Global Citizen International Digest #53

Ukraine's security is being tested by Russia, but strengthened by the US through a 10-year security agreement and financial support. The US may expand its nuclear weapons inventory to counter China's increasing arsenal and Russia's threats. China's trade relations face challenges as the G7 criticizes its military support of Russia, cyber activity, and trade practices. The European Union imposes tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, leading to tensions. The US imposes sanctions on individuals and entities supporting Russia's war effort, including some in China. China's Premier has a successful trade mission to New Zealand, despite policy differences. Hong Kong's appeal to global investors is diminishing. Hello everyone and welcome to the Global Citizen International Digest. I'm Mel Gertov. I'll be reporting and commenting on the most important and sometimes the most neglected international news of the week. Here are today's top stories. Ukraine's security tested by Russia, strengthened by the US. The US may expand its nuclear weapons inventory. And China's trade relations, mostly bad news for Beijing. First, Ukraine's security. On June 13, Vladimir Putin offered a peace proposal that he knew would be rejected out of hand by Ukraine, the United States and the European Union. The proposal calls for Russia to take over four regions of Ukraine, even though Russian forces do not occupy all of them. For the West to remove all sanctions on Russia and for Ukraine to become a neutral country unable to join NATO. In return, Russia offers a ceasefire and negotiations to end the war. Not coincidentally, this proposal coincided with the start of a peace conference in Switzerland that Russia was not invited to attend. Apparently as an alternative to Ukraine's membership in NATO, President Biden and Ukraine President Vladimir Zelensky plan to sign a 10-year security agreement. The main content is ongoing US military aid to Ukraine, supporting defense and deterrence capability, said Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor, and not a promise of US forces. Since this will be an executive agreement and not a treaty, the agreement does not require a Senate consent, nor does it bind future US administrations, meaning that Trump could end the agreement if he becomes president. Further bolstering Ukraine's cause is agreement by the G7 group to lend Ukraine 500 billion dollars taken from frozen Russian assets. The G7 includes Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, the United States, Japan, plus the European Union. The United States has been pressing the Europeans to make this move and now the deal is done. Expect outrage from the Kremlin. The US, by the way, has also pledged another 1.5 billion dollars for Ukraine from the Agency for International Development budget to provide energy assistance, repair damaged energy infrastructure, help refugees and strengthen civilian security. In Switzerland, 90 countries concluded a Ukraine peace conference without Russia, which again wasn't invited, and without China, which withdrew. The overwhelming majority of the country's presence said the UN Charter and, quote, respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty can and will serve as a basis for achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine. That position is a decisive rejection of Putin's proposal that peace talks begin with Ukraine agreeing to Russia's occupation of about 20% of its territory. However, a number of global South countries did not sign the final document, including India, Brazil and South Africa. The United States may expand its nuclear weapons inventory. A senior US official has said that the nuclear weapons arsenal may need to be expanded to deal with China's increasing arsenal and Russia's threat to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. According to the Pentagon, by 2035, China may match the number of US and Russian nuclear weapons, and Putin has talked about putting a nuclear weapon in space in violation of a treaty banning such a move. The US warning may also reflect the erosion of arms control restraints. The last major nuclear arms agreement called New START, S-T-A-R-T, with Russia expires in February 2026, with no indication Russia will be interested in renewing it. That treaty limits each country to 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear weapons. Should the current or future US administration expand the nuclear weapon arsenal, it would be yet another signal that Cold War II is on. Not that the US nuclear arsenal has been unchanged in recent years. Billions of dollars have gone into periodic so-called modernization of the arsenal, making it even more powerful, accurate, and deliverable, though without adding to the numbers. China's response, delivered through the Russian state news agency, TASS, said, quote, the US needs to reflect on its behavior and commit itself to doing the right thing. The US should reduce the role of nuclear weapons in national and collective security policies and act responsibly for the welfare of the world. The US sits on the largest and most advanced nuclear arsenal in the world. Even so, it clings to a first-use nuclear policy, devises nuclear deterrence strategies against others, and has invested heavily in upgrading its nuclear triad, referring to land, air, and sea-based missiles. All these charges are true, but China's response left out the fact that China has long refused to engage in nuclear arms reduction talks, and is significantly expanding its strategic nuclear arsenal. Thus, we are in danger of repeating the nuclear arms race that dominated the 1960s to 1980s. That era was marked by dramatic overkill capacity in nuclear weapons, expansion of the delivery systems for nuclear weapons, and huge expenditures by all sides on weapons research, development, and deployment. There were also quite a number of so-called broken arrows, nuclear accidents that went unreported for years. Deployment of the weapons, especially by the US, made targets of allies in Europe and Asia. Now, just when it seemed that the nuclear danger had somewhat moderated, the threat of a nuclear-level conflict has become real again. A US-China confrontation over Taiwan or in the South China Sea, use of a nuclear weapon by North Korea, deployment of Russian nukes to Belarus, a Russian nuclear attack in response to Ukraine's actions, any of these could spark a nuclear exchange, either intentional or accidental. China's trade relations, mostly bad news for Beijing. The G7 group concluded its summit in Italy with some fairly harsh statements about China. One of them focused on China's military support of Russia, saying quote, we will continue taking measures against actors in China and third countries that materially support Russia's war machine, including financial institutions consistent with our legal systems and other entities in China that facilitate Russia's acquisition of items for its defense industrial base, unquote. In the G7's final communique, China was also hit for its quote malicious cyber activity and for trade practices such as dumping electric vehicles at below market prices. Listeners will recall my reports on the growing anxiety in the European Union over all these matters, which have seriously complicated EU- China relations. Now those relations are bound to get worse. The European Commission's decision to impose a 38% tariff on Chinese EVs, a move it had been signaling for some time, drew a strong reaction from China's Commerce Ministry. A spokesperson said the European Commission has ignored the fact that the Chinese EV industry's advantages stem from openness and competition. The European Commission also disregarded World Trade Organization rules, said the statement, and failed to acknowledge the full cooperation of relevant Chinese enterprises during the investigation. The spokesperson accused the European Commission of engaging in blatant protectionism that will escalate trade frictions. Another Chinese official complained that China was being singled out. Quote, China has abundant corresponding countermeasures, but the country is more willing to negotiate with the European Union to avoid a trade war as much as possible. The European Commission's motive is not for trade development at all, says the statement. For example, Tesla has been temporarily excluded from the temporary tariff, which reflected how targeted the tariff is at China's electric vehicle industry. Meantime, in the United States, the State Department announced, quote, sanctions on more than 100 individuals and entities, including seven based in China, for their support of the Russian war effort in Ukraine. The U.S. has been concerned for some time about China's assistance to Russia's military industries. At a news conference in Prague on May 31st, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said 70% of the machine tools that Russia is importing are coming from China, as well as 90% of microelectronics. New U.S. sanctions aim not just at suppliers of those items, but also at the banks that are believed to be financing sales. Blinken said, quote, China cannot expect, on the one hand, to improve relations with countries of Europe, while on the other hand, fueling the biggest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War, unquote. The Biden administration hopes to persuade its European and Asian allies to follow suit on those sanctions. Thus far, however, sanctions have not dissuaded China, not to mention North Korea or Iran, from doing business with Russia. On the other hand, some good news for China on the trade front. Its Premier Li Qiang concluded a successful trade mission to New Zealand, whose primary trade partner is China. New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Lux noted that there were plenty of policy differences between the two countries, but said, quote, the ability to be able to talk very directly and very upfront about issues that we might disagree on, have differences of opinions around, is actually a very good thing. It might be uncomfortable at times for both parties, but at least we're actually able to do that, unquote. Some New Zealanders think the government has been too soft on China, especially with regard to human rights and Chinese pressure tactics on trade, but the government counters that New Zealand is too close to China and too trade-dependent to stake out a hostile position like the US. Premier Li next travels to Australia, where he faces a less accommodating government that has had its own battles with China over trade versus human rights and political interference. In other news, Hong Kong's allure is fading. Hong Kong's attraction to global investors was always thought to be invulnerable, even with the crackdown by Beijing since 2020 on pro-democracy activists. But a five-year downturn in property values, amounting to around 270 billion dollars, shows that Hong Kong is losing its once-privileged status. The trend now is for Chinese and foreign capital to flee to more secure environments, like Singapore. Singapore's attraction rests on its Mandarin-speaking population, low taxes, and proximity to the China mainland. Figures show very large capital movements over the last three years from China to Singapore. Another possible Russian war crime. An extensive New York Times investigation into the abduction of 46 Ukrainian children into Russia has found that it was a plan approved by Putin himself, part of his project to erase Ukrainian identity. The forcible abduction of Ukrainian children is already one crime that has earned Putin an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court. The Russians, says one historian, quote, believe deep down that the children are Russian. You speed up their Russianness by kidnapping them, unquote. In this instance, the children were in a foster home when the war began. Russian officials seized them from their doctors and caretakers and removed them to Russia, where they were placed with Russian families. Banana Republic, Chiquita Brands, the banana company once known as United Fruit, has been implicated in the deaths of eight people who were killed by a paramilitary group the company helped finance during Colombia's civil war. A jury in South Florida ordered the company to pay $38.3 million to 16 family members of the slain farmers and others. It's a rare case of a private company being held financially responsible for violence abroad. Chiquita executives admit making payments to the right-wing group called United Self-Defense Forces, which is listed by the State Department as a terrorist organization. During Colombia's civil war, that group acted as a protection agency for businesses against leftist guerrillas. But in killing and pressuring farmers, the group was enabling Chiquita to obtain land cheaply to convert to banana plantations. This episode brings back memories of when United Fruit operated in Guatemala in the 1950s. The company then was influential in CIA circles and in the US decision in 1954 to overthrow a left-leaning government, preventing the Guatemalan government from nationalizing United Fruit's properties. A Palestinian professor in Israel is under investigation. Professor Nadira Shalhoub-Kavortian, an internationally known Palestinian scholar who has taught at Hebrew University for 30 years, is under investigation in Israel for incitement to terrorism. She is among some 500 Palestinians so charged. The investigation is occurring because the professor joined academics worldwide in calling for a ceasefire in the war and calling Israel's assault on Gaza a genocide. She has also urged Israel to quote abolish Zionism. Her university tried to force her to resign, but right-wing politicians urged more punishment, leading to her detention. Her case is important since Israel, a liberal state in the past, is now punishing dissent by the Arab population while tolerating violent rhetoric and worse by Jewish Israelis. Finally, Netanyahu disbands his war cabinet. Now that two former generals have resigned from his war cabinet, Prime Minister Netanyahu has decided to disband it rather than replace the generals with two far-right members of his regular cabinet. But if this move sounds like an appeal to moderates, think again. Observers in Israel believe it simply concentrates more power in the Prime Minister's hands. With those two generals gone, says one commentator, Netanyahu has lost important voices. What he has now, he said, is more of an echo chamber. And that's the Global Citizen International Digest for the week. I'm Mel Gertov. Thanks for listening and take good care.