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    Israel Must Accept ICC Jurisdiction Over Palestine

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    On February 5, the International Criminal Court (ICC) ruled that it has jurisdiction over the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967. Seven years after the 2014 Gaza conflict, in which war crimes were committed by both Israel and armed Palestinian groups according to the United Nations, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda confirmed a formal investigation into the situation in Palestine, which Human Rights Watch (HRW) has been calling for since 2016. On April 27, HRW released a 213-page report detailing Israel’s “crimes of apartheid and persecution.” An ICC investigation is a crucial step toward regional peace, which cannot be achieved without accountability and transitional justice.

    However, amidst the process of diplomatic normalization with Arab states, Israel is compromising the prospects of peace by refusing to take responsibility for the injustices committed against Palestinian civilians, including children. To achieve peace in the Middle East, and particularly with the Palestinians, Israel must recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction and be held accountable for any war crimes committed.

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    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu labeled the ICC ruling as “pure anti-Semitism” and claimed that the court is a “political” body rather than a judicial one. He said that the ICC should be investigating Syria and Iran instead. This is but one example of the pattern of deflection displayed by the Israeli state when confronted with the reality of the war crimes committed during its occupation of Palestinian territories.

    Netanyahu’s claims that the ICC decision is politicized or anti-Semitic are an unfounded effort at deflection and denial. First, though Syria and Iran have not been prosecuted by the ICC, these regimes are subject to a wide range of US and UN-sponsored sanctions, as well as political isolation, to which Israel is unlikely to be subjected. In a sense, these countries are already being “punished.” Second, holding Syria and Iran accountable for their own crimes and investigating possible Israeli war crimes are not mutually exclusive processes. Finally, the ICC ruling did not exclusively target Israel or its defense force, the IDF; Palestinian Hamas was also named as a potential perpetrator of war crimes and will be investigated as such.

    This deflection strategy is not an unusual response to ICC investigations. It parallels the US attempt to thwart ICC investigations of American military misconduct in Afghanistan, which is similarly delaying the Afghan peace process.

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    Accountability matters, not only for Palestinians who have been denied their human rights during the conflict but also for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and for cooperation in the region more broadly. The climate of impunity enjoyed by Israel only fuels the frustration of Palestinians and, worse, makes the rhetoric of groups such as Hamas more compelling. Peacebuilding experts have also long argued that accountability is central to a successful peace process. For example, the indictments of Charles Taylor of Liberia and Radovan Karadzic of Bosnia strongly contributed to peaceful outcomes in both countries.

    Before Israel can be held accountable, it must first recognize ICC jurisdiction. However, given the Israeli government’s continued push for annexation and the US sanctions against the ICC, this scenario is unlikely. Nonetheless, any form of accountability would be a positive start and an important step toward peace. Accountability can take many forms, ranging from state recognition of injustice to judicial punishment of individual perpetrators.

    Any accountability process should also include Palestinians at the table. It is time for the Israeli leadership to spearhead the peace process — not through other Arab states, but through an honest accountability process with Palestinians. The best starting point would be for Israel to recognize ICC jurisdiction.

    *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Young Professionals in Foreign Policy.]

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Addressing the Fragile Limits of Female Autonomy

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      On October 22, 2020, the United States co-sponsored a Geneva Consensus Declaration on Promoting Women’s Health and Strengthening the Family. However, despite its name, this declaration states that “in no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family planning.” While it doesn’t legally impact access to abortion in the United States, it bars …
      Continue Reading “Addressing the Fragile Limits of Female Autonomy”
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      The World Must Not Forget Yemen

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      In 2020, 24.3 million people, or 80% of the population in Yemen, were at risk of hunger and disease, with 14.4 million in acute need of assistance. A political solution is necessary to end the war and achieve lasting peace. This may take time. The international community must provide the necessary funding for the various UN agencies, the World Bank and NGOs on the ground. In the long term, Yemen will need continued funding and support to rebuild its infrastructure that has been devastated by the war. In addition to addressing the humanitarian crisis, investing in Yemen is important to the stability of the region.

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      Yemen has suffered the world’s most severe humanitarian crisis since 2017. Nearly a quarter of a million people have died, over half from indirect causes such as a lack of food, health services or necessary infrastructure. As Abeer Fowzi, the deputy nutrition coordinator at the International Rescue Committee, has put it, “Never before have Yemenis faced so little support from the international community — or so many simultaneous challenges.” The conflict, which began in 2014, has devastated Yemen’s economy. The Yemeni rial has depreciated to an all-time low, making essential goods unaffordable. Foreign reserves, necessary to maintain the stability of a currency, have dried up.

      Funding Draught

      In addition to dealing with the economic costs of war, external factors like the COVID-19 crisis and increases in oil prices have created further barriers. Remittances are down 70%, largely due to decreased wages abroad caused by the pandemic. At the same time, a spike in international oil prices has created fuel shortages, particularly in the northern governorates. Decreased mobility has created a barrier to delivering goods and services while constraining access to income opportunities. Overall, reducing the ease of transport has limited basic commerce and increased the difficulty of delivering humanitarian aid while reducing access to critical hospital care.

      The war between the Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels sparked a humanitarian crisis, and the economic crisis has made the situation more desperate. Yemen was already the poorest country in the Arab world before the war broke out in 2014. Deteriorating economic conditions could leave Yemen the poorest country in the world this year if a peace deal is not reached and critical humanitarian aid is not delivered.

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      The economic effects of war combined with a strong dependency on imports have forced the country to be highly reliant on international humanitarian aid. This has proved to be a challenge in 2020. Of the $3.4 billion required by the UN, $1.5 billion — less than half — has been delivered as of December 2020. Donor country budget constrictions due to the pandemic are largely to blame.

      “This is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, yet we don’t have the resources we need to save the people who are suffering and will die if we don’t help. The consequences of underfunding are immediate, enormous and devastating. Nearly every humanitarian worker has had to tell a hungry family or someone who is ill that we can’t help them because we don’t have funding,” said Lise Grande, humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, in a statement in September.

      Until the Yemeni government and Houthi rebels reach peace, Yemen will continue to rely on external actors to prevent further loss of life. Donor countries should continue their financial commitments in order for immediate humanitarian aid to be delivered. The World Bank plays a crucial role in Yemen, providing $1.8 billion in emergency interventions. Support for these projects is vital: If the current trajectory continues, the number of food-insecure people could reach 17 million, or nearly two-thirds of the population.

      Immigration restrictions provide yet another obstacle. Remittances from abroad play a considerable role in the country’s economy. As the rial continues to weaken, foreign currency sent by Yemenis abroad is essential for basic necessities. As the newly sworn-in Biden administration lifts the “Muslim ban,” it will make it easier for Yemenis to establish themselves in the United States and provide remittances for their families at home, in addition to providing another lifeline to the 3.6 million Yemeni refugees.

      Until the Violence Stops

      Full economic recovery is not possible until the violence stops. However, foreign exchange injections are critical to stabilizing the rial in the meantime. If Yemen can increase its foreign exchange reserves, inflation will decrease, making basic goods and services affordable. In the long term, Yemen, like many war-torn countries, will need more than humanitarian aid to achieve stability. Funding should be used toward rebuilding hospitals; nearly one in five districts currently lack doctors. Rebuilding the broken education system is also a critical infrastructure project. Almost 2 million children are out of school, and three-quarters of public-school teachers across 11 governorates have gone without pay for two years.

      A vital step to economic stability is a stable central bank. Because the Houthi rebels were able to seize the capital Sanaa, the Yemeni government relocated the central bank to the port city of Aden, essentially dividing the bank in two. The new location is under constant attack. Earlier this year, southern separatists seized a consignment of $20 million intended for the central bank. Unifying the divided banks will not be likely until peace is achieved.

      While millions of Yemenis anxiously await a resolution to the conflict, now in its seventh year, donor countries must do their part to mitigate the humanitarian catastrophe. If peace is reached, for Yemen to fully recover from the economic devastation of war, it will need help beyond humanitarian aid: rebuilding its schools, hospitals, roads, government infrastructure and cultural institutions — everything that is critical to future generations and a self-sufficient economy. Investing in Yemen is a commitment not only to ending the most devastating humanitarian crisis of our time, but also to the future stability of the Middle East.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Young Professionals in Foreign Policy.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      In China’s Net City, Opportunity Comes at Uncertain Costs

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      The one thing the city of Shenzhen — whose nearly 13 million people comprise the industrial engine of China’s Guangdong province — seems unwilling to reimagine is its name. The name Shenzhen, which loosely translates to “irrigation ditch” or “drainage dump,” is the only piece of the city’s incredible story that remains stuck in the past.

      Beginning in 2020, Shenzhen, in partnership with Chinese tech behemoth Tencent and NBBJ Architects, embarked on the design of a coastal, sustainable, state-of-the-art neighborhood called Net City to serve as the exclamation point capping Shenzhen’s status as China’s Silicon Valley. And yet, upon its completion in 2027, Net City, like Shenzhen itself, will represent far more than just another technology company’s tricked-out corporate campus. In fact, Net City might just set the global standard for urban development in the 21st century. That is if it can navigate the perilous waters that have sunk so many similarly intentioned projects in the past.

      Policies, Principles, People

      Green, tech-infused infrastructure is no longer groundbreaking in and of itself, but neither is the desire of major global firms to directly fund urban investment as a business strategy. Examples of this often quixotic foray range from Google’s disappointing but understandable discontinuation of investments in a Toronto smart city project to Fordlandia, Ford Motor Company’s failed Amazonian utopia chronicled brilliantly in Greg Grandin’s 2009 award-winning book. For both the Googles of today and those of generations past, it appears that products remain significantly easier to manufacture than physical places.

      Any local economic development professional, or for that matter anyone who has tried to renovate a kitchen, will tell you that construction projects, no matter their scale, are marked by an eternal struggle between the perfect and the possible. What, then, can set Tencent’s Net City apart from these previous failures? To borrow the time-honored language of geopolitical analysis, the potential answers come in three “buckets”: policies, principles and people.

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      On the policy front, the analysis must begin with the fact that there exists no better example of the opening of markets, however gradually and cautiously, as an accelerant for innovation, growth and prosperity than Shenzhen. It is stunning how much economic dynamism has been unleashed in this former fishing village over the past few decades, and the same innovation-spurring economic policy framework that enabled the city’s rise will similarly nurture the growth and ongoing vitality of the Net City project as it matures.

      That said, Shenzhen is not the only part of China that has grown. And, in immediate relevance to Net City, it would not be the only place where China has invested untold billions only to end up with what are commonly referred to now as ghost cities. A Net City skeptic might point to both the ambiguous nature of the true costs of this ambitious urban development and those still unoccupied, debt-funded townscapes littering China’s interior still awaiting their first residents as the fodder for their wariness.

      Product and Place

      Skeptics are also right to cite the lingering uncertainty of COVID-19 and fissures with nearby Hong Kong as risks to the sizable foreign direct investment Shenzhen has enjoyed throughout its rise. While the Chinese government and Tencent have every incentive to ensure the successful development of Net City, even these giants are not immune to the conditions of the world economy and thus should double down on the (relatively) open policy frameworks and diversified, reliable financing strategies that have thus far enabled Shenzhen’s rise.

      Next, as it relates to the principles upon which Net City has unapologetically been founded, its focused, intentional blending of work and leisure with the natural world place sustainability at its core in a manner and at a scale no previous corporate community can claim. Limitations on cars in favor of pedestrian-friendly walkable spaces coupled with reliance on renewable energy sources will provide a rising China with beautiful, tangible evidence that it, too, is taking steps to combat climate change and to shape the next century of life on this planet in ways the rest of the world might cheer.

      These commitments to sustainability, while encouraging, cannot only be for show. Net City provides China with an opportunity to demonstrate not only its desire to lead the world as a center of innovation, but as an upholder of the shared values and responsibilities that come with the terra firma for any global power.

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      Lastly, as it relates to the people who will someday call this new neighborhood home, it is possible that no single neighborhood in the world has ever rooted itself so enthusiastically in the philosophy of user-centered design as Net City. The blurring of lines between work and play to come upon its completion will pale in comparison to the implications of Net City’s more meta-level, but no less intentional, blurring of product and place. But just as fatefully as the designers of Fordlandia discovered that places are not products, so too must Net City’s master planners remember that people are not products either.

      Net City’s development has begun at a moment when the familiar dueling concepts of work and life have also merged into one amorphous, quarantine soup of time and space. While billions around the world cannot wait to return to certain elements of pre-COVID work-life balance, a more realistic forecaster will admit that work and life have become intertwined in ways that have transformed experiences on both fronts and will not soon be undone.

      This march may appear inevitable, but it remains an open question how much further people will willingly participate in the elimination of boundaries between home and work, of private and public spaces and of restrictions instead of rights. Whether discussing a new piece of technology or a new smart city, the tired bargain between new features and old freedoms is a false one. Smart cities need not — and should not — dangle the possibility of positive environmental outcomes behind the acceptance of stricter, tech-fueled surveillance states.

      The ongoing development of this initiative will fascinate global analysts for the majority of the next decade that stands to reveal the level of commitment its designers have to the lofty promises they have made at its outset. But beneath all that potential and possibility Net City might also reveal the answer to a deeper question: Is the internet a place we want to live?

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Young Professionals in Foreign Policy.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Asia’s Lèse-Majesté Laws Are a Futile Attempt to Stifle Dissent

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      There are currently six countries in Asia with royal families: Japan, Malaysia, Cambodia, Bhutan, Brunei and Thailand. Each possesses unique lèse-majesté laws, which criminalize insults against the monarch and members of the royal family. In Malaysia, Cambodia and Thailand, a disturbing trend of censorship under the guise of lèse-majesté has been escalating for years. The history, rationale and application of these laws can shed insights on their claim to legitimacy, what they perceive to be threats, and whether they have evolved into a new form of censorship disguised by calls for respect and propriety.

      In Japan, the last lèse-majesté conviction occurred in 1946, when a factory worker held up a placard mocking the emperor during postwar food shortages. However, the accused was soon pardoned under an imperial amnesty commemorating the new constitution, which does not include lèse-majesté articles. Under the new constitution, the emperor was protected as an individual and as a symbolic head of state, with an emphasis placed on respect rather than an acknowledgment of exalted status. Japan is a constitutional monarchy, with parliament controlling the government and the emperor holding a largely ceremonial role. However, a constitutional monarchy is no guarantee of reasonable lèse-majesté laws.

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      In Malaysia, while the Malay home minister had said that there was no need for lèse-majesté laws, the Sedition Act of 1948 is more than enough to serve the same purpose. A colonial relic, the legislation bans any act or speech of “seditious tendency” against the government or any of the country’s nine sultans. Calls for reforms have been repeatedly delayed, and at least 97 cases of social media users criticizing Malay rulers have been investigated. In a country with multiple ethnicities and religions, social harmony is cited as the basis for the law and dissidents are blamed for inciting division.

      Cambodia adopted its own lèse-majesté laws in 2018, allowing prosecutors to file suit on behalf of the monarchy against anyone deemed to be insulting it. Punishments range from prison terms and fines unaffordable for most Cambodians. The first application of the new legislation occurred when a teacher was arrested for his comments on Facebook accusing the king of the dissolution of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP). The CNRP was the sole challenger to the ruling Cambodia People’s Party and, months later, a CNRP deputy leader was likewise accused of lèse-majesté.

      While Bhutan does not have lèse-majesté provisions, Section 317 of its penal code relating to defamation has been applied against a journalist who shared an online petition against a business mogul. The mogul also happens to be the father-in-law of the chief justice of Bhutan, himself a royal appointee, and criticism against royally appointed officials can be seen as direct criticism of the monarch. 

      Sources on Brunei’s lèse-majesté laws are scant, but the deputy director of the Royal Brunei Police Force had previously made a complaint of defamation to the Indonesian police. The deputy director is himself a member of the Brunei royal family, and the complaint was made over an Instagram account that posted pictures of Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah with insulting comments. There were no further reports on this complaint and the offending photos were later deleted from the account.

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      Of the six countries, Thailand has by far applied its lèse-majesté laws most aggressively, and the number of convictions is on the rise. Before 2020, the last cases under the legislation were prosecuted in 2018, and Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has attributed the drop to the mercy of King Vajiralongkorn. However, cases rose in parallel with protests that began in July last year, calling for Prayuth’s resignation, the revision of the constitution and reform of the monarchy.

      The protest leaders have been charged with lèse-majesté, and the Thai government is now prosecuting social media giants for not curtailing posts critical of the royal family. Article 112 of Thailand’s criminal code specifies that anyone who “defames, insults or threatens the king, the queen, the heir-apparent or the regent” will be punished with a jail term between three and 15 years, while the Thai Constitution also states that “No person shall expose the King to any sort of accusation or action.” Individuals charged or investigated under lèse-majesté legislation include a BBC correspondent, a US ambassador, a celebrity fortune-teller as well as activists and ordinary folks sharing posts on social media.

      The previous United Nations special rapporteur on the promotion of freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye, had called the provisions “incompatible with international human rights law.” The law allows anyone to file a complaint, and the minimum sentence of three years makes it impossible for judges to reduce jail time for civilians who must work to support their families.

      Needless to say, if criticism of the monarchy is automatically equated with disrespect, there is little room for a free press to perform its role as a watchdog in countries like Cambodia, Malaysia and Thailand. Taken to the extreme, lèse-majesté laws can create an environment filled with fear and petty denunciations, but they are unlikely to completely squelch public dissatisfaction. Soviet-era censorship gave birth to a culture of satire and circumvention tactics, and while social media may make policing personal opinions easier, it also spreads the word of dissent much faster between the like-minded. In some cases at least, trying to quash criticism may be the best way to draw attention to it.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Young Professionals in Foreign Policy.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Femicide Continues to Plague Mexico

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      President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) won the 2018 election on a campaign of combating the underlying causes of the social ailments impacting Mexican society. He vowed to fight violence and narcotics trafficking by eliminating its root cause, poverty. His plan was summarized by his tagline, “hugs, not bullets.” AMLO has sought to be the voice of the marginalized and to end the endemic corruption in Mexican politics. In September, during his state of the union speech, he claimed that most crime was down under his administration, including kidnapping, robbery and femicide. His track record thus far, however, disproves his claims and leaves much to be desired, especially when it comes to violence against women.

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      On August 3, the president celebrated a victory over the arrest of one of Mexico’s most wanted criminals, Jose Antonio Yepez Ortiz, “El Marro,” the alleged leader of the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel. That win was soon followed by the extradition from Spain of Emilio Lozoya, ex-chief of the state-owned oil company, PEMEX, on bribery and money laundering charges, which ultimately implicated ex-presidents and various congressmen.

      Gender-Based Violence

      While Lopez Obrador touted these examples as clear evidence of his administration’s success, he, like many populists in the region, believes that he can shape public opinion and reality solely through his own declarations, despite all the evidence to the contrary. However, on the heels of these so-called victories, a July government report captured a staggering statistic: 17,493 homicides in the first half of 2020, indicating a nearly 2% increase since last year, putting 2020 on track to be the deadliest year on Mexico’s record. 

      Among the record-breaking homicides figure lies a much greater policy failure to combat femicide — the murder of women based on their gender. Femicide is up 9.2% compared to the first half of 2019, totaling 489 deaths through June this year according to the Secretariat of Security and Civilian Protection (SSPC). Femicide shot up by 36% alone from May to June. While violence against women has long been problematic in Mexico, COVID-19 lockdowns have only worsened the situation by forcing many victims into dangerous circumstances with their aggressors. 

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      Budget cuts to federal and state programs due to the economic recession and diminishing tax revenues will likely make it harder to respond to domestic abuse calls and to prosecute femicides. Amid these extraordinary developments, AMLO’s response so far has been to downplay the chronic nature of gender-based violence in Mexico. 

      Emergency calls show just how endemic the violence really is. Through the end of July, the emergency helpline had received 154,610 calls reporting gender violence incidents, up 47% from 2019, according to the SSCP. AMLO has claimed in a press conference that 90% of these calls are “false.” While experts agree many of the calls are “inadmissible” or “unfounded,” due to poor connections, the victims hanging up and even prank calls, inadmissible calls don’t exceed 77%.

      The president is attempting to use the inadmissibility argument to refute the verified emergency call statistics of his own government. The figures also cannot account for the many victims who do not contact authorities out of fear. According to an independent NGO, 9 out of 10 women do not report gender-based violence in Mexico. Rather than providing compassion and answers to victims, the president has selfishly claimed that his opponents are using femicide statistics for political attacks.

      Economic Impacts

      Beyond the physical trauma, domestic and state abuse against women can also have profound effects on women’s economic well-being. According to a 2018 report by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography of Mexico (INEGI), over 19 million women reported being victims of domestic abuse, with 64% of incidents leading to severe violence. As a result, each victim lost an average of 30 days of paid and 28 days of unpaid work annually. INEGI estimates that between October 2015 and October 2016, the total cost of lost income by women who missed work due to domestic violence amounted to 4.4 billion pesos ($184 million).

      These losses often perpetuate women’s dependence on their aggressors, worsening what already are unequal economic circumstances. According to the United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP) Gender Development Index, women on average earn $11,254 per year, less than half of men, who make $24,286. More women rely on informal employment, with 56.6% working in the informal sector (excluding agriculture) compared to 48.4% of men. The Mexican Social Security Institute noted that women only comprise 38% of social security beneficiaries. This economic and labor inequality has meant that women have been disproportionately hit by the COVID-19 lockdowns, rising unemployment and lack of access to social security benefits. 

      AMLO has failed to adequately respond to the issue, and the situation is likely to worsen unless the government makes a concerted effort. In August, a reporter confronted the president about a June report showing a cut of 37.5 million pesos to the National Commission to Prevent and Eradicate Violence Against Women. After the president’s denial, the government released a statement saying that no such cuts would be made because fighting gender violence was an essential task.

      However, the response still falls well short of a meaningful attempt to stamp out the endemic issues in the criminal system and within Mexican machismo culture at large. The president’s austerity measures cannot come at the expense of rising femicide rates and violence against women throughout the country. Rather, a July report from the UNDP recommends that the government take on more debt to spend on protecting the most vulnerable groups from the socio-economic effects of the pandemic.

      As endemic as femicide is in Mexico — it trails only Brazil’s total number of cases in Latin America — gender-based violence is a pandemic that is claiming the lives of countless victims across the hemisphere. According to the United Nations’ Gender Equality Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean, the countries with the highest rate of femicide per 100,000 women are: El Salvador (6.8), Honduras (5.1), Bolivia (2.3), Guatemala (2.0) and the Dominican Republic (1.9). Mexico’s rate of femicide is 1.4, which suggests that in addition to national measures taken to halt this pandemic, Latin America as a region has much work to do to protect the well-being of half of its citizens. 

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Young Professionals in Foreign Policy.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Will Laos Become a Model for China’s Economic Colonialism?

      by

      The small Southeast Asian nation of Laos stands out as a success story in COVID-19 control. With only 23 confirmed cases, it has gradually lifted lockdown measures. Success on the medical front, however, will not be enough to carry the country through the economic whiplash that pandemic containment had on the informal economy. Laos’ reliance on remittances from abroad is not unique in the region, and while it has thus far averted a coronavirus-induced health crisis, its economy is expected to contract, according to World Bank estimates.

      Incomes from tourism, remittances and the informal gig economy are expected to be hit hardest by the pandemic. Director general of the Laotian Department of Labor Skill Development at the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, Anousone Khamsingsavath, has voiced concerns about exacerbated poverty under COVID-19. Migrant workers have been returning from abroad due to evaporated opportunities, and the sudden influx of job seekers, coupled with a precarious economy, makes countries like Laos particularly susceptible to economic — and thus political — influence from outside.

      With the BRI, China Still Has a Long Road Ahead

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      Against the backdrop of the pandemic, countries whose economies are large enough to weather the storm have a unique opportunity to extend their influence vis-à-vis their smaller neighbors. A case in point: China and Laos. Earlier this year, Beijing began to build diplomatic goodwill in Vientiane by sending supplies, health advisers and medical staff, as well as offering loans and development opportunities to help Laos recover from the crisis. Existing power imbalances between the two states will likely be exacerbated, and China is well positioned to further consolidate support for its ally.

      Golden City

      China was the first country to be hit by the pandemic, and its economy, the second largest in the world, is now showing signs of recovery. Beijing has already unveiled a 3.6-trillion yuan ($506-billion) stimulus package, suggesting that China intends to continue work on its existing projects, with the Belt and Road Initiative being the crown jewel among them. As part of this initiative unveiled in 2013, China has been working to extend its land and maritime transportation networks through infrastructure built with the agreement of partner countries.

      One of the initiative’s branches that has thus far received little attention is the China-Laos railway, which stretches from Mohan, in China’s Yunnan province, to the Laotian border town of Boten, before reaching the capital, Vientiane. Once adjoining railways are complete, the segment is projected to be part of a pan-Asian network that joins Yunnan’s capital Kunming with Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. The project has been underway since 2016. Laos is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia, and due to the lack of ports that can offer counterbalancing sources of income and connectivity, it is particularly dependent on Chinese investment in towns like Boten. The town was designated a special economic zone (SEZ), its casinos drawing in massive numbers of tourists from mainland China, where gambling is illegal.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Touted by both governments as a partnership of mutual prosperity, local Laotians complained of the disrespect and one-sided decision-making from the new arrivals. This was the case when casinos in Boten were shut down in 2010 by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs over accusations of crime and prostitution. The town, whose economy centered around gambling, went into decline even as construction of the railroad continued. Two years later, however, Laotian officials decided to give the original sponsor of Boten’s failed project a second chance. The sponsor partnered with another industrial group and signed a new agreement to shift the town’s focus from gambling to commerce, rechristening “Golden Boten City” as “Beautiful Boten Specific Economic Zone.”

      It is unclear whether this new venture is a result of or is intended as an extension of the railway being constructed. What is clear is that China does not intend for the BRI to be an isolated transportation framework in Boten’s case. Railway construction naturally brings an influx of Chinese laborers who prefer Chinese goods and Chinese services, but an injection of Chinese cash into the local economy could also add to the local government’s incentive to cooperate with construction. The businesses and the railway can then form an economic feedback loop that justifies each other’s existence.

      Business Model

      This business model would not be so worrying if the local Laotian government retained significant regulatory power over the venture. However, the Chinese-funded Boten Economic Zone Development and Construction Group has been given the responsibility of charging taxes and building both utility and telecommunications infrastructure. This calls into question the sovereignty of the host nation’s government, and one of the group’s buyers stationed in Boten went so far as to say the company basically controlled the entire growing city.

      SEZs like Boten may become the next model of economic colonialism in Southeast Asia, where Chinese investors lease large tracts of land for a substantial period, import Chinese workers to build infrastructure around railway stations, and create economies that cater specifically to Chinese patrons and Chinese interests. This form of colonialism doesn’t have to be directly affiliated with the Communist Party, as China has more than enough corporations with deep pockets that can withstand the risk of investment and provide the much-needed capital to rural areas whose native government do not have the means for development.

      As COVID-19 ripples through Southeast Asia, countries in the region can be expected increasingly to look abroad for any kind of financial buffer that will help them survive the economic shockwaves. Even countries like Laos that have avoided a health crisis cannot avoid suffering indirectly from the economic contractions of their less proactive neighbors. Regional governments will be tempted to grant more concessions in the hopes of bringing more jobs to locals out of work, and capital from China will be alluring, even as it inevitably comes with economic dependence and the local influence of powerful Chinese corporations.

      Developments in little-known outposts with potential, such as Boten, rarely make the headlines. But make no mistake: China was already making its way steadily through Southeast Asia, and the ongoing pandemic is only likely to increase its pace.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Young Professionals in Foreign Policy.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More