Pushing The Boundaries

Timothy Less and Sam Olsen write:

At the heart of the West’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was anger that Putin was attempting to do something that was widely assumed to have been consigned to history. “The use of force and coercion to change borders has no place in the twenty-first century,” reported the European Council as it brought in sweeping sanctions against the Russian state.

But in many parts of the world, borders are not set in stone, now nor in the past. Secession, annexation, unification, dissolution and all the other modes of changing borders have long been weapons of war. Indeed, the last 110 years — particularly as a result of the two world wars — have been marked by changes to national boundaries that generally coincided with the interests of the major powers of the day.

During the Cold War, the US and Soviet Union encouraged the break-up of the Europeans’ overseas empires as a means of cutting them down to size, even as they froze the borders in Europe. But a new phase of border realignment started in the 1990s. This was driven mainly by the break-up of the Soviet Union and ethnic nationalism, but changes (particularly in the Balkans) were also a result of a now unchallenged United States pushing for boundary alterations. Washington recognised the independence of groups such as the Ukrainians, Czechs and Kosovo Albanians, agreed to the two Germanys uniting and backed the EU’s expansion eastwards.

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At the same time, groups such as the Bosnian Serbs and Macedonian Albanians, whose independence the US opposed, had their revisionist aspirations blocked in the name of territorial integrity, a supposed international norm. Yet the truth is that there is no universalist moral underpinning the concept of national integrity. Instead, much of the world considers current borders to be a Western imposition, whether it be the Sykes–Picot lines of the Middle East, or African countries where traditional tribal lines have been cut across.

Now, as American hegemony declines, so the world enters a new phase of border changes. The West’s adversaries and competitors see no issue with challenging existing borders if they do not suit their own interests.

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China has been gradually changing its borders for some years. Initially, this involved the annexation of Macau and Hong Kong, in line with international treaty agreements. More controversially, Beijing has also claimed the whole of the South China Sea, backed up by the construction of artificial islands to cement its position. Russia has also been redrawing the map. In 2008 it seized parts of Georgia, an American client in its near-abroad which had sought to join NATO. Then, in 2014, it occupied the Donbas and detached Russian-populated Crimea from Ukraine.

Staunchly anti-American Venezuela, meanwhile, has reopened a century-old border dispute with Guyana, laying claim to almost three quarters of its neighbour’s oil-rich territory. The UK dispatched a warship in a show of support for its former colony.

It isn’t just the West’s adversaries who are looking to change the status quo. Turkey, a NATO member, has taken advantage of America’s international retreat to consolidate what it sees as an independent state in Northern Cyprus. This gives a solid advantage to Ankara, facilitating access to the surrounding sea in which huge reserves of oil and gas have been discovered. In the Mediterranean, it has also laid claim to a corridor of sea between Turkey and Libya which disregards Greece’s recognised maritime boundaries.

The underlying causes of this increasing pressure on existing borders are more complex than simply American decline and the rise of non-Western rivals. For one thing, the EU is also perceived to be weakened following a decade of crises.

In Hungary, Victor Orban has intensified demands about the rights of Hungarians living abroad, including that Ukraine give more autonomy to its Magyar minority. Further south, Brussels’ one-time goal of integrating the whole of the Balkan nations within the EU has been forgotten, thereby encouraging dissatisfied groups such as the Serbs and Croats of Bosnia.

Moscow has actively encouraged Balkan revisionism by its regional ally Belgrade, which simultaneously wants to attach the Serbian part of Bosnia (Republika Srpska) to Serbia proper whilst preventing the loss of Kosovo, or at least the Serb-populated northern part of it. To complicate matters further, the Russian Federation itself appears to be in long-term decline, not just demographically. It faces increased support for varying levels of self-determination from ethnic minority groups, including Chechens, Tatars, Bashkirs, Nogais, Circassians, Karelians and Cossacks, some of whom may try to seize their chance in an eventual post-Putin order.

Russia is already facing challenges in its near abroad. Turkey has recently helped its client Azerbaijan consolidate its territory at the expense of Russian-backed Armenia. In the east, Japan has revitalised its claims to the Kuril Islands taken by the Soviet Union in 1945. Poland, a rising power to Russia’s west, has its eyes on the stranded enclave of Kaliningrad, which it officially renamed Królewiec last year; some assume that this was made in anticipation of its prospective detachment from Russia and incorporation into Poland itself.

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Perhaps most worryingly for the long-term integrity of Russia are the ambitions of China. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has spent its entire time in power railing against the so-called “unequal treaties” that China was forced to sign with European powers in the 19th century. Today only one is left, that which was signed with Russia in 1860 and ceded to Moscow a million square kilometres of land around Vladivostok. Chinese nationalists want this back.

The power certainly rests with Beijing, with an economy now eight times larger than its northern neighbour, and more than a hundred million people living in the provinces next to the border versus eight million in the whole Russian Far East. No matter what the terms of the “friendship without limits” signed between Presidents Putin and Xi, the question of land ownership there is likely to be visited at some point in the future, especially if Russia materially weakens further.

More nakedly, Beijing has Taiwan in its sights. The CCP considers the island to be a renegade province and has set its stall at reunification, even though most Taiwanese reject the notion. The consequences of a forced move to reunify — whether through invasion or economic blockade — would be catastrophic for the world economy given the importance of the island to the global supply of both microchips and other electronics.

Even though the US has no formal obligation to defend the island if attacked, President Biden has repeatedly insisted that his administration would come to Taiwan’s aid in the event of an invasion. With senior Japanese officials, including the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, saying that their country would not stand by if China moved against Taiwan, the maintenance of Taiwan’s independence threatens to turn any conflict with China into a regional, if not world event. 

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Taiwan is just one national boundary that Washington is determined to uphold. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US has intensified pressure on Serbia to accept the independence of Kosovo, which Belgrade has long refused to recognise, out of concern the breakaway country’s continued state of limbo gives Russia undue leverage in a strategic corner of Europe.

That is not to say Washington won’t support changing the map if it thinks it is in its interests to do so. President Trump once floated the idea of the US acquiring Greenland from Denmark. In a more serious move, he also recognised Israel’s desire to redraw the map by recognising Israel’s long-standing claim on the Golan Heights and Jewish settlements in the West Bank in 2019, to shore up a local ally against a Russian-backed Syria.

Today there are more than 100 internationally acknowledged border disputes across the globe, ranging from the violent to the dormant, on both sea and land. Such is the level of geopolitical instability and the ambitions of China and Russia to change the world order, that it is easy to see how some of these disputes might be exacerbated for political gain.

The United Nations, whose stated charter role is to “achieve international co-operation in solving international problems”, and which has helped find solutions to territorial issues for decades, finds itself increasingly sidelined in this. The split in UN voting following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with the Global South falling in behind Russia (and China), shows how Washington and its allies now have a more difficult task to influence the international agenda. This will likely undermine long-term Western confidence in the UN, thus decreasing its role further.

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The West, perhaps not being straight about its own recent actions, is unlikely to support any alterations to the map given its linking of political integrity to the international rules-based order it leads. But as its influence around the world wanes, it might not have much choice but to accept border changes.

Alternatively, politicians in North America and Europe may decide to take advantage of the situation to encourage more secession beyond the West, especially where they see the opportunity to weaken its opponents and to boost their own positions.

Of course, given the separatist movements in Belgium, Spain and France, and increasingly in the US (for example, the call for California to leave the Union), embracing secessionism would be a gamble. Either way, it is highly likely that the atlases of today will look rather different in the future, whatever the West might think it wants.

Thomas Fazi writes:

When Donald Trump introduced a series of tariffs on Chinese goods, just over five years ago, Joe Biden was among his fiercest critics. Trump, he said, was “crushing” American farmers, workers and consumers by sparking an “irresponsible trade war”, and he vowed to reverse his “senseless policies”. But once in power, Biden did the exact opposite: he actually strengthened Trump’s protectionist policies, launching “a full-blown economic war on China”.

Last week, that war escalated to near-nuclear level as the White House announced massive tariff hikes on a raft of Chinese imports — including 25% on steel and aluminium, 50% on semiconductors and solar panels, and a staggering 100% on electric vehicles (EVs). The move, they say, is in response to “China’s unfair trade practices”. The US accuses Beijing of using hefty government subsidies to flood global markets with artificially low-priced exports. By imposing its swingeing tariffs, the US hopes to create “a level playing-field in industries that are vital to our future”, and “ensure America leads the world” in these sectors.

It’s pretty ironic that Biden is attempting to level the playing-field by embracing similar tactics to Beijing. His administration’s much-vaunted Inflation Reduction Act includes almost $400 billion in subsidies (through grants, loans and tax credits) aimed at boosting the US cleantech sector. So Biden’s attempts to paint China as a rogue nation using “non-market practices” to “game the system” seem driven by fear that the Chinese subsidies risk nullifying the effect of America’s own subsidies.

US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen acknowledged as much when she said that “China is really not playing by the rules in the sense that they have enormous subsidies in critical areas of advanced manufacturing” and “[Biden] wants to make sure that the stimulus that’s being provided through the Inflation Reduction Act support[s] these industries”. She seemed blissfully unaware of the contradictory nature of her statement, barely concealed by the doublespeak: China “subsidises” its industries (bad), while the US “supports” them (good).

But, then, the idea of America as a bastion of the free market, whose corporations achieved global success simply by relying on the animal spirits of capitalism and the sheer ingenuity of garage inventors à la Steve Jobs, is largely a myth. Everyone knows that Silicon Valley’s transformation into a hotbed of innovation, and the subsequent rise of the US tech industry, was made possible thanks to massive funding from the US government and military during the Cold War. Elon Musk is only the latest in a line of supposedly self-made garage inventors who have actually built their tech empire with the help of billions of dollars in US government subsidies. Just last year Tesla received $7.5 billion from the US government.

China, then, isn’t really doing anything different from what the US has always done. But America is riled because China is winning. And having taken up the role of “free trade” defender — accusing the Biden administration of “imped[ing] the normal functioning of global industrial and supply chains” — Beijing is forcing the US to take an increasingly protectionist stance.

This peculiar reversal of roles is paradigmatic of the significant global economic and geopolitical power shift underway. “Free trade” generally tends to benefit the dominant economic power, at the expense of weaker economies. It is no coincidence that the US began preaching “free trade” only after it achieved economic dominance, in the mid-20th century, after resorting to heavily protectionist measures to support its manufacturing sectors, just as Britain had done before it.

But China has since surpassed the US as the world’s manufacturing powerhouse — and it has now climbed all the way to the top of the value chain. America’s embrace of protectionism is, therefore, an admission of weakness, as it is demoted to no-longer-hegemonic status. In this respect, it makes sense for the US to not want to be completely dependent on China in increasingly critical manufacturing sectors, and to build up its own cleantech industrial base.

To shore this industry up, the US has been trying to nurture a domestic solar supply chain through a mix of tax incentives and tariffs for over a decade — but so far has failed abysmally. As the French entrepreneur and political commentator Arnaud Bertrand noted, while the tariffs did considerably reduce the number of Chinese solar panels coming to the US (with an 86% drop over the 2012-2020 period), the billions in subsidies, from first Obama and then Biden, did not revitalise the US solar industry.

On the contrary, the American global market share of the solar industry has considerably decreased since the original tariffs were placed on Chinese solar panels — from 9% in 2010 to 2% today. Meanwhile, China’s share of the industry rose from 59% to 78%. There’s no reason to believe that the recent tariff increase will reverse this trend. There’s even less hope that they will help spur a domestic EV industry.

There’s also a catch-22 situation at play here. Because by shielding American car manufacturers from Chinese competition, any development is likely to be hindered. But without the tariffs, US car manufacturers will struggle to survive the decade since Americans cars cost between double or triple the amount of their Chinese equivalents. So the government may artificially prop up the American auto industry for a few more years, at the expense of American consumers — but by doing so, it is only delaying its death, not saving it.

The idea that the tariffs will help America “lead the world” in this or other sectors where China already controls most of the global market share — such as steel, aluminium and EVs — is an economically illiterate one. Especially when you consider that the US market represents a relatively small share of Chinese global sales, and that America’s declining global status means it can no longer impose its will on other countries. It’ll be lucky if it can get its sub-imperial vassals in Europe and Asia to get on board with its short-sighted trade war.

In fact, Biden’s EV tariff hike is already further weakening America’s crumbling powerhouse status. Those EU member states with big automotive ties to China, such as Germany and Sweden, have voiced their objections — reluctant to match the United States, or to put tariffs on the imports at all. “We don’t want to dismantle global trade, that’s a stupid idea”, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said. “Punitive tariffs as a one-size-fits-all solution is not a good idea for importing and exporting countries.” 

When we consider what kind of technologies are being targeted by the tariffs, the optics are even worse for Biden. For years he has presented himself as a champion of climate policies and emphasised the need to move towards low-emission technologies, one of the stated aims of the Inflation Reduction Act. Yet he is now attempting to punish China for managing to produce low-cost green tech, including EVs, that could turbo-charge the world’s next industrial revolution. Indeed, China has been able to achieve astounding results in this sector in large part because it has embraced much more ambitious green industrial policies than the West. Moreover, Biden’s imposition of these tariffs risks hindering the adoption of low-emission technologies by American businesses and consumers — and thereby thwarting the US’s own climate targets. It’s a messy own goal.

Those sceptical of the need for climate policies and their achievements probably don’t think this is a big deal. But it is a big deal for a lot of people — especially Biden voters. And this policy, even though probably aimed at shoring up support for the President by showing voters that he is tough on China, could alienate many of those voters.

The economist Dani Rodrik captured the sentiment of many in the progressive camp when he said: “Put up tariffs if you must, but the moral, economic, environmental arguments are on the side of those that subsidise green products, not those who want to tax them.” You don’t have to agree with him to understand the huge political gamble that Biden has taken by declaring a full-blown trade war on China, the unintended consequences of which could cost him his presidency and hammer the final nail in the coffin of America’s powerhouse status.

And Peter Hitchens writes:

Will Georgia be the scene of the next mad war? I fear so but hope not. I have visited this lovely place, in the glorious, mysterious Caucasus, and warn you not to be led astray by wet-behind-the-ears reporting. Thanks to its key position, on vital pipeline routes, between Europe and Asia, and close to the vast 'Caspian Bubble' of oil and gas, Georgia is bound to be the scene of severe international power struggles, often dressed up as something else. But they are not about freedom or democracy. In next-door Azerbaijan, the West supports a grim, hereditary despotism, which also goes in for war and ethnic cleansing.

Oh, and the law against foreign lobbying which Georgia is trying to introduce is based on a similar law brought in by the USA in 1938. Personally, I see nothing wrong in countries trying to limit foreign influence in their governments or their streets.