Russian – Chinese Nervousness Influence Their Vote on Syria

[chanikya]

The veto by Russia and China on February 4, 2012, of a resolution in the UN Security Council that called upon Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down in the face of the persisting movement against his regime is based not on an objective assessment of the ground situation in Syria, but on subjective apprehensions of the implications for the present leaderships in Russia and China should street movements in the Arab countries succeed with external support.

2. The action of the Western powers in pressing for a vote on the resolution, which enjoyed the expected support of the Arab League and the surprise support of India and Pakistan, in the face of a near certainty of a Russian-Chinese veto was motivated by two factors.

3. The first factor was the need to keep the anti-Assad movement in Syria alive despite the brutal suppression by the regime by conveying to it a message of international solidarity. The second factor was the desire to convey a message of hope to the anti-Vladimir Putin dissident elements in Russia and the anti-Communist Party of China elements in China that they too could one day benefit from similar international solidarity if they kept their movements against the Governments in Moscow and Beijing alive.

4. The domestic situation in Russia is showing signs of some turbulence in the face of allegations against the fairness and legality of the recent elections to the Parliament.In China, opposition to the policies of the regime from Tibetan and Uighur elements has been gathering strength and assuming a violent form.Moreover, the economic difficulties are leading to instances of defiance of Governmental and Party authority even from the majority Han elements in the coastal areas.

5. It would be premature to talk of a united anti-regime movement in Russia and China, but there are definitely reports of the emergence of multiple pockets of dissidence against the present regimes.It is important for the West to ensure that these dissident pockets and scattered protest movements do not lose hope in the face of the suppression by the regimes.
6. The West views the ground situation in Syria from the immediate perspective of bringing into power a new regime without a messy military intervention as one saw in Iraq and Libya and from the medium and long-term perspective of encouraging the growth of dissidence in Russia and China.

7. The determined veto of Russia and China on Syria is an indication of their fear that regime change through international solidarity with domestic protest movements could one day endanger their own regimes.

8. The problem is that the Assad regime cannot be saved. It is only a question of time before it falls due to the protest movement.The isolation of Russia and China and the widespread criticism of their veto would convey oxygen to the dissident movements in Russia and China too.

9. India did well in coming to terms with reality and in supporting the resolution. It keeps India on the side of the Syrian people fighting against a repressive regime. So long as external military intervention is not involved, there is no reason why India should remain neutral.

10. Pakistan’s support for the resolution in the face of the Chinese opposition to it is significant. It is a welcome initiative by the civilian Government in Islamabad not to put its eggs in the Chinese basket in the face of the popular anti-regime movements across the region.( 5-2-12)

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.comTwitter : @SORBONNE75 )

Chennai Centre for China Studies » Russian

 

[below_freezing]

India worried.

 

[twocents]

Very amusing. Talking heads in the US are saying the same thing, minus the reference to Pakistan

 

[Birbal]

India worried.

It's just one stupid article.

Here's a much more insightful article from India:

The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : Syria needs diplomacy, not intervention

Syria needs diplomacy, not intervention

If anything, the pursuit of regime change is hurting the international community's ability to end the crisis.

President Bashar al-Assad's government has used brute force to crush a genuine popular upheaval against his regime. The death toll is nearly 6,000. Human rights have been systematically violated. But the crucial question is how and what steps can international society lawfully take to bring an end to the crisis.

Libya is not a model for emulation but a warning to heed; more so, Iraq. Each was a split polity surviving on fragile unity. The Syrian regime, however unpopular, is supported by a significant section of people. Regime change through outside intervention wreaks havoc, violates the United Nations Charter, the rules of international law, and undermines the stability of the world order. These fundamentals must not be overlooked.

At the root of Russia and China's veto of the resolution on Syria in the Security Council on February 4, lies distrust, deep and justified. The world was taken for a ride twice by the Council's resolutions which did not authorise the use of force, but came in handy as fig leaves to cover the nudity of illegal recourse to war.

Obama's fatwa

Statements made in the Council as well as their texts establish that Resolution 1441 of November 8, 2002, did not authorise an attack on Iraq. Nor did Resolution 1973, adopted on March 17, 2011, authorise the use of force against Libya. However, on February 26, President Barack Obama delivered a fatwa on Col. Muammar Qadhafi: “He should go.” Now, on February 4, the very day the UNSC was to vote on the resolution on Syria, he peremptorily declared apropos President al-Assad: “He must step aside and allow a democratic transition to proceed immediately.” Few would believe Hillary Clinton when she said, on January 31, “there is no intention to seek any authority or to pursue any kind of military intervention”.

Suspicions of plans for regime change are justified. “Then you will start telling what King needs to resign and what Prime Minister needs to step down. This is not the business of the Security Council,” Russia's Ambassador to the U.N. Vitaly Churkin remarked on January 31.

Textually, the resolution is misleading. It “calls for an inclusive Syrian led political process” but adds it “fully supports in this regard the League of Arab States' 22 January 2012 decision to facilitate a Syrian-led political transition to a democratic, plural political system, … including through commencing a serious political dialogue between the Syrian government and the whole spectrum of the Syrian opposition under the League of Arab States' auspices, in accordance with the timetable set out by the League of Arab States; Encourages the League of Arab States to continue its efforts in cooperation with all Syrian stakeholders.”

As Neil Macfarquhar of The New York Times reported: “Three clauses that endorsed specific aspects of the Plan — including that Mr. Assad delegate his authority to his vice-president to speed a transition to democracy — were removed. But Arab and Western diplomats said the essential idea remained, even if it was not spelled out.”

‘Demands, does not recommend'

The Resolution, obviously adopted under Chapter VII, “demands,” does not “recommend.” It says: “Demands that the Syrian government, in accordance with the Plan of Action of the League of Arab States of 2 November 2011 and its decision of 22 January 2012, without delay.” Six steps are listed. Finally, the Council “Requests the Secretary General to report on the implementation of this resolution, in consultation with the League of Arab States, within 21 days after its adoption and to report every 30 days thereafter. Decides to review implementation of this resolution within 21 days and, in the event of non-compliance, to consider further measures.” Of what avail the disavowal “Nothing in this resolution authorizes measures under Article 42 of the Charter” when the threat is implicit in the text itself? The League's Plan which is endorsed provides for Mr. al-Assad to step down.

Bashar al-Assad is no pushover. Diplomacy should seek his consent to a plan which leaves him in office but ensures a democratic transition. The resolution is not an aid to diplomacy but an instrument of duress. The Arab League and its Western backers were impatient on regime change.

Regime change has furtively acquired certain respectability. Time there was when Gladstone told the House of Commons on April 2, 1880 that “the rights of a Power, the rights of a nation, ought not to be invaded because it happens to have the misfortune of a despotic government.”

The law was laid down by the International Court of Justice on April 9, 1949, in the Corfu Channel case: “The Court can only regard the alleged right of intervention as the manifestation of a policy of force, such as has, in the past, given rise to most serious abuses and such as cannot, whatever the present defects of international organization, find a place in international law. … from the nature of things it would be reserved for the most powerful States; …” These words are more relevant now than they were in 1949. This was reaffirmed in the Nicaragua case in 1986. The Court rejected intervention at a “request for assistance made by an opposition group in another state.”

The collapse of the USSR in 1991 opened new vistas of the play of power. In 1986, a British Foreign Office Policy Paper noted that “the overwhelming majority of contemporary legal opinion comes down against the existence of a right of humanitarian intervention”. In 1992, the Foreign Office held: “international law develops to meet new situations; we believe that international intervention without the invitation of the country concerned can be justified in cases of extreme humanitarian need.”

In this clime came R2P. In an inspired moment in 2000, the Canadian movement picked on the egregious Gareth Evans of Australia, with Mohamed Sahuom of Algeria, doubtless both of undying reason, to co-chair an independent International Commission on Intervention and State sovereignty. They coined the phrase “responsibility to protect”.

The doctrine was not accepted by the U.N. General Assembly on September 14, 2009, after a long debate. On September 24, 1999, Foreign Ministers of the Group of 77 “rejected the so-called right of humanitarian intervention, which has no basis in the UN Charter or international law”. This represents the opinion of 132 states; 33 Asian, 51 African, 22 Latin American, and 13 Arab states.

Crisis of legitimacy

Such an intervention inevitably entails regime change. One suspects that change is the main objective; human rights violations are a pretext for it. Witness the deafening silence on outrages by the favourites. Beneath the crisis in the U.N. system lies a deeper crisis of the legitimacy of an order which is devoid of an international consensus. That can be restored only by a wide consensus. We face a genuine humanitarian problem. Remember Biafra, Cambodia, Rwanda and Darfur.

Russia's Foreign Minister said on February 4 that the resolution on Syria was not “hopeless” and that “we support the call of the Syrian people for change.” There was ample room for compromise. There is still time for that — a U.N. Mission comprising members of high credentials can go to Syria to bring about a settlement which leaves Mr. al-Assad in office but ensures democratic transition.

India's Permanent Representative to the U.N., Hardip Singh Puri, said “the main role of the international community, including this Council, is to facilitate engagement of the Syrian government with all sections of Syrian society.” Nominating its adversary, the Arab League, to accomplish tasks set by the Resolution is no way to secure that “engagement.”

 

[chanikya]

@ below_freezing

Talk about china, aren't you worried.


@ Birbal
Nothing is stupid, its only in the mind.