DAILY NEWS ARTICLES/EDITORIALS 05TH JUNE 2020 - Shiksha IAS
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Best IAS Coaching in Bangalore Daily News Articles/Editorials 05th June 2020
Shiksha IAS https://iasshiksha.com/daily-news-article/daily-news-articles-editorials-05th-june-2020/
DAILY NEWS ARTICLES/EDITORIALS 05TH JUNE 2020
Posted on June 5, 2020 by admin
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Best IAS Coaching in Bangalore Daily News Articles/Editorials 05th June 2020
Shiksha IAS https://iasshiksha.com/daily-news-article/daily-news-articles-editorials-05th-june-2020/
TODAY’S IMPORTANT ARTICLE’S FOR UPSC PREPARATION
1. SKYROCKETING TENSIONS: ON U.S. CHINA TIES.
2. KILLING GAJAH: THE KILLING OF AN ELEPHANT IN KERALA.
3. A CHILL IN U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS.
4. AN AGENDA FOR G-12.
SKYROCKETING TENSIONS: ON U.S. CHINA TIES
CONTEXT:
The U.S. government’s decision to bar(restrict)passenger planes from China from June 16 is
but another instance of rising tensions between the two countries.
A trade warwhich President Donald Trump launched in 2018 is yet to be resolved fully.
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NEW COLD WAR:
In recent months, Mr. Trump and other officials in the administration had attacked China over
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its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The U.S. has also decided to end Hong Kong’s special trade statusin protest against Beijing’s
move to introduce a new national security law for the Special Administrative Region.
Repeated targeting of China by Washington and Beijing’s retaliatory(counter)moves make it
look like the world’s largest and second largest economies have entered into a new cold war.
Administration officials say the decision on flights is in response to China’s refusal to allow U.S.
airlines to resume flights to the country.
Disputes such as this could be resolved through talks and cooperation.
China has already sent signals of de-escalation, allowing foreign airlines to resume flights on a
limited scale starting June 8.
Whether or not Mr. Trump has a rethink, the larger problem is the S.’s overall approach towards
China, which has taken an increasingly hostile(aggressive)turn in the last four years.
NEW CATTLE LINES:
From trade and technology to the pandemic and Hong Kong, the battle lines have been drawn.
China, which the Pentagon called “a revisionist power” in 2018, is the main rival of Washington,
a position which the Soviet Union held during the Cold War.
Ties between China and the U.S. are still not as bad as they were between the Soviet Union
and the U.S.
Beijing and Washington are still economically and financially entangled(involved).
The world is not divided into two ideological blocs(Capitalism vs Communism), as it had been
during the Cold War. The possibility of a military confrontation is very low.
An era of cooperation, peaceful trade and pragmatism(being practical)had defined U.S.-China
partnership since President Richard Nixon’s reset in the 1970s.
It seems to have made way for an aggressive leadership contestand deepening mutual
mistrust.
Trump is desperately looking for an enemy to blamefor the misfortunes that fell on America in
an election year.
Tensions with China are expected to skyrocket(increase)in the coming months.
Washington wanted an enemy and it found it in China.
CONCLUSION:
Unless the leaders of both countries change their course and rebuild the lost mutual
confidence, a new kind of cold war would be forced upon the world.
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SOURCE: THE HINDU
KILLING GAJAH: THE KILLING OF AN ELEPHANT IN KERALA
CONTEXT:
An outpouring of grief(sadness)has followed the death of a pregnant elephant in Kerala,
the treacherous(harmful) use of a food bomb causing widespread anger.
Scores(number)of elephants are killed every year in India as their paths cross those of humans,
but the image of a mortally wounded animal will remain imprinted on the mind.
Whether the trapped pineapple that took its life was intended for elephants or other animals
matters little, because such traps litter the troubled landscapes that surround forests.
RISING CONFLICTS BETWEEN HUMANS AND ANIMALS:
The tragic accident is a reminder of the rising conflicts between humans and animals that are
only destined to grow, as commercial pressures eat into already diminished(decreasing).
The perpetrators may be prosecuted for the elephant’s death, but that can do little
to mitigate(reduce)the larger issue of lost ranges and blocked corridor.
India has thousands of elephants — just under 30,000 according to available counts — but no
strong science-imbued policythat encourages soft landscapes and migrating passages that
will reduce conflict.
Ironically, Environment Minister invoked Indian culture to deplore(condemn)what happened in
Kerala.
But it is the lack of a scientific culture and the readiness to spare forested landsfrom
commercial exploitation that is eviscerating(harming).
Even during the lockdown, the Ministry convened video conference of the National Board for
Wildlife and the Expert Appraisal Committee to clear disruptive projects in protected areas.
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MADHAV GADGIL COMMITTEE:
Shrinking feeding grounds for elephants cause serious worry, because the animals look for soft
landscapes adjoining forests such as coffee, tea and cardamom estates.
In the absence of these, they wander into food-rich farms falling in their movement pathways.
Research in Karnataka showed that 60% of elephant distribution was encountered outside
protected areas.
In Kerala, such movement along human-dominated landscapes routinely produces conflict.
Unsurprisingly, politicians of many hues in the State were opposed to the Madhav Gadgil
Committee Report.
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The report called for the entire Western Ghats to be classified as ecologically sensitive and
spared of destructive development.
CONCLUSION:
Landscapes which are seen nothing more than a resource to be exploited for minerals and
cash crops, elephants and other creatures have little chance of escaping deadly conflict.
A sensible course open to conservation-minded governments is to end all intrusion into the 5%
of protected habitat in India.
A culture shift to protect, rather than prospect, would genuinely enrich people and save
biodiversity.
A culture of exploitationled to the painful death of an elephant in Kerala.
SOURCE: THE HINDU
A CHILL IN U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS
CONTEXT:
A slew(series)of recent announcements on China by U.S. President Trump is a clear indication
that the competition between the U.S. and China is likely to sharpen in the post-COVID world.
On May 29, the Trump administration said it would revoke(end)Hong Kong’s special trade
status under U.S. law.
The administration also passed an order limiting the entry of certain Chinese graduate
studentsand researchers who may have ties to the People’s Liberation Army.
The U.S. President has also ordered financial regulators to closely examine Chinese firms listed
in U.S. stock markets, and warned those that do not comply with U.S. laws could be delisted.
COMPLICIT IN CHINA’S RISE:
Americans have had a strange fascination for China ever since the early 1900swhen Protestant
missionaries decided that it was God’s work to bring salvation to the Chinese.
Even after the Chinese communists seized power, the Americans hoped to cohabit with Mao
Zedongin a world under U.S. hegemony.
The Chinese allowed them to believe this and extracted their price.
S. President Richard Nixon gave China the international acceptability it cravedin return for
being admitted to Mao’s presence in 1972.
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President Jimmy Carter terminated diplomatic relations with Taiwanin order to normalise
relations with China in 1978.
President George H.W. Bush washed away the sins of Tiananmen in 1989for geopolitical gain.
Bill Clinton made it possible for China to enter into the World Trade Organization at the
expense of American business.
All American administrations since the 1960s have been complicit(involved secretly)in China’s
rise in the unrealised hope that it will become a ‘responsible stakeholder’ under Pax
Americana(state of relative international peace regarded as overseen by the US).
DISGUISING ITS REAL PURPOSE:
The Chinese are hard-nosed and unsentimental about the U.S.
They have always pursued America with a selfish purpose, albeit couched in high principle.
They have spoken words that the Americans wanted to hear — anti-Soviet rhetoric during the
Cold War and market principles thereafter — to disguise their real purpose of thwarting U.S.
hegemony.
Cold Warrior John Foster Dulles spoke in 1958 of weaning China and other “satellites” away
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from the Sovietsthrough regime change, known as “peaceful evolution”.
Every Chinese leader from Chairman Mao to President Xi Jinping has been clear-eyed that
the S. represents an existential threat to the continued supremacy of the communist regime.
Mao put it best, when he told high-ranking leaders in November 1959, that the “U.S. is
attempting to carry out its aggression and expansion with a much more deceptive tactic”.
In other words, it wants to keep its order and change our system.
The collapse of the Soviet Union only reinforced this view and strengthened China’s resolve to
resist by creating its own parallel universe.
China is building an-
1. alternate trading system (the Belt and Road Initiative);
2. a multilateral banking system under its control (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, New
Development Bank);
3. its own global positioning system (BeiDou);
4. digital payment platforms (WeChat Pay and Alipay);
5. a world-class digital network (Huawei 5G);
6. cutting-edge technological processes in sunrise industries; and;
7. a modern military force.
It is doing this under the noses of the Americans and some of it with the financial and
technological resources of the West.
CAUTIONARY WORDS:
Voices of caution have been few and far between, among them political scientist John
Mearsheimer, who wrote in 2005 that the rise of China would not be peaceful at all.
But the world chose to believe General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Hu
Jintao’s assurances about “peaceful rise”.
When satellite evidence showed that China was building military installations in the South
China Sea, China’s Southeast Asian neighbours and the U.S. preferred to believe assurances.
It is only under Mr. Trump that the Americans are finally acknowledging the uneasy fact that
the Chinese are not graven in their image.
He has called China out on trade practices. He has called China out on 5G.
It was Mr. Trump’s 2017 National Security Strategy document that, perhaps for the first time,
clubbed China along with Russia as a challenge to American power, influence and interests.
His recent China-specific restrictions on trade and legal migrationare, possibly, only the
beginning of a serious re-adjustment.
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INDIA WILL BECOME PART OF THE COLLATERAL DAMAGE:
A full-spectrum debate on China is now raging across the U.S. Former White House Chief of
Staff Steve Bannon declared that the S. is already at war with China.
Others like diplomat Richard Haass and former president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick,
warn that a new Cold War will be a mistake.
Both sides are acutely aware how closely their economies are tied together.
From farm to factory, the S. is heavily dependent on supply chains in Chinaand the Chinese
have been unable to break free of the dollar.
If Mr. Trump’s wish is to disentangle China’s supply chains, Mr. Xi is equally determined to
escape from the U.S. ‘chokehold’ on technology.
To what extent the de-coupling is possible is yet to be determined, but one thing is
inevitable, India will become part of the collateral damage.
THE HONG KONG QUESTION:
Will Hong Kong become a game-changer in the post-COVID world?
China’s decision to enact the new national security law for Hong Kong has been condemned in
unison by the U.S. and its Western allies as an assault on human freedoms.
Why is this significant?
The points of divergence, even dispute, between them have so far been in the material realm.
With Hong Kong, the U.S.-China rivalry may, possibly, be entering the ideological domain.
For some time now there are reports about Chinese interference in the internal affairs of
democracies.
Countries in the West have tackled this individually, always mindful of not jeopardising their
trade with China.
Hong Kong may be different. It is not only a bastion for Western capitalism in the East, but
more importantly the torch-bearer of Western democratic ideals.
This is an assault on beliefs, so to speak.
This comes on the back of not unreasonable demands that China should come clean on its
errors of omission in the early days of COVID-19.
Greater transparency and quicker action might have prevented, or at least mitigated, the
pandemic.
CONCLUSION:
In the months ahead, more information may become public, from sources inside China itself,
about the shortcomings of the regime.
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This will further fuel a debate on the superiority of the Chinese Modelas an alternative to
democracy.
Will this form the ideological underpinning for the birth of a new Cold War?
That will depend on who wins in Washington in November; on whether profit will again trump
politics in Europe; and on how skilfully the Wolf Warriors of China can manipulate global public
opinion.
The lines are beginning to be drawn between the Americans on the one side and China on the
other.
A binary choice is likely to test to the limit India’s capacity to maintain strategic and decisional
autonomy.
SOURCE: THE HINDU
AN AGENDA FOR G-12
CONTEXT:
United States President Trump’s call on the need to enlarge the membership of the Group of
Seven (G-7), the club of “free market democracies”, is to make it relevant to a changing world.
Formed in 1976, the G-7 no longer dominate the global economyas they did at their founding.
It was the French who first flew the kite of membership expansionwhen they invited heads of
government of several “emerging economies” for a meeting of the group in 2003.
The G-7 became the G-8 in 1997 when Russia was invited to join. In 2014, Russia was debarred
after it took over Crimea.
After 2003, G-8 host countries began organising a meeting on the sidelines of their summits
with a select group of five or six developing countries.
India and China were invited to all those summits. President Trump has, however, gone a step
further.
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EXPANDING IT TO G-11:
Rather than invite “guests” to a G-7 summit, he has suggested expanding the G-7 to a G-10 or
G-11.
Trump has come up with an interesting list of new members — Australia, India, South Korea
and, possibly, Russia. Trump’s pragmatism in including Russia should be welcomed.
The advantage of getting Russia in is that the group would not be viewed merely as an anti-
China gang-up but, in fact, as a club of “free market democracies”.
The group could easily be made the G-12 with the inclusion of Indonesia— one of the few
democratic nations in the Islamic world.
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KEEPING CHINA OUT:
Trump’s motivation in expanding the G-7 to include India and Russia while keeping China out is
transparent.
If keeping China out was not the intention, the G-7 could easily have dissolved themselves and
revitalised the presently inert G-20.
There are, of course, good reasons why Xi Jinping’s China requires to be put on notice for
its various acts of omission and commission and disrespect for international law.
However, disciplining China is one thing, isolating it quite another.
If the new group is viewed as yet another arrow in the China containment quiver it would place
India and most other members of the group in a spot.
Everyone wants China disciplined, few would like to be seen seeking its isolation. Asia needs a
law-abiding China, not a sullen China.
Even Japan and Australia, which have serious concerns about China’s behaviour, may not like
the new group to be viewed purely as an anti-China gang-up.
That may well be the case with South Korea too. Indeed, even India should tread cautiously.
It has more issues with China than most others in the group, spanning across economic and
national security issues and yet it should seek a disciplined China, not an isolated one.
DEFINING ITS AGENDA:
What this means is that the proposed new group should define its agenda in terms that
would encourage China to return to the pre-Xi era of global good behaviour.
The G-7 came into being in the mid-1970s against the background of shocks to the global
financial and energy markets.
The G-12 would come into being against the background of a global economic crisis and the
disruption to global trade caused both by protectionism and a pandemic.
The two items on the next summit agenda would have to be the global response to the
COVID-19 pandemic, the rising tide of protectionism and mercantilismand the global economic
slowdown.
The summit will have to come forward with some international dos and don’tsto deal with the
challenge posed by these disruptions.
These new rules of international conduct would have to apply to both China and the US.
The G-12 have a shared interest in ensuring that both China and the US respect international
law and desist from unilateralismin dealing with neighbours and global challenges.
MANDATE OF G-12:
To be able to alter China’s behaviour without isolating it, the G-12 will have to widen their
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agenda, go beyond the purely economic issuesand include climate change, health care and
human rights.
In identifying themselves as “free market democracies” the G-12 must issue a new charter of
respect for human rights, adherence to international law and multilateralism in trade and
security.
This is easier said than done.
President Trump will have to re-assure the group’s members that he has their combined
interests at heart in proposing a new group and has an imagination beyond just an “America
First” policy.
Even as the world is increasingly wary of an assertive China and of Xi Jinping’s China Dream
and his version of a “China First” policy, it is also wary of Trump’s unilateralism on many fronts.
A G-12 cannot ignore partisan behaviour by either the US or China.
If Trump does issue an invitation to the three or four new members to join the new group, they
should seek clarity on the terms of membership.
Russia’s experience, of being invited and then disinvited and now being considered for
being re-invited should be a salutary message to all others invitees.
INDIA DESERVES:
President Trump is not doing India a favour by wanting to invite it into the new group.
As the world’s largest free market democracy India deserves to be a member of not just a G-12
but of even a new G-7.
India’s political and economic credentialsare certainly stronger than those of Canada, Britain
and Italy.
Indeed, Russia, Australia, South Korea and even Indonesia may regard themselves as natural
choices for membership of an expanded G-7.
In other words, Trump is not doing the new members a favour. He is, like the French before
him, only coming to terms with the reality of a new world order.
SOURCE: INDIAN EXPRESS
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