INSIGHT A15
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
Asian woes
at Iran’s
oil pumps
A
s the US shapes up to confront
Iran in the Middle East, it is
trying to rally support in Asia
for tougher sanctions against Tehran.
Washington alleges that Iran has a
covert programme to develop
nuclear weapons, and that it backs
anti-American violence in Iraq.
Iran shows no sign of being ready
to comply with a UN Security
Council deadline – the end of this
month – to suspend its sensitive
nuclear work. Instead, Iranian
officials have said that they will
expand uranium enrichment activity.
Although China and Russia voted
for the Security Council resolution in
December, they are wary of imposing
tougher sanctions, arguing that it
would provoke Iran and make a
negotiated settlement less likely.
The US is forging closer co-
operation with Sunni Arab-led states,
especially Saudi Arabia, as a
counterweight to Iran’s Shiite
theocracy. The rising tension in the
Gulf troubles many Asian countries.
Trade and investment between the
two regions is booming. Trade
CROSSROADS
Michael Richardson
between the Middle East and China
alone could rise at least sixfold to
US$500 billion by 2020, according to
the McKinsey consulting firm.
The bedrock of Asia’s interest in
the Gulf is energy. It draws about
three-quarters of its oil imports from
the Middle East. Iran provides close
to 15 per cent of Japan’s oil and is its
third-largest supplier after Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Despite this dependence, Japan –
under pressure from its US ally – last
year backed away from a deal to
invest US$2 billion in Iran’s
Azadegan oil field. Other Asian
countries planning to invest in
Iranian energy projects are also
feeling the heat from Washington,
which has a law to penalise any
foreign firm that invests more than
US$40 million in oil or natural gas
ventures in Iran.
An influential member of the US
Congress last week called for
negotiations on a US-Malaysia free-
trade agreement to be suspended
unless Kuala Lumpur bars a
Malaysian company from investing
US$16 billion to develop gas fields in
southern Iran. Malaysia is expected
to repeat its refusal to veto the deal
when the latest talks end today.
India’s foreign minister visited
Tehran this week for talks on a plan
to spend as much as US$7.5 billion
on a 2,570km pipeline to carry
Iranian gas through Pakistan to
energy-short India. US requests to
New Delhi to steer clear of Iran while
it continues to defy the UN have
played a part in delaying any deal.
China faces some particularly
painful choices if tensions continue
to increase between the US and its
Saudi-led Gulf allies, on the one
hand, and Iran on the other. Iran was
China’s third-largest oil supplier last
year, and Chinese state-owned
companies have committed to huge
investments in oil and gas projects
there. Will Beijing risk its relations
with the US and its international
prestige as a responsible power by
putting those energy interests ahead
of its professed concern to prevent
the spread of nuclear weapons?
And the question may become
even more complicated for Beijing.
Iranian and Saudi exports account
for almost two-thirds of China’s
Middle East oil imports. If relations
between Iran and Saudi Arabia fray
in a Gulf power struggle, Beijing may
find that it has to choose between
two petroleum giants – each of them
vital to China’s energy security.
Michael Richardson is a visiting
senior research fellow at the Institute
of Southeast Asian Studies in
Singapore. This is a personal
comment
Y
ou could be excused for thinking
that we’ll soon do something seri-
ous about global warming. Last Fri-
day, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded
that, to a 90 per cent probability, human
activity is warming the Earth. Earlier,
Democratic leaders in the US Congress
made global warming legislation a top
priority; and 10 big American companies
endorsed federal regulation. Strong ac-
tion seems at hand.
Don’t be fooled. The dirty secret
about global warming is this: we have no
solution. About 80 per cent of the world’s
energy comes from fossil fuels (coal, oil,
natural gas) – the main sources of man-
made greenhouse gases. Energy use sus-
tains economic growth, which buttresses
You can run, but you
can’t hide from democracy
I Where a
am glad that I’m not running Donald
Tsang Yam-kuen’s election cam-
paign. Given his platform on univer-
sal suffrage, he faces an insuperable
problem of inconsistency and dishonesty.
The chief executive is under challenge
from directly elected legislator Alan Leong
Kah-kit, now unstoppable as a candidate
in the race. So Mr Tsang has announced
that he, too, will run a popular campaign –
handing out handbills to passers-by in the
streets, visiting housing estates and so on,
as if the chief executive election were a
direct election by universal suffrage.
The glaring hole in the glamorous fab-
ric of his campaign is that the general elec-
torate is denied the right to vote. Mr
Tsang’s platform does not come even
near to a clear promise that he will fight
for their enfranchisement by 2012, or even
2017 – or by any date.
Against these hard facts, his campaign
dress code, theme colour and slogan –
which image experts identify as “efforts to
reconnect with the public” – will only
serve to highlight the gap between ap-
pearance and reality.
Mr Leong can speak to the public, loud
and clear, with hand on heart, saying: “I
want you to see how absurd and unfair
this system is. You have seen the plat-
forms of both candidates. You should
have the right to choose between them.
Yet you are denied the right to do so un-
less you are one of the privileged 796.
“This is wrong, and my commitment is
to change the system so that this will be
the last time ordinary men and women in
Hong Kong are barred from electing their
chief executive.” Mr Leong may have a
tough job, given the inequality of the con-
test, but his position is not indefensible.
Mr Tsang has to fight his own ambiv-
alences and contradictory messages. De-
mocracy comes last in his action plan, un-
der the sub-heading: A Good Democratic
Stop ignoring the China threat
P
resident Hu Jintao is currently
touring Africa, seeking to secure de-
pendable sources of natural re-
sources and to promote China’s “peaceful
rise”. Such tours are designed to give notice
that the nation is emerging on the world
stage, as well as to make it look respectable
as a major world power.
But the country’s quest for internation-
al respect is not well served by its embrace
of rogue nations like Sudan, Venezuela and
Myanmar, much less by its secretive mil-
itary build-up and its recent adventure in
outer space.
Indeed, when the Chinese military fired
a missile into space last month and shat-
tered one of its own ageing satellites, it
caused outrage from London to Tokyo and
Washington. After several days of silence in
the face of incontrovertible evidence of the
launch, Beijing reluctantly admitted what
it had done. But it claimed that the “test
was not directed at any country and does
not constitute a threat to any country”.
Such denials are becoming unconvinc-
Bolster, don’t bash, Japan’s economy
E
uropeans who seek measures
against the weakness of the yen
should broaden their view of chron-
ic problems in Japan – to avoid punishing
Japanese consumers and stalling eco-
nomic growth in the region, which bene-
fits from a weak yen.
The currency has fallen 11 per cent
against the euro in the past year. Finance
ministers from Germany, France and Italy
said last week that this decline would be
discussed at a Group of Seven meeting be-
tween central bankers and finance min-
isters in Essen, Germany, at the weekend.
But shoppers in Japan – where in-
creased domestic consumer demand is
needed to bolster export-led growth –
have bigger worries. Despite rising corpo-
rate profits, the Japanese remain mired in
stagnant wages, abnormally high living
costs and anxiety about higher taxes,
amid a declining birth rate and shrinking
GLOBAL WARMING Robert Samuelson
The world’s dirty secret
political and social stability. Until we can
replace fossil fuels, or find practical ways
to capture their emissions, governments
will not sanction the deep energy cuts
that would truly affect global warming.
Considering this reality, you should
treat the pious exhortations to “do some-
thing” with scepticism, disbelief or con-
tempt. These pronouncements are (take
your pick) naive, self-interested, misin-
formed, stupid or dishonest. Politicians
mainly want to be seen to be reducing
global warming when they’re not actu-
ally doing so. Companies want to polish
their images and exploit markets created
by new environmental regulations.
Anyone who honestly examines glob-
al energy trends must reach these harsh
conclusions. In 2004, world emissions of
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2007
DONALD TSANG’S CAMPAIGN DILEMMA Margaret Ng
Environment. He promises to “seek to
achieve a consensus within society on the
model for universal suffrage, so that uni-
versal suffrage will become a reality as
soon as possible”.
“Consensus” is a much-manipulated
word in the Hong Kong government.
What matters here is what Mr Tsang
means by it and how he tries to achieve it.
He means a proposal that everybody will
agree to, and he is waiting for someone to
produce one for him. In a question and
answer session recently, when legislator
COLD WAR THINKING Yu Maochun
ing. In fact, this dangerous and irresponsi-
ble action is yet another key sign that
China’s rise as a global power lacks any
guarantee that it will be a peaceful nation
once it grows strong.
Lurking behind China’s ambition in
space is the spirit of the cold war, which
continues to permeate the inner circles of
the military high command: their adversa-
ry is unmistakably the US. With the col-
lapse of the Soviet communist regime, the
US continues to enjoy a dominant role in
space exploration for peaceful and scientif-
ic development. But, since the 1980s, the
US has been ambivalent about the ulti-
mate military and civilian utility of its space
efforts.
This ambivalence has now been greatly
reduced because of China’s recent action,
which could precipitate a race to militarise
and weaponise outer space. Should this
happen, China would share a large part of
the blame.
Its adventurism and blithe assumption
that it can deal with any international dic-
CONSUMER SPENDING Christopher Johnson
workforce. Household spending dropped
every month last year, while the Labour
Ministry said wages – which shrivelled by
10 per cent between 1997 and 2005 – rose a
mere 0.2 per cent. This situation is not in
the best interests of Europe, China – or
any country that needs Japanese buyers,
visitors and investors. A downturn in Ja-
pan could dampen enthusiasm in the re-
gion and siphon money out of China’s
booming – and fragile – markets.
To avoid nipping Japan’s economic
spring in the bud, finance officials should
consider the context: while the yen might
appear weak, history indicates that it
could slide even further.
Many analysts blame current ab-
normalities on the 1985 Plaza Accord.
That was when major powers intervened
in currency markets to slow Japan’s ex-
port juggernaut and open the nation to
cheaper western imports. From 1986 to
carbon dioxide totalled 26 billion metric
tonnes. Under plausible economic and
population assumptions, they will grow
to 40 billion tonnes by 2030, projects the
Paris-based International Energy Agency
(IEA). About three-quarters of the in-
crease will come from developing coun-
tries, two-fifths from China alone.
Poor countries won’t sacrifice eco-
nomic growth – lowering poverty, foster-
ing political stability – to placate the rich
world’s fears about global warming. Why
should they? On a per-person basis, their
carbon dioxide emissions are only about
one-fifth the level of rich countries. In
Africa, less than 40 per cent of the pop-
ulation even has electricity.
Nor will existing technologies, aggres-
sively deployed, rescue us. The IEA calcu-
Albert Ho Chun-yan criticised him for a
lack of progress, Mr Tsang held out his
hand, palm up, and demanded: “Where is
the consensus model? You give me that
first.” He considered it incumbent on the
supporters of universal suffrage to pro-
vide a model that everyone will accept.
He thinks he has done his job simply
by appointing the Commission on Strate-
gic Development. His action plan in-
cludes a promise to publish a green paper,
in the middle of this year, to consult the
public on the commission’s conclusion.
tator it wishes – and disturb the delicate
military balance in space – is emblematic
of something dangerous.
Partly because of the patronising
pampering afforded the Chinese by the
developed world – and partly because of
Beijing’s relentless, but successful, ma-
nipulation of world opinion – China has
long been treated as exceptional when it
comes to its international behaviour.
As a result, in venues like the United
Nations, the nation enjoys a degree of
immunity from criticism for its egregious
human rights abuses and massive mili-
tary build-up.
Likewise, its relations with authoritar-
ian regimes, or even its responsibility for
preserving the global environment, are
rarely mentioned.
Unsurprisingly, the Chinese leader-
ship now acts as if the country actually is
exceptional and can get away with pol-
luting outer space without rebuke. The
destruction of the Chinese satellite pro-
duced roughly 300,000 pieces of debris,
1991, the yen doubled in value and living
costs in Japan climbed to absurd levels.
Despite years without inflation, many
Japanese still feel they’re paying too much
for what they get. Consumer apathy im-
pedes the Bank of Japan from raising in-
terest rates, which are well below the glob-
al norm. Economics and Fiscal Policy
Minister Hiroko Ota and others have pres-
sured bank officials to move slowly, or not
at all, on tightening the money supply.
“Japan is in an extremely crucial period of
getting out of deflation, and consumption
is weak,” said Ms Ota. “Low interest rates
need correcting eventually, but what is
important is the timing.” The bank’s in-
terest rate rise last July has been blamed
for contributing to a slowdown in the July-
September quarter.
As it is, some investment funds are ex-
ploiting Japan’s low interest rates by bor-
rowing cheaply in yen and investing in
lated an alternative scenario that simu-
lated the effect of 1,400 policies to reduce
fossil fuel use; for example, fuel economy
for new US vehicles was assumed to in-
crease 30 per cent by 2030. The result: by
2030, annual carbon emissions would
rise 31 per cent instead of 55 per cent.
So far, global warming has been a
change, not a calamity. The IPCC
projects wide ranges for the next century:
temperature increases anywhere from 1.1
degrees Celsius to 6.4 degrees; sea level
rises anywhere from 17cm to almost
60cm.
What we really need is a more urgent
programme of research and develop-
ment focusing on nuclear power, electric
batteries, alternative fuels and the cap-
ture of carbon dioxide. There’s no guar-
Yet he is not expecting a “consensus”
there. This is all he undertakes to do. Is
this what he means by “push forward
democratic development with a pragmat-
ic attitude and move towards universal
suffrage” – one of his pledges.
Mr Tsang is clearly anxious to be seen
as someone close to the people, a modest
man, the chap next door. I could under-
stand that attitude in a governor sent here
to rule over us by our colonial masters –
they weren’t one of us. But why is Mr
Tsang, a local boy, so worried?
He pledges to “guide government offi-
cials to act proactively in listening to pub-
lic opinion [and] raise [the] transparency
of policy-making”. But why has he not
done so in the past? In such matters as the
demolition of the Star Ferry clock tower,
the West Kowloon cultural development
project – and many other examples, what
attitude did he and his officials actually
show? If he is now aware that this was not
good enough, is he offering anything in
his platform that will give the public rea-
son to feel confident that his attitude will
change?
The one sure remedy is democracy.
This is why universal suffrage is essential
to good governance in Hong Kong. What
would really make the government listen
to the people is giving them the vote.
The habits of a lifetime as a mandarin
do not equip Mr Tsang well for leading a
democratic government. His authoritar-
ian mindset all too frequently gets the bet-
ter of him.
Only a change to universal suffrage
would be potent enough to dislodge that
mindset, but his platform contains noth-
ing to assure us that such a change is on its
way.
Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee is a legislator repre-
senting the legal profession and a founding
member of the Civic Party
causing severe pollution and endanger-
ing many other orbiting spacecraft.
There is a danger, given China’s size, that
this peculiar “Chinese exceptionalism”
could turn into something truly alarm-
ing: a global norm.
China is a poor model for the devel-
oping world, given its effort to make
internet giants like Google, Yahoo and
Microsoft kowtow to its domestic politi-
cal controls – and its push in Africa and
Latin America to create blocs of nations
that pursue economic development
while ignoring human rights and envi-
ronmental conservation.
In fact, to continue to give China “ex-
ceptional” treatment – given its behav-
iour today – will undermine its ability to
become a nation capable of exercising
responsible global leadership.
Yu Maochun is a professor of East Asia
and military history at the US Naval
Academy. The views expressed here are
his own. Copyright: Project Syndicate
higher-yielding assets such as US Trea-
sury bills. Many blame this yen-carry
trade for fuelling stock bubbles in Shang-
hai, Shenzhen and elsewhere that could
burst if currencies go astray, as in 1997.
China dreads a domino effect from
currency interventions in Asia because it
is already under Plaza Accord-type pres-
sures to let the yuan rise. “China does not
yet have the currency policy that we want
it to have and that it needs,” US Treasury
Secretary Henry Paulson said last week.
American and Japanese officials are in-
dicating they won’t alter their yen policy,
and investors in China are sensitive to any
wind of change. So G7 ministers would be
better off focusing on how to sustain
growth worldwide by getting Japanese
consumers back into the game.
Christopher Johnson is a Tokyo-based free-
lance writer
antee that socially acceptable and cost-
competitive new technologies would re-
sult. But without them, global warming is
more or less on automatic pilot.
Meanwhile, we could temper our
energy appetite. I’ve argued before for a
high oil tax to prod Americans to buy
more fuel-efficient vehicles. The main
aim would be to limit insecure oil im-
ports; but it would also check carbon
dioxide emissions.
It’s a debate we ought to have – but
probably won’t. Any realistic response
would be costly, uncertain and no doubt
unpopular. That’s one truth too inconve-
nient for almost anyone to admit.
Robert Samuelson is a Washington Post
columnist
Peter
Kammerer
journalist’s
life is cheap
P
hilippine President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo is proud of her
nation’s democracy and always
looking for ways to make it even better.
It’s strange, then, that more journalists
– the upholders of democratic systems
– have been killed during her
presidency than under any of her
predecessors.
The figures are oft quoted by media
watchdogs, human rights groups and
anyone with an axe to grind against
Mrs Arroyo’s administration. But while
there is no denying that the numbers
are appalling, an important point to
keep in mind is that apples and
oranges should never be compared.
In this case, statistics are being used
to claim that journalists have it tougher
in the Arroyo years than during those
of dictator Ferdinand Marcos. The
Brussels-based International
Federation of Journalists puts the
number killed since Mrs Arroyo took
office six years ago at 47, compared to
34 under Marcos, who stole democracy
by declaring marshal law in 1972.
An equal number, 34, died under
Corazon Aquino, the leader who
restored rights and freedoms to
Filipinos in 1986 and governed for the
next six years. Furthering the
comparison, 19 died under Mrs
Aquino’s successor, Fidel Ramos, and
five during the three-year presidency of
Joseph Estrada, who was succeeded by
Mrs Arroyo.
Other watchdog organisations, like
the Centre for Media Freedom and
Responsibility, in Manila, and the
Paris-based Reporters Without Borders,
dispute the federation’s accounting
methods and have substantially lower
figures, although they chart similar
trends. In its annual assessment of
global journalistic freedoms released
this month, the latter group reported
that last year, the Philippines was the
third most unsafe country for reporters.
Six journalists were killed, compared to
nine in Mexico and 40 in Iraq.
A record total of 43 journalists have
had libel actions filed against them
during Mrs Arroyo’s tenure. They were
all filed by her husband, Mike Arroyo,
over reports accusing him of
“Six journalists
were killed in the
Philippines last year
compared to nine in
Mexico and 40 in Iraq”
corruption. All but one of the news
people involved have counter-sued.
Then there are the persistent
accusations from human rights groups
that the leader is turning a blind eye to
the deaths of journalists, labour
activists, church people, lawyers and
the like – more than 800 since she took
office. An inquiry she ordered has
implicated the military, which helped
her to power, but few military people
have had action taken against them.
Each year there are also dozens of
attempts on the lives of journalists:
many are assaulted and scores receive
threats. Most of the attacks take place
outside the capital.
Sheila Coronel, the director of the
Stabile Centre for Investigative
Journalism at Columbia University, put
the situation down to a culture of
impunity for business leaders and
officials, and a lack of government
control in provincial areas, where local
bosses often have private armies.
“They are usually entrenched in
local office, sometimes over
generations,” said Ms Coronel, until
last September the head of the
Philippine Centre for Investigative
Journalism. “There is very little
opposition, if at all, to their control of
local territories. That control often
extends to illegal activities – and they
do not like being challenged.”
Throw in the wide availability of
guns, and the mix is deadly for those
whose job is to uncover corruption and
keep officials in line. But I sense that it
was considerably worse under Marcos.
No journalist then was truly
independent, as every media outlet was
government controlled. There are also
many more reporters now than then.
And Marcos had such a tight grip on
the country that, after his first few years
in office, he no longer had to kill
journalists to show them who was boss.
Simply jailing them was enough to get
the message out loud and clear.
Being a self-avowed practitioner of
democracy, Mrs Arroyo should have no
difficulty changing public perceptions.
All she has to do is follow the
democratic principles of ensuring
police and the courts do their job
properly. Oh yes – and acknowledge
that journalists carry out the key
democratic role of keeping those in
power in check.
Peter Kammerer is the Post’s foreign
editor. peter.kamm@scmp.com