Riyadh - Asharq Al-Awsat
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan. (SPA)
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah received on Friday telephone calls from British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and United Nations chief Antonio Guterres. Talks focused on the latest regional and international developments. With Truss, Prince Faisal discussed bilateral relations between Riyadh and London and ways to bolster them. Separately, Senegal expressed its support for Saudi Arabia's bid to host Expo 2030 in Riyadh. President of Senegal Macky Sall received in Dakar on Friday Saudi Royal Court adviser Ahmed Kattan, who thanked Senegal for its support.
from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3497486/saudi-british-fms-discuss-latest-developments
Putin Waves Nuclear Sword in Confrontation with the West
Features
Asharq Al-Awsat
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, signs a document recognizing the independence of separatist regions in eastern Ukraine with Denis Pushilin, the leader of the Donetsk People's Republic controlled by Russia-backed separatistsm center, and Leonid Pasechnik, acting leader of self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republics, left, in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Monday, Feb. 21, 2022. (AP)
It has been a long time since the threat of using nuclear weapons has been brandished so openly by a world leader, but Vladimir Putin has just done it, warning in a speech that he has the weapons available if anyone dares to use military means to try to stop Russia's takeover of Ukraine. The threat may have been empty, a mere baring of fangs by the Russian president, but it was noticed. It kindled visions of a nightmarish outcome in which Putin’s ambitions in Ukraine could lead to a nuclear war through accident or miscalculation. “As for military affairs, even after the dissolution of the USSR and losing a considerable part of its capabilities, today’s Russia remains one of the most powerful nuclear states," Putin said, in his pre-invasion address early Thursday. "Moreover, it has a certain advantage in several cutting-edge weapons. In this context, there should be no doubt for anyone that any potential aggressor will face defeat and ominous consequences should it directly attack our country.” By merely suggesting a nuclear response, Putin put into play the disturbing possibility that the current fighting in Ukraine might eventually veer into an atomic confrontation between Russia and the United States. That apocalyptic scenario is familiar to those who grew up during the Cold War, an era when American school children were told to duck and cover under their desks in case of nuclear sirens, But that danger gradually receded from the public imagination after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when the two powers seemed to be on a glide path to disarmament, democracy and prosperity. Before that, even young people understood the terrifying .idea behind the strategy of mutual assured destruction -- MAD for short -- a balance in nuclear capabilities that was meant to keep hands on each side off of the atomic trigger, knowing that any use of the doomsday weapons could end in the annihilation of both sides in a conflict. And amazingly, no country has used nuclear weapons since 1945, when President Harry Truman dropped bombs on Japan in the belief that it was the surest way to end World War II quickly. It did, but at a loss of about 200,000 mostly civilian lives in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Around the world, even today, many regard that as a crime against humanity and question if it was worth it. For a brief time after the war, the United States had a nuclear monopoly. But a few years after, the Soviet Union announced its own nuclear bomb and the two sides of the Cold War engaged in an arms race to build and develop increasingly more powerful weapons over the next few decades. With the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, and its transformation to a hoped-for democracy under Boris Yeltsin, the United States and Russia agreed to limits on their armaments. Other post-Soviet countries like Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus voluntarily gave up the nukes on their territory after the Soviet Union dissolved. In recent years, if nuclear weapons were spoken of at all, it was usually in the context of stopping their proliferation to countries like North Korea and Iran. (Iran denies that it wants to possess them and North Korea has been steadily but slowly building both its nuclear weapons and its delivery mechanisms. ) President Joe Biden has been aware of the danger of nuclear war between Russia and NATO since the emergence of the crisis with Ukraine. From the start, he has said NATO would not be sending troops into Ukraine because it could trigger direct fighting between the U.S. and Russia, leading to nuclear escalation and possibly World War III. It was a tacit admission that the United States would not take on the Russians militarily over Ukraine, and instead rely on extraordinary sanctions to gradually strangle the Russian economy. But the admission also included another truth. When it came to fighting off a Russian invasion, Ukraine remained on its own because it is a non-treaty member and does not qualify for protection under NATO's nuclear umbrella. If Putin tried to attack one of the America's NATO partners, however, that would be a different situation, because the pact is fully committed to mutual defense, Biden has said. Knowing that Biden had already taken a military response off the table, why did Putin even bother to raise it in his speech? In part, he may have wanted to keep the West off balance, to prevent it from taking aggressive action to defend Ukraine against Putin's blitzkrieg drive to take over the country. But the deeper context seemed to be his great desire to show the world that Russia is a powerful nation, not to be ignored. Putin talks repeatedly about the humiliation of Russia after the Soviet collapse. By waving his nuclear sword, he echoed the bluster with which the Soviet Union had stared down the United States and earned, in his mind, respect. After Putin's speech, Pentagon officials offered only a muted response to his implied threat to use nuclear weapons against any country that tried to intervene in Ukraine. A senior defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said Thursday that US officials “don’t see an increased threat in that regard,” but he would not say more. Putin’s language touches a raw nerve in the Pentagon because it highlights a longstanding concern that he might be willing to preemptively use nuclear weapons in Europe preemptively in a crisis. This is one reason Washington has tried for years, without success, to persuade Moscow to negotiate limits on so-called tactical nuclear weapons -– those of shorter range that could be used in a regional war. Russia has a large numerical advantage in that weaponry, and some officials say the gap is growing. Coincidentally, the Biden administration was wrapping up a Nuclear Posture Review –- a study of possible changes to US nuclear forces and the policies that govern their use –- when Russia’s troop buildup near Ukraine reached a crisis stage this month. It’s unclear whether that study’s results will be reworked in light of the Russian invasion.
from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3495741/putin-waves-nuclear-sword-confrontation-west
Asharq Al-Awsat
Flinders Street Station in Melbourne was lit up in the national colors of Ukraine as a show of support. ASANKA BRENDON RATNAYAKE AFP
Australia on Friday pilloried China's failure to denounce the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as Beijing's "unacceptable" decision to ease restrictions on a key Russian export in the face of Western sanctions. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the world must unite to condemn Russia, voicing particular concern "at the lack of a strong response from China". Beijing announced Thursday that it would import more Russian wheat, in stark contrast to Western countries rolling out sanctions on the Kremlin and its allies, reported AFP. "You don't go to throw a lifeline to Russia in the middle of a period when they are invading another country. That is simply unacceptable," Morrison said. Russia produces around a quarter of the world's wheat, according to UN data, a trade worth billions of US dollars a year. Ukraine produces a further 10 percent of world supply and there are concerns that war and sanctions will strangle production and fuel already high food prices globally. China had previously only allowed wheat imports from a handful of areas in Russia, citing disease concerns. The deal announced by China's General Administration of Customs on Thursday, which was reportedly agreed when Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Beijing in February, allows for imports from more regions. China has urged dialogue and expressed sympathy for what it calls the Kremlin's "reasonable" security concerns around Ukraine. Western powers on the other hand have denounced Putin's actions wholesale -- sanctioning banks, oligarchs and government officials. India -- a major purchaser of Russian weapons -- has also so far refrained from condemning Moscow's actions, but Morrison did not mention New Delhi. Relations between China and Australia are at their lowest ebb in a generation. The two sides have engaged in rhetorical tit-for-tat denunciations and Beijing has placed extensive trade sanctions on Australian goods -- though Australian wheat has so far avoided the chopping block. Morrison has put China and national security firmly at the center of his campaign for re-election in a vote expected this May. The conservative leader trails in the polls to the opposition center-left Labor Party, led by Anthony Albanese.
from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3495501/australia-slams-china-lifeline-russia
Ukraine’s President Vows to Stay Put as Russian Invaders Approach
World
Asharq Al-Awsat
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks at a news briefing in Kyiv , Ukraine, February 24, 2022. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via Reuters)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed on Friday to stay in Kyiv as his troops battled Russian invaders advancing toward the capital in the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two. Russia launched its invasion by land, air and sea on Thursday following a declaration of war by President Vladimir Putin. An estimated 100,000 people fled as explosions and gunfire rocked major cities. Dozens have been reported killed. US and Ukrainian officials say Russia aims to capture Kyiv and topple the government, which Putin regards as a puppet of the United States. Russian troops seized the Chernobyl former nuclear power plant north of Kyiv as they advanced along the shortest route to Kyiv from Belarus to the north. "(The) enemy has marked me down as the number one target," Zelenskiy warned in a video message as heavy fighting was reported on multiple fronts. "My family is the number two target. They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state." "I will stay in the capital. My family is also in Ukraine." Putin says Russia is carrying out "a special military operation" to stop the Ukrainian government from committing genocide against its own people - an accusation the West calls baseless. He also says Ukraine is an illegitimate state whose lands historically belong to Russia. Asked if he was worried about Zelenskiy's safety, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CBS: "To the best of my knowledge, President Zelenskiy remains in Ukraine at his post, and of course we're concerned for the safety of all of our friends in Ukraine - government officials and others." Sanctions build A democratic nation of 44 million people, Ukraine voted for independence at the fall of the Soviet Union and has recently stepped up efforts to join the NATO military alliance and the European Union, aspirations that infuriate Moscow. The United States, Britain, Japan, Canada, Australia and the EU unveiled more sanctions on Moscow on top of penalties earlier this week, including a move by Germany to halt an $11 billion gas pipeline from Russia. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell described the bloc's measures as "the harshest package of sanctions we have ever implemented". China came under pressure over its refusal to call Russia's assault an invasion. US President Joe Biden, speaking to reporters at the White House, said: "Any nation that countenances Russia's naked aggression against Ukraine will be stained by association." He declined to comment directly on China's position. Russia is one of the world's biggest energy producers, and both it and Ukraine are among the top exporters of grain. War and sanctions will disrupt economies around the world. Oil prices soared as much as $2 per barrel on Friday as markets brace for the impact of trade sanctions on major crude exporter Russia. US wheat futures hit their highest in nearly 14 years, corn hovered near an eight-month peak and soybeans rebounded on fears of grain supply disruptions from the key Black Sea region. Airlines were also facing disruptions, with Japan Airlines cancelling its Thursday evening flight to Moscow and Britain closing its airspace to Russian carriers. Military advances Zelenskiy said 137 military personnel and civilians had been killed in the fighting, with hundreds wounded. Ukrainian officials had earlier reported at least 70 people killed. Ukrainian forces downed an aircraft over Kyiv early on Friday, which then crashed into a residential building and set it on fire, said Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to the interior minister. It was unclear if the aircraft was manned. A missile hit a Ukrainian border post in the southeastern region of Zaporizhzhya, killing and wounding some guards, the border guard service said. The United States and other NATO members have sent military aid to Ukraine but there is no move to send troops for fear of sparking a wider European conflict. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba pleaded for "more weapons to continue fighting ... the amount of tanks, armored vehicles, airplanes, helicopters that Russia threw on Ukraine is unimaginable". Some 90 km (60 miles) north of Kyiv, Chernobyl was taken over by forces without identifying marks who disarmed a Ukrainian military unit guarding the station, Ukraine's state nuclear regulator said. It said there had been no casualties, that nothing had been destroyed and that radiation levels were unchanged. It informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that it had lost control of the plant. The UN Security Council will vote on Friday on a draft resolution that would condemn Russia's invasion and require Moscow's immediate withdrawal. However, Moscow can veto the measure, and it was unclear how China would vote.
from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3495481/ukraine%E2%80%99s-president-vows-stay-put-russian-invaders-approach
Alibaba Has a Much Bigger Problem Than the Tech Crackdown
Opinion
Tim Culpan
Tim Culpan -
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s slowest quarter on record comes amid a prolonged crackdown on China’s major technology companies. It’s easy to conflate the two. But the increased regulatory burden is overshadowed by even harsher problems. Chief among them: peak customer. It’s a reminder that the country’s burgeoning middle class is no longer easy pickings for high-flying companies with ubiquitous platforms. “We believe we have substantially captured all consumers with purchasing power in China,” Chief Executive Officer Daniel Zhang told investors late Thursday. “We’ll focus on a shift from new-user acquisition to user retention and [average revenue per user] growth.” The new approach comes as overall consumption growth falters in China, forcing the company to look overseas for new customers. Alibaba’s struggle is borne out in the numbers. Revenue for the three months to December climbed just 10%, compared with 29% growth the prior period. Sales at its core commerce unit — which comprises 71% of the overall business — rose a mere 7%. Those numbers cap a year in which Chinese President Xi Jinping sought to curb the power of internet titans and pivot the country toward “common prosperity,” where wealth and income is shared more evenly. For companies like Alibaba, social media player Tencent Holdings Ltd., and deliveries provider Meituan, the result has been a push to break up perceived monopolies and soften their competitive advantage. Exclusive listings, leveraging user data to sell services, and excessive subsidies were all in regulators’ sights, forcing companies to sacrifice earnings margins and rethink their business models. Alibaba executives in August pledged to plow “excess profits” back into parts of its e-commerce business in the form of merchant support, a second-hand marketplace and streaming commerce. At the time, this looked like a reaction to the crackdown, and came just months after the company was slapped with a record $2.8 billion anti-monopoly fine, equal to 4% of its 2019 domestic revenue. In reality, it was also a response not just to a tougher competitive landscape, but an acknowledgement that the high-growth days are over. Chinese retail sales growth dropped to 1.7% in December, less than half the rate estimated for the period. November, a period when it enjoys a boost from its annual Singles Day sales, was also weaker. Other areas of the economy are likewise looking shaky. Property investment in December dropped 14% from a year earlier (and 17% from the prior month), while home sales along with real-estate financing both plunged almost 20%. By the December period, the reality of those macroeconomic challenges was even more evident in China’s data. Gross domestic product climbed 4% in the quarter, slower than the prior three months. That spurred the People’s Bank of China to cut a key interest rate to juice growth, at a time when central bankers around the world are preparing to raise lending costs. Making that task even harder is Beijing’s insistence on stamping out Covid clusters, while external shocks, like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, remain an ever-present risk. This means that a sustained rebound in spending has been, and will continue to be, on shaky ground. That not only affects the revenue of businesses on its platforms, but risks creating a vicious cycle of dampened sentiment among consumers unsure of their own economic future. This level of weakness tends to lead to price wars, or increased rebates, even without guidance from a government forcing them to cut fees or boost competition. To offset the challenge, Alibaba has started a renewed push to get more customers in overseas markets, but success is not assured. It’s not easy to distinguish whether common prosperity or broader economic softness is spurring the company to leave more money in the hands of merchants and consumers, and return less to shareholders. The ongoing tech crackdown doesn’t help the company battle these economic headwinds, but those challenges were already on the horizon before common prosperity came along. Bloomberg
from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3495436/tim-culpan/alibaba-has-much-bigger-problem-tech-crackdown
Hal Brands
Hal Brands - Hal Brands is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. His latest book is "American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump."
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a lamentable but localized crisis, whose consequences will be felt only by people far away. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war has created perhaps the gravest security crisis of this century, one that will have profound effects around the globe. The pain will be borne mostly by Ukraine, of course, a country that gained independence only three decades ago and now faces the possibility of national extinction. When Putin talks about the “demilitarization” of Ukraine, he presumably means the evisceration of its military. When he talks about “de-Nazification,” he is presumably talking about a purge of Ukrainian elites and the installation of a puppet regime. When he claims that a succession of Russian and Soviet leaders “gifted” Ukraine much of its territory, he may well be previewing an extensive redrawing of the map. This is an existential crisis for Ukraine, featuring behavior — blatant aggression, the violent seizure of territory — reminiscent of Europe’s dark, not-so-ancient past. But the effects of a military assault on a major country in a critical region won’t be easily contained. There will be far-reaching economic spillover. The US and other Western countries are preparing financial, technological and commercial sanctions meant not simply to punish Russia but to inflict deep, lasting damage on its economy. Those sanctions may not change Putin’s calculus: Prosperity is not the measure of national greatness that most inspires him. But these pressures, and any Russian counter-sanctions they provoke, will increase inflation, push up energy costs and otherwise roil a global economy that is still feeling the effects of the pandemic. There will also be spillover in cyberspace. Putin has long used Ukraine as a proving ground for ambitious cyberattacks, some of which have hopped off the battlefield and onto networks around the world. That could happen again, given that Russia has been battering Ukraine digitally as a prelude to assaulting it militarily. Putin might deliberately take the digital war beyond Ukraine, reaching for cyberweapons to inflict pain on democratic countries that are inflicting pain on him. The geopolitical fallout could be equally severe. A Russian occupation of large swaths of Ukraine, combined with the permanent stationing of Putin’s legions in Belarus, would give Moscow a more menacing position vis-à-vis North Atlantic Treaty Organization members such as Poland, Romania and Lithuania. This could mean a dramatic deterioration of security in Eastern Europe, with no end in sight. This particular feature of the current crisis might easily get worse. Putin is unlikely to invade a NATO country: That’s one fight he doesn’t want to pick. But if he can quickly consolidate control of Ukraine, he would be in a position to exert stronger coercive leverage on exposed NATO countries, perhaps (as Robert Kagan has hypothesized) demanding a corridor connecting Russia to its exclave in Kaliningrad, or perhaps seeking restrictions on the military capabilities and geopolitical alignment of the Baltic states. If that sounds bad, a second scenario — in which Putin fails to consolidate control of Ukraine — could be just as dangerous. If the Ukrainian military offers sustained resistance, or if a tenacious insurgency emerges, there will be an extremely compelling reason for the West to offer arms, money, intelligence and other forms of support. Bogging Putin down in Ukraine is the best way of preventing him from turning his attention elsewhere. Yet prolonging a bloody military conflict in Europe will also mean prolonging the instability it creates. This would include a humanitarian crisis and vast refugee flows across an Eastern Europe that hasn’t previously welcomed those displaced by war. It will also expose the countries involved to Russian anger and, potentially, retaliation — just as Pakistan faced Soviet coercion and cross-border raids when it helped a US-sponsored insurgency bleed the Red Army in Afghanistan in the 1980s. This would not be a stable situation: Putin and his enemies would find themselves in an ongoing contest in coercion and counter-coercion. Not least, Putin’s actions are “heightening the contradictions,” by accentuating the ideological and geopolitical divisions at work in the world today. This crisis has already led to a tighter Sino-Russian alignment: The Chinese foreign ministry has blamed the whole affair on America, while Putin and China’s president, Xi Jinping — united in their hostility to American power — have declared that their partnership has “no limits.” Meanwhile, the confrontation between Russia and the West is merging with the broader struggle between opponents and supporters of the existing order. Worried about the precedent unchecked autocratic aggression might set, non-European democracies such as Japan are joining the sanctions campaign. Here lies the redeeming potential of the current conflict: Its long-term effects will hinge on the democratic world’s response. If the US and its allies exact a devastating economic toll on Russia, help Ukraine impose high costs on the invaders, strengthen their military capabilities in Eastern Europe and beyond, and improve the overall cohesion of the democratic community, then this crisis — like the Korean War — could actually fortify the existing order by showing that efforts to break it will not pay. But if the Western democracies fail, then the fallout from Putin’s gambit may be a preview of greater global disruptions to come. Bloomberg
from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3495426/hal-brands/ukraines-crisis-will-not-stay-ukraine
Damascus - Asharq Al-Awsat
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meets with the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, in Moscow on February 23, 2022. (Photo by Handout / RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY / AFP)
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has met in Moscow with the UN's special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, who is getting ready for a new round of negotiations of a committee representing the Syrian government and the opposition over draft constitutional reforms. "We are all interested in the swiftest settlement of the Syrian crisis based on UN Security Council resolutions," Lavrov said during the talks. "The importance of our cooperation is confirmed by the fact that we are meeting today and will aspire to achieve practical progress in the Syrian settlement,” he added. Pedersen expressed hope that the recent world developments would not affect the situation in Syria.
from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3493491/lavrov-pedersen-discuss-syria
