Foreign Policy Update – USA Gov Policy

THINK TANK FUNDING

Secretary of State Michael Pompeo on Tuesday called for US think tanks to be more transparent about their funding by foreign governments, especially sources in China and Russia. He said in a written statement that it is not required under law but is needed “To protect the integrity of civil society institutions, the Department requests henceforth that think tanks and other foreign policy organizations that wish to engage with the Department disclose prominently on their websites funding they receive from foreign governments, including state-owned or state-operated subsidiary entities.” This announcement comes as the Trump Administration continues cracking down on foreign influences on the US political system.

CHINA

China is continuing influences campaign inside the United States, according to Secretary Pompeo. In a recent press interview he said, when asked about Chinese activities in the US, that “We have inside our own classrooms, in K-12 institutions in Georgia and my home state of Kansas, all across America, we have the Chinese Communist Party under the veil of these things called Confucius Institutes impacting our kids, putting their propaganda on top of our children. It’s unacceptable, and we are working to, by the end of the year, have them out of every school all across America.” Pompeo said US schools need to “face up to the fact that this money is being used to subvert our democracy, to undermine our way of life, and we should simply say it’s unacceptable, we’ll find another way to underwrite our schools, to pay for our kids to go where they need to go.” He called taking money from the Chinese Communist Party to keep our schools afloat an unacceptable tradeoff.

ISRAEL AND MIDDLE EAST PEACE

Recent breakthroughs by the Trump Administration toward lasting peace and stability in the Middle East have gone almost unnoticed in much of the American institutional media. In an interview Thursday Secretary Pompeo said that what the President has “done has been important for citizens all across America. I was a soldier once, a long time ago now. We will have few American young men and women who have to go to the Middle East and fight because of the work that the United States has done under President Trump’s leadership. We now have two countries who have accepted that Israel’s here to stay, that it’s the Jewish homeland.” Pompeo said they want to partner with it, not hate it and that the Administration intends to find more countries that will want to do that as well.

The Secretary said Washington is flipping the traditional script. “The old story that – for eight years, President Obama said well, you can’t do anything until you solve the problem Israel and the Palestinians. The truth is people in the Middle East and the Gulf States, they want peace too, and the Abraham Accords have now begun to deliver on that important promise.” According to Pompeo, it will save the lives of America’s armed forces and create less risk that a terror event that starts in the Middle East will come to our homeland.

MAYANMAR

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According to a joint statement issued by the US, the European Union, Great Britain, and the UN High Commission on Refugees, on October 22 the international community together to address the Rohingya crisis. At a virtual conference, they will urge countries to increase assistance for Rohingya refugees, host communities, and internally displaced people in Myanmar, more than three years since the latest phase of the crisis began in August 2017. The UN has appealed for more than $1 billion in aid to meet the humanitarian needs of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh this year, but so far less than half has been contributed. This leaves a significant funding gap, made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic. The conference, it notes, aims to raise urgently needed funds to help vulnerable displaced Rohingya living in and outside of their native Myanmar and to support critical services in host communities throughout South and Southeast Asia.

HONG KONG

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has systematically dismantled the autonomy that Beijing promised to the Hong Kong people and the world in a UN-registered treaty, accord to State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus. “Through the imposition of the National Security Law, the CCP has crippled democratic institutions, human rights, judicial independence, and individual freedoms in Hong Kong. The United States has publicly condemned an increasing number of problematic actions taken by Beijing and Hong Kong authorities to stifle dissent and eviscerate Hong Kong’s autonomy.”

These include the installation of a mainland security agency, mass arrests of peaceful protestors, the politically motivated delay of the September 2020 Legislative Council elections, and the capture and detention of Hong Kong democratic activists attempting to leave Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong Autonomy Act requires the Secretary of State to submit a report to Congress identifying foreign persons who are materially contributing to, have materially contributed to, or attempt to materially contribute to the failure of China to meet its obligations under the Sino-British Joint Declaration or Hong Kong’s Basic Law. According to Ortagus, this year’s report includes ten PRC and Hong Kong officials whose actions have undermined freedoms of assembly, speech, press, or the rule of law, or whose actions have reduced the high degree of autonomy of Hong Kong.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government. Each Saturday, she presents key updates on U.S. foreign policy from the State Department.

Illustration: Pixabay

Quick Analysis

Ukraine’s Frozen Conflict

As we approach winter in the northern hemisphere, the war in Ukraine is beginning to resemble a “frozen conflict” from many perspectives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told the media he hopes the war will end faster once President-elect Trump takes over in January. Opinions in Moscow, however, differ from that of the Ukrainian leader. Russian President Vladimir Putin argues that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needs to exclude Ukraine from joining in “exchange” for peace. If it does not, he says, then no end to the war is in sight. So far there is no Christmas solution. Several NATO countries, according to Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation, are tentatively considering “coalitions-of-the-willing” to provide security for Ukraine outside of the formal NATO framework. There is, however, no collective mechanism today under which such an arrangement is viable. According to the NATO Charter, while Ukraine is a NATO partner country, it may not join as a full member since it has not fulfilled the requirements for membership. That has not stopped NATO and allies from continuing “to provide Ukraine with unprecedented levels of support, helping to uphold its fundamental right to self-defence,” according to the organization. Socor says that keeping Ukraine out of NATO will not advance peace with Russia. Waiting for a peace settlement, he suggests, would only serve to encourage Moscow to continue the war indefinitely. Although the Biden Administration officially withdrew its support for Ukrainian membership in 2021, NATO maintains an “open door” policy toward membership-seeking countries. The current White House position led the way for European states to oppose Ukraine’s membership saying that a decision should be delayed until “conditions are met.” Biden pushed for changing “open door” to a “bridge” metaphor. It is not intended as an across-the-board NATO policy and has been implemented in the past on a case-by-case basis, says Socor. “The alliance’s open-door policy was not fully insulated from Russia’s non-statutory blocking power, and NATO-aspirant countries’ path toward membership was not always irreversible.” Russia has successfully blocked states like Georgia from joining, first in 2008 and again after the war in Ukraine began in 2014. Russia recognizes the value add of Ukraine to NATO is enormous and that Kyiv has a better case than some other nations. Putin’s invasion was, in part, intended to foreclose that option. By 2021, Moscow was pushing hard to maximize its war objectives, which included further annexations of Ukrainian territory. A main goal for Putin was, and is, to ensure there is no Ukraine left to join NATO. As President-elect Trump prepares to assume office in January, he is faced with the historical challenges presented by the war. Post-conflict security guarantees were the center of several proposals made during the 2023 military stalemate. The incoming Trump Administration has yet to outline how it intends to handle the Russia-Ukraine war. Analysts in Washington believe that the new Administration will expect its European allies to guarantee the majority of Ukraine’s security needs. As we approach 2025, several European nations have acknowledged that they do not view Ukraine as eligible for NATO membership as it would draw the organization into the middle of the conflict. Others want to wait until the war is over or pending a “peace” settlement before considering Ukrainian membership. Socor reports that some “influential voices” are suggesting that “Kyiv should join NATO after “freezing” the war along a stable armistice line, de facto accepting Ukraine’s partition, with NATO security guarantees applying de jure to the government-controlled territory only.” This would mean starting accession talks soon with the actual talks to commence only after a ceasefire is in place. Trump arrives in Washington at a time when Putin’s hybrid strategies of war in Ukraine have eviscerated commonly-held differences between war and peace. “Absent a political consensus in NATO over Ukrainian membership, certain European allies, including France’s President Emmanuel Macron, are holding informal consultations about post-conflict security guarantees to Kyiv by NATO members outside of NATO’s framework,” according to the Jamestown Foundation. The Biden Administration downplayed the discussions on possible forms of military assistance and defense industry cooperation by sending only an Assistant Secretary of State. For a European peace to hold the Trump Administration would need to formally extend the United States’ nuclear deterrence to Ukraine. Options under discussion in Europe include a “coalition of the resolute” to deploy forces to Ukraine as part of a possible armistice package, deterring further Russian attacks, says Secor. European officials are also debating, without any agreement, whether its military forces could perform non-combat logistical roles to free Ukrainian forces to fight. None of the possible courses of action has moved forward as all eyes are waiting on the incoming Trump Administration for clues about its intended level of support for a NATO framework and other non-NATO proposals. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.