09-07-2021

FRIDAy, JULy 9, 2021
5
Russia’s return to Southeast Asia
the "Baker" explosion, part of Operation crossroads, a nuclear weapon test by the United
States military at Bikini Atoll, Micronesia, on July 25, 1946. Photo: U.S. Department of Defense
Nuclear justice for the
Marshall Islands
ZAcHARy ABUZA
After a long absence of
nearly 30 years, Russia is
more involved in
Southeast Asia than it has
been since the Cold War
ended. While the punditry
is obsessed with China's
influence in the region, it's
worth reviewing recent
Russian activities. Russia
will always be a minor
player in the region,
dwarfed by China and the
United States, but
Southeast Asia is a cost
effective place for Moscow
to advance some of
Russia's national interests.
Although its influence in
Southeast Asia is largely
predicated on arms sales,
Moscow has proven to be
adroitly opportunistic,
especially when it
perceives weakness or
disengagement from
Washington.
Southeast Asia is
peripheral to Russia's
security interests, which
entail a buffer around
Russia and frozen conflicts
that it can escalate or deescalate
at will, using
asymmetric force, "little
green men," active
measures, and cyber
operations. While Russia's
security posture has an
implicit recognition of
"spheres of influence," it
clearly sees an opening in
Southeast Asia.
Southeast Asia is far
from Russia's borders and
while its security interests
may be peripheral, the
region does have utility for
President Vladimir Putin.
Southeast Asia has proven
to be a very low cost place,
free of prolonged conflicts
that could drag Russia into
another Syria-like
quagmire, to advance five
key Russian interests.
In 1991, following the
collapse of the Soviet
Union,
Russia
relinquished its naval base
in Vietnam's Cam Ranh
Bay. While some face was
saved with the concurrent
U.S. withdrawal from
Subic Bay in the
Philippines, it was still a
humiliating retreat for a
bankrupt Russia. Moscow,
however, continued to
maintain a signals
intelligence facility in the
country.
By 1990, all Soviet
military and economic
assistance to Vietnam and
its two clients, Cambodia
and Laos, ceased. While
sizable at the time, the aid
was largely wasted due to
the economic inefficiencies
of central planning.
Throughout the 1980s,
Russia provided Vietnam
with an average of $1
billion annually in military
assistance and another $1
billion annually in
economic assistance; it
also provided roughly $1
billion a year to the
governments of Laos and
Cambodia, then clearly
satellites of Hanoi.
Nonetheless, Russia had
little to show for its
investments in the region.
Indochina was a blackhole
that Moscow shoveled
rubles into, and
Russia's first foray back
into Southeast Asia came
through arms sales to a
new customer base, in a
desperate attempt to keep
Russian weapons factories
open. Russia began to
supply Malaysia and
Indonesia with fighter jets,
weaning them of their
reliance on Western
armaments.
JON LEtMAN
Just three months after the atomic ruins
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been
burned into Japan's landscape, U.S.
military and political leaders began
planning a series of atomic weapons tests
in order to study the effects of the bomb
on naval vessels. With World War II over
and a new era of Pacific control ahead, the
United States selected Bikini and
Enewetak Atolls in the northern Marshall
Islands, part of what it called the Pacific
Proving Grounds, as the site of 67 nuclear
weapons tests. These tests played a key
role in setting the stage for global politics
and power struggles for the first 75 years
of the atomic age.
On July 1, 1946, Joint Task Force One
launched Operation Crossroads "Test A"
(Able) when, at exactly 34 seconds past 9
a.m., a B-29 Superfortress dropped a 23-
kiloton plutonium bomb (nearly identical
to the "Fat Man" bomb that destroyed
Nagasaki) over Bikini Atoll. The bomb
exploded 520 feet above sea level, where
242 naval vessels floated in the eastern
lagoon as targets. Operation Crossroads
continued on July 25 with "Test B"
(Baker), the world's first underwater
nuclear detonation. A third test, Charlie,
was cancelled due to radiation concerns.
As described in the military's official
report, whether detonated in the air or
under water, the atomic bomb's end
result would be "death and destruction on
an enormous scale."
Subsequent test names included
Nutmeg, Walnut, Maple, and Rose. More
than a dozen had American Indian tribal
names - Apache, Navajo, and Dakota -
while others were prosaically called Mike,
George, or simply Dog. Early tests were
conducted sporadically - three in 1948,
four in 1951, two in 1952, six in 1954 - but
in the final two years, the U.S. sharply
accelerated the pace. Between May 1956
and August 1958, the U.S. detonated 50
nuclear and thermonuclear bombs, often
just a few days apart. On seven occasions,
tests were carried out on consecutive days
and seven times atomic bombs were
detonated twice in a single day.
The tests were of greatest consequence
to the people whose homeland was
selected for the detonations, which
proved to be catastrophic to the health,
environment, and well-being of the
Marshallese. The 67 tests had a total yield
of 108 megatons - the equivalent of 1.6
Hiroshima-sized bombs being detonated
every day for a dozen years. Testing
irrevocably disrupted life in the Marshall
Islands, introducing generations of
dislocation, disease, and premature
death. Traditional practices were
punctured, whole islands were vaporized,
and a giant poison-filled concrete dome
was left at the edge of a plutonium-spiked
lagoon.
Beginning with 167 Bikini Islanders
who were told that the abandonment of
their islands was "for the good of
mankind and to end all wars," followed
by residents of neighboring atolls, entire
communities were forced to leave their
ancestral homes only to be returned later,
then relocated again and again, causing
profound impacts that continue today.
Seventy-five years after Operation
Crossroads, a new generation of
Marshallese is demonstrating resilience,
determination, and vision, proving
themselves to be global leaders as they
fight for nuclear and climate justice,
determined to save their islands and their
way of life.
Russian President Vladimir Putin with Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong at the Russia-
ASEAN Summit.
Photo: Russian Presidential Press and Information Office
What's Next for Mongolia after
the election?
Visitors watch a screen showing chinese President Xi Jinping speaking next to a communist Party's flag.
Photo: Andy Wong
100 years of the Chinese
Communist Party
MARISSA SMItH
Mongolia is no exception to global
trends of democratic decline. The
country's outgoing president,
Battulga Khaltmaa, elected in 2017,
has repeatedly been criticized for
heavy-handed moves. In 2019 alone,
Battulga removed the head of the
Supreme Court and 17 other judges
and called for the investigation of
predecessor Elbegdorj Tsakhia, while
Battulga himself is suspected of
major corruption while serving as a
minister in a previous
administration. Then, less than six
weeks before the recent presidential
election, Battulga issued an order
banning the ruling Mongolian
People's Party (MPP), the traditional
counterpart to Battulga's Democratic
Party. The MPP has held a
supermajority in the parliament since
2016. A recent MPP prime minister,
Khurelsukh Ukhnaa, went on to be
elected president in the June contest,
raising some fears about all
important political offices being now
held by a single party.
While Khurelsukh won with 67.7
percent of the vote, the largest ever
margin in a presidential election,
voter turnout nationwide was just
below 60 percent, lower than in
previous elections (and as low as 51.2
percent in the populous and
strategically critical Selenge province,
for example). Additionally, a thirdparty
candidate, Enkhbat
Dangaasuren for the Right Person
Coalition (KhUN), won 20 percent of
the vote.
The MPP now controls both the
legislature and the executive, raising
further concerns about the direction
in which Mongolia's democracy is
trending. Although it should be noted
that the MPP-led government has in
recent months implemented
substantial structural changes in
governance and, to a moderate
degree, responded to public
criticisms around the COVID-19
response, it will be under continued
pressure to level the playing field for
opposition parties. This includes
campaign finance reform, and
increasing transparency, both in
party and campaign financing and in
governance processes at large.
The 2020 parliamentary and 2021
presidential elections, while resulting
in major wins for MPP candidates,
took place after the conclusion of
major legislative changes with the
potential to balance out perennially
knotty contradictions in Mongolia's
semi-presidential/semi-arliamentary
system. Somewhat paradoxically, the
MPP is now in control of a political
office, the presidency, that the MPPdominated
parliament spent much of
2019 and 2020 weakening. It is
expected that the MPP, which is
internally divided into various
factions, will move to temper
attempts by Khurelsukh to take too
much power.
tONy SAIcH
When 13 young Chinese men, a
Dutchman, and a Russian met in the
French concession of Shanghai on a hot
July day in 1921, they could not have
imagined that the organization they were
launching, the Chinese Communist
Party, would drive of one of the greatest
revolutionary upheavals of all time. Nor
could they have foreseen that less than 30
years later, the CCP would seize power,
and 100 years later it would lead an
economic superpower that many in
Washington now view as the United
States' greatest rival on the global stage.
What would those early founders have
thought if they gazed upon China today
under the leadership of General Secretary
Xi Jinping?
From its origins, the party sought to
transform the nation's society, economy,
and politics to bring about "wealth and
power." To that extent, they would be
proud of today's CCP but baffled by the
current embrace of capitalism and its role
within the world order. This raises the
question of whether the communist
revolution was one of nationalism or
communism. From its founding, the
answer is both. The young intellectuals
saw Leninism as a vehicle to drive China
toward its rightful place in the world. In
October 2019, Xi Jinping linked his
"China Dream of national rejuvenation"
to the original mission of the CCP, which
was to bring happiness to the Chinese
people and rescue the nation from its
national humiliation at the hands of the
foreigners. He noted that if one never
forgot why one started, then "you can
accomplish your mission."
Yet, from day one, the party also
portrayed itself as providing a radical
break with the past. During the first
decades of the 20th century, critical
intellectuals attacked the Chinese
tradition and its inheritance. A common
slogan was "down with the old Confucian
shop." Traditional practices of authority
and behavior, including sexual mores and
gender roles, were heavily criticized as the
young tried out different lifestyles,
embraced feminism, and demanded
liberation from the repressive institutions
of the household, clan, and religion. The
only way to interpret the world was
through the lens of class and class warfare.
The CCP was part of a global revolution
destined to overthrow the colonial world
order and usher in a new world led by the
representatives of the proletariat. There
would be no place for capitalists,
landlords, or foreign exploiters. Despite
temporary, tactical alliances, class warfare
was the name of the game. Before and
after 1949, landlords were extinguished;
in the 1950s, the foreigners were
expunged, the private business
community squeezed and eliminated. In
the 1960s, Mao Zedong turned his ire on
those within the CCP whom he saw as
taking the revolution back down the road
toward capitalism.
Xi Jinping no longer portrays the party
as representing such a radical break with
the past. Following Mao's death in 1976,
the CCP began to shun his approach to
politics, with the leadership turning to
economic revival. Class reconciliation
replaced class conflict and the CCP began
to rely on private enterprise to deliver the
much-needed economic goods. By the
end of the 1990s, Jiang Zemin
encouraged private entrepreneurs to join
the party now described as representing
the "advanced elements" of society. As a
result, the party today primarily
represents the interests of the new elites
in Chinese society rather than the
proletariat and the peasantry.
Residents cast their votes for the presidential elections at the Bayanzurkh district in Ulaanbaatar,
Mongolia Wednesday, June 9, 2021.
Photo: Saruul Enkhbold