Saturday 30 November 2013

Dealing with China

One week ago, China announced to the world that its unilaterally declared Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) had just come into force. This clear attempt to change the regional status quo was initially met with derision and rejection – but in the long term, it might actually turn out to be a significant turning point for China and the region.

Two days afterwards, South Korea summoned a Chinese diplomat in protest. On the 26th a South Korean military plane flew through the zone without adhering to China's demands; on the same day, two unarmed US bombers did likewise. It seemed as though China's attempt at gunboat diplomacy had, as it were, tanked.

But recent developments are starting to suggest that this may not be the case.

The somewhat incendiary move is the latest in a string of spats between China and Japan over a few very small islands. As a British political trainee-aficionado, I'm familiar with unseemly spats over small islands, although in this case they really are minuscule; in fact, they're uninhabited.

The conflict is entirely one of conflicting nationalisms and of regional power struggle. China is seeking to assert itself as the dominant power in the region. Japan is thus far having none of it.

And the international response to China's announcement has so far been entirely reproachful. Australia, Taiwan, the Philippines, Germany, the EU, the US and, of course, Japan have all condemned and/or defied the unilateral move.

It's easy to see why. This uncompromising stance from China admits of only two likely futures. If China is judged to have overreached itself, regional tensions will rise, possibly leading to conflict. But if China is judged to be sufficiently powerful, its claim will stand and the power balance in East Asia will have been significantly shifted in their favour.

If the latter course is followed, China will have made clear that Japan must ultimately submit to it as the regional power, while the US will also have to accept that in the East China Sea, the buck now stops in Beijing, not Washington.

To put it bluntly, this ostensibly small and parochial move from China may actually reveal a major policy shift in Beijing towards asserting their regional power more forcefully.

This is worrying from a British perspective, as our government has been busily trying to cosy up to China of late. It is no easy task, given the country's terrible human rights image, frosty diplomatic relations and China's often petulent behaviour towards Britain. Back in 2009, they shot to death a mentally ill British man after a flawed trial to emphasise, apparently, the fact that they could.

Yet the UK has been making all the right noises to China: the Mayor of London has been wooing Beijing, the Chancellor has invited Chinese investment in Hinkley Point C and the Prime Minister will next week lead a vast trade delegation to China. And he has made clear he won't be stopping for lunch with the Dalai Lama.

This cap-in-hand realism from Britain is easy to decry but, ultimately, is further proof that our days of gunboats and trade superiority look like they're behind us, while China's lie ahead.

But if Britain's capitulation is a tough tonic to imbibe, last night's declaration from the US will make you spurt out your tea in shock.

American civilian aeroplanes have been instructed by the US State Department to follow China's demands. This concession is huge. Either there has been a failure of communication (I expect this to be likely, and for 'clarification' to follow swiftly) or the US has just made its biggest concession of power for years.

Either way, neither Great Britain nor the United States seem eager or even willing to directly challenge China's newly found belligerence.

And if yesterday's US comments are what they appears to be, future history books may very well say that there, written between the lines of a slipped-out US statement on civilian airline flight plans, lies the moment when US hegemony officially ended and China's peaceful rise officially got serious.

Thursday 14 November 2013

Portsmouth: The Solution?

I'd better say straight out that this is going to sound populist. Never trust a solution that promises to solve all your problems. But this isn't a populist post and it won't solve many problems at all – it's a limited, thought-out proposal which appears to make economic sense, political sense and military sense. And it may well not be a good idea. Yet I'm going to sound unavoidably populist suggesting it.

The government should keep Portsmouth's BAE shipyard open. And they should do it by re-ordering the two Type 45 Destroyers they cancelled in the 2011 Military Spending Review.

There. I told you it would sound populist. 

The yard's woes are fundamentally caused by a long-term decline in military shipbuilding both in Britain and all over Europe. This decline is in turn symptomatic of largely positive things: a durable peace in Europe caused by the EU, NATO etc. In short, there's less demand for warships because there's less chance of maritime war. 

That's a very, very good thing. It does, however, raise the spectre of inevitable decline of Europe's military industries.

This is why Scotland's SNP politicians have got their patter broadly right. British shipbuilding needs to move from military to civilian construction. We have geography and heritage in our favour – and we're seeking to rebalance our economy towards manufacturing anyway. But a successful rebalance will be (a) a long process and (b) one requiring some state support.

There seems to be a general consensus around these two points. Yet, to come back to the first point, we simply don't need as many warships as before.

Enter the Type 45s. Twelve of these were originally planned; half were cancelled between 2003 and 2011. Can six Type 45s (designed to protect aircraft carriers and other vessels from air strikes) defend the entire Royal Navy, scattered around the globe as it is? Many within the Navy insist that at least eight Type 45s are necessary for effective operations and have been far from silent about it. 

Two extra boats would cost £2bn and save, for a time at least, England's last BAE shipyard. But is this not just an expensive and in-denial postponement of an inevitable decision?

The Scottish Referendum

No. It isn't. Here's why: the obvious rebuttal to my argument thus far is that it is a politicised one. In fact, it de-politicises the decision by taking, in effect, the Scottish referendum out of the equation. Many, at present, suspect that the government has chosen, essentially, to trade Portsmouth's yard for Scotland. It's messy and cynical politics – or if it isn't, it appears so. 

Far better would be to show that Union isn't zero-sum. The continuation of shipbuilding at Portsmouth would be a fitting reflection of Adam Smith's great economic principle that cooperation between two parties can produce benefits for both, not just one. It would make a stronger and wiser case for union than any not-so-subtly veiled threats about reallocating orders should Scotland secede.

And as for the future of Portsmouth, let's learn the lessons of history. Ailing heavy industry can thrive if restructured with good management & government support (think of the German car industry). BAE is attempting to expand its non-military business activities anyway; this transition needs support and time.

And even if civilian shipbuilding does not fit into a BAE future for Portsmouth, government should be far more active than it has been in trying to find a buyer for the shipyard. Why haven't they been? Perhaps because there's a post-Thatcher culture of non-intervention within British government which tends towards extreme laissez-faire. Frankly, Whitehall is at times more ideological than pragmatic about home industries.

So: re-ordering the two Type 45s would make a far better and more positive case for Union. The Navy has already made a military case for them. And the time taken to build them would create a window within which government (local or national) can try to find a future for the yard, in fitting with our vision of a growing manufacturing sector.

£2bn is big money, but similar amounts have leaked out of the budget completely needlessly (think Universal Benefits + the aircraft carriers fiasco) and this would be money well spent.

Of course, it is fair to assume that government has already considered all this. But the embarrassment of another military u-turn makes it unappealing, as does a rigidly non-interventionist culture within Whitehall. That's a rational default position to take, but would become irrational if exceptions were never made.

The best thing campaigners for Portsmouth's shipbuilding can do now is to make this case – and make it loudly. That could quite possibly tip Westminster's thinking towards what seems to me a far preferable course of action for the navy, the Union and Portsmouth.

And even if it doesn't, it's a conversation we should already have had. Well, as we so often end up saying in British politics – better late than never.

Friday 8 November 2013

An Open Letter to the Red-Trousered Mayor of Bristol from Istanbul

(This is an open letter I wrote several weeks ago over news that Castle Park was–again–the subject of a debate about redevelopment. Bristol papers didn't even bother replying when I sent it to them, so I'll put it up here. My reflections for Bristol & the UK at large are written in absentia from Istanbul, so they're strongly influenced by the very different attitudes to development I come across here.)


Dear George,

Good morning from Istanbul. I was one of the Lib Dem team backing Jon in the mayoral race that saw you dramatically sweep to victory. Your ascent came on the coattails of a pervading anti-politics sentiment – you offered a brighter, less political era for Bristol, donning trousers red with promise.

And although I have been abroad since, I hear and read that your mayorship is going well. As often happens, Bristol’s politics had run out of steam a bit and you seem to have set the city’s engines ablaze again. From where I sit, it looks like Bristol is back in ‘all steam ahead’ mode.

Recently I've read (often from Istanbul’s wifi-connected cafés, a development that cities like Bristol must keep up with) of some controversy regarding Castle Park. It seems that you have unveiled plans to partly develop it. Some people, predictably, are outraged.

But – shouldn’t I say redevelop it?

Because, of course, anyone who wants to understand Bristol would do well to ask their grandparents—or google—how Castle Park looked before the Second World War saw it bombed it to rubble.

Before then it was the beating heart of the city: a lively hub of shops and pubs clustered around the arrestingly beautiful Wine Street and Castle Street. The lovely streets and thriving community were torn apart by war – and when the debris was cleared and grass grew, Bristolians had the stoicism and good humour to call it a park.

I am all for rebuilding what was destroyed there. A Chinese consortium wants to reconstruct the old Crystal Palace in London – and we should thank them for having the boldness to propose it. Why didn’t the Brits? Where has our boldness gone?

Out here, Turks show off their heritage with pride. They build skyscrapers in some places and continue the architecture they have been refining for centuries in others. They have built a metro from scratch in a city hillier than ours, in the time it has taken for Bristol’s politicians to debate, re-debate and finally declare too difficult a far smaller underground system here.

(Is the country that invented underground rail fated from now on just to watch in awe as other parts of the world follow in its footsteps? Are we such an unprodigal progeny?)

So to Castle Park. Many against it worry that Bristol would be losing a park – in fact it would be regaining a city centre. We seem to have refused ourselves permission to rebuild, as our German neighbours have rebuilt Dresden’s lovely Frauenkirche, any of this old heart of Bristol. All must be new, all must be different, all must be ‘modern’.

But Britain is not just modern. It is old as well as new – famous and admired out here in Turkey for its living traditions and its individuality. Are we sure we want to declare that individuality dead, commit it to museum exhibits and eulogies, insist that everything must henceforth be rootless, postmodern and glass-clad?

And let’s not forget that our two most famous landmarks – Big Ben and Tower Bridge – are both revivalist buildings. If they were proposed today, would we turn them down for being ‘backward looking’ and ‘old fashioned’?

I often feel that old Castle Street and Wine Street would have been the missing piece of the puzzle of Bristol – a meeting point for the many different Bristols around it. It would be lovely to see that area built up again with some of the beauty of its past. It would give Bristolians a focal point again.

You are the independent-minded mayor of a vibrant, colourful old treasure of a city. Just the sort of mayor and just the sort of city, should they exist at all, that might be inclined to do things differently. 

If a treasure loses a jewel, should its maker declare themselves retired and resign themselves to wearing the thing with a sad hole where the brightest gem should be – or should they take out their tools again and get back to work?