Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

*** Russia says US must leave Central Asia.  Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksey Borodavkin said on 7 October that once US forces withdraw from Afghanistan, the US should also withdraw its forces from Central Asia.  He said: “We insist on this”.  The US maintains a military base at Manas in Kyrgyzstan for the supply of its troops in Afghanistan.  On the same day, Russia’s permanent representative to Nato, Dmitriy Rogozin, said that Russia would not agree to a US military presence in Afghanistan after the expiry of the UN Security Council mandate.  He said: “This is what we shall never be able to agree to.  Afghanistan should be free from foreign interference in its internal affairs.”

*** Pakistan rages at India-Afghan pact and US.  The former head of Pakistan’s Intelligence Bureau, Imtiaz Ahmed, has described the Strategic Partnership Pact between India and Afghanistan as a “red alert for regional peace”.  He said: “Afghan President Hamed Karzai seems to have acted as a pawn for the execution of an Indo-American bipartite strategic offensive in South Asia”.  He warned that “America is hell bent on building a primary role for India in Afghanistan to neutralize Pakistan’s regional strength and prop up India as their watchdog in South Asia.”

*** China democracy debate boosted by anniversary.  The 9 October 100th anniversary of the 1911 Revolution, which ended 2,000 years of imperial rule, has caused ideological difficulties for China’s ruling Communist Party (CCP).  The revolution led to the creation of the Republic of China (ROC) by Sun Yat-sen.  The ROC was subsequently overthrown by the communists in 1949 and the remnants of the ROC retreated to Taiwan where it lives on and is embodied in the ruling Kuomintang (KMT).

We have been monitoring the coverage of the anniversary, and there has been something of an upsurge in Republican nostalgia and uncomfortable parallels have been widely drawn.  One prominent blogger, Fu Guoyong, wrote: “This land and its people are trapped in a historical predicament that bears surprising resemblance to the situation 100 years ago.  Except for the few who have vested interests, almost the whole nation is awaiting change.”

A number of events marking the centenary were called off under pressure from the authorities, but this has been unable to hide the popular enthusiasm for the 1911 revolution, which has been in evidence in the press and on the internet.  Zhang Ming, a historian at Beijing’s Renmin University, speculated in the CCP’s own Global Times newspaper that if the KMT were allowed to run in a mainland election it would win.  In another sign of the confusion, a 1st October editorial in the CCP’s official People’s Daily, marking the 62nd anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, mentioned Sun Yat-sen but not Mao Zedong, the founder of the communist PRC.  This provoked outrage in conservative circles.