Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

*** China’s overseas acquisitions race ahead in 2012.  Figures released by the ChinaVenture Group on 5 November show the number of overseas mergers and acquisitions in the first nine months of 2012 at 208, valued at US$93.09bn.  In 2007, the number was 107 valued at US$13.58bn.  According to Wan Ge of ChinaVenture, the European debt crisis has, in particular, enabled Chinese enterprises to acquire undervalued European assets.  Although energy and mining were at the top of the list, there are also signs that China is diversifying its buying strategy, with agriculture now a strong feature.  An Ernst & Young report indicates that 82% of China’s overseas direct investment (ODI) in 2009 was energy oriented.  In the first half of 2012, it was only 60%.

*** Pakistan power struggle.  On 5 November, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani made a statement that has been interpreted as criticizing a court move against a retired army chief, General Aslam Beg, and a former head of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Lt-Gen Asad Durrani.  The allegation is that they bankrolled politicians to stop the current ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) from winning the 1990 election.

Kayani said: “No individual or institution has the monopoly to decide what is right or wrong in defining the ultimate national interest...Weakening the institutions and trying to assume more than one’s appropriate role will set us back...The fundamental principle, that one is innocent until proven guilty, should not be forgotten.  Let us not pre-judge anyone, be it a civilian or a military person, and extend it, unnecessarily, to undermine respective institutions.”

This comment sparked a retaliation form Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who said: “Gone are the days when stability and security of the country was defined in terms of number of missiles and tanks as a manifestation of hard power available at the disposal of the state.”

There was also some fairly hysterical media reaction to Kayani's statement, with many talk show hosts lashing out at the army chief for what he had said.  However, there has been some evidence of a conscious effort by the military leadership to play down the significance of Kayani's statement, and the PPP has also preferred to play it down.

Nevertheless, there is clearly tension between the judiciary and the military.  The day after Kayani's statement, the Chief Justice was hearing a petition seeking to ban the media from criticizing the armed forces, intelligence agencies, and other defence and security institutions in the wake of the US operation to kill Osama bin Laden on 2 May 2011.  When the lawyer said that the army respected the court, the chief justice remarked: "Yes, we witnessed that yesterday".