Why Balochistan has become a thorn in Pakistan's crown

On Saturday, Abdul Quddus Bizenjo of the Pakistan Muslim League (Q), the so-called kings' party of the Musharraf era, took over as chief minister of Balochistan along with a 14-member cabinet. He is the third chief minister in four and a half years.

Bizenjo replaced Sanaullah Zehri of the PML (Nawaz), who was forced to resign from office ahead of a no-confidence motion against him. Not surprisingly, 11 of the 14 incoming cabinet members are members of the PML(N).

Army interference

Most observers see this manoeuvre as the Pakistan Army’s move to punish former PM Nawaz Sharif by depriving his party of any sustenance. If anything, this is a sign that parties and ideology don’t matter in official Baloch politics, but it is individuals who are easily open to manipulation. In fact, Bizenjo won the 2013 election with just 544 votes cast in his favour. The turnout in his constituency was just 1.18 per cent.

In 2013, PML(N) won a majority of seats and formed a coalition government and selected a middle-class Baloch nationalist, Abdul Malik Baloch of the National Party as chief minister. But Malik had to make way for Zehri in 2015. Baloch nationalists opposed the elections and many boycotted the process. Even those who did participate, such as Sardar Akhtar Mengal, the leader of the Balochistan National Party, rejected the outcome, charging authorities with manipulating the results.

Balochistan has suffered from prolonged political turmoil and successive phases of insurgency and violent religious extremism. The most recent bout of violence began in 2003 and is still continuing. In the period between 2011 and 2016, nearly 4,000 people were killed, including 1,000 classed as terrorists, who could be separatists or sectarian killers who target Shias in the Quetta area.

In 2017, violence intensified with massive bombings in Quetta, and other areas targeting Shias, Sufis and security forces. At the end of the year, a bomb blast killed nine and injured 57 people when a Methodist Church was targeted by the Islamic State. The Pakistan Army has sought to use violent religious extremist groups to counter Baloch nationalism and blame India for the violence.

Banking on China

There are of course nationalist groups such as the Balochistan Liberation Army, Baloch Republican Army and Baloch Liberation Front. Pakistani authorities focus their ire on Brahamdagh Bugti of the BRA as the principal villain because he is openly pro-Indian and has even sought political asylum in India. But actually, most Baloch nationalists reject secession in favour of greater autonomy and the groups are hopelessly divided along tribal lines.

Balochistan has now come into international focus because of a report that the Chinese may be establishing a naval base on the Jiwani peninsula, adjoining the port they built and operate in Gwadar. Not many are taken in by Beijing’s denial. As for Gwadar, it is the starting point of CPEC, which has become a flagship scheme of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Pakistan claims Chinese investments will generate jobs and prosperity for everyone, including the Baloch. The government believes that once the mega projects kick in, Baloch nationalism will lose steam.

There is an element of wishful thinking in the Pakistani belief that CPEC will be an answer to all its problems and moderate Baloch nationalism. They believe the Baloch live in a feudal environment, dominated by their sardars and once the area is opened up, things will change.

Blaming India

Pakistani authorities have shown little sophistication in addressing the challenge of violence in the province whose roots go back to the sensitive issue of Baloch identity. The Pakistani state, especially the Army, tends to see Baloch nationalism as a threat to Pakistan’s integrity.

In recent years, Pakistan has sought to introduce the “Indian hand” as the cause of problems. They cited Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s references in his Independence Day speech in 2016 and their capture of naval officer Kubhushan Jadhav to back their claims. However, Modi’s reference was innocuous to say the least and as for Jadhav, there is no real proof that he was involved in doing anything in Balochistan.

Politics are not normal in Pakistan, and even less so Balochistan. Violence and political turbulence are, of course, there, but the real problem is that it is somehow not seen as being part of the Pakistani mainstream. By and large, its parties are electoral coalitions that rise and come apart depending on the exigencies of power. Sentiments are with Baloch nationalists, but authority is exercised by an elite which is backed by the Army.

Mail Today January 15, 2018

Beyond Modi-Bibi Bonhomie, Limits of Indian-Israeli Convergence

In the Modi era, India-Israel relations exist in two planes. The first is the normal one of friendly relations between two states who have had normal diplomatic relations since 1992 and, from India’s point of view, have a strategic dimension based on Israel’s capacities in the area of technology.

The second is visible through the prism of BJP/RSS’s adulation for the Jewish state because of its achievement in not only recovering the purity of its ancient civilisation in the face of alleged Islamic hostility, but vigorously defending it with its military might thereafter.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be in New Delhi this week in return for Modi’s 2017 visit, the first ever by an Indian Prime Minister. It will be another occasion to see how these two planes intersect.

Bonhomie Between Modi and ‘Bibi’

We are likely to see enhanced movement in a range of areas such as military-technical trade and cooperation, agriculture, water technology, renewable energy, healthcare and cyber security. At the same time, no doubt, there will also be gestures by the government to signal its special feelings for Israel.

Modi’s July 2017 visit was an event in itself. He pointedly avoided visiting Ramallah, the capital of Palestine in the same tour, and paid homage at the tomb of Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism. There was easy informality between Netanyahu and him as they strolled on the beach. Modi addressed his Israeli counterpart by his nickname “Bibi”, and there were numerous trademark ‘Modi hugs’.

Early enough Netanyahu, not the most popular man in the world, sensed the opportunity that Modi and the BJP’s uncritical admiration provided his country. He was the first to congratulate Modi on his election as Prime Minister in 2014. Subsequently, high level exchanges between the two countries intensified with mutual visits of their respective Presidents and ministers, Modi’s Israel-visit in 2017 and now Netanyahu’s visit to India.

Also Read: Modi-Bibi Partnership: Bringing India-Israel Ties Into the Open

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Walking a Tightrope

• Netanyahu’s visit likely to see enhanced movement in areas such as military-technical trade and cooperation, agriculture, water technology, etc
• Early enough, Netanyahu sensed the opportunity that Modi and the BJP’s uncritical admiration provided his country.
• From supporting nuclear weapons programme in the 1970s to providing assistance during the Kargil War, Israel has been India’s key ally.
• While BJP might admire Israel’s tough military posture, India can’t afford such a stand as terrorists, in our case, are backed by a nuclear weapons state.
• Trump can take a tough stand on Jerusalem, but India has to step carefully in a region where it has vital interests.

Ties with Israel Since the 1950s

India has had important and pragmatic ties with Israel since the 1950s. In the 1970s, the Israelis reportedly gave a leg-up to India’s nuclear weapons programme through the important RAW and Mossad relationship. In the wake of Indira Gandhi’s assassination, Israeli experts advised India on setting up VIP security.

In the 1990s, Israel became a means through which technologies, which the US denied to us, could come through. This became important for Tel Aviv after the US embargoed certain kinds of technologies to China.

The direct benefit was India’s AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) which has been built with Israeli electronics on a Russian airframe. Israel also gave a boost to the Indian Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) programme by agreeing to supply its Green Pine radar.

Israeli assistance during the Kargil War of 1999 has helped shape the relationship of today, which sees Israeli Searcher and Heron drones, Barak surface-to-air missiles, and AWACS aircraft in the Indian armoury.

In addition, Israel provided unspecified sensor technology for India’s border fence on the Line of Control with Pakistan. Perhaps the most ambitious project currently underway is $2 billion medium and long range surface-to-air missile system, jointly developed by several Israeli companies and the DRDO. Equally important in the mid-2000s, it provided India with RISAT-2, its first radar imaging satellite.

Also Read: Israeli PM to Visit India, Hold Roadshow in Gujarat With PM Modi

India Offers Economic Opportunity But Security Dimension is Different

The positive trajectory of relations between the two countries had been set well before Modi and Netanyahu became Prime Ministers.

Even so, having a government of a party which has an almost fawning attitude towards Israel is a big plus, especially since that country is a respected member of the Non Aligned Movement. Equally important is the opportunity that an economically flourishing India provides for Israeli companies.

Of course, India stands to benefit a great deal from Israel, whether it is in the area of technology, or in creating an eco-system that encourages technology development, whether it is for the civilian sector or the military. But we should not overstate the security dimension.

The security scenarios of the two countries could not be more different. Israel cannot afford any major military or terrorist setback on its territory, whereas India can absorb a lot. Many Indians, especially those close to the BJP, admire Israel’s tough military posture which involves periodic cross-border strikes against its enemies. Israel can carry out those strikes because it has total air superiority against its non-state actor adversaries. Unlike Israel, our terrorists are backed by a nuclear weapons state.

Also Read: India Stays Consistent: Votes Against US Decision on Jerusalem

Limits of Indian-Israeli Convergence

But is Israel safer, despite its repeated invasions and attacks in Gaza and Lebanon? Where India has managed to successfully eliminate Khalistani terrorism and contain its Islamist variety, successive Israeli military operations have ended up with its enemies becoming more dangerous.

Israel’s problem is not Islamist extremism per se, but a people whose land it is militarily occupying. Israel sees no contradiction in achieving Jewish nationality in Palestine by depriving the Muslim and Christian Palestinians of their nationhood. This may have a resonance with some Hindutva forces, who would not mind marginalising and dis-empowering Muslim citizens of the country, but is not acceptable to the world.

This was evident in the recent UN resolution criticising the US decision to name Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and calling for an end to its military occupation of Palestinian territories. India’s support for the resolution indicated the limits to the Indian-Israeli convergence. This is but natural – the two countries do not have an identity of interests. Israel may be a nuclear power, but its real influence lies through its ties with the US.

India Has to Tread Carefully

A larger part of India is also friendly to the US, but it has a more complex regional agenda, which involves a difficult US friend, Pakistan, and balancing relations between Tel Aviv, Teheran and Riyadh. Trump can do the sword dance in Riyadh and recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, but India has to step carefully in a region where it has vital interests. And hence Modi’s return to the region, probably next month, to visit UAE, Palestine and Jordan.

There is little doubt that in terms of its economic achievements and military power, Israel flies high in its region.

But the real existential challenge is in making a soft landing. Either it agrees to the two-state solution mooted by most countries, or it becomes travesty of a democracy which keeps millions of people in captivity, a prospect guaranteed to generate perpetual insecurity.

The Quint January 13, 2018

Seven Reasons Why US Relations With China Will Get Worse in 2018

2018 could be a portentous year for China. Its principal relationship – that with the United States – is on a cusp. Things could get better, but more likely they will get worse. The Trump administration’s retreat from the world has just enlarged China’s strategic opportunity. Such circumstances are not the most propitious for international relations.  

1. Internally, the trend of the Communist Party of China (CPC) reasserting its control over the state and society is likely to intensify. As Xi Jinping told the 19th Party Congress: “Government, military, society and schools, north, south, east, west, the Party is the leader of everything.” Private businesses, educational and other institutions are being told that the Party head of that institution must also be inducted into the governing board of that entity.

2. Xi is very much in-charge of the Party and the state and has consolidated his hold as the most powerful leader China has seen since Deng Xiaoping. Indeed, the very first meeting of the Politburo after the Congress decided that the CPC needed to “safeguard Xi’s position at the core of the CPC Central Committee and the whole Party.”

He is also holding the military close to himself, among the most important meetings he held following the Party  Congress were with the military. On the occasion of new year, Xi again donned a military uniform and conducted what Xinhua said was a fist ever “mobilisation meeting” where Xi issued instructions to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to strengthen “ real combat training an improve its war willing capability.” Though the parade involved one crack division of the PLA ground force, it was witnessed over close circuit  TV by PLA formations in 4,000 different locations.

Another new development has been the decision to resume the old practice of having PLA personnel in the Party Standing Committees which deal with every aspect of administration in China.

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3. It will be interesting to watch how these trends impact on the economic development of China. The signal came in the Party Congress when it changed the principal contradiction, geared to boosting the material life of the people, to one which  focused on removing imbalances and improving their  quality of life. The Chinese leadership need to deal with four major issues – dealing with the massive debt overhang which could undermine economic stability, eliminating the vestiges of poverty which could destabilise society, reducing pollution which affects the life of all those who live in China, and coping with the American demands on trade and North Korea.

4. The last named has the potential of degenerating into a military conflict and has serious implications for China and the North-east Asian region. The US may not be directly affected, but any military action will result in a downward spiral of the global economy and, if anything, tip the regional balance in favour of China. Deneuclarisation of North Korea is not likely to happen. Sanctions alone will not work, just as they have not in the case of India or Pakistan.

5. The new US National Security Strategy (NSS) has clearly shifted tracks of the US policy. The NSS says that the US had worked on the assumption that integration of China into the international system it had created after World War II was its norm, now the Trump team believed that America has been led up the garden path and China wants to integrate on its own terms, accepting the benefits and avoiding the obligations. For a long time Trump had been claiming that the US is being taken for a ride by China and we may now be at the cusp of a major change in US–China relations as the Americans being to implement punitive trade measures against Beijing.

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6. The post-Tiananmen CPC was led largely by engineers and technocrats who had become politicians like Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, Li Peng, Zhu Rongji and Wen Jiabao. However, now professional politicians are at the helm – Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang. The former did study engineering, but has never worked as an engineer, the latter followed the route of many Indian politicians, he studied law.

The point is that in the main they all have a technotronic orientation and so it is not surprising that they are taking uncommon interest in promoting Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics very seriously. Their aim is to have all the AI revolution under the command of the CPC. China has huge data sets and few privacy controls, further, this data is being used for maintaining social control in a society that is already under authoritarian rule.

7. Ever since Xi has taken over, China has been more assertively pushing its foreign goals. China is already a major economic power across the globe. It now wants its military also to catch up with the kind of economic clout it has. China is inexperienced and somewhat gauche in the exercise of global power. But it is being helped along by the US retreat from its global responsibilities.

Under Xi, China has launched a massive programme of infrastructure and connectivity development involving hundreds of billions of dollars. This could be a make or break project which could see China waste a lot of money, or transform its economy. In 2018 China’s influence will continue to expand across South, South-east and Central Asia. Now, as the US retreats, China is the principal beneficiary. 

The Wire January 9, 2018

US-Pakistan relation: How nasty can the US get with Pakistan?

On Thursday, the United States announced that it was suspending nearly all security assistance to Pakistan which includes $ 225 million military aid and the balance in reimbursements Pakistan gets for fighting militancy, called Coalition Support Funds (CSF) .

This is, of course, not a surprise. Beginning with President Trump, nearly all top officials have publicly warned Pakistan in recent months that it had not done enough to round up terrorist and dismantle militant camps.

This is not the first time that the United States of America and Pakistan have come to the brink in their relationship with each other. In May 1992, the then US Ambassador to Islamabad Nicholas Platt  delivered a letter from Secretary of State James Baker to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif saying that if Pakistan did not stop supporting terrorism in Indian controlled Kashmir, the US may declare Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism.

The scope of sanctions would have been far more drastic that what Pakistan had faced for its nuclear weapons programme and would have led to the shutting of funding from the World Bank, IMF and other international financial institutions. 

As Hussain Haqqani recounts, Sharif and the government decided that they could “manage” the US. Washington needed Islamabad, more than the other way round. So, the Pakistanis tweaked their support for the Kashmir militancy and put up $2 million to lobby the American media and Congress. Later that year, the Americans elected Bill Clinton as President of the US and that was the end of that. Indeed, in1993, Pakistan stepped up support for the militancy in Kashmir and helped establish the Taliban.

This little history is recounted here to serve as a backdrop to analyzing the current developments which began with a US decision to withhold $ 255 million aid to Pakistan for buying US military equipment and President Trump’s Tweet excoriating Islamabad which despite $ 33 billion aid “had given us nothing but lies and deceit.” Note, of course,  that the Tweet referred to Afghanistan and not Kashmir.

It is not so easy for the US to simply walk away from Pakistan. There are three big reasons for it. First, the US has decided to double down in its efforts to defeat the Taliban. Trump has ordered a doubling of US personnel in Afghanistan and given the Pentagon a free hand in dealing with the Taliban. But if the troops increase from 8,000 to around 14,000, the US dependence on Pakistan’s logistic lines of communications will only increase. US relations with Russia are such that the so-called Northern Distribution Network is non-functional. Likewise, the Trump administration’s antipathy to Iran ensures that the US cannot take advantage of the Indian developed port and lines of communications from Chah Bahar. So that leaves just Pakistan.

Second, Pakistan is a nuclear weapons state. Its nuclear arsenal, reportedly bigger than that of India, makes it vital for Washington to remain engaged with Islamabad. Any breakdown would result in creating yet another North Korea. The world and America’s nightmare is the possibility of terrorists laying their hands on nuclear weapons. Remaining engaged with Pakistan makes it much easier for the US to monitor the activities of these dangerous terrorist groups and their interface with the Pakistani society and state.

Third, a US hard line would only strengthen the Islamist parties grouped under the Difa-e-Pakistan Council, among its leading lights is  the Jamaat-e-Dawa, the front for the LeT .  

Pakistan’s commitments in Afghanistan and India are different. In the former, it seeks to expand its power by supporting the Taliban. While it seeks  to offset India’s size by supporting militant groups like the LeT and JeM. If push comes to shove, it will be willing to reduce its Afghan commitments, especially since that would buy peace with the mighty US, but is unlikely to concede to India in any way.

One of the obvious ways in which Pakistan will seek to offset US pressure is to use China. Not surprisingly, China  came to the defence of Islamabad with a strong statement hailing the “outstanding contribution” of Pakistan to counter-terrorism. Islamabad’s response was to signal its willingness to expand Beijing’s remit in Pakistan by allowing the use of China’s currency for bilateral trade and investment. However, China also shares the American worries about the growth of militancy in the region.  

The Pakistanis have a deep understanding of the US and the ways of handling it. Aid cuts and the like are things that have happened before and dealt with. The bottom line is just how nasty can the US get with Pakistan? Actually, plenty. The Pakistani elite is western-oriented with relatives, properties and bank accounts in the western countries and vulnerable to targeted sanctions which could take on the military.  Further sanctions on Pakistani banks could cripple foreign trade.

Any way, not many in India expect that there will be a break in Pakistan-US relations. They may desire that, but it is not likely to happen. US Defense Secretary James Mattis’ Friday press briefing suggests that the Pentagon is still hoping to strike a deal with Islamabad.

Greater Kashmir January 8, 2018

The Mule and His Very Big Nuclear Button

Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series describes a future universe which is carefully programmed so that no single individual can alter the pre-set socio-historical path worked out by the mathematical genius Hari Seldon and his Foundation. Things go awry when an extraordinary individual called ‘The Mule’, with the ability to control the minds of the masses, defeats the Foundation and with it, the universe’s monopoly of nuclear weapons with which he conquers the galaxy and alters the course of history.

Asimov could well have been describing Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States.

The carefully structured American governmental system with its separation of powers doctrine is designed for conservative and steady governance. This system, and the country’s great geographic and natural endowments, have taken the US to unprecedented heights in the 20th century.  With its secure geographic location, energy self-sufficiency, a system that attracts the best and the brightest to its shores, a peerless university system and military,  the US should retain its pre-eminence well into the latter half of the 21st century.

But now an outlier has turned these calculations upside down. Trump is the proverbial black swan which was not anticipated – a low probability, high-impact presence which is disrupting American politics, its alliance systems and its governance structures. There are questions not just about President Trump’s  policies, but, alarmingly,  his mental fitness. A year ago,  Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote a book, The World in Disarray. Last week, in an afterword to a paperback edition, he noted that things have gone worse and the disarray is even greater. By viewing the burdens of global leadership as outweighing its benefits, “the US has changed from the principal preserver of order to a principal disrupter.”

Donald J. Trump could well end up as a  modern-day Attila or Chengiz, who changed the world through their acts of wanton destruction.

In recent decades as China and India have risen, the relative power of the US has been  steadily declining. But Trump is actively aiding that process, though he believes that he will make America great again.

Given the sheer magnitude of its power, the US has weathered  massive setbacks  like the “three trillion dollar war” of choice in Iraq and the 2008 financial meltdown. But the Trump effect is wilful and more pervasive.  Beginning with his two benign neighbours, he has undermined the strong system of friends and allies that the US had around the world. By pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, he knocked the legs off any viable strategy of standing up to China in what he now terms the “Indo-Pacific.”

He disdains multilateral trade rules and has surrendered American leadership in the issue of the day, climate change. He wants to cut the American foreign assistance budget for 2018 by nearly $12 billion, putting paid to any plan to counter China’s belt and road initiative. And the  $11.1 billion cut in the R&D budget flies in the face of the $20 billion per annum that Beijing is putting into just one area, artificial intelligence. The crowning blunder is restriction of immigration which has given America its science and technology sinews. Last year, all six American Nobel Prize winners were immigrants and since 2016, fully 40% came to the US from other countries.

In very obvious ways, such a situation offers other contenders for the Great Power mantle an enlarged strategic space. Even its best friends would say that India is not quite ready to exploit it. Indeed, as of now it views the American disruption as a useful way of keeping its regional rivals – Pakistan and China – in check.

But for China it is a clear opportunity. As  Evan Osnos put it last week,  “China has never seen such a moment, when its pursuit of a larger role in the world coincides with America’s pursuit of a smaller one.” In 2000, he says, the US accounted for 31% of the global economy and China 4%. Today, the US share is 24% and China’s 15.

China’s footwork has been flawless so far and it is steadily accruing economic power and military strength. It is striking out in new ways through the Belt Road Initiative to expand its remit and brazenly seeking to re-write the rules of the world order to favour its suit.

From US order to less order

Since we are not in Hari Seldon’s predetermined world, the quality of leadership matters. One measure of it is the reading habits of the China and the US. Xi, according to netizens who look at the shelves of his office when he delivers his New Year speech, are loaded with Marxist-Leninist texts, western classical literature, the Russian greats, as well as books of contemporary concerns ranging from the military, to economics and finance and AI. By contrast, Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury cites White House aides as saying that Trump reads nothing, not even one page memos or briefing policy papers.

The US is not going to be replaced by China as the global hegemon soon, if ever. China lacks the combination of things which has made the US great, in particular the trust America garnered through its liberal internationalism. So, as Haass warns, “the alternative to a US-led international order is less international order,” something that has consequences for all of us residents of the globe.

Beyond issues of  Trump’s wrong-headed policies  is a more alarming thought. Is Trump all right up there? Last month,  a Yale psychiatry professor Bandy X. Lee  told a group of US legislators that Trump is “going to unravel.” His bouts of slurring, instances of using two hands to drink water off a glass and his intemperate tweets, the latest about the size of his nuclear button, are alarming.

The Atlantic magazine has run a major story asking “Is something neurologically wrong with Donald Trump?”. It rightly concludes that we should not judge such medical issues  from afar. Instead,  it has proposed a non-partisan body to come up with  a presidential fitness report, leaving the final judgment to the people and their elected representatives.

As for ‘The Mule’, his impact, in Asimov’s telling, turns out to be ephemeral and he is finally defeated by the Foundation. But then, that is the kind of satisfying conclusion fiction often revels in. Reality could  prove to be much more painful.

The Wire January 7, 2018

Intelligent design: Reading the reading list of Xi Jinping to figure out his goals and conceits

For some years now, learning what Chinese President Xi Jinping is reading has become a sort of a game in China. Netizens pore over photographs of book shelves that form the backdrop when Xi delivers his New Year speech from office.  

All this pre-supposes that Xi actually has read all these books, or intends to read them. It is well known that Xi is an avid reader because his speeches have often used quotes from Dickens, Victor Hugo and Paul Coelho. But even if Xi’s office has been dressed up for the occasion, the very choice of the books has a meaning.

None of us read all the books in our libraries, even so the choice of the books is a pointer to our intellectual pursuits and, possibly, conceits. In Xi’s case, to go by what the netizens discovered, the choices are eclectic and somewhat overwhelming. There are, of course, the usual texts on Marxism-Leninism, Mao and Deng. But this year sharp-eyed analysts noted that the classics – Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto – have been brought to easier reach near him.

Does this reflect Xi’s policy directions outlined to the 19th Party Congress in October? Xi announced that a “new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics” was unfolding, rooted strongly on China’s Marxist, Leninist and Maoist heritage. Indeed, he signalled that China was moving away from the path of liberalisation back to the monolithic and authoritarian state.

His collection of western literature which has included the works of Diderot, Rousseau, Dumas, Gogol, Turgenev, Pushkin and other classical greats, grew larger this year. It now includes Homer’s The Odyssey and Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. A pop psychologist could well say that despite the seeming consolidation of his authority, it is actually taking a great deal out of him in terms of effort.

There are also some new texts on the military in his book cases, on the history of PLA, ancient Chinese texts on strategy, and a Chinese military encyclopaedia. Once again, this seems to reflect the reality of Xi’s intense effort to reform PLA and keep it close to himself. Far reaching changes in 2016 have made him directly responsible for PLA. He often dons military fatigues, most recently on Wednesday, when he attended the first of its kind “mobilisation meeting” to speak directly to a crack PLA division, with the speech being relayed to formations at 4,000 other locations.  

The economics texts in his library also speak for themselves. Among those visible are WW Rostow’s classic on the stages of economic growth, William N Goetzmann’s Money Changes Everything and Michele Wucker’s The Grey Rhino, and various books on ecological economics. Goetzmann’s historical survey argues that finance is really the key to economic transformation. A far cry from Lenin’s critique of finance capital, but summing up the contradictions of China of today and the role its finance is playing around the world. Wucker’s book is about the black swans we know about, and yet fall prey to. Xi is aware that if there is one thing that can bring his brittle system crashing down it is a major crisis of any kind – weather related, military or financial. And it is significant that he is seeking to understand the nature of the beast.

Equally striking are two other books on understanding artificial intelligence – Pedro Domingo’s The Master Algorithm and Brett King’s Augmented: Life in the Smart Lane. Xi and the Communist Party of China are betting big on AI, both as a means of social control of the vast Chinese system, as well as a driver to the kind of innovation economy that they want to create. The Chinese government is investing $100 billion in the next five years to develop AI technology hoping to have its giants like Baidu, Tencent and Alibaba in the global driver’s seat in the area of self-driving vehicles, smart cities and health technology.

Times of India January 6, 2018