Insight A13

INSIGHT A13 SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2006

IRAN David Ignatius

THAILAND AND JAPAN Christopher Johnson

Extra time for diplomacy

Democracy, the Asian way

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ntelligence analysts think that Iran is encountering technical difficulties in mastering the complex process of uranium enrichment. That means the west may have a bit more time than previously expected to pursue a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear standoff. The problem, according to intelligence officials, is that the centrifuges that are supposed to enrich uranium are overheating. Some are breaking down and must be replaced. As a result, Iran has not ramped up its enrichment effort as quickly as analysts had expected. This assessment is based on recent conversations with analysts from several western nations that are watching the Iranian programme closely – and on an unpublished report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that was completed on August 31. To me, it’s the equivalent of adding some extra time to the clock in a tense American football game. The urgency remains, but there is an opportunity for a few additional plays before the game is over. “There’s time, purely from the point of view of the technical development of the threat, to let diplomacy play out in the case of Iran,” says Harvard University professor Ashton Carter, who follows the Iranian nuclear issue closely. The technical difficulties involve the Iranian uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, north of Isfahan in central Iran. The Iranians broke IAEA seals at Natanz in January and began enriching uranium. It’s a highly complex process, in which uranium gas is injected into the linked array of centrifuges that spin at roughly the speed of sound. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced in April that the Iranians had succeeded in enriching uranium to an initial level of 3.5 per cent. In June, Iran told the IAEA it had achieved 5 per cent enrichment. That’s far below the 90 per cent level needed for a nuclear weapon, but it suggested that the Iranians were on their way to mastering the technology. Western analysts had expected that the Iranians would move quickly to expand the enrichment effort to meet their near-term goal of having six cascades of 164 centrifuges each, or a total of nearly 1,000 centrifuges. Even with

“Analysts had expected the Iranians to move quickly to expand the enrichment effort … What happened?” 3,000 centrifuges operating, intelligence analysts estimate that it would take two to three years to produce enough highly enriched uranium for one bomb. But problems surfaced this summer. The August 31 IAEA report noted that Iran planned to test the second cascade in September – without injecting uranium. What happened to slow the expected pace? IAEA analysts have told US and European officials that it appears the centrifuges are overheating when uranium gas is injected. “The Iranians are unable to control higher temperatures, and after a short period, they must stop because of higher temperatures,” says one western intelligence official. Several analysts I talked to agreed, however, that if Iranian scientists continue with enrichment, they are likely to solve the technical problems eventually through trial and error. That’s why US and European officials are still calling for Iran to suspend enrichment, before they crack the puzzles they are now encountering. Iran continues to insist that its nuclear programme is peaceful. Nevertheless, the United States, Israel and some European countries remain convinced that a covert weapons programme exists. The clock is still ticking. That’s the real import of these new intelligence findings. Iran and the west still have time to find a diplomatic solution to the nuclear showdown. This genie isn’t quite out of the bottle. David Ignatius is a Washington Post columnist

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ing Bhumibol Adulyadej reigns in Thailand. The Liberal Democratic Party rules Japan. The year is 1957. The year is also 1964, 1972, and 2006. In the past 49 years, three generations in Thailand and Japan have absorbed western social influences from Elvis to MTV. But they have been less willing to accept western political culture. In Thailand and Japan, citizens are increasingly willing to accept lineage and national tradition as a political foundation. Those who oppose this are increasingly marginalised. Public opposition to the coup in Thailand was muted, as was the reaction in Japan to a new leader. Some observers blame this on repression, but it actually shows that many Asian pragmatists view democracy differently from western idealists – who condemn what they deem undemocratic actions abroad. It also suggests that Asia, as a whole, is heading in the direction of mass apathy and a deeper entrenchment of current regimes. This comes at a time

when massive anti-war protests and radicalism are in vogue in the west, and when the political left is rising in South America. The growing gap between Asia and the rest of the world was most apparent in how countries reacted to the military takeover in Thailand. US State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said: “We certainly are extremely disappointed by this action. It’s a step backward for democracy in Thailand.” That echoed other condemnations from, among others, Australia, Moscow and the UN. Yet, many in the region see the coup and other developments as one step back, two steps forward. About 84 per cent of Thais supported the coup, according to a poll conducted by Thailand’s Suan Dusit University. Never mind that the coup leaders tore up the 1997 constitution, cancelled elections set for November, restricted media, detained opponents and forbade gatherings. Like Filipinos after the ousting of president Joseph Estrada, many Thais say the military

had to intervene because democratic elections gave corrupt leaders the chance to cheat and defy tradition. The Japanese way of democracy has also confounded observers. In Japan, opinion polls say two-thirds of Japanese support their new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, a third-generation leader elected not by the public but by the Liberal Democratic Party, which has dominated Japan since 1955. Most Japanese, who might have to wait three years for a chance to vote for or against him, know little about Mr Abe. He has the advantage of coming into an atmosphere of apathy unlike the summer of 1960 – when his grandfather had to resign after hundreds were injured protesting at his revamp of the Japan-US security treaty. Jeff Kingston, the director of Asian studies at Temple University in Tokyo, said: “Japan’s political culture used to be very confrontational, very highly politicised. Now it is much less so. “Because of the prolonged recession, people are worried about job se-

curity. In tough times, people look to their own interests.” Times weren’t notably tough in Thailand. It has perhaps the highest level of freedom in Asia, and over 10 million foreign visitors a year. Many observers expected Thailand to form a beachhead for western-style, debatedriven democracy. In five years, Thais elected Thaksin Shinawatra three times. He is an outsider who arose through the police corps and his own telecoms empire rather than the royal-military elite channel. Yet Mr Thaksin’s popularity couldn’t match the Thai worship of King Bhumibol, a Buddhist god-king who has reigned for 60 years by appearing to be above the fray and solving disputes among lesser mortals. If it takes a king, an army, a thirdgeneration leader or a one-party state to get the job done, most people in Asia will accept that. After 49 years, that much is clear. Christopher Johnson is the author of Siamese Dreams

RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION Charles Tannock

Iraq’s Christians caught in the crossfire

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he world is consumed by fears that Iraq is degenerating into a civil war between Shi’ites, Sunnis and Kurds. But in this looming war of all against all, Iraq’s small community of Assyrian Christians is at risk of annihilation. Iraq’s Christian communities are among the world’s most ancient, practising their faith in Mesopotamia almost since the time of Christ. The Assyrian Apostolic Church, for instance, traces its foundation back to 34AD and St Peter. Likewise, the Assyrian Church of the East dates to 33AD and St Thomas. The Aramaic that many of Iraq’s Christians still speak is the language of those apostles – and of Christ. When tolerated by their Muslim rulers, Assyrian Christians contributed much to the societies in which they lived. Their scholars helped usher in the “golden age” of the Arab world by translating important works into Arabic from Greek and Syriac. But toleration has scarcely existed in recent times. In the Armenian genocide of 1914-1918, 750,000 Assyrians – roughly two-thirds of their number at the time – were massacred by the Ottoman Turks with the help of the Kurds. Under the Iraqi Hashemite monarchy, the Assyrians faced persecution for co-operating with the British during the

first world war. Many fled to the west, among them the church’s patriarch. During Saddam Hussein’s wars with the Kurds, hundreds of Assyrian villages were destroyed, their inhabitants rendered homeless and dozens of ancient churches bombed. The teaching of the Syriac language was prohibited, and Assyrians were forced to give their children Arabic names – in an effort to undermine their Christian identity. In 1987, the Iraqi census listed 1.4 million Christians. Today, only about 600,000 to 800,000 remain in the country. As many as 60,000, and perhaps even more, have fled since the beginning of the insurgency that followed the US-led invasion in 2003. Their exodus accelerated in August 2004, after the start of the terrorist bombing campaign against Christian churches by Islamists – who accused them of collaboration with the allies by virtue of their faith. A recent UN report says that religious minorities in Iraq “have become the regular victims of discrimination, harassment and, at times, persecution, with incidents ranging from intimi-

dation to murder”. It notes that “members of the Christian minority appear to be particularly targeted”. There are widespread reports of Christians fleeing the country as a result of threats against their women for not adhering to strict Islamic dress codes. Some Christian women have been killed for wearing jeans or not wearing the veil. Over the past two years, 27 Assyrian churches have reportedly been attacked for the sole reason that they

were Christian places of worship. Sadly, the plight of Iraq’s Christians is not an isolated one in the Middle East. In Iran, the population as a whole has nearly doubled since the 1979 revolution; but, under a hostile regime, the number of Christians has fallen from roughly 300,000 to 100,000. In 1948, Christians accounted for roughly 20 per cent of the population of what was then Palestine; since then, their numbers have roughly halved. The persecution of these ancient and unique Christian communities, in Iraq and in the Middle East as a whole, is deeply disturbing. In April, the European Parliament voted virtually unanimously for the Assyrians to be allowed to establish a federal region where they can be free from outside interference to practise their own way of life. It is high time now that the west paid more attention, and took forceful action to secure the future of Iraq’s embattled Christians. Charles Tannock is vice-president of the Human Rights Subcommittee of the European Parliament. Copyright: Project Syndicate

BANGLADESHI DEMOCRACY Mike Moore

Bogged down in distrust and savagery

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recently spent time in Bangladesh as a member of a team organised by the National Democratic Institute, a group based in America that promotes democracy. We visited to provide an impartial, pre-election assessment of the electoral environment in anticipation of parliamentary elections in January. Life is not easy in Bangladesh, where half of the 145 million population earn less than US$1 a day. Bangladesh’s short history since independence from Britain – and then from Pakistan – has been savage and sad. The reason so many women have power is not because of any love of women’s rights, but simply because so many male leaders have been assassinated and their political banner taken up by their widows and children. Both the prime minister and the leader of the opposition are women and have their positions because of as-

sassinations. When you listen to the complaints of Bangladesh’s two main parties, the BNP (Bangladesh National Party), and the Awami League, they sound exactly like each other. Both list murders, assassinations, intimidation and corruption by the other as a reason for non co-operation and mistrust. Parliament is often boycotted, each party taking its turn when in opposition. General strikes, organised by each side in turn, are the strongest display of political power and force. A new and sinister development has been the intrusion of an extreme Islamic influence. The first suicide bombing – of two judges, in August last year – shocked both sides. A leaflet released that day described the coming election as un-Islamic because it was “man-made”. In light of all this, Bangladesh has instituted some unique constitutional arrangements. For three months be-

fore an election, a non-party, caretaker government is installed to put at arm’s length an administration to whom the army, police and electoral officers are answerable. It’s a good idea. But claims have emerged that the next caretaker government will not be independent, and may not be chosen through political consensus. The government claims the opposition parties are not prepared to negotiate in good faith, and that they are looking for reasons to walk away, even to boycott the election. There is a socalled “independent” Electoral Commission, and its chief executive is an ex-supreme court judge. But, when we met, he saw no problem in voters’ lists that had 10 million names too many when compared to the census. Despite all this, Bangladesh has enjoyed three reasonably clean elections, and power has been transferred peacefully. It’s still not too late for a free and

fair election to be held. The electoral lists of voters need to be cleaned up, and confidence needs to be strengthened. Civil society should be involved in the process, and the new caretaker government ought to be independent – and appointed after honest consultations based on discussions in good faith. The core problem is with the political elites; they won’t talk to each other, and each has ambitious sons who seem to want to carry on their family name and hatreds. It’s staggering that the economy is growing at 5 per cent despite all this. Somehow, a mechanism must be established to deliver a reconciliation between party leaders and their families. It will be a close-run thing. Mike Moore is a former prime minister of New Zealand and was director-general of the World Trade Organisation

WINDOW ON THE WORLD SHANGHAI Bill Savadove

Number’s up?

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hat do the sacking of a top Shanghai official and the prohibitively high cost of obtaining a car number plate have in common? The monthly car plate auction has pushed prices up to more than 40,000 yuan apiece. It’s one of the policies that many residents hope will disappear after the fall of Shanghai party secretary Chen Liangyu for corruption. One office worker said: “I hope it will be cancelled. People are saying Chen Liangyu was the one who insisted on keeping this system.” Although the auction started in 1986, Mr Chen’s administration is associated, more than any other, with the city’s worsening traffic and the record high prices for car plates, peaking at 45,492 yuan in 2004. In last month’s auction, prices started to creep up towards record levels again, with an average of 41,601 yuan. Officials have stood by the claim that the auction is the solution to solving Shanghai’s traffic problems, by limiting the number of cars on the roads. That strategy was outlined in the city’s white paper on transport, issued when Mr Chen was still mayor – and just a few months before he became party secretary. In the foreword to the report, Mr Chen wrote: “Let us go into action now to build an efficient, safe, comfortable and clean metropolitan

transport system in the city of Shanghai.” But Shanghai reaps enormous revenue from the auction, which raises questions about its real motive for keeping the system. The auction system has flaws. For one, Shanghai still hasn’t closed loopholes that allow drivers to use plates bought more cheaply in other provinces. At the same time, the city has encouraged Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp to churn out as many cars as possible – a direct contradiction of any pledges to limit the number of vehicles. Shanghai has more than 2.2 million privately owned motor vehicles, including 1.6 million owned by individuals, according to official figures. Experts say the city views the traffic problem as a question of management, and that effective policies – which would actually limit vehicle numbers – aren’t needed. In fact, Shanghai has discouraged bicycle use and banned car pooling, which might help reduce congestion. Car pooling is still growing despite the ban, but officials say it hurts the business of taxi companies. Recent public-awareness campaigns have focused on jaywalking – instead of targeting drivers who run red lights and refuse to yield for pedestrians. Making drivers obey the law is a difficult task in Shanghai, since cars – carrying official plates with low-digit numbers – flout traffic rules with impunity. Even so, with Mr Chen’s political demise, hopes are growing that the elimination of the auction system and “rule of law” – at least for traffic – might be in the city’s future.

NEW DELHI Amrit Dhillon

Fast track to happiness

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he capital has been in the grip of festival fever. It has disrupted shopping, rush-hour traffic and even eating – because a large part of the population has fasted during the day. Stores have been deserted because few had the energy to shop on an empty stomach. As for rush-hour traffic, it has been affected because hungry office and factory workers hurry home earlier than usual to grab a bite to eat, bringing forward (or “pre-poning”, as Indians like to say) the rush hour. This left the roads delightfully empty for agnostics and atheists, who carried on with life as usual. The reason for the total disruption is that both Hindus and Muslims have been fasting during the day: in a rare coincidence, this year, the Hindu festival of Navratri happened to coincide with the Muslim month of fasting, Ramadan. So millions went hungry during the day – though Muslims are much harder hit than Hindus. That’s because Hindus can eat fruit and certain grains while Muslims cannot touch food or water. After the evening meal and prayers, Hindu festivities revolve around shopping – because everyone needs five new outfits – and dancing. Young men and women love performing the dandiya folk dance where, holding small sticks, they dance in a circle to the rhythmic clapping of

hands, as it gives them a rare chance to flirt. Navratri is a celebration of the triumph of good over evil. The festival lasts for nine days, culminating on the 10th day in the Dussehra festival, which was yesterday. That’s when massive, three-storey-high effigies of the 10-headed Lord Ravana – a symbol of evil, defeated by the Hindu god Lord Rama – are erected in public parks. Children love watching the effigy burn in the night sky, as the fireworks inserted in its costume explode. They are also enthralled by the Ram Lila – plays depicting the life of Lord Rama. Hindus in New Delhi who are originally from West Bengal celebrate Navratri differently by worshipping the goddess of destruction, Durga. Gigantic idols of Durga – one of the few symbols of feminine power in Hinduism – are carried through the streets of Bengali neighbourhoods in brightly lit chariots, to a public place where the images are venerated. While Hindus dance, pray and worship Durga, the capital’s Muslims gather in their homes in the evenings to break their fast with a few dates (a tradition dating back to Arabia) followed by delicious biryani (an aromatic combination of rice and meat) and fiery kebabs. When the meal is over, the narrow alleyways of Old Delhi, the Muslim quarter, come alive as everyone comes out to shop for clothes, prayer caps and bangles, and to eat sweet dishes made of vermicelli. Anyone who hates crowds is advised to stay indoors, because the city’s mosques, temples and streets are packed to the rafters.

Laurence Brahm

The circle of political life

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here is a Chinese saying: “Every 10 years a cycle occurs.” It is often quoted in Beijing, particularly when the subject of discussion is politics. The snap dismissal of Shanghai Party Secretary Chen Liangyu came as a shock to many observers. Others expected it, perhaps realising that another 10-year cycle had recently come full circle. Mr Chen was arrested last week on charges of financial irregularity relating to the misuse of state pension funds. “Of course, these things are political,” whispered one minister’s wife at a cocktail reception. “If they want to arrest anyone at any time it is really easy, because nobody is clean.” So, why did they go after Mr Chen? The story of another regional power broker, also named Chen, might shed some light on the current situation. Just over a decade ago, Jiang Zemin was general secretary of the Communist Party: he had power, but not yet full authority. There is a difference on the mainland between holding the top position and being able to extend that authority into actual influence and control over an entire system – which is rife with resistance to central control. In April 1995, Beijing’s then vicemayor, Wang Baosen , committed suicide in connection with the cover-up of a massive property scandal. The Beijing party secretary, Chen Xitong , was accused of involvement in the scandal. Charges were trumped up against Chen, and the official press was full of rhetoric about his extravagance in keeping a luxury villa in the Beijing suburbs – and mistresses, to boot. But, then again, who in the Beijing government was not doing the same thing? (Today’s villas are much bigger). Mr Jiang was the former party secretary of Shanghai, and he took his entire political administration with him to the capital. To consolidate his power, he needed to remove Chen from power. Chen’s arrest had three ricochet

“Looking at events of 10 years ago can help make some sense of what is happening in the Chen Liangyu case” effects. First, it neutralised his Beijing power base. Second, all power brokers lined up behind Mr Jiang, who was declared the core of the party. Third, regional power brokers were weakened, along the lines of the old Chinese saying: “Kill a chicken to scare the monkeys.” It’s too early to say that Mr Jiang’s moves to secure his authority over a decade ago are a parallel to the removal of Chen Liangyu last month. But looking at those events can help make some sense of what is happening today. Remember that saying about 10-year cycles? Chen Liangyu was appointed Shanghai party secretary in 2002, when Mr Jiang was at the height of his power. Shanghai was Mr Jiang’s old power base, and presumably he could use it to groom yet another generation of leaders. The timing of Chen Liangyu’s removal may not be surprising. One week before the October 1 national holiday is a good time for sudden changes. The entire government is on holiday, so there isn’t much that anyone can do except to ponder events. Furthermore, the annual Communist Party Central Committee meeting is usually secretly scheduled for the autumn after the national holiday. Even though the date may be secret, it doesn’t take much deductive reasoning to assume it will convene right after the holidays – given the recently vacated seat in the Politburo. The party secretaries of Shanghai and Beijing are automatically Politburo members. So Mr Chen’s seat will have to be filled by the right man – from Beijing’s point of view. That will mean a political shake-up in the Shanghai power bastion. When the Central Committee meets, its agenda will certainly include making preparations for the 17th Party Congress, to be held next year. That will be a crucial congress for the current administration, because it’s expected to approve a second term for President Hu Jintao . Rest assured, there should be no glitches in the event. Laurence Brahm is a political economist, author, filmmaker and founder of Shambhala Foundation