Showing posts with label treaty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label treaty. Show all posts

Saturday, August 31, 2024

Nuclear Proliferation/Non-Proliferation

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24-5-11 Could Ruscia win in Ukraine with nuclear weapons? - Anders > .24-4-13 Could Europe Get its Own Nuclear Deterrent? - Waro > .
X~T 
Ruscia 

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT, is an international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament. Between 1965 and 1968, the treaty was negotiated by the Eighteen Nation Committee on Disarmament, a United Nations-sponsored organization based in Geneva, Switzerland. Opened for signature in 1968, the treaty entered into force in 1970. 

The NPT is often seen to be based on a central bargain:
the NPT non-nuclear-weapon states agree never to acquire nuclear weapons and the NPT nuclear-weapon states in exchange agree to share the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology and to pursue nuclear disarmament aimed at the ultimate elimination of their nuclear arsenals.
The treaty is reviewed every five years in meetings called Review Conferences. Even though the treaty was originally conceived with a limited duration of 25 years, the signing parties decided, by consensus, to unconditionally extend the treaty indefinitely during the Review Conference in New York City on 11 May 1995, in the culmination of U.S. government efforts led by Ambassador Thomas Graham Jr.


The Columbia-class (formerly known as the Ohio Replacement Submarine and SSBN-X Future Follow-on Submarine) is an upcoming class of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines designed to replace the Ohio class of the United States Navy. Construction of the first submarine began on 1 October 2020. It is scheduled to enter service in 2031.

On 3 June 2022, the Navy announced that this first boat will be named USS District of Columbia (SSBN-826), because there currently exists an attack submarine named USS Columbia (SSN-771). In the announcement, the Navy continued to refer to the class as the Columbia class.

⇒ 2024 ..
 

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Sunday, December 26, 2021

China-Iran Deal - Geopolitics of Indebtedness

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Iran Military ..
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Monday, July 26, 2021

CAI, RCEP - Asia, Europe, USA

24-7-20 Malaysia [could become] next global chip giant - Caspian Report > .
2021 QUAD? Can Biden create an Asian NATO against China? - VisPol > .
22-2-24 Australia considers replacing bullying CCP with Indian Market - Insight > .
22-1-6 Australia & Japan sign security cooperation treaty - Focus > .
21-12-28 Australia to streamline weapon-buying process - Focus > .

CAI, RCEP - Asia, Europe, USA ..

The Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) is a proposed investment deal between the People's Republic of China and the European Union. Proposed in 2013, the deal had NOT been signed as of 27 October 2022. In December 2020, the European Commission announced that the agreement was concluded in principle by the leaders of the EU Council, pending ratification by the European Parliament.

In March 2021, it was reported that there would be serious doubts about the approval of the deal in the European Parliament given China's "unacceptable" behavior toward members of the parliament, the European Council's Political and Security Committee, and European think tanks.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a free trade agreement between the Asia-Pacific nations of Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam. The 15 member countries account for about 30% of the world's population (2.2 billion people) and 30% of global GDP ($26.2 trillion) as of 2020, making it the biggest trade bloc in history. Unifying the preexisting bilateral agreements between the 10-member ASEAN and five of its major trade partners, the RCEP was signed on 15 November 2020 at a virtual ASEAN Summit hosted by Vietnam, and will take effect 60 days after it has been ratified by at least six ASEAN and three non-ASEAN signatories.

The trade pact, which includes a mix of high-income, middle-income, and low-income countries, was conceived at the 2011 ASEAN Summit in Bali, Indonesia, while its negotiations were formally launched during the 2012 ASEAN Summit in Cambodia. It is expected to eliminate about 90% of the tariffs on imports between its signatories within 20 years of coming into force, and establish common rules for e-commerce, trade, and intellectual property. The unified rules of origin will help facilitate international supply chains and reduce export costs throughout the bloc.

The RCEP is the first free trade agreement between China, Japan, and South Korea, three of the four largest economies in Asia. Several analysts predicted that it would offer significant economic gains for signatory nations, as well as "pull the economic centre of gravity back towards Asia, with China poised to take the lead in writing trade rules for the region", leaving the U.S. behind in economic and political affairs. Reactions from others were neutral or negative, with some analysts saying that the economic gains from the trade deal would be modest. The RCEP has been criticized for ignoring labor, human rights, and environmental sustainability issues.

The new free trade bloc will be bigger than both the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement and the European Union. The combined GDP of potential RCEP members surpassed the combined GDP of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) members in 2007. It was suggested that continued economic growth, particularly in China and Indonesia, could see total GDP in the original RCEP membership grow to over US$100 trillion by 2050, roughly double the project size of TPP economies. On 23 January 2017, UNpresident Idiot-in-Cheat signed a memorandum withdrawing the United States from the TPP, a move which was seen to improve the chances of success for RCEP.
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Comprehensive Agreement on Investment

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The EU-China Investment Agreement - IntoEu > .
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23-10-23 Poland Must Defend Ukraine against Historical Rival: Russia - GeoP > .
22-7-4 Intermarium: Is Strongest Union In Europe About To Appear? - Complete > .


The European Union and Xina have signed an investment deal in principle. The deal is set to rebalance the relationship that the two blocks have. Xina’s forced technology transfers and other discriminatory practices against European firms will be brought to an end – on paper.

Despite being welcomed by businesses, the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment falls short on tackling human rights issues in Xina, which will lead to backlash on the deal within the European Parliament. Opposition by the United States, which wants Europe to pursue a common policy with it on Xina and from the European public may yet scupper the deal.

Sources: 
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Sunday, July 25, 2021

Debt-Trap Diplomacy

23-9-6 Xina's Four Economic Problems - Attempted Thought > .
22-9-24 Xina's and Australia’s power plays in the Pacific - Caspian > .
22-1-18 China's debt-burden acquisition of Sri Lankan port of Hambantota - Focus > .
2015 Why China Will Not Become the Dominant Power in Asia - ANU > .
> PLA >>  
>> Africa >>>
>> Asia >>>
>> BRI >>>
>> Ċold Ŵar 2 >>>
>> Conflict ⇔ China >>>
>> China >>>
>> Chokepoints >>>
>> Economics >>>
>> EW - Economic Warfare >>>


21-8-20 Protests in Pakistan erupt against China’s Belt and Road plan: Demonstrations shut down Gwadar, where Chinese are blamed for lack of water and electricity and threat to local fishing [Inevitable, it appears.]

CPEC - 2020 China-Pakistan Economic Corridor’s Return to the Shadows .

Debt-trap diplomacy is a theory to describe a powerful lending country or institution seeking to saddle a borrowing nation with enormous debt so as to increase its leverage over it. Debt-trap diplomacy has been referred to by several other terms, including "debt-book diplomacy". The term 'debt-trap diplomacy' was introduced by Indian academic Brahma Chellaney in early 2017 and has been widely used in recent years to accuse China of Machiavellian lending policies. Within 12 months the term had quickly spread through the media, intelligence circles, and western governments. It has since expanded to include other parts of the world and was further defined and expanded upon in the context of Chinese geostrategic interests in a 2018 Harvard University report.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a multi-billion-dollar expansion project of China, to expand its power through lending to countries to spur their economic growth. The BRI project was launched in 2013 by Chinese leader Xi Jinping to improve the infrastructure of countries in Europe, Africa, and Asia in exchange for global trade opportunities and economic advantage.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, or B&R), known in Chinese and formerly in English as One Belt One Road (OBOR), is a global infrastructure development strategy adopted by the Chinese government in 2013 to invest in nearly 70 countries and international organizations. It is considered a centerpiece of Communist Party of China (CPC) general secretary and Chinese leader Xi Jinping's foreign policy, who originally announced the strategy as the "Silk Road Economic Belt" during an official visit to Kazakhstan in September 2013.

"Belt" is short for the "Silk Road Economic Belt," referring to the proposed overland routes for road and rail transportation through landlocked Central Asia along the famed historical trade routes of the Western Regions; whereas "road" is short for the "21st Century Maritime Silk Road", referring to the Indo-Pacific sea routes through Southeast Asia to South Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Examples of Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure investments include ports, skyscrapers, railroads, roads, airports, dams, and railroad tunnels.

The initiative was incorporated into the Constitution of China in 2017. The Chinese government calls the initiative "a bid to enhance regional connectivity and embrace a brighter future." The project has a target completion date of 2049, which will coincide with the centennial anniversary of the People's Republic of China (PRC)'s founding. Some observers and skeptics, mainly from non-participant countries, including the United States, interpret it as a plan for a sinocentric international trade network. In response the United States, Japan and Australia had formed a counter initiative, the Blue Dot Network in 2019. Australia announced on 21 April 2021 via Foreign Minister Marise Payne that Australia would be pulling out of the "Belt and Road" initiative completely. 

The Blue Dot Network (BDN) is a multi-stakeholder initiative formed by the United States, Japan, and Australia to provide assessment and certification of infrastructure development projects worldwide on measures of financial transparency, environmental sustainability, and impact on economic development, with the goal of mobilizing private capital to invest abroad.

It was formally announced on 4 November 2019 at the Indo-Pacific Business Forum in Bangkok, Thailand on the sidelines of the 35th ASEAN Summit. It is led by the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, Japan Bank for International Cooperation, and Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Australia.

The Blue Dot Network is expected to serve as a global evaluation and certification system for roads, ports and bridges with a focus on the Indo-Pacific region. It has been considered as a counter-initiative to China's Belt and Road Initiative.

The theory of debt-trap diplomacy is that the creditor country intentionally extends excessive credit to a debtor country, thereby inducing the debtor into a debt trap. This is done with the intention of extracting economic or political concessions from the debtor country when it becomes unable to meet its debt repayment obligations. The conditions of the loans are often not made public, and the borrowed money commonly pays contractors from the creditor country. Although the term has been applied to the lending practices of many countries and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), it is most commonly alleged towards the People's Republic of China (PRC). Bilateral agreements made as part of China's Belt and Road Initiative have particularly furthered this association, specifically with regard to Chinese infrastructure loans to developing nations and the consequent leveraging of accumulated debt to achieve Beijing's strategic aims.

Proponents of ‘debt-trap diplomacy’ theory have claimed that China's geostrategic interests are served when its partners struggle with debt. The resulting economic crises supposedly would allow Beijing to exploit and seize assets and helps its political influence. But according to a TRT article, the evidence so far contradicts the theory. Far from expanding China's global power, case studies have instead shown that heavily indebted recipients of Chinese loans were a large liability for China. An example would be Pakistan. China has had to slow down its flagship CPEC initiative and provide emergency financing to fend off an economic catastrophe. Pakistan was later forced to approach the IMF for another bailout, which exposed China's loans and investments to global scrutiny and increasing Washington's leverage over Pakistan (given that the US is a majority shareholder in the IMF). This was no political gain for Beijing when Pakistan had struggled to pay back loans.

The validity of allegations against China has been criticized by multiple academic institutions including Rhodium Group, Chatham House and Princeton University, which have denied the narrative of debt-trap diplomacy in the context of Chinese investments.

Princeton University published an article disputing the term and quoted a March 2018 report released by the Center for Global Development, that contradicts the theory as the paper concludes that between 2001 and 2017, China had restructured or waived loans for 51 debtor nations, the majority of BRI participants, without seizing state assets.

BRI - Belt & Road Initiative ..




21-12-22 Sri Lanka plans to pay off Iran oil debt with tea: 

Sri Lanka plans to settle a debt for past oil imports from Iran by paying it off in tea, a government minister said. Ramesh Pathirana said his country hoped to send $5m (£3.8m) worth of tea to Iran each month to clear a $251m debt. Pathirana said the method of payment would not violate United Nations or American sanctions, because tea was categorised as a food item on humanitarian grounds, and no black-listed Iranian banks would be involved.

Sri Lanka is experiencing a severe debt and foreign exchange crisis, which has been made worse by the loss of tourist income during the coronavirus pandemic. A member of the country's tea board said it was the first time tea had been bartered to settle foreign debt.
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Saturday, July 10, 2021

Size Matters? - Advantages of Small Nations

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Monday, June 28, 2021

Anglosphere - CANZUK

22-2-14 Australia's Liberal Party = appeasers of CCP - Kevin Rudd > .
22-2-14 The real (Australian) Liberal record on China - Kevin Rudd > .
21-10-1 US-Australian Alliance | Joe Hockey [fmr Oz-US Amb] AUKUS - geopop > .
22-2-15 China’s Taiwan Invasion? | Peter Zeihan @ Fort Benning Q & A > .
21-12-28 Why China Wants to Annex Taiwan | What Could Go Wrong - gtbt > .
2021 (Ishigaki Plan) Could Japan save Taiwan from China? - VisPol > .
2021 How post-Meiji Japan retained anti-constitutional defense forces - Cold War > .
2021 Why Everyone is So Many Are Building Djibouti Military Bases  - KhAnubis > .

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igitur quī dēsīderat pācem praeparet bellum    therefore, he who desires peace, let him prepare for war sī vīs pācem, parā bellum if you wan...

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