace. This is wishful thinking. Their argument both overestimates the economic pressures facing Russia and understates the political, noneconomic rationale driving Russian policy toward Ukraine. It also ignores the likelihood that Kyiv, not Moscow, may soon feel compelled to capitulate.
There has been rising optimism that the COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis that has hit both Russia and Ukraine have shifted strategic priorities in the Kremlin, presenting an opportunity to end the ongoing war in eastern Ukraine, where Russia has propped up separatist forces in the Donbass region since 2014. In a recent op-ed, three former U.S. ambassadors to Ukraine argue that the current crisis could lead to a resolution of the conflict on terms acceptable to both Kyiv and Washington. Whereas Russia has thus far been willing to bear the costs of U.S. and European retaliatory sanctions, the authors argue that the pandemic’s economic fallout could elevate this burden to the point where Russian President Vladimir Putin feels compelled to sue for peace. This is wishful thinking. Their argument both overestimates the economic pressures facing Russia and understates the political, noneconomic rationale driving Russian policy toward Ukraine. It also ignores the likelihood that Kyiv, not Moscow, may soon feel compelled to capitulate.
To be sure, the Kremlin will face new pressures to alleviate economic suffering. Russian COVID-19 cases have surged, and the country now finds itself in the inevitable recession brought about by the twin shocks of collapsing oil and commodity prices and the government-imposed shutdown of economic activity in response to the pandemic.
While the recent agreement on production cuts between Russia, Saudi Arabia, and other oil-producing countries seeks to stabilize prices, there is only so much that can be done on the supply side of global energy markets. As the virus continues to depress global economic activity, the demand for—and price of—oil will likely remain lower for longer, even with production cuts. Russia’s budget depends on oil revenues and is designed to balance with a price of $42 per barrel. (Urals crude, the standard Russian grade, hit a low of $16.55 in April and currently sells for around $30.) The resulting deficits have been exacerbated by a weekslong nationwide work holiday that has stifled economic activity and will result in massive losses in tax revenue while requiring new expenditures to keep civilians afloat.
However, Russia is in a position to withstand the brunt of the crisis, at least for now. Thanks to many years of conservative macroeconomic policy, the government has built up a massive $560 billion strategic reserve of gold and foreign currency. That amount is more than the entire external debt of both the government and Russian companies and serves as an insurance against the kind of balance-of-payments crisis that might strike other petrostates or emerging markets. Russia has also used surplus oil revenues in past years to amass a $150 billion National Wealth Fund, which is now helping to offset the budget deficit. Furthermore, the Russian ruble’s floating exchange rate provides an additional shock absorber: As the ruble weakens due to the economic troubles, the cost of producing oil and other commodities in Russia goes down relative to the revenues generated by selling these commodities, which are priced in dollars.
This doesn’t mean that Russia will remain unscathed. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects that Russia’s GDP will contract by 5.5 percent this year, and the Russian government has projected an unemployment rate of up to 10 percent, though some experts have warned that it could reach as high as 15 percent.
Relief from Western sanctions—the reward for ending the war—could lessen this decline, though there is disagreement about how much it would help. In their op-ed, the ambassadors link to a 2019 IMF report to argue that sanctions have contributed to a 1 percent annual reduction of Russian GDP growth since 2014. However, that same report acknowledges that falling oil prices have been the most significant factor in this decline. Sanctions, the IMF says, account for only a 0.2 percent reduction in Russia’s annual growth.
Read More Various photos of Russian President Vladimir Putin Various photos of Russian President Vladimir Putin How Putin Changed Russia Forever President Vladimir Putin has transformed his country and its relations with the world. We asked 11 leading experts to look back at his 20-year reign and predict what the future may bring. Analysis | Yevgenia Albats, Catherine Belton, Irina Borogan, Susan Glasser, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Vladimir Milov, Michael McFaul, Olga Oliker, Andrei Soldatov, Angela Stent Cuban health workers go door to door looking for possible cases of the novel coronavirus in Havana on March 31. Cuban health workers go door to door looking for possible cases of the novel coronavirus in Havana on March 31. Ukraine to World: This Is Not the Time to Go Wobbly on Sanctions With the coronavirus pandemic, the United States faces the greatest global challenge to its sanctions policy since the 1990s. Report | Colum Lynch A visitor views an exhibit of cluster bomb remnants at the Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise Visitor Center in Vientiane, Laos, on July 11. A visitor views an exhibit of cluster bomb remnants at the Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise Visitor Center in Vientiane, Laos, on July 11. Ukraine Can Learn From Southeast Asia Cambodia and Laos have direct experience with the aftermath of U.S. cluster bombs, now deployed on the battlefield in Ukraine. Analysis | Verena Hölzl
Nonetheless, any relief would be welcome, and Russia has already called for sanctions to be lifted on humanitarian grounds. But while Russia certainly seeks that reprieve, it is not desperate for it. Given the country’s macroeconomic fortitude and the relatively low impact of sanctions, it becomes very difficult to believe that the Kremlin would abandon key strategic priorities for such minor relief.
Ukraine is certainly among those key strategic priorities. Not only does Russia consider Ukraine to fall within its historical sphere of influence, but it sees the territory as a critical buffer against what Moscow believes to be an encroaching Western threat. The Kremlin thus views Kyiv’s desire to distance itself from Russia and move toward Western institutions such as the European Union and possibly NATO as a threat to its national interests. By intervening in the Donbass, Russia has sought to prevent Ukraine from asserting its independence and withdrawing from Russia’s sphere of control. The emergence of a robust Ukraine is unacceptable to Putin, who has been willing to accept diplomatic isolation and sanctions to prevent it.
The Kremlin also knows that withdrawing from the Donbass could cause a severe backlash at home. Abandoning the conflict would be seen as a capitulation to the West and an abdication of Russian power abroad. For a regime that has staked its legitimacy on its unyielding strength—in a country where 88 percent of people believe maintaining Russia’s superpower status is important—such a blow to its domestic image and international prestige would do more damage than sanctions.
In fact, the political pressures produced by the pandemic may harden the Kremlin’s resolve on Ukraine. The coronavirus has already forced Putin to postpone indefinitely a referendum on constitutional amendments that would extend his right to remain in power. More painfully, the pandemic forced the Kremlin to cancel the May 9 celebrations commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, the historical memory of which has become central to the regime’s legitimacy and its moral claim to great-power status. The loss of these two immediate opportunities to consolidate the regime’s standing will only make Putin more reluctant to accept any unnecessary shocks to the system, such as surrender on Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the crisis could compel Ukraine, and not Russia, to capitulate first.
While Ukraine has reported significantly fewer cases of COVID-19 than Russia, it is much less prepared to deal with the fallout. President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government has also shut down economic activity, but the resulting pain will be worse than in Russia. Ukraine’s per capita GDP is less than a third of Russia’s, and its economy is projected to be hit even harder, facing an estimated 7.7 percent contraction this year. Furthermore, the country lacks the hard currency reserves or sovereign wealth fund to help mitigate the crisis. It is currently waiting desperately for an $8 billion loan from the IMF, which will be necessary to keep the country afloat but will likely prove insufficient to cover the country’s ballooning needs.
The pandemic is also preoccupying Ukraine’s European and American allies, accelerating so-called “Ukraine fatigue,” which has long left Kyiv without enthusiastic partners willing to expend diplomatic capital or jeopardize their relationships with Moscow for its sake. Frustrated with the lack of progress in peace talks and eager to repair relations with Russia, Europe and the United States have already begun to take some of the pressure off Russia, with French President Emmanuel Macron taking the lead in calling for rapprochement with Putin.
These factors could soon compel Ukraine to seek an end to the war. Ukraine currently spends 5.5 percent of its GDP on security and defense, and the costs of maintaining military operations on the front lines may soon prove unsustainable. Unilaterally disengaging from the conflict and freezing the line of contact between government- and separatist-controlled territories would free up resources for nonmilitary needs throughout the rest of the country. While this would provide Kyiv some necessary breathing room, it would also effectively solidify the fracturing of its territory and indefinitely postpone efforts to expel Russian forces.
If this happens, Moscow will have won a major victory. The perpetuation of a frozen conflict within Ukraine—a method Russia has successfully used to control or influence countries seeking to leave the Russian sphere—will likely continue to hinder any further integration into Western institutions, accomplishing Russia’s primary objective. And while the Kremlin may be left supporting the separatist republics, those costs amount to only 0.1 percent of Russian GDP, a seemingly acceptable price to pay for avoiding defeat.
As the Russian and Ukrainian economies fall deeper into recession, both governments will face increasing pressure to bring relief to their economies and populations. Resolving the Donbass conflict would help do that, but one side would have to stand down. Unfortunately for the three ambassadors and for Ukraine, that is unlikely to be Russia.


foreignpolicy--2020-05-14--Afghanistan’s ‘Cradle to Grave’ Cycle of Death

Welcome to Foreign Policy ’ s South Asia Brief .
This week , Afghans mourn an especially brutal day of attacks , the coronavirus is detected in a Rohingya refugee camp , soldiers from India and China come to blows , and why Facebook is apologizing about its work in Sri Lanka .
If you would like to receive South Asia Brief in your inbox every Thursday , please sign up here .
“ The entire cycle of life is being attacked—from cradle to grave.
” That ’ s what Afghanistan ’ s first female ambassador to the United States @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the phone after more than 100 people died in two separate attacks in her country this week .
Rahmani ’ s words were carefully chosen .
In the first attack on Tuesday morning , gunmen barged into a Kabul hospital ’ s maternity ward and targeted new mothers and their babies .
Hours later in Nangarhar province , a suicide bomber struck a funeral for a local police commander .
Even for a country at war for two decades , Tuesday ’ s attacks shook the nation .
The events were an especially @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a maternity ward to a funeral site—was safe .
“ What kind of monster could do this ?
Who kills newborn babies ?
” Rahmani said .
“ People are outraged and disappointed .
But at the same time , we should not forget about the violence that occurs every single day.
” She ’ s right : As I write this , the Taliban have claimed responsibility for a car bombing near a military court in the city of Gardez on Thursday that killed at least five people .
Who is responsible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both of Tuesday ’ s attacks .
While an Islamic State offshoot has claimed responsibility for the Nangarhar funeral bombing , there have been no claims over the maternity ward attack—an incident that even Afghan officials admit does not bear the usual Taliban hallmarks .
Even so , President Ashraf Ghani has ordered the military to switch to an “ offensive mode ” against the Taliban .
Afghan National Security Advisor Hamdullah Mohib took a broader view of the last two months on Twitter , pointing to a trend of Taliban violence despite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ militant group in February .
“ The Afghan government and our international partners , have a responsibility to hold the Taliban and their sponsors accountable , ” he wrote .
“ If the Taliban can not control the violence , or their sponsors have now subcontracted their terror to other entities—which was one of our primary concerns from the beginning—then [ there ] seems little point in continuing to engage Taliban in ‘ peace talks.
’ ” What ’ s next ?
It ’ s difficult to imagine a way forward for Afghanistan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.S.-Taliban talks—and the peace deal signed on Feb. 29—took place while the insurgent group refused to recognize the democratically elected government in Kabul .
No matter who is responsible for Tuesday ’ s attacks , the environment of chaos makes it less likely that Kabul will make concessions to a group it has little reason to trust .
“ We have demonstrated how far we can go in order to achieve peace , ” Rahmani said .
“ But we can not sacrifice everything for the sake of an agreement.
” As Max @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the pledge for the Afghan government to release Taliban prisoners—a sticking point for the insurgent group—came from the Trump administration and not from Kabul , making it all the more difficult to move beyond the current impasse .
Another battle .
Amid all of this , there is another war Afghanistan now faces : the fight against the coronavirus .
The country now has more than 5,000 confirmed cases , with the number doubling around every 10 days .
But as Tuesday ’ s attacks show , no hospital , doctor , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Whoever planned these attacks and whatever their goal , the outcome is an even more heightened sense of fear and despair—even in a country that has seen it all .
FP Conference Call—A programming note : On Friday at 11 a.m. EDT , I will host a special FP Insider Conference Call on how emerging markets will manage their economies amid the pandemic .
Sign up here to listen to the discussion and pose questions to Morgan Stanley ’ s head of emerging markets and chief global strategist , Ruchir Sharma , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ author of Edge of Chaos .
Coronavirus cases keep rising .
As I ’ ve written previously , it remains somewhat of a mystery why there aren ’ t more confirmed cases of the coronavirus in South Asia .
Even with low rates of testing , the region ’ s health care systems have yet to be pushed to capacity .
But as shown below , new cases are still rising , with total numbers doubling about every two weeks .
Several countries are beginning to ease their lockdowns , in large part @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wage and migrant laborers who need to put food on the table .
Once people return outside , there is a reasonable chance for a surge in positive cases and deaths .
The next few months will be crucial to observe , but one problem remains that rates of testing remain too low for accurate portrayals of how quickly the pandemic is spreading .
JUST IN : Bangladesh confirms coronavirus in Rohingya refugee camp .
Bangladeshi officials have confirmed at least one case of the coronavirus in a Rohingya refugee camp .
Aid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ disaster if the virus reaches the camps , home to more than a million Rohingya living in especially cramped conditions .
India and China come to blows—literally .
This week , seven Chinese and four Indian troops were injured in a brawl that began on their shared border , along India ’ s northeastern state of Sikkim .
Dozens of troops were involved in the physical fight .
These kinds of standoffs are actually not uncommon , but as the BBC reports , no bullets have been fired across the border in four @ @ @ @ @ @ @ share a 2,100-mile border , last fought a real war in 1962 .
Buddhists across South Asia marked the birth anniversary of Siddhartha Gautama last week amid restrictions imposed because of the pandemic .
Our question : Where was the Buddha born ?
Scroll down for the answer .
India ’ s $ 266 billion stimulus plan .
In a speech on Tuesday , Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged $ 266 billion—about 10 percent of the country ’ s GDP—to jump-start the economy .
But Modi stopped short of announcing specific spending @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be “ India ’ s century ” if its citizens boosted domestic consumption .
“ Be vocal about local !
” he said .
New Delhi has approached global investors with a pitch that India could serve as an alternative to China as a manufacturing hub , according to the Financial Times .
Facebook apologizes to Sri Lanka .
Facebook has released independent assessments of its impact on global human rights , and it found its role in stoking deadly violence in Sri Lanka in 2018 serious enough to merit a formal apology @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of incendiary anti-Muslim content on the platform , leading to a state-imposed emergency .
“ We deplore the misuse of our platform , ” read the Facebook statement to Bloomberg .
“ We recognize , and apologize for , the very real human rights impacts that resulted.
” Facebook has more than 4 million daily active users in Sri Lanka .
India ’ s contact tracing app .
Last week , I wrote about Aarogya Setu , India ’ s mandatory coronavirus contact tracing app , and how hackers had raised concerns about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been checking peoples ’ smartphones to make sure they have the app installed .
BuzzFeed ’ s Pranav Dixit has an excellent follow-up .
In Bengaluru , a software engineer hacked into the app ’ s code to disable requests for personal information , using the “ harmless shell ” of an app as a virtual green badge .
It ’ s likely many others will share the hack as Indians push back against mandatory surveillance requests .
It ’ s easy to feel depressed reading about how various governments have botched @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s not all bad news .
In Pakistan , several nonprofit organizations across the country have stepped in where the government has fallen short , as Neha Maqsood reports for Foreign Policy from Karachi .
The groups are providing the country ’ s poor with free meals , grocery items , ration bags , and cash .
While Maqsood describes what she ’ s seeing in Pakistan , I ’ ve seen similar reports from other parts of the region , with NGOs , Rotary Clubs , and neighborhood alliances getting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In many ways these are the worst of times , and so the benevolence and care seen within communities make for the most heartening stories to emerge in the last two months .
If you didn ’ t know the answer already , this one may have been harder to work out .
Buddhists say the Buddha was born in Lumbini , in modern-day Nepal , although he grew up in Kapilavastu , in India , and achieved his enlightenment in Bodh Gaya , also in modern-day India .
That ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ your feedback at newsletters @ foreignpolicy.com .
You can find older editions of South Asia Brief here .
For more from FP , subscribe or sign up for our other newsletters .

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief. This week, Afghans mourn an especially brutal day of attacks, the coronavirus is detected in a Rohingya refugee camp , soldiers from India and China come to blows , and why Facebook is apologizing about its work in Sri Lanka.
Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief. This week, Afghans mourn an especially brutal day of attacks, the coronavirus is detected in a Rohingya refugee camp, soldiers from India and China come to blows, and why Facebook is apologizing about its work in Sri Lanka.
If you would like to receive South Asia Brief in your inbox every Thursday, please sign up here.
‘Cradle to Grave’ Terrorism
“The entire cycle of life is being attacked—from cradle to grave.” That’s what Afghanistan’s first female ambassador to the United States, Roya Rahmani, told me on the phone after more than 100 people died in two separate attacks in her country this week. Rahmani’s words were carefully chosen. In the first attack on Tuesday morning, gunmen barged into a Kabul hospital’s maternity ward and targeted new mothers and their babies. Hours later in Nangarhar province, a suicide bomber struck a funeral for a local police commander.
Even for a country at war for two decades, Tuesday’s attacks shook the nation. The events were an especially brutal reminder to Afghans that no place—from a maternity ward to a funeral site—was safe. “What kind of monster could do this? Who kills newborn babies?” Rahmani said. “People are outraged and disappointed. But at the same time, we should not forget about the violence that occurs every single day.”
She’s right: As I write this, the Taliban have claimed responsibility for a car bombing near a military court in the city of Gardez on Thursday that killed at least five people.
Who is responsible? The Taliban have denied involvement in both of Tuesday’s attacks. While an Islamic State offshoot has claimed responsibility for the Nangarhar funeral bombing, there have been no claims over the maternity ward attack—an incident that even Afghan officials admit does not bear the usual Taliban hallmarks. Even so, President Ashraf Ghani has ordered the military to switch to an “offensive mode” against the Taliban.
Afghan National Security Advisor Hamdullah Mohib took a broader view of the last two months on Twitter, pointing to a trend of Taliban violence despite the U.S. peace deal signed with the militant group in February. “The Afghan government and our international partners, have a responsibility to hold the Taliban and their sponsors accountable,” he wrote. “If the Taliban can not control the violence, or their sponsors have now subcontracted their terror to other entities—which was one of our primary concerns from the beginning—then [there] seems little point in continuing to engage Taliban in ‘peace talks.’”
What’s next? It’s difficult to imagine a way forward for Afghanistan. Perhaps the biggest problem is that U.S.-Taliban talks—and the peace deal signed on Feb. 29—took place while the insurgent group refused to recognize the democratically elected government in Kabul. No matter who is responsible for Tuesday’s attacks, the environment of chaos makes it less likely that Kabul will make concessions to a group it has little reason to trust. “We have demonstrated how far we can go in order to achieve peace,” Rahmani said. “But we cannot sacrifice everything for the sake of an agreement.”
As Max Boot points out in the Washington Post, the pledge for the Afghan government to release Taliban prisoners—a sticking point for the insurgent group—came from the Trump administration and not from Kabul, making it all the more difficult to move beyond the current impasse.
Another battle. Amid all of this, there is another war Afghanistan now faces: the fight against the coronavirus. The country now has more than 5,000 confirmed cases, with the number doubling around every 10 days. But as Tuesday’s attacks show, no hospital, doctor, or nurse is safe at work. Whoever planned these attacks and whatever their goal, the outcome is an even more heightened sense of fear and despair—even in a country that has seen it all.
FP Conference Call—A programming note: On Friday at 11 a.m. EDT, I will host a special FP Insider Conference Call on how emerging markets will manage their economies amid the pandemic. Sign up here to listen to the discussion and pose questions to Morgan Stanley’s head of emerging markets and chief global strategist, Ruchir Sharma, and Dambisa Moyo, an economist and the author of Edge of Chaos.
What We’re Following
Coronavirus cases keep rising. As I’ve written previously, it remains somewhat of a mystery why there aren’t more confirmed cases of the coronavirus in South Asia. Even with low rates of testing, the region’s health care systems have yet to be pushed to capacity. But as shown below, new cases are still rising, with total numbers doubling about every two weeks. Several countries are beginning to ease their lockdowns, in large part because they have substantial populations of daily wage and migrant laborers who need to put food on the table. Once people return outside, there is a reasonable chance for a surge in positive cases and deaths. The next few months will be crucial to observe, but one problem remains that rates of testing remain too low for accurate portrayals of how quickly the pandemic is spreading.
JUST IN: Bangladesh confirms coronavirus in Rohingya refugee camp. Bangladeshi officials have confirmed at least one case of the coronavirus in a Rohingya refugee camp. Aid workers have long warned of a humanitarian disaster if the virus reaches the camps, home to more than a million Rohingya living in especially cramped conditions.
India and China come to blows—literally. This week, seven Chinese and four Indian troops were injured in a brawl that began on their shared border, along India’s northeastern state of Sikkim. Dozens of troops were involved in the physical fight. These kinds of standoffs are actually not uncommon, but as the BBC reports, no bullets have been fired across the border in four decades. The two countries, which share a 2,100-mile border, last fought a real war in 1962.
Question of the Week
A Nepalese Buddhist devotee hangs prayer flags during the Buddha Purnima, which marks the Buddha's birthday, in Kathmandu, Nepal, on May 10, 2017.
Buddhists across South Asia marked the birth anniversary of Siddhartha Gautama last week amid restrictions imposed because of the pandemic. Our question: Where was the Buddha born?
A) Lumbini, Nepal
B) Bodh Gaya, India
C) Kapilavastu, India
D) Colombo, Sri Lanka
Scroll down for the answer.
South Asia, Inc.
India’s $266 billion stimulus plan. In a speech on Tuesday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged $266 billion—about 10 percent of the country’s GDP—to jump-start the economy. But Modi stopped short of announcing specific spending plans, instead saying that this would be “India’s century” if its citizens boosted domestic consumption. “Be vocal about local!” he said. New Delhi has approached global investors with a pitch that India could serve as an alternative to China as a manufacturing hub, according to the Financial Times.
Facebook apologizes to Sri Lanka. Facebook has released independent assessments of its impact on global human rights, and it found its role in stoking deadly violence in Sri Lanka in 2018 serious enough to merit a formal apology. The riots were stirred in because of incendiary anti-Muslim content on the platform, leading to a state-imposed emergency. “We deplore the misuse of our platform,” read the Facebook statement to Bloomberg. “We recognize, and apologize for, the very real human rights impacts that resulted.” Facebook has more than 4 million daily active users in Sri Lanka.
India’s contact tracing app. Last week, I wrote about Aarogya Setu, India’s mandatory coronavirus contact tracing app, and how hackers had raised concerns about its security. But banks and workplaces have been checking peoples’ smartphones to make sure they have the app installed. BuzzFeed’s Pranav Dixit has an excellent follow-up. In Bengaluru, a software engineer hacked into the app’s code to disable requests for personal information, using the “harmless shell” of an app as a virtual green badge. It’s likely many others will share the hack as Indians push back against mandatory surveillance requests.
Odds and Ends
It’s easy to feel depressed reading about how various governments have botched their responses to the coronavirus. But it’s not all bad news. In Pakistan, several nonprofit organizations across the country have stepped in where the government has fallen short, as Neha Maqsood reports for Foreign Policy from Karachi. The groups are providing the country’s poor with free meals, grocery items, ration bags, and cash.
While Maqsood describes what she’s seeing in Pakistan, I’ve seen similar reports from other parts of the region, with NGOs, Rotary Clubs, and neighborhood alliances getting together to help people in their communities. In many ways these are the worst of times, and so the benevolence and care seen within communities make for the most heartening stories to emerge in the last two months.
And the Answer Is…
A) Lumbini, Nepal.
If you didn’t know the answer already, this one may have been harder to work out. Buddhists say the Buddha was born in Lumbini, in modern-day Nepal, although he grew up in Kapilavastu, in India, and achieved his enlightenment in Bodh Gaya, also in modern-day India.
That’s it for this week.


foreignpolicy--2020-05-14--China’s Coronavirus Success Is Made Possible by Xi’s Brutality

China ’ s Coronavirus Success Is Made Possible by Xi ’ s Brutality There ’ s no doubt that China ’ s coronavirus response , like that of many other East Asian states , has been far more successful than Western Europe ’ s or the disastrous failures of the United States .
After the initial outbreak in Wuhan , the coronavirus appears to have been successfully contained , mass testing introduced , and the country ’ s borders effectively sealed—all while maintaining strong supply chains and dampening some of the worst of the considerable economic damage .
But that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state control , not public trust or civil society .
After an initial and disastrous cover-up , the systems that allowed the government to successfully act are the same ones that the Chinese Communist Party ( CCP ) uses to maintain its control over citizens—and that are currently being used as part of a campaign of mass imprisonment and cultural genocide against Uighurs and other minorities in the western region of Xinjiang .
Those systems were already in place in most of China—from tracking people ’ s movement via their phones to a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ technology , mixed with lower-tech methods including police databases of supposedly suspect individuals such as religious believers and critical thinkers .
This omnipresent domestic control apparatus is funded out of a so-called stability maintenance budget larger than that for national defense .
These systems are not necessary for success , as Taiwan and South Korea have shown , but in China they proved critical .
Up until the pandemic , these systems were often relatively lightly applied outside Xinjiang , but they ’ ve now been turned on with full force almost everywhere @ @ @ @ @ @ @ elements of the system : neighborhood committees .
These groups , mostly made up of retirees in their 60s or older , played a critical role in monitoring households for compliance with quarantines and in securing supplies for people in need .
There is an element in them that mimics , in a highly limited way , a functioning civil society ; they can be vehicles for complaints about local services or discussions of group projects—or for just hanging out and complaining about young people nowadays .
Yet their primary function and reason @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the government ’ s ends—a useful tool during the pandemic but an oppressive and dangerous one in ordinary times .
In Xinjiang , that can mean reporting people to be dispatched to the camps for crimes such as private prayer or talking to a relative overseas .
In Beijing , they played a critical role in the destruction of the city ’ s neighborhoods and the driving out of migrant workers .
Similar committees already had an unholy history as the eyes and ears of one-party states such as the Soviet Union @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them .
To be sure , surveys show high levels of trust in the government in China .
But that ’ s hardly surprising in an environment where to express distrust in the government is to risk prison .
The absurdly high levels of trust cited in surveys—84 percent , for instance—bear no resemblance to reality , for the simple reason that when asked by a stranger whether they trust the authorities , people in authoritarian systems have learned the hard way that it ’ s better to say “ yes ” —and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their supposed virtue while reserving their cynicism about the lower levels of government .
As the chengyu goes , “ The mountains are high , and the emperor is far away.
” As ever , behavior tells us more than surveys in a country where , for instance , people famously avoid helping up fallen older people out of fear of entanglement with the police and where they adapt their criticism of local authorities to avoid implicating the party itself .
That was a problem once much discussed in the Chinese media during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ under current President Xi Jinping ’ s insistence on “ positive energy , ” those stories soon vanished .
For all that vaunted trust in central authorities , the moment Beijing finally confirmed widespread rumors about the coronavirus , local towns and villages spontaneously started putting up their own barricades to keep out untrustworthy outsiders .
That brings us to a core problem : It ’ s impossible to effectively gauge public opinion , or even to know what ’ s really going on , in an environment as brutally censored as Xi @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , of course , publicly praised from all angles—because there is no other choice .
Even well-funded propaganda outlets sometimes accidentally cross the line , after all .
Condemning his handling of the country or calling for political reform gets even the privileged into trouble , while the young simply disappear one day .
The sheer weight of his presence is such that even pundits who praised the peaceful transfer of the party leadership mysteriously discovered that its abolition was actually a good thing after Xi got rid of it .
If the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no doubt they will rapidly disavow his excesses as smoothly as any 1970s apparatchik disavowed the Gang of Four .
It ’ s been equally impossible—or at least very difficult—to know about the failings of the pandemic response ever since the censors began to crack down on the brave reporting of relatively independent outlets such as Caixin .
The Chinese government , meanwhile , has expelled 19 foreign reporters who might have been able—not through any greater talent but through simple lack of censorship—to paint a more honest picture .
The early days @ @ @ @ @ @ @ level of disruption allowed for more freedom to report , saw stories of disabled people starving to death , for instance , and of families being bankrupted by hospital charges .
Such stories don ’ t take away from an honest accounting of successes , but the level of effort put into suppressing them suggests a far more mixed and painful picture .
Citizen journalists , for instance , have been disappeared for questioning the official narrative .
And , of course , the people who have paid the highest price for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Shanghai elite .
They ’ re the migrant workers who remain trapped in their home villages , who were discriminated against and even jailed merely for having a hukou , or residency registration , issued in coronavirus-hit Hubei province ( bitterly mirroring the earlier experience of Uighurs , who found that their mere arrival in a city prompted the police to turn up ) , and who were systematically driven out of the cities they wanted to live in even before the pandemic .
They remain without a voice , especially from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rural poor but now celebrates the rich in its sham parliament .
If you want to prosper inside the Chinese system , then the temptation must be very great to reimagine the nature of that system in ways that benefit yourself—whether it ’ s to claim that China respects the rule of law when that law is defined as serving the party or to claim that civil society is thriving as the United Front Work Department , which co-opts other bodies or groups to serve party ends , is given ever more authority @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crushed .
The price of being a successful businessperson who dares to speak against the party , such as Ren Zhiqiang , has been made very clear .
Honest speakers , in such times , remain silent .
Brave ones speak up—and pay the price .

There’s no doubt that China’s coronavirus response, like that of many other East Asian states , has been far more successful than Western Europe’s or the disastrous failures of the United States. After the initial outbreak in Wuhan, the coronavirus appears to have been successfully contained, mass testing introduced, and the country’s borders effectively sealed—all while maintaining strong supply chains and dampening some of the worst of the considerable economic damage.
There’s no doubt that China’s coronavirus response, like that of many other East Asian states, has been far more successful than Western Europe’s or the disastrous failures of the United States. After the initial outbreak in Wuhan, the coronavirus appears to have been successfully contained, mass testing introduced, and the country’s borders effectively sealed—all while maintaining strong supply chains and dampening some of the worst of the considerable economic damage.
But that success comes from very clear roots of state control, not public trust or civil society. After an initial and disastrous cover-up, the systems that allowed the government to successfully act are the same ones that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses to maintain its control over citizens—and that are currently being used as part of a campaign of mass imprisonment and cultural genocide against Uighurs and other minorities in the western region of Xinjiang. Those systems were already in place in most of China—from tracking people’s movement via their phones to a widespread camera system linked to facial recognition technology, mixed with lower-tech methods including police databases of supposedly suspect individuals such as religious believers and critical thinkers. This omnipresent domestic control apparatus is funded out of a so-called stability maintenance budget larger than that for national defense. These systems are not necessary for success, as Taiwan and South Korea have shown, but in China they proved critical. Up until the pandemic, these systems were often relatively lightly applied outside Xinjiang, but they’ve now been turned on with full force almost everywhere.
Take one of the most useful elements of the system: neighborhood committees. These groups, mostly made up of retirees in their 60s or older, played a critical role in monitoring households for compliance with quarantines and in securing supplies for people in need. There is an element in them that mimics, in a highly limited way, a functioning civil society; they can be vehicles for complaints about local services or discussions of group projects—or for just hanging out and complaining about young people nowadays.
[Mapping the Coronavirus Outbreak: Get daily updates on the pandemic.]
Yet their primary function and reason for existence is spying on their neighbors for the government’s ends—a useful tool during the pandemic but an oppressive and dangerous one in ordinary times. In Xinjiang, that can mean reporting people to be dispatched to the camps for crimes such as private prayer or talking to a relative overseas. In Beijing, they played a critical role in the destruction of the city’s neighborhoods and the driving out of migrant workers. Similar committees already had an unholy history as the eyes and ears of one-party states such as the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany before the CCP adopted them.
To be sure, surveys show high levels of trust in the government in China. But that’s hardly surprising in an environment where to express distrust in the government is to risk prison. The absurdly high levels of trust cited in surveys—84 percent, for instance—bear no resemblance to reality, for the simple reason that when asked by a stranger whether they trust the authorities, people in authoritarian systems have learned the hard way that it’s better to say “yes”—and to praise the all-powerful central authorities for their supposed virtue while reserving their cynicism about the lower levels of government. As the chengyu goes, “The mountains are high, and the emperor is far away.”
Read More A float with a giant portrait of Chinese President Xi Jinping passes by Tiananmen Square during the National Day parade in Beijing on Oct. 1, 2019. A float with a giant portrait of Chinese President Xi Jinping passes by Tiananmen Square during the National Day parade in Beijing on Oct. 1, 2019. Xi Jinping Is a ‘Good Emperor’ An advocate for China describes why the pandemic has increased his trust in Xi, the party, and Beijing. Argument | Eric Li Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives in Kathmandu, Nepal, for a summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation on Nov. 25, 2014. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives in Kathmandu, Nepal, for a summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation on Nov. 25, 2014. India Is Pushing Back Against China in South Asia Beijing’s attempts to encircle New Delhi are being systematically reversed. Analysis | Derek Grossman Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a press conference held at the Florida National Guard Robert A. Ballard Armory in Miami, Florida. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a press conference held at the Florida National Guard Robert A. Ballard Armory in Miami, Florida. DeSantis Is Out to Prove He’s the GOP’s Top China Hawk The Florida governor looks to correct his slide in the polls with a major China speech. Report | Jack Detsch
As ever, behavior tells us more than surveys in a country where, for instance, people famously avoid helping up fallen older people out of fear of entanglement with the police and where they adapt their criticism of local authorities to avoid implicating the party itself. That was a problem once much discussed in the Chinese media during the relatively open Hu Jintao era; under current President Xi Jinping’s insistence on “positive energy,” those stories soon vanished. For all that vaunted trust in central authorities, the moment Beijing finally confirmed widespread rumors about the coronavirus, local towns and villages spontaneously started putting up their own barricades to keep out untrustworthy outsiders.
That brings us to a core problem: It’s impossible to effectively gauge public opinion, or even to know what’s really going on, in an environment as brutally censored as Xi’s China. Xi himself is, of course, publicly praised from all angles—because there is no other choice. Even well-funded propaganda outlets sometimes accidentally cross the line, after all. Condemning his handling of the country or calling for political reform gets even the privileged into trouble, while the young simply disappear one day. The sheer weight of his presence is such that even pundits who praised the peaceful transfer of the party leadership mysteriously discovered that its abolition was actually a good thing after Xi got rid of it. If the rumored pushback against Xi ever succeeds, no doubt they will rapidly disavow his excesses as smoothly as any 1970s apparatchik disavowed the Gang of Four.
It’s been equally impossible—or at least very difficult—to know about the failings of the pandemic response ever since the censors began to crack down on the brave reporting of relatively independent outlets such as Caixin. The Chinese government, meanwhile, has expelled 19 foreign reporters who might have been able—not through any greater talent but through simple lack of censorship—to paint a more honest picture. The early days of the pandemic, when the sheer level of disruption allowed for more freedom to report, saw stories of disabled people starving to death, for instance, and of families being bankrupted by hospital charges. Such stories don’t take away from an honest accounting of successes, but the level of effort put into suppressing them suggests a far more mixed and painful picture. Citizen journalists, for instance, have been disappeared for questioning the official narrative.
And, of course, the people who have paid the highest price for the response are not members of the comfortable Shanghai elite. They’re the migrant workers who remain trapped in their home villages, who were discriminated against and even jailed merely for having a hukou, or residency registration, issued in coronavirus-hit Hubei province (bitterly mirroring the earlier experience of Uighurs, who found that their mere arrival in a city prompted the police to turn up), and who were systematically driven out of the cities they wanted to live in even before the pandemic. They remain without a voice, especially from the party that once claimed to represent the rural poor but now celebrates the rich in its sham parliament.
If you want to prosper inside the Chinese system, then the temptation must be very great to reimagine the nature of that system in ways that benefit yourself—whether it’s to claim that China respects the rule of law when that law is defined as serving the party or to claim that civil society is thriving as the United Front Work Department, which co-opts other bodies or groups to serve party ends, is given ever more authority and all forms of independent expression are crushed. The price of being a successful businessperson who dares to speak against the party, such as Ren Zhiqiang, has been made very clear.
Honest speakers, in such times, remain silent. Brave ones speak up—and pay the price.