Insights from Professor Anis Bajrektarevic. Trans-Pacific View author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners, and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into U.S. Asia policy. This conversation with Dr. Anis Bajrektarevic  –  chairperson and professor in international law and global political studies, Vienna, Austria and editor of the New York-based scientific journal Geopolitics, History, and International Relations – is the 98th in “The Trans-Pacific View Insight Series.” Q1:   Compare and contract regional security architectures in Asia and Europe. While all other major theaters have had pan-continental settings in place already for many decades, such as the Organization of American States – OAS (American continent); African Union – AU (Africa); Council of Europe and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe – OSCE (Europe), Asia is rather different. What becomes apparent, at first glance, is the absence of any pan-Asian security/ multilateral structure. Prevailing security structures are bilateral and mostly asymmetric. They range from the clearly defined and enduring non-aggression security treaties, through less formal arrangements, up to the Ad hoc cooperation accords on specific issues. The presence of the multilateral regional settings is limited to a very few spots in the largest continent, and even then, they are rarely mandated with security issues in their declared scope of work. Another striking feature is that most of the existing bilateral structures have an Asian state on one side, and an either peripheral or external protégé country on the other side which makes them nearly, per definition, asymmetric. The examples are numerous: the US–Japan, US– S. Korea, US–Singapore, Russia–India, Australia–East Timor, Russia–North Korea, Japan –Malaysia, China–Pakistan, US–Pakistan, China–Cambodia, US–Saudi Arabia, Russia –Iran, China–Burma, India–Maldives, Iran–Syria, N. Korea–Pakistan, etc.   Q2:    With Brexit in the UK and the “America First” foreign policy of the US, please give us your take on the future of NATO. The West is apparently in a serious decline. The UK has been sliding down for 100 years, absorbing it by a skilful set of planetary contrasts. The US has been melting ever since the end of WWII. In 1945, Americans had 54% of global manufacturing output, today it is hardly a 1/3 of it. NATO is a relict of Cold War instrumentarium. Currently, confrontational nostalgia is what keeps it afloat. Atlantistic world is overcommitted and overstretched. London and Washington understand that NATO increasingly becomes part of a problem not a solution, for their own future. Europe goes along with it. Simply, the Old Continent is not a wealthy club anymore. It is a theater with a memory of its wealthy past. The EU has to learn how to deescalate and compromise. This is in its best interest, for the sake of its only viable future. Q3:    Is an Asian version of NATO plausible? Why does the world’s largest continent must consider creation of a comprehensive pan-Asian institution? Not a military pact a’la NATO (since NATO is only an instrument of American military presence in Europe) but a true multi-vector and multilateral instrument. Prevailing security structures in Asia are bilateral and mostly asymmetric, while Europe enjoys multilateral, balanced and symmetric setups (the American and African continents too). In my forthcoming book No Asian century, I go as far as to claim that irrespective of the impressive economic growth, no Asian century will emerge without creation of such an institution. Asia today is a huge running water without clear river banks – a rising economic success, social volcano and political hazard.   Q4:    Identify three ongoing geopolitical risks that Asia and Europe share. For most of the 19th and a good part of 20th century, a central question of Europe and Euro-Atlantic was how many ‘Germanys’ Europe can digest – one big, über-performing and omnipresent, or several Germanophone states in a dynamic equilibrium with itself and the rest. This and the so-called the grand accommodation – Germany with Russia or France with Russia – remains a central security dilemma for many decades to come. On the other flank of the world, the entire Asian architecture was based on an assumption of a weak center; fragmented, backword and soft mainland China. What we are witnessing now is awaking of China – reminiscence of an imperial Germany in the heart of Europe.   Q5:    What common linkages underpin U.S. transatlantic and transpacific relations, and how should the U.S. administration capitalize on them? Chinese grab for fossil fuels or its military competition for naval control is not a challenge but rather a boost for the US Asia-Pacific –even an overall posture. Calibrating the contraction of its overseas projection and commitments – managing the decline of an empire – the US does not fail to note that nowadays half of the world’s merchant tonnage passes though the South China Sea. Therefore, the US will exploit any regional territorial dispute and other frictions to its own security benefit, including the costs sharing of its military presence with the local partners, as to maintain its pivotal position on the maritime edge of Asia that arches from the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean, Malacca, the South and East China Sea up to the northwest–central Pacific. A real challenge is always to optimize the (moral, political and financial) costs in meeting national strategic objectives. In this case, it would be a resolute Beijing’s turn towards green technology, coupled with the firm buildup of Asian multilateralism. Without a grand rapprochement to the champions of multilateralism in Asia, which are Indonesia, India and Japan, there is no environment for China to seriously evolve and emerge as a formidable, lasting and trusted global leader. Consequently, what China needs in Asia is not a naval race of 1908, but the Helsinki process of 1975. In return, what Asia needs from China and Japan is the ‘ASEAN-ization’, not the ‘Pakistanization’ of its continent. ———— Fist published by: http://thediplomat.com/2017/06/regional-security-architectures-comparing-asia-and-europe/ 28 June 17 About the author: Author is chairperson and professor in international law and global political studies, Vienna, Austria. He is Editor of the New York-based scientific journal GHIR (Geopolitics, History, Intl Relations). Professors authors four books: FB – Geopolitics of Technology (Addleton Academic Publishers, NY); Geopolitics – Europe 100 years later (DB, Europe), Geopolitics – Energy – Technology (Germany, LAP). Europe and Africa – Security structures (Nova, NY) is his latest, just released book. His new book is No Asian century.      

 By Roy Lie A Tjam. Eight Ambassadors are vying for the post of Director General, each of who have been put forward by their respective governments for the post. The candidates come from the following countries: Burkina Faso, Denmark, Hungary, Iraq, Lithuania, Spain, South Korea and Tanzania (candidate withdrew).

The following reaction has been received when asked for a one-liner on their country’s candidacy. Denmark,  HE Ole Moesby, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Denmark to the Kingdom of the Netherlands has high esteem for what OPCW is and stands for.

Denmark has been affiliated with OPCW from the outset onward and has been actively involved with the situation in Syria and Libya. A top person needs to take the lead in this high-level organization. Obviously, the Danish candidate is the person. Hungary, Ambassador Tibor Tóth, Executive Secretary Emeritus of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, has been nominated for the OPCW DG post. He has served the international community in elected multilateral leadership positions on the prohibition of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons for 30 years. His commitment to the OPCW is supported by the fact that as a lead negotiator, he was an architect of the Chemical  Weapons Convention. He served  as head of CTBTO for two terms while it addressed the challenge of nuclear test  by the DPRK.  His leadership experience, knowledge, and stature in the field of WMD prohibition regimes make him an excellent nominee. South-Korea, the South-Korean candidate has over 10 years of experience in directing UN matters. No doubts, the South Korean candidate holds the best papers to become the OPCW’s next Director-General.

Spain is deeply committed with disarmament affairs and has worked intensively in the Security Council in order to update the UN Security Council Resolution 1540. With H.E. Ambassador Fernando Arias’s candidacy for the position of Director-General of the OPCW, Spain wishes to continue contributing to international peace and security. Tanzania is applauding the great accomplishments of the OPCW thus far, Tanzania desires to share her experience even wider by leading the Organization and contributing to the global endeavor to forever eliminate the use of chemical weapons, which continues to be a threat. Being Party to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and Member of the OPCW since 1998 is a clear testimony that Tanzania is committed to the goals of the Convention. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was established two decades ago after a horrific mustard gas attack in the Iraqi Kurdistan city of Halabja in 1998. This prompted the French First Lady Madam Danielle Mitterrand to urge her husband the French President, H.E. François Mitterrand, to put a plan together that will endeavor to prevent similar attacks from reoccurring.

A highly interesting and thought-provoking conversation took place at the Iraqi Chancellery in The Hague on June 14, 2017, with H.E. Saywan Sabir Mustafa Barzani, Ambassador of Iraq to the Netherlands. Among the topics discussed was the upcoming OPCW election of a Director-General in the autumn of 2017. However, the Director General-elect will not be taking office until 2018. H.E. Ambassador Saywan Sabir Mustafa Barzani is the official Iraqi candidate for the position of Director General, due to his exceptional past achievements, expertise and experiences acquired as a diplomat for over 25 years, both in the international arena as well as in Iraq, qualifying him to be a strong contender for the post of OPCW Director-General. Furthermore, Mr. Barzani is a visionary, he can effectively lead an organization like OPCW that has a defined mission, he is someone unafraid to take risks, the OPCW needs someone who is willing to make proposals in order to overcome the problems that lie ahead for the OPCW. Up until now, Iraq has not held a high-level UN position, however, the New Iraq from 2003 onwards should be perceived positively on the international stage. It would, therefore, be more than appropriate and proper for the Iraqi candidate to be designated for the August office of Director-General of the OPCW. Moreover, Mr. Barzani has had first-hand experience with the impact of chemical attacks and could therefore easily recognize and empathize with the victims’ suffering. So far, it is Iraq and the Middle East in particular that often have been the playing field for chemical weapons attacks. During the first years of his career, Mr. Barzani was at the helm of the after-war reconstruction scheme of his country, where he was assigned to direct and manage the northern part of Iraq at a time when the country lacked funds, constitution and there was an absence of law and order. Whilst also having to deal with the execution of two conflicting UN resolutions. In 1998 he became Kurdistan’s envoy to France. He subsequently served as Iraq’s Ambassador to Italy, Malta, San Marino, the Netherlands, and UN agencies in Rome. If Mr. Barzani succeeds in becoming Director General, he aspires to make the OPCW be structured in such a manner that it becomes an institution of diplomacy and technology. The Executive Council of the OPCW is preparing to meet for the eighty-fifth session, which will be held from 11 – 14 July 2017.The agenda for the meeting will decide on the next Director General, should no consensus be reached, then the ballot will produce the outcome. Mr. Barzzani comes from Erbil Iraq, is married with four children and is fluent in Arabic, English, French, Kurdish, Italian and Persian. He is also a diplomat, a scholar in political science, international relations, diplomacy, and law. Mr. Barzani can be described as a very cordial and hospitable person, and above all, he is an advocate of the Mesopotamian and Iraqi patrimony. Under Barzani’s direction, Iraq has donated a historical statue of a Mesopotamian lion to the WFP in the city of Rome and designed the Iraq Room, the third largest conference hall in the FAO headquarter with Mesopotamian artifact and statues. Donations of a commemorative monument have also been made to the OPCW by Iraq. For the OPCW’s twentieth anniversary, Ambassador Barzani designed a peace monument, which has been placed in the Iraqi embassy garden, the inauguration of this monument took place on 16th March 2017 by the current Director-General and the Permanents representatives to the OPCW. The Leiden Museum in collaboration with the Iraqi Embassy envisages organizing a mega Mesopotamia exposition in the Netherlands, to be shown in 2017 – 2018.    

An upcoming book by Supriya Vani.

By Supriya Vani. Socrates says, “All men’s souls are immortal but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine”. The righteous souls achieve divinity because they strive hard to remove all dross from within and empty themselves like a flute to weave magical stirrings of divine love and blissful consciousness and take in their warm clasp the lowliest of the low, the neglected, the abandoned, the orphaned, in fact; the whole of humanity just in the same way as the sun spreads its canopy of warmth on everyone under the sky or the dewdrops leave no petal untouched. They are pained on finding others in pain. They are aggrieved when they find others in grief. They do not find themselves at peace on finding others in trouble. They find joys in others’ joys. They instantly reach out to others in need of care, of love, of succor or of solace. They are self-abnegated souls and always full of empathy for fellow human beings. They are zealously venerated by one and all. A peep into the life of all the sixteen women Nobel Peace prize laureates gives this revelation. What led me to foray into the lives of these magnificent women is my father’s motivation. In my early childhood, he would often relate to me stories of valour, of self-effacing sacrifices, of stoic sufferings of great men and women who helped in making the planet earth a place of peaceful co-existence for mankind. The quintessence of the lives of sixteen women Nobel peace laureates is running the gauntlet of adversity and myriad challenges in life with never-to-yield attitude. After interviewing many Nobel Peace laureates, I have found that each one of them has scripted a saga of rare activism and also of building bonds of love with the suffering humanity. Nobel Peace Prize Laureates like Bertha von Suttner, Jane Addams, Emily Green Balch, Alva Myrdal, Wangari Maathai and Mother Teresa laid the foundation of peace for us and have faded away from the Earth. Other Nobel Peace Laureates like Malala Yousafzai, Betty Williams, Mairead Maguire, Aung San Suu Kyi, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Tawakkol Karman, Leymah Gbowee are all activists who dared to fight the unjust systems and never dithered even when death stared at them menacingly. Each one of us can lead a life of ecstatic fulfillment if we borrow a leaf from their book. They say it is never too late. They have scripted a saga. When will we ? We need to always remember that life’s most persistent and important question is, “What are we doing for others?”. ——— About the author: Supriya Vani  is a 28 years old human rights activist and an author. She has interviewed several Nobel Peace Laureates for her  upcoming book- Battling Injustice-The Stories of sixteen Women Nobel Peace Laureates.  

By Mr. Andrei Prokopchuk, Trade and Economic Counsellor of the Embassy of the Republic of Belarus in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Economic diplomacy is getting more important within the frameworks of the diplomatic community. All diplomatic representations are trying to be active in this significant area of cooperation. Belarus Embassy in the Hague is not an exception from this tendency. Nowadays, in the day to day business diplomats are more involved in trade, economic and investments relations trying to bridge companies, agencies, and business people. Among the tools for promoting economic diplomacy could be named meetings on a high level between officials particularly in charge for the development of foreign economic relations, business forums and seminars, trade missions, bilateral and multilateral commissions, linking of the companies based on their interests. Economic section of the Embassy is trying to apply a maximum of these tools aiming at the achievement of the practical results. Our philosophy in the Embassy in a relation of trade and investment promotion is to bridge the Dutch companies with their potential partners in Belarus using the knowledge of the economic system of Belarus as well as the market possibilities and leading branches of the economy. The above approach led to the result that today all major well-known Dutch companies operate in Belarus where they implement a number of joint projects: production of pharmaceutical products based on blood plasma (Imres), assembly of milking robots and other agricultural machinery (Lely Industries, APH Group), agricultural production (Adama, Bejo Zaden), LED (Philips), beverages (Heineken) as well as in the field of logistics and construction. The importance of economic dimension in our bilateral relations with the Netherlands could also be outlined by the statistic indicators. The Netherlands are traditionally among top-10 trade and investment partners of Belarus. In 2016 bilateral trade turnover was 1,15 bln USD. Export of Belarus amounted to 924 mln USD. This indicator stated that the Netherlands became our 4th largest export partner after the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. The historic record in terms of trade was fixed in 2012 when the bilateral turnover reached 8 bln USD and the Netherlands became the second major trading partner of Belarus after the Russian Federation. In 2016 the Netherlands became the 4th largest FDI investor (followed by the Russian Federation, Cyprus, and Lithuania) to Belarus. The total volume of Dutch investments for the last five years (2012-2016) to Belarus amounted to 4,5 bln USD. As of January 1, 2017, there are 114 entities registered in the Republic of Belarus with the participation of Dutch capital (39 are joint ventures, 75 are foreign representative offices), the share of Dutch investors in the statutory funds of these organizations is 270 mln USD. In 2016, the authorized capital of organizations was increased for 52 mln USD. As of January 1, 2017, the total amount of cumulative foreign investments from the Netherlands in Belarus amounted to 640 mln USD (5th place after the Russian Federation, Cyprus, the United Kingdom and Turkey). The Belarusian-Dutch economic relations also lie on formidable legislation, such as agreements on facilitation and protection of investments, on avoiding double taxation, on air communications and on international automobile communications. To the addition of the above foundational agreements, the Government of Belarus is also constantly amending legislation aiming at creation the most favorable conditions in the region for the international companies to do business in Belarus. Belarus success in this area is proved by the World Bank ranking. Belarus jumped to the 37th standing from No. 50 among 190 countries in the World Bank Doing Business-2017. The position of Belarus is one of the strongest among CIS countries. In the sub-ranking of the above report, Belarus took the 5th place by Registering Property index, the 31st place by Starting a Business index and the 30th place by International Trade index. I would like to conclude that 25 years which have passed since the establishment of diplomatic relations between Belarus and the Netherlands allowed to set up, develop and enrich bilateral economic contacts as well as to build mutual trust. I have no doubt that the next quarter of the century will be marked with further boosting of bilateral economic relations including the implementation of new remarkable projects which will lead to the new level of partnership between Belarus and the Netherlands.