Category Archives: ARTICLES

A sneeze, a global cold and testing times for China

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Published in The Hindu on 1st February, 2020

The Year of the Rat has begun on an inauspicious note for China. A new virus belonging to the Coronavirus family (now named 2019-nCoV) has claimed over 100 casualties and numbers infected has crossed 4500. On 25 January, President Xi Jinping convened a meeting of the top leadership to underline the seriousness of the outbreak which has assumed epidemic proportions in China. Chinese authorities have been directed to take whatever steps are needed on emergency footing to deal with “a grave public health crisis”. However, for President Xi, it is more than a public health crisis, it is a credibility challenge, with both domestic and global dimensions.

Wuhan – the epicentre
Ironically, the epicentre of the outbreak is the bustling town of Wuhan which also hosts a number of biotech enterprises. The virus is believed to have originated in the ‘wet market’ in Wuhan where dead and live animals including seafood are stocked in close proximity. The genome of the new virus has been compared to more than 200 coronaviruses which normally affect animals revealing that this possibly originated in a certain species of local snakes. The virus underwent a change and, in the process, developed a capability that enables it to bind to human cells.

Normally, coronaviruses is a large family of viruses that are often the source of respiratory infections, including the common cold. Majority of the viruses are common among animals and only a small number infect humans. Sometimes, an animal-based coronavirus mutates and successfully finds a human host. Rapid urbanisation forcing animals and humans into closer proximity (as in the ‘wet market’) creates a perfect petri dish from where such zoonotic outbreaks can originate.

The first official acknowledgement of a new virus outbreak in Wuhan came on 31 December after the first casualty was confirmed. During the past four weeks, the number of those infected and fatal casualties has climbed rapidly. Cases have been reported from different parts of China as well as Hong Kong; nearly fifty cases are reported from Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, USA, France, Austria, Germany, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore, though no casualties yet. However, about 4000 Chinese from Wuhan are reported to be still abroad. For India, the most critical is cases being reported in Nepal since India and Nepal share an open border though so far, all tests undertaken in India have been negative. WHO has called it a health
emergency in China and refrained from describing it as a pandemic. The Director General of WHO Dr Ghebreyesus is in Beijing for talks to review the Chinese response to date.

Decoding the new virus
Initially, there was uncertainty about the mode of transmission but now it is clear that 2019-nCoV virus is passed from human to human via – air through coughing or sneezing, personal touching or contact, and also, contact with an object that may be hosting viral particles (such as a door handle) and transferring it ones nose or mouth. More significant is the new understanding that the virus is contagious even during incubation, that is even before a patient exhibits any symptoms. The incubation period can last up to a fortnight. This characteristic amplifies the transmissibility factor. It also explains the travel bans across China, and the literal isolation of Wuhan, a city of 11 million and Hubei province with a population of nearly 60 million.

For China, the timing of the outbreak could not be worse. The Chinese Lunar New Year began on 24 January and normally, it marks a week long holiday, marked by feasting and travel by large numbers to join their families for the celebrations. Undoubtedly, this movement contributed to the rapid transmission of the disease across China and to many countries before the Chinese authorities cracked down hard.

Holidays across the country have been extended by three days till 2nd February in an effort to stagger the returns. Starbucks and McDonalds have shut down their outlets in Hubei; in Shanghai, Disneyland and in Beijing, the Forbidden City is closed, and a number of temple celebrations have been called off to prevent large scale gatherings. In Shanghai, businesses have extended the holiday period till 10 February, except for supermarkets, medical suppliers and public utilities. Hong Kong has drastically cut travel between mainland and the city.

Can China cope?
Comparisons are being drawn SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak in 2002-03 which infected 8000 patients and claimed nearly 800 casualties. SARS is also a zoonotic case, part of the coronavirus family that jumped to humans from horseshoe bats. The first incidents were reported in Guangdong province in November 2002 but WHO was officially informed only after three months though mysterious flu outbreaks were being widely reported. It quickly became more than public health issue and later, the Chinese health authorities issued a public apology. It was the first case of a coronavirus family virus develop lethal pathogenicity together with high transmission. The global economic loss was estimated at between $30-100 billion.

This time, the Chinese government has been more open but the question being asked is, has it been open enough? The response mechanisms, especially in the early days evidently fell short, reflective the top down bureaucratic approach of the Chinese system. The system has kicked in now with the all-of-government approach which characterises the China model. This is embarrassing for ‘core leader’ President Xi, the author of ‘China’s rejuvenation’ who replaced Deng Xiaoping’s advice of ‘keep head down, hide your capability, bide your time’ with the mantra ‘demonstrate capability, assume responsibility and claim rightful place’ implying that China’s time has come. How China manages this challenge will be a test – demonstrating that the Chinese model can deliver when it comes to a crunch and that it is a responsible global player, no longer hesitant about engaging with the WHO. For SARS, it took 20 months from the genome sequencing to the first human trials; for 2019-nCoV, US authorities are working on a deadline of 90 days.

Learning right lessons
It provides an interesting contrast with how the Kerala government dealt with Nipah outbreak in May 2018. Nipah is also zoonotic and made the jump from fruit bats to humans. Though there were 17 deaths in May, effective quarantine measures by local authorities prevented the spread. It helped that health is a state subject. The local doctor took the initiative to contact the Manipal Centre for Viral Research which had worked in the northeast (where Nipah is more prevalent and a 2001 outbreak in Siliguri had claimed 49 lives) and had the diagnostic tools to identify the virus. The state heath machinery responded with alacrity. More than 2500 persons were put under observation. No new case was reported after 1 June and a month later Kerala was declared Nipah-free and travel restrictions were removed. Had the district and state authorities not taken the initiative and only reported matters to Delhi and awaited instructions while Delhi sent teams to prepare plans, the outbreak would have taken a higher toll.

Kerala managed to curtail the Nipah outbreak with few casualties. However, infectious diseases including of the zoonotic variety are on the rise in India. In addition, regions in India suffer from seasonal outbreaks of dengue, malaria and influenza strains. The nation-wide disease surveillance programme needs to be strengthened. There is an acute shortage of epidemiologists, microbiologists and entomologists which translates into wasteful delays in diagnostics. Given the growth potential of India’s biotech sector, it is time to put in place a robust public-private partnership model that can transform the health services sector in the country, covering disease surveillance, diagnostic kit availability and accelerated vaccine development.

Why France Is A Reliable Strategic Partner For India

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Published in Hindustan Times on 20th January, 2020

Since the end of the Cold War, India has signed ‘Strategic Partnership’ agreements with more than thirty-five countries. Among the earliest was the one with France, signed in January 1998, during President Jacques Chirac’s visit to India. Last week, the strength of this partnership was in evidence at the UN Security Council when China sought to raise the subject of Kashmir in an informal, closed door session, originally convened to discuss the situation in Mali. France, supported by Russia and the US and other non-permanent members, led the move to block the Chinese initiative.

Roots of ‘strategic convergence’
India and France share a common trait of civilisational exceptionalism and after the Cold War ended, both countries were quick to espouse the virtues of multipolarity. French discomfort with a unipolar system was clear when French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine described USA as a hyperpuissance. Visualising the changing geopolitics with focus shirting from Euro-Atlantic to Asia-Pacific, France decided on India as its preferred partner in the Indian Ocean. Even before India’s nuclear tests in 1998, France declared that India’s exclusion from the global nuclear order was an anomaly that needed to be rectified. After the nuclear tests, France displayed an instinctual understanding of India’s security compulsions.

The strategic dialogue begun in 1998 has grown over the years to cover nuclear, space, defence, cyber security, intelligence sharing and counter-terrorism cooperation. Bilateral military exercises between the three Services, beginning with the navies in 2001, followed by the air forces in 2004 and the armies in 2011, have now became a regular feature. Cooperation in the space domain began in the 1960s with French assistance to set up the Indian launch facility at Sriharikota but languished in later years because of export controls. The dialogue helped restart this cooperation and ISRO and CNES now work on joint missions. After the US cut off nuclear fuel supplies for Tarapur in 1984, France became the fuel supplier. Following the Nuclear Suppliers Group waiver in 2008, India and France signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement providing the framework for building the French EPR reactors in India.

Theatrics in the UNSC

Regarding Kashmir, France maintains that it is a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan and therefore does not merit discussion in the UN fora. China had first raised Kashmir at Pakistan’s behest in August, shortly after Article 370 was abrogated and the state of Jammu and Kashmir divided into two union territories. On 16th August last year, the UN Security Council held an informal closed-door session, the first time Kashmir had appeared on the agenda of the UNSC after 1965. India’s stand that the developments in Kashmir were an internal matter received considerable support. An attempt was made again by China in December to take up the issue but finessed by France and other countries.

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had addressed a fresh letter on Kashmir to the UNSC in January and this time China decided to introduce it into a previously scheduled meeting (convened to discuss the situation in Mali) under the agenda provision of ‘Any Other Items’. French
lead was quickly endorsed by the other permanent and a number of non- permanent members bringing the meeting to a closure. On that day, Foreign Minister Qureshi was in New York calling on the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

The Chinese action coming after the informal summit between Prime Minister Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held in Mamallapuram in October makes it clear that China remains insensitive to India’s core concerns. The announcements on ‘strategic communications’, that differences do not become disputes and the plans of holding 70 major events in the two countries to mark 70 years of establishment of diplomatic relations are unlikely to put a gloss on growing differences over CPEC, BRI, Indo-Pacific, China’s veto on India’s membership of the NSG and attempts to block the listing of Masood Azhar as a terrorist.

Establishing a comfort level
A close strategic partnership with Russia was forged during the height of the Cold War and it has stood the test of time. Yet there are occasional murmurs in Moscow about India’s growing proximity to the US, particularly in the Quad (a grouping of Australia, Japan, US and India) which Foreign Minister Lavrov described as a ‘divisive concept’ last week at the Raisina Dialogue in Delhi. Delhi too has been blindsided by Russia’s new engagement with the Taliban and by extension, Pakistan.

The strategic partnership with the US is more recent but has developed strong roots with more than 50 bilateral dialogues covering all aspects of bilateral relations. Beginning from scratch just a decade ago, US has also emerged as a key defence supplier. Yet, it is clear that US has its own
interests in the region when it comes to Pakistan, Iran and its negotiations with Taliban.

The test for a strategic partnership is not that there must be convergence on all issues; the test is that where there are differences, these are expressed in private and not publicly. This is where the India-France strategic partnership, nurtured over two decades, demonstrates its resilience.

US – Iran Brinkmanship Threatens Regional Stability & Nuclear Order

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Published in Korea Times on 29th January, 2020

The Iran nuclear deal, formally called Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA) appears headed for an untimely demise as both US and Iran engage in competing strategies of ‘maximum pressure’ and ‘maximum resistance’ respectively. After protracted negotiations between the P-5, Germany, EU and Iran, the JCPOA was concluded in July 2015 and unanimously endorsed by the UN Security Council. Iran ended its uranium enrichment programme and accepted an intrusive verification regime implemented by the IAEA; in return, sanctions relief for Iran commenced four years ago on 17 January 2016.

President Trump had been critical of the JCPOA from the outset, not because Iran was cheating on its obligations but because JCPOA did not constrain Iran’s missile programme or its involvement in regional conflicts. In May 2018, US unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA and as part of ‘maximum pressure’ strategy, imposed enhanced economic sanctions in the expectation that this would bring the Iranian regime back to the negotiating table or better still, bring about a regime collapse. Trump’s decision has been criticised by all other JCPOA parties; Europeans (France, Germany, UK and EU) promised Iran that they would set up a mechanism to mitigate the effect of sanctions but the Instrument for Supporting Trade Exchanges (INSTEX) has remained ineffective.

For a year, Iran continued to abide by the JCPOA. Since May 2019, it has taken a number of graduated steps every two months, diluting its commitments. On 8th May last year, Iran announced that it would no longer observe the stockpile limits of 130 kgs of Low Enriched Uranium and 300 MT of heavy water. In July, the enrichment limit of 3.67% was exceeded; in September Iran resumed work on advanced centrifuges and in November, it commenced enrichment work at the underground facility at Fordaw. The last announcement came on 5th January discarding the limit on the number of centrifuges to be operated. However, Iran has reiterated each time that it is still party to the JCPOA and each of these steps can be reversed if the JCPOA promised sanctions relief is restored.

Simultaneously, a series of incidents have raised tensions between Iran, US and its regional allies. There have been unclaimed attacks on commercial vessels in the Persian Gulf area. A missile attack on Aramco’s Abqaiq-Khurais facilities last September was claimed by the Houthis in Yemen though US and Saudi Arabia blame Iran for it. A US contractor was killed in end-December by an Iran backed Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah. US retaliated on 29th with air strikes killing two dozen Iraqi militia sparking anti-US protests in Baghdad and Tehran, with the protestors outside the US embassy reviving eerie memories of the 1979 siege. The killing of Maj Gen Qassim Soleimani (commander of the Quds force of the IRGC) and Kataib commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in a US drone attack on 3 January significantly escalated tensions. Iran retaliated with missile strikes at two US bases in Iraq from where the drones had operated though there were no casualties reported, pausing the escalation cycle.

Iranian messaging has been at three levels – to its people that it will resist US pressures, to the Europeans that they need to make good on their assurances because Iran will not wait indefinitely, and to the US that new negotiations will not take place under sanctions pressure.

Amid reports that US officials had threatened European automobile sector with 25% tariffs, on 14 January France, Germany and UK invoked Article 36 (Dispute Resolution Mechanism) of JCPOA. This provides a finite time for resolution after which the matter goes to the UN Security Council leading to a snapback of sanctions. Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif called the European step a ‘strategic mistake’, reminding that Iran had invoked the mechanism in May 2018 when US unilaterally withdrew from JCPOA. On 20 January, he cautioned that if JCPOA issue came to the UNSC, Iran could consider quitting the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Iran is a party to the NPT and has maintained that it is not seeking nuclear weapons and considers them un-Islamic and ‘haram’. The NPT is described as the cornerstone of the nuclear non proliferation order and all but four countries (India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea which quit in 2003) are parties. The five-yearly review conference of the NPT is scheduled for April-May this year. P-5 countries have traditionally worked together to preserve their privileged status as nuclear-weapon-states in the NPT. Iran’s latest warning is a reminder that the nuclear non-proliferation order is shaky, partly because the P-5 have failed to deliver on their promises on nuclear disarmament, partly because US, Russia and China have ambitious nuclear modernisation programmes to make them more usable, and finally, because Trump’s policy of unilaterally discarding internationally negotiated instruments will create a backlash.

President Macron (France) and PM Abe (Japan) have attempted mediation but failed. Russia and China are happy to see growing trans-Atlantic differences. The continuing US-Iran brinkmanship not only destabilises West Asia but also jeopardises the nuclear non-proliferation order.