One World Insight Blog | Douglas "Las" Wengell

Quadrennial Defense Review: U.S. Defense Challenges

The Quadrennial Defense Review was recently released to Congress, and it details the challenges America faces in the twenty-first “One World” century. Among them: asymmetrical warfare with non-state actors using non-conventional, disruptive, radioactive, bioactive, improvised weapons; “cyber” warfare; nuclear non-state actors; climate change and wars fought over natural resources.

 Hear a fascinating World Affairs lecture by Kathleen Hicks, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans & Forces, about its highlights:

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Watch live streaming video from worldaffairs2010 at livestream.com

The War over Fresh Water

The natural world knows no boundaries. Twenty-first century wars will be fought over natural resources. One example I encountered was the Mekong River, flowing through Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam – and how China’s dams upstream are having an adverse effect to everyone else. Another example is the feud over water between India and Pakistan (who have gone to war three times since 1947), which threatens to derail peace between historically distrustful neighbors.

The two countries have harmoniously shared the waters of the Indus River for decades. But now, the Pakistanis complain that India, like China, is hogging water upstream, which is hurting Pakistani farmers downstream. The latest dispute revolves around India’s plans to build a huge hydroelectric power project on the Kishenganga River, a tributary of the Indus. Islamist groups in Pakistan are watching. “If our government doesn’t act to resolve this issue then the people will take it in to their own hands. If water doesn’t flow in to these rivers, then blood will.” What more can one say?

It’s likely to get worse before it gets better, which could just as well be a refrain for so much of our shrinking world. Pakistan’s water availability has fallen 70 percent since the 1950s. The disputed dam is in Indian-occupied Kashmire, so the issue is not just environmental its political and ideological. Capture Kashmir back, and retake our water. We may be human. We may live on the same planet. But ethnic divisions are ancient, and they may be the root of our undoing.

China’s Voracious Appetite for Natural Resources at Odds with West

America views Southwest Asia as a security threat. China sees it as an opportunity.  While America is stuck in an Afghanistan quagmire, China is cutting deals with Afghans to aid its economy. In this case, for copper. China’s $3.4 billion bid is the largest foreign investment in Afghanistan and, to be fair, the largest anyone would offer. But that’s hardly the whole story.

You might be surprised to learn that after the blood and treasure America has spent on Iraq, China is investing more in extracting Iraqi oil than American companies. It has reached long term agreements with US-nemesis Iran to buy natural gas. It is the dominant investor in Pakistan, where a Chinese-built port in Gwadar, on the Gulf of Oman, is expected to carry Middle Eastern oil and gas over the western Himalayas into China. And China is cutting deals with despots in Sudan.

In effect, American troops and tax dollars have helped make Afghanistan safe for Chinese investment. (Of course, had an American firm won the bid, the world would have accused war cynical war critics that we waged war to seize the country’s fast mineral assets.)

China views its splurges as national security: to control long-term access to natural resources to keep its industrial empire going and keep its people looking forward.

If China wants to be a global player, it will need to bare responsibility by supporting global stability, not riding on the heels of America’s largess.

Green Tech – Who Will Lead?

The “Great Game” of the 21st century will be energy and clean, fresh water. Beijing’s goal is to quadruple the economy but increase energy use by two-fold. To get even close will require innovation and technology. Who will lead? In China, green initiatives, innovation and investment comes from the top down, with little to no private or foreign investment. The firms behind green energy are state-owned energy enterprises. Beijing sees this correctly: as a national security issue. Their gains are impressive:

Wind Energy – China is #3. Manufactures include Sinovel Wind and Goldwind Science and Technology. Massive wind farms are going up in the remote West.

Solar – China is now the leading solar and solar water heater producer.  In  2001, China produced just 5 megawatts of solar cells; last year it produced 1,800 megawatts, a 300 time increase). Suntech are largest producer. It plans to build the world’s largest solar power plant in Inner Mongolia – deal between FirstSolar USA and Beijing. It will be the size of Manhattan and power 3 million homes!

And then there are simple sounding examples that Washington can’t seem to muster. For example, in 2008, China added a small tariff on grocery plastic bags and witnessed a 66 percent reduction. In 2005, it implemented an air conditioner temperature policy that thatr had similar affects.

There are downsides to this approach. Domestic part manufactures are known to knock off Western technology. There is huge overcapacity. Many environmental, health and safety standards and laws are not implemented or enforced. Business and individuals inevitably try to game the rules.

But still.

Thomas Freedman just opined on this subject, again:

"Being in China right now I am more convinced than ever that when historians look back at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, they will say that the most important thing to happen was not the Great Recession, but China’s Green Leap Forward. The Beijing leadership clearly understands that the E.T. — Energy Technology — revolution is both a necessity and an opportunity, and they do not intend to miss it."

China Becomes Biggest Exporter, Auto Market and Steel Maker

More milestones. Plus China will likely surpass Japan as the second largest economy shortly. It certainly corroborates everything I discovered during my visit.

Uncle Tan Trek Borneo Video

Here's a good video of the Uncle Tan trek. Highly recommended!

The Amazon of Asia - Malaysia, Sabah, Malasia

One week in Sabah and Sarawak, Malaysia, the northern part of Borneo. This island is considered the “Amazon” of Asia. I was delighted to see a vibrant eco-tourist industry and numerous national parks. However, globalization triumphs again: the lowland and highland rainforests have been hit hard by the logging industry and the expansion of monoculture tree plantations and oil palm plantations. Malaysia’s deforestation rate is increasing faster than anywhere else in the world. Its primary forest has been depleted by nearly half, threatening its treasure of biodiversity. 

 

In fact, it is one of the most biodiversity places on earth. There are about 15,000 species of flowing plants and 2,000 species of trees, 200+ species of mammals and 400+ species of birds. The remaining Borneo rainforest is the only natural habitat for the endangered Bornean Orangutan. It is also a refuge the Asian Elephant, Sumatran Rhinoceros, Bornean Clouded Leopard, and Dayak Fruit Bat.

 

I went on several day and night treks, where I had the good fortune to see a variety of monkeys, birds, alligators, snakes, huge spiders and bugs, fresh water fish, and exotic looking insects. Unfortunately my small camera could not do much justice so check out these excellent flicks that fellow travelers posted on Flickr (serious photographers on this island!).

 

http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/show/?q=sabah+wildlife&m=pool&w=76262874%40N00

Vietnam Scooter Madness

There are 20 million motor bikes in Vietnam, one for every two citizens in Ho Chi Minh City. They buzz around the city in what appears like chaos. Crossing the street requires guts and a little bit of faith. Up until last year, there was no helmet law, and as a consequence it had the highest level of motor bike fatalities in the world.

 

The reason for all of them is simple. The government imposes a 300 percent tariff on the purchase of a car, so a $20,000 Ford would cost $60,000 in Vietnam.  Further, the roads are generally inadequate for cars, making the traffic and congestion overwhelming.

 

You’ll find most everything – everything! – being transported on a motorbike.

 

Article and illustrate video:

http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/2008/1001/vietnam-eats-sleeps-and-dreams-on-motorbikes

Mekong Woes

Here too globalization encroaches. The Mekong River, the world’s 12^th-longest, is no long so wild. Desperate for foreign investment, the government is selling damming rights to power-hungry China and threatening villagers livelihood and the ecosystem. 

This article is just two weeks old. The news is so relevant. One World.

 

Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/world/asia/18mekong.html

Video: http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/12/17/world/1247465930418/tur

Photos: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/12/17/world/20091217MEKONG_index.html

Writing from Pai, Thailand, Ing Doi House

Pai is a small town near the border with Burma. It used to be a backpackers hangout. In the last few years, three Thai movies have featured Pai as a hip, young lovers paradise. Since then, it’s become a hot destination for Thais, so while touristy, I enjoy it.

I am staying at one of many bungalows outside of town, overlooking the valley. This one is owned by a mixed Thai-American couple. The bungalow is a mere $15/night and a meal about $2, with wireless internet and great company. Many guests have been coming for years. One could get used to this.

I’ll take a week to catch up on India and China, and relax.

www.ingdoihouse.com

China’s Rising: A Precarious Future

AS India, during my China travels, discussions and reading I jotted down a list of challenges facing this great nation. But as a fellow alum said to me in Shanghai: “The West should be more patient around human rights and similar issues. It took America a long time to do the right thing.”

·        Corruption (China ranks 79 in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index)

·        Growing (and aging) population, jobs, threat to unrest

·        Income disparity threatens civil unrest. In just 20 years, China has gone from having virtually no income gap to having one of the world's biggest. According to U.N. statistics, the poorest 20 percent of China's 1.3 billion citizens account for only 4.7 percent of total income, while the richest 20 percent account for more than half. It was cited as China's most serious social problem in a survey conducted by the Central Party School last year.

·        Environmental degradation (clean air, food, water) threatens economy which in turns threatens social stability

·        Government corruption (it’s believed that 20 percent of capital goes to pay off officials.

·        Capital flows. Foreign direct investment is problematic and cumbersome. Doing business in China, even for the big Western firms, is difficult.

·        Urban vs. rural. In urban China, it is the pursuit of happiness and prosperity; in the rural areas, it is still the pursuit of survival in the midst of a lack of clean water, a failing healthcare system, and disappearing economic opportunities

·        Brides. China’s one child policy has had unintended consequences. By 2020, it’s believed China will be short 30 million brides!

·        Brain power. Lack of innovation, creativity, critical thinking among citizens

·        Asset bubbles. As much as a third of the extra bank lending in China appears to have gone into real estate and stock market speculation. China is not immune to the downsides of a market economy.

Guangdong Province, Workshop of the World

Another whirlwind twenty-four hours. Took an overnight bus, complete with mini sleeping births and blankets (left), back to Guangzhou; and then headed by bus to Hong Kong.

 

The ride takes from Guangzhou takes me through Guangdong Province, just north of Hong Kong, famous for manufacturing and assembly, including Apple products. Shenzhen, its capital, was the first city to become a Special Economic Zone under Deng Xiapoing in 1980.

 

As the bus makes its way south, the highway intersects smokestacks and endless plants. It’s smoggy and gritty, factory after factory. Unlike America, these are not distribution warehouses. These places make the very things that line the shelves of Walmart. I wonder about all the Chinese factory workers that toil away, come from the countryside for a better life. Shabam, Time just published a neat little portrait of the region.

 

If Tolkien’s Mordor was a commentary on mass industrialization, Guangdong Province might be it. China says that much of its pollution is a result of Western demand, that America is outsourcing its mess here and isn’t willing to take responsibility for its voracious appetitive for consumption. They have a point.

 

From Hong Kong, the Southern China Post headline reads “Climate Caps Don’t Work for China.” Beijing is afraid that it will slow its annual growth rates by 2 to 3 percent, which would cause massive unemployment and, the fear goes, civic unrest. This is what I was hearing in Beijing two months ago. It underscores the difficulty of climate change policy: short vs. long-term benefit and cost. When push comes to shove, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. We avoid pain today even if it means greater suffering tomorrow. Must be ancient animal wiring. Whether an individual, a couple, a family, a town or country, we act out of self-interest. The math is crude – but it works.

 

I am reading Michael Crittenden State of Fear, about an eco-terrorist conspiracy playing to the chorus of global warming deniers.

 

Meanwhile, BBC World News is broadcasting the kick-off of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference. Heads of state, press conferences, pledges, green energy company commercials – can agreement among so many be reached, and will the people of the emerging world listen when so many are struggling to survive, feed and shelter their family?

 

I hereby conclude that Hong Kongers are good looking and fashion conscious.

China Emission Reduction? Dream on.

Yes, workshop of the world. China is building a new coal burning plant every week. There are nine cities in the United States with more than one million people. China has forty-nine! Sixteen of the world’s 20 most polluted cities are here.

 

Pollution per capita in China is smaller than America but because its population is so large in the aggregate its quickly becoming the largest emitter of green house gases. (Currently its 20 percent USA, 20 percent China.)

 

It is on target in the next 30 years to emit as much pollution as the USA did in the last 100 years!Eighty percent of its energy is from coal, costing 7 percent of GDP, which helps its aggressive exploration in Africa and Latin America, and befriending America’s foes.

 

China is understandably bothered that the USA consumes 30 percent of the world’s resources with only 6 percent of the world population. Why should it slow its growth?

 

Here’s the Chinese perspective from its media:

 “Because China -- the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels -- is immersed in a huge development phase, it faces obstacles in moving towards a low-carbon path, said He Jiankun, study co-author and former executive vice president of Tsinghua University. 

 

"There is a huge number of cities to be built. They will consume a large amount of steel and cement. This means that emissions will not be reduced for some time," Jiankun said.”

 

In announcing the study -- "China's Low Carbon Development Pathways by 2050" -- Dai Yande, deputy chief of the institute, put the blame on wealthy nations for failing to reach the emissions targets set at Kyoto in 1997."Twenty percent of the world's population takes 80 percent of wealth and emits 70 percent of greenhouse gases," Yande said, the Guardian reports.”

Green China Continued

Whether I am talking to informed folks in China, or reading, the conversation around China and green energy is hot.  The New Yorker devoted a long expose to Green China, in the Dec 16 issue.

“On March 3, 1986, four of China’s top weapons scientists—each a veteran of the missile and space programs—sent a private letter to Deng Xiaoping, the leader of the country. Their letter was a warning: Decades of relentless focus on militarization had crippled the country’s civilian scientific establishment; China must join the world’s xin jishu geming, the “new technological revolution,” they said, or it would be left behind. They called for an élite project devoted to technology ranging from biotech to space research. Deng agreed, and scribbled on the letter, “Action must be taken on this now.” This was China’s “Sputnik moment,” and the project was code-named the 863 Program, for the year and month of its birth.

In the years that followed, the government pumped billions of dollars into labs and universities and enterprises, on projects ranging from cloning to underwater robots. Then, in 2001, Chinese officials abruptly expanded one program in particular: energy technology. The reasons were clear. Once the largest oil exporter in East Asia, China was now adding more than two thousand cars a day and importing millions of barrels; its energy security hinged on a flotilla of tankers stretched across distant seas. Meanwhile, China was getting nearly eighty per cent of its electricity from coal, which was rendering the air in much of the country unbreathable and hastening climate changes that could undermine China’s future stability. Rising sea levels were on pace to create more refugees in China than in any other country, even Bangladesh.

In 2006, Chinese leaders redoubled their commitment to new energy technology; they boosted funding for research and set targets for installing wind turbines, solar panels, hydroelectric dams, and other renewable sources of energy that were higher than goals in the United States. China doubled its wind-power capacity that year, then doubled it again the next year, and the year after. The country had virtually no solar industry in 2003; five years later, it was manufacturing more solar cells than any other country, winning customers from foreign companies that had invented the technology in the first place. As President Hu Jintao, a political heir of Deng Xiaoping, put it in October of this year, China must “seize preëmptive opportunities in the new round of the global energy revolution.”

China is so big—and is growing so fast—that in 2006 it passed the United States to become the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases. If China’s emissions keep climbing as they have for the past thirty years, the country will emit more of those gases in the next thirty years than the United States has in its entire history. So the question is no longer whether China is equipped to play a role in combatting climate change but how that role will affect other countries. David Sandalow, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Energy for Policy and International Affairs, has been to China five times in five months. He told me, “China’s investment in clean energy is extraordinary.” For America, he added, the implication is clear: “Unless the U.S. makes investments, we are not competitive in the clean-tech sector in the years and decades to come.”

“Blue-sky-days” Obscure Beijing’s Air Quality

Here’s another example of how card it is to uncover what’s really going on in China. Reliable stats are hard to come by. Outside experts claim that the air quality in Beijing is not good and getting worse, as auto traffic explodes with a growing population and development (a sevenfold increase in vehicles since 1993). Beijing begs to differ. The government counts the greatest number of “blue-sky-days,” as they call them, ever recorded. Its impressive efforts to get there underscore the benefits of Chinese-style, top-down environmental action, at least for now:

·        New-car emissions standards commensurate with the EU. 

·        About 25% of Beijing’s buses run on clean-burning compressed or liquefied natural gas, the largest such fleet in the world.

·        The Beijing subway system, currently about 125 miles of tunnels and overhead tracks, is undergoing a breakneck expansion that will nearly triple its length in the next five years.

·        A strict regimen allowing 4 in 5 cars into Beijing (Los Angeles, anyone?). And the oldest autos are banned all together.

·        A cash for clunkers program much larger than in the US

·        The city’s four coal-fired power plants — all of them major polluters — have installed state-of-the-art pollution scrubbers.

·        Nearly 2,900 gas stations and petroleum storage tanks have been equipped with recycling controls.

·        Hundreds of heavily polluting factories have been moved from central Beijing,

Impressive this may be, then I discover that Beijing doesn’t measure the micro particles most damaging to the lungs and it averages its reporting. The U.S. Embassy publishes data from its Beijing building monitor, a favorite website among ex-pats; it tells a different story:  http://iphone.bjair.info/. So what to  believe? You have to give the central government a lot of credit, all the more given an exploding urban population.  Things are better but still not good. Is that not good enough?

 

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1905736,00.html

The Carbon Conundrum

You come to a place like India and you realize the daunting environmental challenges we face. If the combustible engine is put to use, it is often as crude as a lawnmower. There is no catalytic converter, no filter, no regulation. How can there be. Even if the Indian and Chinese government eventually agree to limit carbon emission, the reality they face is as stark as the typical engine, belching burnt petroleum. 

 

 

Road Trek to Leh: Sonamarg Meadow of Gold

PHOTOS. AT breakfast, the newspaper reads “Glacier Melt Threat to Kashmir Area.” One World.

This morning we launch from Srinagar, through the mountains and desert, to Leh, India, in the high and dry North-West Himalayas. It will take days. But that’s ok. The journey is desirable.

The movement through time and space is a destination in and of itself.

The first stop is the Sonamarg Meadow of Gold. Lush and majestic, it’s beautiful.

Himalayan Glacier Melt Threaten Asian Rivers

Back in the small village of Ghagria, Rose and I discover a nature photographer. He sadly describes how quickly animal and flower diversity is shrinking, even in these remote regions, that his last encounter with an Indian tiger was 2007. But the most dramatic impact was the Western press article we encounter at the nature center: “Himalayan Glaciers Gone by 2020.”

Ten years, I think incredulously. The Himalayas are not just the province of India but Nepal, Pakistan, China, Burma, Thailand and Vietnam. Its mountains and glaciers feed every the major Asia rivers, including the Ganges, Indus, Mekong, Yellow Yangzi. The research comes from legit sources. It calls the situation devastating across every continent and will impact the world’s most vulnerable one billion people who depend on river basins fed by glacier and snow melt. 

Later I encounter these stories in the American press. The world is getting small, and quick.

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1944167,00.html

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1929071_1929070_1945667,00.html

What’s most disconcerting is the impact on hydroelectricity, the largest green energy source in the world next to coal. Ironically, the melting glaciers mean that the production of electricity will increase, but the obvious implication is what happens after most of the ice has melted? Laos, Bolivia, Peru, Columbia and Ecuador – the poorest, most dependent are especially vulnerable. In Europe, 20 percent of green energy is hydro; China is the biggest producer in the world. It’s the same dilemma. The situation gets worse exponentially and by the time the situation becomes impossible to reverse in short order.

Behavior and economics must change is the refrain. But consider the challenge as illustrated by a minor observation. Past that small village of Ghagria the trail forks. One path leads to the entrance of the Valley of Flowers, the other continues to the pilgrim site. One can’t help but notice what the swami said about Indians living on another plain, for the trail to the nature reserve is sparsely populated with secular, educated Indians and a few Westerns, whereas the religious trail is pack full of devotes. Religion and faith vs. nature and science. To my mind it’s One World; to that of many Earth inhabitants, devote Christians among them, there are numerous “worlds,” and the one we inhabit may not be the most important.

Valley of Flowers

The next day we arrive at Govindghat, the base of a steep hike to the small village of Ghagria, where we’ll spend the night, and then hike to the even more remote Valley of Flowers, one of India’s few national parks, the following day. 

We meet Rose, a UK student, and begin the grueling ascent. Along the trail are mostly Seak pilgrims on their way not to the park but a sacred temple past Ghagria. It’s extraordinary to witness Indians of all ages making the climb, some one small step at a time, young kids and old men and grandmothers, something you’d never see in the American outback. I meet lots of friendly young people along the way, eager to have their picture taken and ask questions. I talk on the trail with three young Indians about arranged marriage and sex (their obvious preoccupation). Premarital sex just doesn’t exist for an Indian man, but for prostitution. One complained bitterly that even after dating a girl for a while “she won’t even offer a kiss.” Sex workers in Delhi, where he’s from, are “lowest of low,” no money to eat, they begin their horrid life as young as fourteen.

Meanwhile, a procession of pilgrims make their way past, chanting and carrying something sacred. Just another day in India. OM MANI PADME HUM, Jewel in the Heart of the Lotus, the Buddhist dedication to compassion and the divine within.

The park boasts 520 flowers, the Himalayan black bear, musk deer, brown bears and various butterflies. And the Khulia Garvya Glacier, which is melting at a pace never before witnessed by the elders. It’s the most pristine India I will probably ever see.

Reading Peter Mathusens’ The Snow Leopard, about his trekking the Himalayas in the 1960s, a travel classic:

“This stillness to which all returns, this is reality, and soul and sanity have no more meaning here than a gust of snow; such transience and insignificance are exalting, terrifying, all at once, like the sudden discovery, in meditation, of one’s own transparence. Snow mountains, more than sea or sky, service as a mirror to one’s own true being, utterly still, utterly clear, a void, an Emptiness without life or sound that carries in Itself all life, all sound.”