Pakistan’s Largest Province Bans Children’s Dance Performances In Schools

Ali Mohsin

On Monday, the government of Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province, officially banned children’s dance performances at all public and private schools. The Punjab School Education Department (PSED) announced that the ban will be applied to all school events, including talents shows, parents’ days and teachers’ days. The education department has also warned that it will suspend the license of any school that fails to implement the ban.

The PSED says its latest measure is intended to safeguard children from sexual abuse, a pressing issue that has received much-needed attention recently, following the horrific rape and murder of 7-year-old Zainab Ansari in the city of Kasur in Punjab on January 4 . The Punjab authorities’ refusal to conscientiously pursue the Zainab case sparked furious anti-government protests. The likely culprit was finally nabbed only due to mounting public pressure.

The education department claims that children’s dance performances lead to the “sexualization” of children. In doing so, the PSED strays dangerously close to victim blaming. Leaving aside the fact that there is nothing inherently sexual about dancing, the Punjab government’s logic seems to assign part of the blame for sexual assault on women and children, who can supposedly avoid being victimized if they refrain from certain behaviors. This way of thinking is all too common in the deeply conservative and male-dominated society that is Pakistan, where women and girls are frequently advised to dress “modestly” to avoid sexual assault. Those in favor of regulating the conduct of women and girls in this manner conveniently ignore the fact that even girls who wear the veil or niqab are also subjected to sexual harassment and assault. Rather than protecting women and girls, this backward approach only serves to enable rapists and sexual predators. Victims are often led to feel responsible for their ordeal, making them less likely to seek justice.

It is likely that with national elections approaching, the Pakistan Muslim League (N), which rules Punjab and the center, is exploiting the fear and anger over sex crimes to curry favor with voters. It also knows the measure will go over well with the more conservative layers of the population.

However, if the government was serious about addressing the plague of sexual violence, it would immediately devise a strategy to incorporate sex education in all schools. It is undeniably vital for children to be educated about their bodies. They must be made to understand that even someone they trust can have ill intentions. Unfortunately, however, all things sex-related are taboo and off-limits for discussion. Sexual assault is a taboo subject because of the patriarchal norms adhered to by much of the population, the same norms that devalue women and girls while enabling rape and sexual assault.

There are, in fact, numerous steps the government could take if it were serious about protecting children from sexual assault. For instance, it could address the pervasive sexual exploitation of street children in Pakistan. The number of children living on the streets in this poverty-stricken country is estimated at 1.5 million, hundreds of thousands of whom live in Punjab. Studies have shown that the vast majority of these children have experienced sexual abuse on the streets. Many of them also become addicted to drugs and are more easily exploited by morally depraved men. While Pakistan’s venal elites have grown exorbitantly wealthy over the years, the plight of the street children remains unchanged. Similarly, it has turned a blind eye to the widespread sexual abuse of children in Islamic schools. Hundreds of cases of sexual abuse by clerics at such schools have been reported in the media over the past decade. Most of these incidents go unreported due to the power and influence of the clergy. There isn’t a single politician willing to openly discuss this problem, let alone resolve it.

The Punjab government’s ban on children’s dance performances is a regressive measure and political gimmick that will do nothing to protect children. Social activities such as dancing are crucial for a child’s development. Dancing is also known to release mood-improving chemicals in the brain, inducing feelings of joy and happiness. And in a country where it seems like nothing is as it should be, everyone can use some more joy in their lives.

Let the kids be kids!

South Australian election campaign points to deepening political alienation

Mike Head

Tomorrow’s state election in South Australia marks another stage in the disintegration of the two-party parliamentary system that has propped up capitalist rule across the country since World War II.

Anxiety and uncertainty have dominated the political and media establishment throughout the election campaign. No party leader or commentator has been able to predict the result, because of the ongoing collapse of support, across the state and nationally, for the two long-time establishment parties: Labor and Liberal.

Media polls indicate that neither party is likely to win a majority of the 47 seats in the lower house of parliament. So a minority government will have to be formed, relying on the support of various “independents” or a “third party.”

The widespread alienation has been fueled by deteriorating living standards. Successive federal and state governments have imposed blow after blow on the working class in South Australia—including General Motors’ closure of the last remaining auto assembly plant last year.

At the previous state election in 2014, Premier Jay Weatherill’s already unpopular decade-old pro-business Labor government failed to win a majority, obtaining only 35.8 percent of the vote. But it clung to office with the support of a regional independent, who was rewarded with a key cabinet ministry, and an ex-Liberal state leader.

This year’s campaign has again featured a barrage of phony promises and confected attacks on each other by Labor and Liberal. Both are pledging to work with business to “create jobs” and cut soaring electricity bills, while reversing the ongoing deterioration of public health, schools and infrastructure.

Such are the lies being told that the state’s electoral commissioner this week handed down extraordinary rulings that both Labor and Liberal contravened the state’s Electoral Act by making “inaccurate and misleading” claims.

The commissioner ordered retractions and corrections be published of the Liberals’ claim that its energy scheme would save households more than $300 a year, and Labor’s allegation that the Liberals had a secret plan to cut $557 million from the state’s share of national Goods and Services Tax revenue.

Late last year, in a much-publicised attempt to divert the disaffection, and fill the political vacuum, ex-federal Senator Nick Xenophon, a right-wing populist, quit his federal Senate seat to stand as a candidate in the state poll, heading his most recent formation, SA Best.

Xenophon is trying to channel the discontent in nationalist and protectionist directions, essentially backing big business interests. In particular, he has worked with the trade unions to secure multi-billion-dollar contracts to build warships in Adelaide as part of the federal Liberal-National government’s massive military buildup.

At the same time, to garner votes Xenophon is falsely posing as an “outsider.” He told a party leaders’ debate: “This election is a chance to replace the bastards of whichever persuasion… For the first time ever in the state’s political history, there is a third alternative from the political centre.”

That debate itself, however, pointed to the lack of public enthusiasm for any of the contenders. The host, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), invited 140 hand-picked people, said to be of all voting persuasions. Only about 100 showed up, forcing the staff to stack up the spare chairs and shepherd the participants closer to the front. Empty chairs made for bad television, one ABC producer told the audience.

Under the guise of addressing the state’s unemployment crisis, each of the three leaders—Weatherill, Xenophon and Liberal leader Steven Marshall—used the debate to make pitches to the financial markets, desperately seeking to attract investment.

Repeating Labor’s main slogan, “making jobs our number one priority,” Weatherill claimed the government was attracting major companies. He cited Tesla, whose billionaire owner Elon Musk is using the state to test large-scale battery projects, supposedly to resolve the supply shortages and price hikes produced by the privatisation of the electricity networks.

Marshall declared that, rather than providing subsidies for individual companies, the Liberals would woo investors by cutting payroll taxes. Xenophon was vaguer, calling for the state government to “harness an entrepreneurial spirit” and facilitate “big dreams and big ideas.”

The corporate media initially heavily promoted Xenophon and raised the prospect that he could become the next state premier. In recent weeks, however, it has turned against him, and played down his chances, out of concern that political instability could allow the underlying social unrest to erupt to the surface.

Recent reports, for example, have revealed that while Xenophon publicly opposes large corporate donations to political parties, SA Best last month received $50,000 from Cartwheel Resources, which wants faster approval for mining exploration around the Lake Gairdner national park, in the state’s centre.

Even so, the media polls suggest that SA Best still could hold the “balance of power” in the next parliament and that its second preference votes could determine who forms a government.

As the WSWS has documented, Xenophon is a right-wing nationalist, peddling anti-Chinese messages in particular, and pushing a militarist program of building submarines and other weaponry to confront Beijing. SA Best seeks to divide workers along national, even parochial, lines, and divert hostility to governments and the corporate elite into the demonising of overseas workers.

Another right-wing formation, Senator Cory Bernardi’s Australian Conservatives, is also vying to exploit the disaffection. Bernardi, a social conservative, quit the Liberal Party last year in a bid to emulate US President Donald Trump in building a far-right constituency.

Bernardi’s “free market” proposals include repealing $3 billion in state taxes, axing renewable energy state subsidies, and undertaking a “cost-benefit analysis” to either bring coal-fired power plants back to the state or build a nuclear power plant.

According to media polls, Bernardi is unlikely to pick up any lower house seats but may still emerge as a “kingmaker” in the state’s upper house, where his party obtained two seats last year by merging with the Christian-based Family First.

The underlying political turmoil was highlighted this week by the release of a report by the Grattan Institute, a business and government-backed think tank, warning that “protest politics is on the rise in Australia,” because of “collapsing trust in politicians and the major parties.”

“The vote share for minor parties and independents has been rising for a decade,” the report noted. “At the 2016 federal election it hit its highest level since the Second World War. More than one-in-four Australians voted for someone other than the ALP [Labor], the LNP [Liberal-National] or the Greens in the Senate. First-preference Senate votes for minor parties and ‘outsider’ candidates leapt from 12 percent in 2004 to 26 percent in 2016.”

In an effort to shore up the existing political and economic order, the report urged “our political leaders” to “heed the warning signs and focus on what matters to voters: restoring trust and social cohesion.”

But the only “solution” the report offered was for politicians to stop raising public expectations. “They will need to stop over-promising and under-delivering, on everything from reducing power bills to making houses more affordable and developing regional Australia,” it said.

This is the voice of the corporate elite speaking. Without “overpromising,” the various political servants of big business must find ways to get elected and impose its austerity dictates on an increasingly hostile population.

German grand coalition takes office as most right-wing government since 1945

Peter Schwarz

Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader Angela Merkel was elected German chancellor for the fourth time Wednesday, almost six months after the federal election. The formation of a new government has never before taken so long. Generally, a government takes office one to two months after the election.

Merkel was elected narrowly as chancellor. With just 364 votes out of a total of 709 deputies, she secured just 9 more than the minimum necessary. At least 35 members from the governing parties, the CDU, Christian Social Union (CSU) and Social Democrats (SPD), refused to back Merkel in the secret ballot.

The poor election result and the long period required to form the government demonstrate that the new government is unstable. The main reason for this instability is the deep social chasm that has opened up between the broad masses of the population and all the political parties.

Fifteen years to the day before Merkel’s election, then-German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder delivered his notorious Agenda speech to parliament. It introduced a social counter-revolution that has been pursued by all successive governments and has transformed Germany into one of the world’s most unequal countries, with high poverty rates and a huge low-wage sector. The new government will continue this course, combining it with a massive strengthening of the repressive state apparatus at home and abroad.

The situation increasingly resembles the infamous conditions during the Weimar Republic, when parliaments were fractured and governments were unstable, while all of the bourgeois parties moved ever further to the right in the face of deepening social opposition.

For the first time, seven parties are represented in parliament. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is the main opposition party, ahead of the Free Democrats (FDP), Greens and Left Party. The new government is referred to as a grand coalition, but this is a relic of the past that no longer corresponds to reality. The CDU/CSU and SPD, which between them regularly won between 75 and 90 percent of the vote until the turn of the century and could easily form a stable government with one small coalition partner, secured just 53 percent of the vote in the last election. Their support now stands at less than 50 percent in the polls. The SPD in particular has lost support among workers.

The months of haggling over a new government, which took place behind the backs of the population, resulted in a further shift to the right. Merkel integrated her internal party rival Jens Spahn, who will now be health minister, into the cabinet. CSU leader Horst Seehofer handed the post of minister president of Bavaria to Markus Söder, who like Spahn is on the far-right wing of the CDU/CSU. Seehofer then assumed the post of interior minister in the new federal government and announced mass deportations and the construction of a police state.

Along with the chancellor, only 5 of the 15 ministers were part of the previous government. The SPD has distanced itself from its two previous leaders. Martin Schulz, who ran as the SPD’s lead candidate in the election, and former Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who led the party prior to Schulz, are not included in the new cabinet. The SPD ministers, like Finance Minister Olaf Scholz and Family Minister Franziska Giffey, are known above all for their right-wing outlook.

Although the governing and opposition parties are divided both among and within themselves, none of them opposes the coalition agreement, which contains plans to double military spending, massively expand the police and intelligence agencies, and continue austerity policies to ensure a balanced budget. The only criticism they make of the agreement is that it does not go far enough.

The AfD can take comfort in the knowledge that the new government has largely adopted its refugee policy. The FDP has embraced the AfD’s line and criticises the government exclusively from the right. And the Greens accepted policies during the exploratory talks on forming a “Jamaica coalition” with the conservative parties and FDP that the CDU/CSU and SPD subsequently agreed upon.

The Left Party also supports the new government’s course. Asked by a reporter from NTV on the sidelines of Merkel’s re-election if there were positive points in the coalition agreement, Left Party parliamentary leader Dietmar Bartsch could hardly contain himself. There are “reasonable things, no doubt about it,” he said. “It would be really poor if such a long coalition agreement was all bad.” Then, to the reporter’s surprise, he detailed a long list of praiseworthy items.

Asked about the cabinet members, Bartsch answered, “I want to judge the ministers by their deeds, and I don’t want to express an opinion yet about Mrs. Giffey. She is totally new. Let’s see what she gets done in cabinet.” As mayor of the Berlin district of Neuköln, Franziska Giffey made a name for herself chiefly through her hardline treatment of refugees and immigrants.

Many media outlets also view the coalition agreement merely “as the starting point of the new government, and not its end point,” as the daily Handelsblatt put it. They are of the opinion that, in the face of mounting tensions with the United States, Russia and China, the government’s rearmament plans are far too modest, and it is being much too timid on the issue of austerity.

Spiegel Online went so far as to accuse the new government of being “not a project for the future, but backward looking to a time when there were no refugees, no digitalisation, no terrorism, no globalisation, no Trump and no Putin.”

In fact, the coalition agreement, with its doubling of military spending and strengthening of the domestic apparatus of state repression, is merely the starting point for a much more comprehensive militarist policy. The Agenda 2010 attacks on social welfare, the multibillion-euro bailout of the banks and most of the German army’s foreign interventions were never included in advance in a coalition agreement.

Germany’s ruling circles are fully committed to exploiting the “opportunity” of deepening global tensions to pursue a “dirty” foreign policy and make “Europe a global political actor,” as Der Spiegel ’s editor-in-chief wrote in the magazine’s latest edition.

In the few weeks since the coalition agreement was made public, international tensions have significantly intensified. US President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, threatened trade war, and fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and replaced him with former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, which was seen in Germany as a declaration of political warfare. The war in Syria is intensifying, and the British government is exploiting the mysterious attack on a former Russian spy to ramp up tensions with Russia.

At the same time, the major corporations are preparing a new round of attacks on the working class. Deutsche Bank and Postbank, RWE and EON, Opel, Siemens, Airbus and Deutsche Post have announced the laying off of thousands of workers and wage cuts, even as profits and managers’ salaries rise.

These developments will determine the grand coalition’s future policies. The government will respond to the intensification of international and social conflicts by resorting to militarist great-power policies and constructing a police state. The vast majority of the population opposes this, but this opposition finds no expression in official politics. The so-called opposition parties, no less than the trade unions, support the new government’s policies.

The Socialist Equality Party (SGP) was the only political tendency to reject the grand coalition and call for new elections. We warned that in the face of the deep-going global capitalist crisis, German imperialism was resorting to “the criminal methods of the past.” We wrote that this “right-wing conspiracy, which is backed in its essentials by all parliamentary parties and large sections of the European bourgeoisie” can only be stopped “by the independent mobilisation of the working class on the basis of a socialist programme.”

This applies with even greater force now that the new government has taken office. The deep crisis of global capitalism is placing bitter class battles on the order of the day. Their outcome depends on the building of the SGP and its international sister parties into mass socialist parties of the working class.

Three package bombs explode in Austin, Texas, killing two

Trévon Austin

Three separate package bombs have gone off in Austin, Texas in the past two weeks, killing Stephen House, 39, and Draylen Mason,17. Mason’s mother and an elderly woman were also injured in the bombings.

Austin’s interim Police Chief Brian Manley told the media the packages were placed in front of the residents’ houses. According to Manley they appeared to be “average-sized delivery boxes, not exceptionally large.”

The first bomb detonated in northeast Austin on March 2 with a force strong enough to kill House and alarm his neighbors. The package exploded after House picked it up outside his home. At the time, authorities said the blast was “suspicious” but likely “an isolated incident” that posed no ongoing danger to the community.

On Monday, March 12 two packages left in other parts of the city also detonated; one killed Mason and injured his mother while the other injured 75-year-old Esperanza Herrera. The package that killed Mason detonated inside of his family’s home at 6:44 a.m.

“One of the residents went out front, and there was a package on the front doorstep,” Manley stated. “They brought that package inside the residence, and as they opened that package, both victims were in the kitchen, and the package exploded, causing the injuries that resulted in the young man’s death and the injuries to the adult female.”

Hours later, the second blast was reported at Herrera’s home after she found the package on her porch. When she picked up the package, it detonated. Police believe that the third bomb was not meant for Herrera but her neighbor, Erica Mason, who is not related to the Mason family but shares their last name and may have been targeted under the impression that she was related.

According to ABC News, the explosives “displayed a level of sophistication, indicating that the bomb-maker or bomb-makers were highly skilled.” The devices were designed to be detonated by motion like shaking or jostling, which is why they exploded when they were picked up. They also supposedly had some sort of safety switch, enabling the bomber to move the devices without blowing them up.

“There’s a certain level of skill and sophistication that whoever is doing this has, and... we are hoping to use the evidence we have to track them down based on what we are seeing on all three scenes that seem to be consistent,” Manley to KXAN news on Tuesday.

The police reported in an update to the media on Thursday that the bombs were made from a common materials readily available in most hardware stores, making the identification of suspect more difficult than if specialty materials had been used.

Though the Austin police agree that the bombings are related, they have yet to suggest a motive or a suspected perpetrator. They also have not said whether they think the victims were personally targeted. Manley did tell reporters that police are not ruling out the possibly “that hate crime is at the core of this.”

Police and local community leaders have stated the package bombs appear to have targeted members of prominent black families with close connections. The president of the local NAACP told NBC News that House and the Mason family knew each other and went to the same church.

Mason has been described as a talented musician who had been accepted into the University of Texas Butler School of Music. His grandmother LaVonne Mason is a co-founder of the Austin Area Urban League, a local civil rights organization.

House’s stepfather, Freddie Dixon, is close to Mason’s grandfather, Dr. Norman Mason, and was the longtime pastor at Wesley United Methodist Church, a predominantly black church in Austin that was founded by newly freed slaves in 1865.

“It’s not just coincidental. Somebody’s done their homework on both of us, and they knew what they were doing,” Dixon told the Washington Post. “My diagnosis: Number one, I think it’s a hate crime. Number two, somebody’s got some kind of vendetta here.”

The as yet unsolved bombings have placed the city’s residents on edge. Since Monday some 500 suspicious packages have been reported to the police throughout the city, though none of them have turned out to contain explosive devices.

Washington imposes sanctions against Russia

Bill Van Auken

The Trump administration Thursday announced a new set of punitive sanctions against Russia, targeting 19 individuals and five organizations, including the country’s two main intelligence agencies, the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the successor to the KGB, and the GRU, the intelligence arm of Russia’s military.

Coming together with a virtually unprecedented joint statement by the heads of the US, British, German and French government indicting Russia for alleged responsibility for a nerve gas attack in the UK that has hospitalized a former Russian intelligence officer and his daughter, the sanctions represent a major ratcheting up of tensions between the world’s two major nuclear powers.

The pretexts for the latest sanctions consisted of allegations of Russian “interference” in the 2016 presidential election and claims of Moscow’s responsibility for “malicious” cyberattacks.

“The Administration is confronting and countering malign Russian cyber activity, including their attempted interference in U.S. elections, destructive cyber-attacks, and intrusions targeting critical infrastructure,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement Thursday. He added, “These targeted sanctions are a part of a broader effort to address the ongoing nefarious attacks emanating from Russia.”

The statement accused the Russian government, without providing any substantiation, of targeting “U.S. government entities and multiple U.S. critical infrastructure sectors, including the energy, nuclear, commercial facilities, water, aviation, and critical manufacturing sectors” with cyberattacks.

The charges are ominous, given that a recently released series of US national security and nuclear posture documents have laid out a new nuclear strategy that suggest that a significant cyberattack on the United States could justify retaliation with nuclear weapons.

The case laid out by the treasury secretary largely dovetailed with last month’s indictment of many of the same individuals and organizations by special counsel Robert Mueller, whose investigation had previously been denounced by President Donald Trump as a “witch hunt.”

The Democratic Party working in close collaboration with predominant layers within the US intelligence apparatus and the major media have waged an unrelenting campaign around so-called Russian “meddling” in the US elections, combined with claims that Moscow is responsible for the social divisions and tensions wracking American society.

Underlying this campaign is opposition within the US ruling establishment to any let-up in aggression against Russia, which is viewed as a principal impediment to the US drive to militarily assert its dominance over the Middle East, Eastern Europe and the entire Eurasian landmass. At the same time, the allegations against Russia have been employed to justify internet censorship and prepare for domestic political repression.

While leading Democrats voiced support for the new sanctions, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer declared Thursday that they were “not enough.” He demanded that Trump carry out more punishing measures and publicly denounce Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Similarly, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, described the measures as a “first step” and said he did not understand “why it’s taken the administration so long to lay out these sanctions.” The Congress voted overwhelmingly to impose election-related sanctions nine months ago.

The statement from the Treasury Department further cited the “recent use of a military-grade nerve agent in an attempt to murder two UK citizens,” claiming that it “further demonstrates the reckless and irresponsible conduct” of the Russian government.

Trump joined British Prime Minister Theresa May, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron in signing a joint declaration Thursday demanding that the Russian government “address all questions related to the attack” that allegedly employed a military-grade toxin to poison the former Russian GRU colonel Sergei Skripal, who became a double agent for British intelligence, and his daughter in the southern English city of Salisbury.

The statement described the alleged attack as “an assault on UK sovereignty” that “threatens the security of us all.”

Britain has claimed that the attack was carried out with the nerve agent Novichok, which was first developed by the military of the Soviet Union, but it has provided no evidence to substantiate its claims.

Moscow has denied any responsibility for the attack on Skripal, who was arrested for betraying dozens of Russian agents to British intelligence and sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2006, and then released in a US-Russian spy exchange and granted British citizenship.

The statement declares that it is “highly likely that Russia was responsible for the attack.” Without presenting any evidence, the British government retaliated against Moscow with the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats. Moscow has vowed to respond in kind.

The Russian government has repeatedly asked London to supply a sample of the nerve agent that it claims was used in the attack on Skripal—as is required under the rules of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons—but the May government has ignored the requests.

Russia’s President Putin gave his first public response to the charges by the May government Thursday saying that he was “extremely concerned” about the “destructive and provocative stance taken by the British side.”

Earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, “Russia perceives the position taken up by UK authorities with great bewilderment and incomprehension… The accusations are groundless. Moreover, these accusations were voiced before any information about the substance used emerged, which shows the presence of all signs of a provocation against Russia.”

Britain’s defense minister summed up the tenor of the charges made by the May government, declaring Thursday that Russia should “go away and shut up.” He made the statement after delivering a keynote speech calling for a major increase in UK arms spending to prepare for military confrontation with Russia.

British warplanes, he told his audience, are “policing eastern European skies against a resurgent danger from Russia” and “our soldiers stand sentinel with our NATO allies in Estonia and Poland to deter this threat.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg Thursday declared the Western military alliance’s “solidarity” with London, while claiming that the alleged chemical weapons attack was part of “a reckless pattern of Russian behavior over many years.” He added, however, that London had not requested activation of Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which requires all NATO members to come to the aid of a member state that claims it has been attacked, including through the use of armed force.

Nonetheless, the May government and its principal allies in Washington are clearly making the case for war with Russia.

The joint statement issued by Britain, the US, Germany and France commits the four powers to no specific actions against Russia. Both Germany and France have chafed at previous sanctions imposed by the United States against Moscow, viewing them as a deliberate threat to their economic ties with Russia aimed at boosting US interests in Europe, particularly in terms of American energy conglomerates.

The European powers are likewise hostile to the Trump administration’s apparent intention to upend the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, with which they have sought to negotiate profitable trade and investment deals.

Just a day before Macron signed the joint declaration, his spokesman indicated to a news conference that Paris was not prepared to jump onto the UK’s anti-Russian bandwagon over unsubstantiated charges. “We don’t do fantasy politics,” he said. “Once the elements are proven then the time will come for decisions to be made.”

Clearly, immense pressures are being exerted for the adoption of a more belligerent policy toward Russia. In part this is driven by the debacle confronting the seven-year-old US-orchestrated war for regime change in Syria, where the Assad government, with Russian backing, is on the verge of overrunning one of the last major strongholds of the Western-backed Islamist “rebels” in the rural Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta.

In an opinion piece published by the Washington Post Thursday, British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson sought to directly link the alleged Russian role in the Skripal affair with events in Syria, arguing that there was a direct “connection between Putin’s indulgence of Assad’s atrocities in Syria and the Russian state’s evident willingness to employ a chemical weapon on British soil.”

Johnson’s column follows the threat earlier this week by US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley that the US is prepared to launch unilateral military action against the Assad government in Syria over alleged chemical weapons attacks in Ghouta, and a response from General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff of the Russian Armed Forces, that any US attack that threatened the lives of Russian military personnel in Syria would be answered by Russian retaliation.

The significance of the mass student protests against gun violence in America

Genevieve Leigh

Nearly one million students walked out of their classrooms to protest gun violence and mass shootings in America Wednesday, the one-month anniversary of the massacre at a high school in Parkland, Florida.

Walkouts, rallies and demonstrations took place in every state as well as the US territory of Puerto Rico. Protests were also held internationally, including by students in Japan, Tanzania, Israel, Iceland, Mexico, Colombia, Australia, Germany and many other countries throughout Europe.

Wednesday’s protests are a prelude to a demonstration organized by the Parkland student survivors for Saturday, March 24. At least half a million people are expected to march on Washington, DC, and nearly 800 demonstrations are planned in every US state and in dozens of countries around the world.

The immediate focus of the demonstrations, heavily promoted by the Democratic Party and mainstream media, is on gun control. Within the political establishment, the “solutions” on offer are confined to either greater militarization and policing of schools or restrictions on the purchase of firearms, which will inevitably be used to increase the powers of the state.

The Republicans and Democrats alike ignore the underlying causes of school violence—unprecedented social inequality, unending war, the consequences of the militarization of society and the defunding of education and social programs—because a serious examination of the roots of this social phenomenon would expose their own role in creating the social crisis out of which it has developed.

Just as there are more fundamental causes behind the epidemic of school shootings, there are more fundamental causes to the eruption of large-scale protests among young people. There is a widespread sense among these young people that the ease and frequency with which they are massacred in American schools is symptomatic of the indifference and contempt with which the country’s ruling oligarchy regards their lives.

In conversations with students throughout the country, the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) found that students participating in the demonstrations were concerned by far broader questions than gun control.

In New York, students explained that they attended the event over the issue of access to healthcare, specifically mental health. In Washington, DC, students condemned the military budget and the war drive. In San Diego, students denounced the entire political establishment, saying that they believe “the government is run by corporations.”

Kenton, a student in Flint, Michigan, spoke about how social conditions have shaped the outlook of his generation: “Somewhere deep inside, people know they’ve been dealt a bad hand, and they want to give it back. When my parents and grandparents came here from England, you could get a good job working at a factory. But now, unless you have a college education working in a specific field, you’re probably going to end up working at Walmart or a gas station.”

Consider the life experience of working-class high school seniors across the US. Born at the turn of the century, they would have turned one year old as the Bush administration declared an open-ended “war on terror,” encompassing the entire globe.

When they were eight, the financial crash ushered in a tidal wave of social distress as the newly elected Democratic President Barack Obama funneled trillions of dollars into Wall Street to bail out the banks. Their parents may have been among the millions who lost their homes through foreclosure, were forced into bankruptcy or were thrown out of work.

At 14, they would have heard the news of the murder of Michael Brown, who was killed in the street by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. They would have watched on television as SWAT teams in combat fatigues, deployed in armored vehicles and bearing loaded assault rifles, shot rubber bullets and pepper spray canisters at demonstrators protesting police violence. They would see similar graphic murders caught on video again and again in the next few years of their high school career. Police killed more than 15,000 people over the span of their lifetime.

Now, 18 years old, these young people face a world beset by unemployment, unending wars, skyrocketing inequality and immense poverty. If they make the decision to go to college, they will be crippled by tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars in student loan debt. Their generation, for the first time in modern history, will live shorter lives and make less money than their parents’ generation.

These experiences have shaped the lives of the new generation of working-class youth all over the country. Polls show that more young people in the United States support socialism than support capitalism. There is a healthy hatred of the current president, Donald Trump, whom they recognize as the oligarchic right-wing face of the American political establishment. Millions are equally disillusioned with the Democratic Party, which is widely regarded as a pro-corporate party of Wall Street and the military-intelligence agencies.

What does the Democratic Party offer young people? If the Democrats are successful in realizing the main component of their opposition to Trump—a more aggressive policy toward Russia—it will likely mean the initiation of a war that will see many of the youth protesting on Wednesday sent to kill or be killed in the interests of the geopolitical domination of the American ruling class.

It is worth noting that while the Democratic Party has focused their entire electoral strategy on issues of race, gender, ethnicity and other identities, the school violence protests have brought together largely working-class youth of every racial and ethnic background.

The politically limited form of these protests is bound up with the long-term suppression of working-class struggle by the unions. But when the class struggle develops, as in the recent West Virginia teachers strike, where educators temporarily broke free of the control of the unions, workers and youth responded powerfully, including with a mass demonstration of high school students in Charleston, the state capital.

The IYSSE welcomes the politicization of young people in the United States and internationally, which is an indication of things to come. What is lacking, however, are a political strategy, program and perspective to resolve the crisis facing working-class youth and the working class as a whole.

The root cause of the unending string of mass violence in America and all the social problems facing youth lies in the capitalist system and the nightmarish world it has created. The basic needs and demands of youth and students cannot be realized outside of the struggle of the working class for political power, and the establishment of a socialist society that will put an end to inequality and war.

Trump vetoes takeover of Qualcomm

Nick Beams

The technology firm Broadcom has withdrawn its proposed $142 billion hostile takeover bid for the US technology giant Qualcomm after an extraordinary intervention by President Donald Trump, who vetoed the deal on “national security” grounds.

Broadcom launched the takeover last November and major banks, including Bank of America and JP Morgan, had lined up $106 billion in finance. Broadcom also had won support on the Qualcomm board after a series of manoeuvres that, according to Bloomberg, made the deal likely to go through.

But the takeover was effectively spiked on Monday when Trump issued an executive order banning it. According to the order, there was “credible evidence” to suggest that after the purchase of Qualcomm, Broadcom could “take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States.” He ordered that the companies “immediately and permanently abandon the proposed takeover.”

The intervention, following the imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminium, was a further expression of how “America First” nationalism and the invocation of “national security,” tied to military considerations, are coming to dominate all the administration’s economic decisions.

The objection to Broadcom was not that it was a foreign company at the time the takeover began. Broadcom was launched in the US, then transferred to Singapore. However, it had agreed to re-domicile to the US last November, just days before the takeover move, at an event Trump hosted at the White House.

The national security objection was based on a Committee for Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) investigation, which claimed that Broadcom’s record showed that in order to finance the deal it would cut back expenditure on 5G phone technology vital for US security.

The CFIUS investigation was the outcome of a move by Qualcomm to block the takeover. Normally any such investigation begins after a deal has been announced. But Qualcomm asked the CFIUS to intervene on January 29, claiming that the Broadcom takeover would weaken the company and therefore the US.

This pitch formed the basis for the CFIUS findings, issued in a March 5 letter, that any potential merger between Broadcom and Qualcomm could “pose a risk to the national security of the United States.”

The letter noted that articulation of potential national security risks was “in significant part” classified. But, insofar as they could be revealed, the supposed risks related to “Broadcom’s relationships with third party entities” and the effects of Broadcom’s business intentions with regard to Qualcomm.

The third party entities were not identified, but clearly the reference was to China.

The CFIUS letter said Qualcomm ranked second after Intel in research and development. Its previous role in setting standards for 3G and 4G had positioned it as the leading company in 5G development and standard-setting. It was well known and trusted by the US government and any reduction in its long-term technological competitiveness and role in standard-setting “would significantly impact” on US national security.

“This is in large part because a weakening of Qualcomm’s position would leave an opening for China to expand its influence on the 5G standard-setting process,” the letter said. The Chinese company Huawei had increased its research and development spending, and owned about 10 percent of essential 5G patents.

“While the United States remains dominant in the standards-setting space currently, China would likely compete robustly to fill any void left by Qualcomm as a result of this hostile takeover,” the letter stated.

The CFIUS claim that Qualcomm’s research and development capacities would be weakened was based on the “private equity” style of Broadcom’s financial operations, which involved reduced long-term investment and a focus on short-term profitability. The letter noted that the $106 billion lined up to support the takeover would be “the largest corporate acquisition loan on record” and such a debt load would increase the pressure for short-term profitability.

The letter cited press reports that Broadcom had spent six times as much on acquisitions, as compared to research and development, and former employees who “allege that it underinvests in long-term product development.”

If Broadcom had taken that road, it would have been acting no differently from many other major firms. Such takeovers that have formed an integral component of corporate profit accumulation in the US, starting in the 1980s.

Trump’s unprecedented action delivered a shock to the US corporate world. The Financial Times noted: “Never before has a sitting US president barred a deal over national security concerns ahead of two companies agreeing to a merger, highlighting Mr Trump’s readiness to test the limits of his constitutional powers to secure America’s primacy in the world.”

Previous presidents have taken action to prevent takeovers by foreign companies, but never on such a scale and never in such a manner.

“The fact that the president took such pre-emptive action before a deal was even signed is extremely disturbing and inconsistent with all our notions of due process,” according to Frank Aquila, a top mergers and acquisitions lawyer cited by the Financial Times.

Aquila warned that the action would make it difficult for US companies to object when they are blocked in other countries for political reasons and did “not bode well” for cross-border merger and acquisitions in a number of sectors.

The action was taken in opposition to market sentiment. According to the Wall Street Journal, Broadcom’s market value is about 16 percent higher than Qualcomm’s, despite having a 20 percent smaller annual revenue base.

“That’s thanks to a relentless pace of successful acquisitions that has boosted sales, earnings and cash flow while also endearing the company to Wall Street, the Journal noted. “About 96 percent of analysts covering Broadcom rate the stock as a buy.”

Trump’s action, based on the CFIUS report that China would be a major beneficiary of any Broadcom takeover, is highly significant. Such “national security” considerations were invoked with regard to steel and aluminium tariffs.

In particular, the move indicates the kind of measures likely when a report, being conducted under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, is brought down within a few months on Chinese practices on innovation, intellectual property rights and technology transfers.

This can be described only as the increasing militarisation of administration decisions on the US economy. It is a clear sign that the guiding philosophy is not the “free market”—the basis of official ideology for decades—but the unrelenting drive to maintain American pre-eminence, including by war if that is considered necessary.

This shift is not merely a product of Trump. Rather it is expression of the long-term economic decline of the US relative to its rivals, both old and new.

French ruling elite brays for war in Syria amid US-UK threats against Russia

Alex Lantier

As British Prime Minister Theresa May moves to cut off relations with Russia after the mysterious poisoning of former British spy Sergei Skripal, a debate over war policy is erupting in the French ruling elite.

This debate constitutes a warning to youth and workers in France and internationally. As French President Emmanuel Macron pushes for the draft, NATO is creating conditions for wars in which large draftee armies could be deployed. And as May’s threats show, events are moving towards not only war in the Middle East, but also a clash with a nuclear-armed opponent, Russia.

The debate in France also points to political issues behind May’s decision to escalate a confrontation with Russia before any serious investigation of the Skripal affair takes place. Behind the rush to judgment in this as-yet unclarified case, powerful factions of the European ruling class are working out how to mount a military escalation aimed at Russia, Turkey and Syria.

The first signal came on Monday evening from ex-President François Hollande, who pushed for a NATO war with Syria in 2013 despite Russian opposition, and then had to make a humiliating climb-down after Washington decided not to attack. Having abandoned public life last year, after taking the unprecedented decision not to run for re-election due to his unpopularity, he emerged from retirement to call for war in Le Monde.

Hollande laid out a stunning list of targets. Implicitly taking Macron’s policy to task, he warned about Russia and its ties to Turkey and Syria: “Russia has been rearming for years now, and if it is threatening, it must be threatened. By allowing Ankara to bomb our Kurdish allies in Syria, Moscow is also trying to divide NATO. Barely a year ago, [Russian President] Vladimir Putin could not find harsh enough words for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Now, these two countries have agreed on a partition of Syria.”

Hollande stressed that what is at stake is not just Syria, but the world order and French imperialism’s position in it: “The issue is how to respond to Vladimir Putin, not so much how to respond to [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad. … The West must realize the true scope of the danger.” Implicitly referring to Macron’s calls for dialog with Putin, Hollande added that “talking to Putin” should not mean “letting him advance his interests unchecked,” and that since Trump is unpredictable, “it is up to France, Europe, NATO to take action.”

Beyond Russia, he called for enforcing no-fly zones in Syria against Syrian and Turkish planes in Ghouta and Afrin—that is, shooting them down if they were in these areas—asking, “What sort of ally is Turkey to launch strikes against our own allies?” Targeting Macron, he added, “If I supported the Kurds in context of our coalition, it is not to leave them in their current situation. If I was very hard on Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and I was consistently hard, it was not to let him liquidate political opposition and massacre his own people.”

Hollande’s comments drew a bitter retort from Macron defending his record since his election: “Since last May, France has pursued a consistent and coherent policy, without being complicit but trying to be effective, by restoring dialog. These last years in Syria, has the absence of full dialog with Russia allowed us to progress further?”

Without naming Hollande, Macron attacked him for calling for ground war when Hollande did not launch one himself in 2013: “We must be clear, France will not intervene militarily on the ground in Syria. I say that very firmly. And I believe some people who are giving lessons today took the same decisions.”

Nonetheless, Macron soon found himself facing an advocate of confrontation with Turkey in his own cabinet. Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who was Hollande’s defence minister, criticized Turkey’s intervention in Afrin, declaring: “The struggle against the Islamic State is the principal reason for our military intervention in the Levant. It is a national security priority, and we fear that the Turkish action there will ultimately weaken the pressure on the remaining IS forces in Syria.”

And the Journal de Dimanche called for a “European response” to the Skripal case, pressing for the European Union (EU) to adopt London’s line against Moscow. Paris and Berlin, it wrote, “discuss rather ‘frankly’ with Vladimir Putin, and cannot afford to remain silent. We cannot let Russia sink deeper rifts into the EU with such behavior. Italy, Greece, Hungary and other smaller countries are being wooed by Moscow to be more indulgent. If Europe wants to defend itself, and not only on cyber or energy issues, it must do so in unity.”

A bitter battle is raging in the ruling elite. Yesterday, right-wing ex-prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin criticised May and warned of the potential for military escalation.

He said, “I believe Mrs Theresa May went too far in this reaction before having any results of the inquiry, before having very precise elements to make a firm accusation. … When Mrs Theresa May appeals to British public opinion in order to alert it, to say ‘If we are attacked we will respond,’ naturally the Russians will answer, ‘If you respond, we will respond to your response’. That is called escalation, and that is what is dangerous.”

Youth and workers must be warned: none of the politicians in this debate want peace. All are willing to send masses of people to fight overseas. Macron is calling for a return to the draft and stepped-up war in Mali; as prime minister, Raffarin oversaw the early stages of France’s intervention in Ivory Coast and participation in the NATO occupation of Afghanistan. They disagree not over whether to wage imperialist wars, but over the best strategy to wage them.

The debate reflects bitter conflicts between Washington and the EU over US threats of trade war against EU products and plans for an EU army independent from NATO and Washington.

Hollande’s criticisms reflect the views of sections of the ruling class concerned that Macron’s plan for a German-French axis leading the EU antagonizes allies like Britain and the United States. Macron speaks for those that view US policy against Russia, like the threat of arming Ukrainian militias to attack Russian-backed forces in east Ukraine, as very dangerous, and believe the EU must be able to take independent military action.

The obstacles to Macron’s plans for a Berlin-Paris axis are rapidly coming into focus. They will face a test later this week, when officials of Germany’s newly-installed Grand Coalition government visit Paris for talks.

Macron spoke to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung yesterday, appealing for aid from Berlin. “If Germany does not move, part of my plans are condemned to failure,” he told the FAZ. “We totally depend the one on the other. I do not believe for a second that a European project can be crowned with success without or against Germany.” Macron also made clear that an EU led by Berlin and Paris would be a militaristic, anti-refugee bloc, declaring: “We cannot each year bring in hundreds of thousands of migrants.”

As tensions escalate, UK expels 23 Russian diplomats

Chris Marsden

Prime Minister Theresa May outlined sweeping measures against Russia during a speech to the House of Commons yesterday. She declared the Putin regime guilty of poisoning former double agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, after Russia refused to meet her government’s 24-hour deadline to provide a “credible response” over the use of an alleged Russian nerve agent.

Railing against Moscow’s “sarcasm, contempt and defiance,” May proclaimed that use of the Novichok nerve agent on UK soil amounted to the “unlawful use of force” by Russia. The Russian state was “culpable” in the attempted murder of Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. Russian President Vladimir Putin had “chosen to act in this way” with May claiming his state has an undeclared chemical weapons programme in defiance of international law.

In response, Britain was expelling, within a week, 23 Russian diplomats who were “undeclared intelligence officers.” Other measures outlined included:

* Suspension of high level bi-lateral contacts between the UK and Russia.

* Drafting new laws and unspecified measures to protect against “hostile state activity.”

* Increased checks on private flights, customs and freight to bar hostile entrants to the UK.

* Freezing Russian state assets where there is evidence of their use to threaten the life or property of UK nationals or residents.

* Magnitsky-type amendments punishing violations of “human rights,” suggested by Labour to an existing sanctions bill.

* A boycott by Ministers and the Royal Family of the Fifa World Cup in Russia and the revoking of an invitation to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to visit the UK.

Russia denounced the expulsion of its diplomats as “unacceptable, unjustified and short-sighted” and said it will reciprocate. May made no reference to Russia’s insistence that it be provided samples of the alleged nerve agent used, nor to Moscow’s having pointed out that under international protocols it has 10 days to reply to such accusations. Instead, its “silence” was held up as “proof” that Russia had no credible explanation suggesting either that the poison attack was carried out by the Russian state, or proof that they had lost control of “their” nerve agent, and were therefore guilty.

On this basis, May appealed for “cross-party support.” She spoke to the Labour Opposition benches which were almost universally behind her war-like rhetoric. In response, a chorus of Labour MPs made clear their hostility to their own leader, Jeremy Corbyn, whose generally supportive statement also cautioned over how far moves could go against Russia in the absence of actual proof of culpability.

The use of nerve agents “on British soil” was “abominable,” Corbyn stated, and the attack had secured support for the UK from “our allies in the European Union, NATO and the UN.” But what was being done through the OPCW to determine whether the nerve agent could have been obtained by others due to Russian government negligence, and had the government responded to Russian demands for a sample?

To cries of “shame,” he asked whether there was any information about where the nerve agent came from, and whether May agreed with him that it was still necessary to maintain “a robust dialogue” with Russia.

To reassure everyone that he was not opposed to action against Russia, Corbyn asked what discussions had gone ahead with Britain’s NATO partners and others on taking “multilateral action” and what assurance of safety could be given to Russians living in the UK. “Our response must be decisive and proportionate and based on clear evidence,” he said.

May’s response was to denounce Corbyn for his refusal to “condemn” the “Russian state.” Consensus existed in the House and with Britain’s “allies,” but this did not extend to Corbyn.

Her attack was echoed by a succession of Labour MPs, beginning with Yvette Cooper who insisted that Russia’s alleged actions be met with “unequivocal condemnation.” May hailed Cooper’s comment as proof of views shared by many Labour MPs.

Chris Bryant accused the Russian ambassador to the UK of being a liar who should be kicked out of the UK. Pat McFadden hailed Labour’s “tradition” of “strength and resolve” when the UK is under threat, soliciting approving comments from May on Labour’s “acting in the national interest.” John Woodcock told May she would be “reassured to hear that a clear majority of Labour MPs, alongside the leader of every other party, support the firm stance she is taking.” Ben Bradshaw said, “most of us on these benches fully support the measures she has announced and, indeed, some of us think they could have come a bit sooner.”

In a press briefing, Corbyn’s strategy and communications director Seumas Milne questioned whether MI5 and MI6 may be wrong in identifying Russian culpability, given that “There is a history between WMDs and intelligence which is problematic, to put it mildly.”

When a Tory MP drew attention to a tweet on this subject, May replied that she was “surprised and shocked” and that Labour MPs would be “equally shocked.”

Reports emerged within minutes that two shadow ministers were considering their positions in response to Corbyn’s refusal to blame Russia. The BBC’s Laura Keunssberg, who played a key role in efforts to depose Corbyn as Labour leader by the Blairite right, was provided with a copy of an early-day motion already circulating supporting “unequivocally” May’s stand on Russia. There were already 16 Labour signatories.

Once again, warmongering is being used to push the domestic political agenda sharply to the right. In the process, Corbyn’s claims to have engineered a shift to the left by Labour have been brutally disproved. The right wing of his party, which Corbyn has done so much to shelter from potential expulsion, is once again preparing to move against him. His constant adaptations to their militarist agenda, including endorsing NATO and the Trident nuclear programme directed against Russia, has only whetted their appetite and given them confidence to proclaim an agenda of national unity with the Tories.

Divisions are even opening in Corbyn’s inner circle. Earlier Wednesday, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell once again demonstrated Labour’s trustworthiness to the ruling class, telling BBC Radio Four that the expulsion of diplomats was not enough: “We have to hit them hard where we can, and that’s in the pocket.” This followed his pledge Sunday that Labour MPs would no longer appear on RT, Russia’s state broadcaster.

May is leading an international offensive to reinforce demands for action against Russia, up to and including a military response, working in close collaboration with the US. These efforts are particularly directed against France and Germany, which have shown reluctance to embrace demands from the Pentagon and the Democratic Party for stepped up measures against Moscow.

In her speech, May cited support from US President Donald Trump, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and “strong expressions of support from Nato and from partners across the European Union and beyond.” However, immediately following May’s speech, Macron’s office issued a statement insisting that France wanted firm proof of Russian involvement before taking any action, Government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said, “We don’t do fantasy politics. Once the elements are proven, then the time will come for decisions to be made.”

The fight to secure a shift against Russia moved from the UK to New York later yesterday, at a special meeting of the United Nations Security Council requested by May. US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley urged action against Russia, stressing Washington’s “absolute solidarity with Great Britain” in its conclusion that the Russian state had targeted Skripal and his daughter.

Linking the alleged assassination attempt to the equally unproved use of chemical weapons in Syria’s civil war by the Bashar al-Assad regime, she threatened that the Security Council’s credibility “will not survive if we fail to hold Russia accountable.”

China-India Relations: What is the Role of Third Parties?

Siwei Liu

Despite the intensification of high-level interactions between China and India in recent years, the current situation can at best be described as complex and sensitive. The bilateral relationship is quite complicated by itself, and 'third-party actors' are adding to the complexity - that is to say China and India's bilateral and multilateral ties with other countries are beginning to influence the bilateral relationship. Addressing these additional concerns and isolating bilateral should therefore be a priority for both sides.

Doubtlessly, 2017 was a tough year for Sino-Indian relations. It witnessed the prolonged Doklam military standoff and intensifying strategic competition between two sides. Although the border crisis has temporarily subsided, the bilateral ties seem very hard to normalise, in particular the broken strategic balance. This means the two countries rarely mention their so called strategic partnership based on common strategic interests and relevant cooperation in public. Public talk of strategic competition in both the Asia-Pacific and the Indian Ocean has become far more salient.

China and India have different perceptions on current unstable relations. Indian strategists insist that it is Chinese strategic behaviour that destroys the status quo. These include China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a growing presence in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region, blocking of India's entry to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), thwarting a bid to get Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar declared as an UN-designated terrorist. Chinese strategists think that the Indian side should take the responsibility for unstable ties. Specifically they point to Indian leaders visiting disputed border areas, India's troop surge along that border, tacit approval of the Dalai lama's activities in the disputed area, reviving the 'Quad' alliance among India, Japan, Australia and the US, to name but a few. Indeed, a number of issues and factors have contributed to the instability in the relationship and each side can take what they need to justify their arguments.

Bilateral issues aside, equal attention needs to be focused on the role of third parties affecting the bilateral relationship. This is particularly important as it complicates the problem set and enables outside control, be it active or passive, of what should be a relationship decided bilaterally between the two capitals. From a Chinese point of view, the big third party problems seem to be the US, Japan and Australia. These actors undoubtedly hope to make use of the contradictions and differences between China and India and seek their own best interests in the Indo-Pacific region and forcefully advocate for the revived 'Quad', a strategic alliance designed to have a negative impact on China. From the Indian point of view, Pakistan is the obvious third party irritant.

Surprisingly, however, newer and smaller actors have emerged as having a negative influence on China-India ties. These include Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar. All these countries act according to their own national interest and have no urge to interfere in the ties between the two big powers in Asia. However their actions, even their domestic elections, may have serious consequences for China-Indian relations. The problem is that China probably believes that the development of normal relations with these countries will not harm India's interests and may indeed intensify China-India-third country cooperation. India however does not share this view. For Indian strategists, this growing Chinese influence, to some extent, constitutes a threat to India. In this context, it is easy to understand the escalated competition ensuing from the actions of these third parties, as could be seen during the unfolding Maldives crisis.

A negative news cycle is another problem. This casts actions that may not have a China-India angle in them as either a victory of 'pro-India' forces or 'pro-China' forces, ignoring the fact that these are not Indian or Chinese puppets but rather sovereign states with their own domestic problems. This kind of reporting frequently and demonstrably results in an upsurge of nationalism in both sides creating action traps for the respective leaderships, where compromise or even a basic explanation of positions to the satisfaction of the other is seen as retreat. Needless to say, foreign media, yet another third factor, actively fuels this speculation and highlights the contradictions and rivalries between the two countries.

Given how crucial this bilateral relationship is to the future of Asia, it is important to acknowledge the role of third parties and reduce their salience in bilateral ties, failing which bilateral issues should be identified, isolated, and restricted to a serious and sustained engagement at the highest level. This could possible take the shape of a systematic 'two-plus-two' dialogue mechanism between their foreign and defence ministers with a clear stating of positions away from the public gaze. The leaders of the two countries will be meeting frequently enough in 2018; the first of these being the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in June. During this, it would be useful if the leaders thrashed out such a mechanism.