Center for a New American Security

Hu Jianto is in Washington this week having already spent much time in the Western Hemisphere. Along with his previous trips to the United States, Hu has visited numerous Latin America (LATAM) countries as China has cultivated an increasingly strong relationship with the region. Although China is not as established in Latin America as in other regions around the world, trade between Beijing and America’s neighbors to the South have grown substantially in recent years. Driven in part by the United States’ own indifference to the region, PRC-LATAM trade grew tenfold between 2000 and 2007. By 2008, it had reached 142 billion dollars.

Although over half of the countries in the world that formally recognize the Taiwan government's rule are located in Latin America and the Caribbean, this is at most a secondary interest for China in the region. Instead, Beijing’s interest in LATAM is driven by the same concerns that have caused it to increase its presence elsewhere: the need to secure the primary commodities that are essential to its economic growth.

Unsurprisingly, energy plays an important role in the PRC-LATAM relationship. Chinese companies have purchased large stakes in the oil fields of countries such as Ecuador, Argentina, Peru, Columbia, Brazil and Venezuela. In some cases, the LATAM states are unable to extract this petroleum without the assistance and resources of these foreign companies. In some ways then, the active presence of China benefits the region. At the same time, it impairs indigenous development. Additionally, because Chinese companies supply their own labor, which they bring over from China, it also impedes employment for the indigenous labor market.

This week, Chinese President Hu Jintao will make a pivotal visit to Washington, spotlighting various issues with the White House and the American people. Most likely, North Korea, currency concerns, and Iran’s nuclear program will occupy the agenda. While no major agreements are expected from the visit, Hu will seek to cheerfully reiterate – through meetings with think tank and congressional leaders along with a cameo in Chicago – the “strategic significance and global impact of China-U.S. relations.”

In the lead up to Hu’s visit, last Friday Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made remarks at the inaugural Richard Holbrooke lecture, touching on an array of aspects comprising the U.S.-China relationship, notably international development. Secretary Clinton took a somewhat critical tone towards Chinese development practices, encouraging the Chinese to “embrace internationally recognized standards and policies that ensure transparency and sustainability” and noting that Beijing’s activities have raised serious concerns in places such as Africa.

It is not surprising that Secretary Clinton put “development practices,” “Africa,” and “serious concerns” in the same sentence, as Chinese investment in Africa has captured the attention and concern of many U.S. officials. As recent WikiLeaks cables showed, one senior diplomat even views China as "a very aggressive and pernicious economic competitor with no morals.”

Last night, CNAS hosted the official launch of Robert Kaplan’s new book, Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power. As Nate Fick said in his opening remarks, we had a twofer: Robert Kaplan was joined by NPR’s award-winning correspondent Tom Gjelten who moderated the discussion. We will be posting videos, photos and a podcast of the event soon, but I wanted to share a part of last night’s discussion that I think is worth mentioning. 

During the Q/A portion of the event, Tom Gjelten asked Robert Kaplan about climate change; specifically how the rest of the world views the challenges and potential implications of climate change and the lack of American leadership to combat it. Gjelten prefaced his question by wondering aloud about the prospects of the next congress taking up climate and energy legislation given that a number of conservatives (some of them climate change skeptics) won seats in last week’s election.

For Kaplan, Bangladesh seemed to be the most apt example to use to respond to Gjelten’s question. As Kaplan notes in his book, Bangladesh may look small on a map (considering it’s surrounded by India), but if you look at the overall population, it has more people than Russia and a greater Muslim population that Iran. Now consider that most Bangladeshis are living at or below sea level.

Kaplan paints a vivid picture of what this means. Indeed, an interesting observation he makes in his book (and that he made last night) was how precious dry soil is in Bangladesh and how as sea level rise inundates Bangladesh, dry soil for agricultural and domestic use could become more scarce. (Kaplan noted that when people move their homes in Bangladesh, they often take the dry soil with them – that is how scarce it is.) 

The twentieth century witnessed Europe unfold as the center of gravity for world history. And in this still early century, the Middle East and South-Central Asia have been focal points for American policymakers and others around the world. But the Greater Indian Ocean may well be the defining geo-political cauldron in the twenty-first century, according to CNAS Senior Fellow Robert D. Kaplan in his latest opus, Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power.     

Monsoon is a carefully crafted examination of the future of American Power in the context of the Indian Ocean, a region that once upon a time was the epicenter of world culture, travel, trade – wrestled over by empires of yesteryear – once again rising in prominence.

As the reader learns early on, historically, the region’s monsoon system (specifically its winds) shaped international engagement in the region, allowing travelers from the Horn of Africa and the Middle East to make the journey to India and beyond in a fraction of the time it would take states to cross the Mediterranean (which is also a much shorter distance than the leg from North Africa to India). The short duration made travel and trade expedient, allowing states to share goods and culture throughout the entire Indian Ocean region. (Indeed, we learn how the monsoon winds helped to spread Islam across the ocean.)

Today, the Indian Ocean remains a crucial region for trade, both commercial and energy. Kaplan writes:

Today, despite the jet and information age, 90 percent of global commerce and two thirds of all petroleum supplies travel by sea. Globalization relies ultimately on shipping containers, and the Indian Ocean accounts for one half of all the world’s container traffic. Moreover, the Indian Ocean rimland from the Middle East to Pacific accounts for 70 percent of the traffic of petroleum products for the entire world.

For those of you familiar with Kaplan’s work, you won’t be surprised at the level of detail and depth into history he provides the reader to help ground his or her understanding of how important the region was, which of course is necessary to fully understand the region’s resurgence in geo-political affairs. Of course, Kaplan’s personal accounts from his voyage across the Indian Ocean help the reader connect with the story he unveils as he hops across the greater region, from Oman, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Burma, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, to Zanzibar.

Though the conflict in Darfur has publicly captivated Americans, U.S. officials are vigorously striving to prevent a war in Sudan that promises even greater human costs. A January referendum for southern secession and the potential derailment of a delicate 2005 peace deal ending a 22-year civil war between the northern Arabs and southern Christians could revive the bloody conflict in the nation. Given the unrivaled importance of the natural resource to the economies of both northern and southern Sudan, U.S. special envoy to Sudan Scott Gration has urged all involved parties to settle an elusive deal on oil reserves to ensure a peaceful transition.

In Sudan, the failure of European-imposed industrialization in the 1950s precipitated massive exploitation of the nation’s natural resources as a source of national income for the nascent African nation. The first major deposits of Sudanese oil were discovered by Chevron in April 1981. Sudan’s then-president Gaafar Nimeiry (with Chevron’s explicit support) quickly abandoned plans to allow local, southern authorities to develop the requisite infrastructure to extract and process the resource. This was an obvious affront to southern Sudan. Subsequent plans to construct a 1,400 kilometer pipeline redirecting the oil to the North compounded southern grievances of underdevelopment and disenfranchisement by northern Sudan and impelled the southern citizenry to resort to civil war.

The predominately rural, agriculture-based southern region suffered more than 2 million deaths and 4 million displaced persons as a consequence of the Second Sudanese Civil War, which lasted from 1983 until 2005. In 2005, due to intense pressure by the United Nations and the George W. Bush Administration, the Sudanese government and the southern authority Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) signed a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).  This agreement contained three important features: it established both a new government of National Unity and an interim, autonomous southern Sudan authority; and it set a deal for wealth-sharing, power-sharing, and mutual security arrangements (e.g. ceasefire, withdrawal of troops, and resettlement of refugees). The most prominent condition of the CPA were plans for January 2011 elections, allowing the South to vote to secede or remain a part of Sudan.

• According to Business Week, Turkmenistan will begin production of a $2billion gas pipeline to the West to provide an alternative to Russian energy.
• Pakistan and India are looking to establish a deal over two large hydroelectric plants in Kashmir, according to the Daily Times.
• Though the reference may be a bit outdated, San Fransisco's Bay News uses Avatar to frame conflict minerals in the Congo.
• China has announced even tighter controls on their strategic rare earth resources, reports China's own People's Daily.
• Reuters reports that Iran may have plans to cut national subsidies on electricity, water and food to Afghan refugees who have moved into Iran. 

• According to the Associated Press, China and Brazil may establish a bond over Chinese assistance exploiting Brazilian Coltan mines.
• USAID's Famine Early Warning System Network released its 2010 April through September outlook for food security in Somalia.
• Check out BBC's audio track discussing the role rare earth metals play in the economy, the environment and technology.
• The New York Times' Green blog discusses the release of the United Nations's Biodiversity Outlook 3, which shows declines across the board.
• The nine Nile states of Africa are likely to come to an agreement over water usage, reports The National.

Last week Stratfor issued a cool piece, “Niger: The Coup and Uranium.” This is straight up natural security reading for you, dear readers. You can get the full article in exchange for your email address, which I’d suggest is worth the price for the map and chart they provide. A few brief highlights:

Niger contains one of the largest deposits of uranium in the world and was the world’s sixth-largest producer in 2008...France maintained a monopoly on Niger’s uranium production for more than three decades following the beginning of commercial production in 1971. But Niamey has begun to open its doors to other countries — most notably China, which has been increasingly active on the African continent in recent years.

 

...While uranium does not form as high of a percentage of Niger’s gross domestic product as might be expected (roughly 7 percent in 2008), the junta nonetheless has a financial incentive to keep these operations running smoothly. Uranium constitutes roughly half of Niger’s exports and the lion’s share of foreign direct investment — meaning that whoever controls the purse strings of the government has access to big money.

A tip of the hat to our Senior Military Fellow from the Marine Corps for this one!

Our colleagues in the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars recently released a comprehensive report, Land Grab? The Race for the World’s Farmlands, that looks at the increasing frequency of food-importing developed nations and private companies investing in huge tracts of arable farmland in less developed countries.

This is an area that, while we haven’t explored deeply, we are beginning to study more and more here in the Natural Security program. We’re particularly interested in the ways that these emerging economic trends are engaging other socioeconomic and political trends in developing countries, which could lead to instability in countries of geostrategic importance to the United States (e.g. Pakistan).

According to the report’s authors:

Large-scale land acquisitions may have a negative effect on the wider sociopolitical and economic context of the host country. There are documented cases, such as the Daewoo Logistics Corporation’s (ultimately unsuccessful) plan to lease 1.3 million hectares of land in Madagascar, where negotiations over deals have contributed to political instability and internal social conflict. These deals touch on the already politically contentious issue of land allocation and land rights, so they carry a possibility of exacerbating existing tensions.
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Granted, to this point Madagascar is the only case where a land deal has contributed to widespread political instability. However, the factors at play in most host countries—land, food insecurity, and poverty—make up a combustible mix that could easily explode. In countries—such as Pakistan—where violent, extremist anti-government movements have mastered the ability to exploit land- based class divisions, the political risks are particularly high.

The report is intended for a much broader (global) audience and, rightly so, is not explicit about how these trends might engage U.S. national security interests. But for researchers like us who study natural resources and economic trends and analyze their engagement with national security, the report is robust and offers useful case studies in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe that are a great jumping off point for our further research. You should read this now!