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Bangladesh-US : Towards new engagements
Delwar Hossain
The third round of the 2014
Bangladesh US security dialogue was held in Dhaka on 22 April. It focused on
issues such as peacekeeping, counter‐terrorism,
disaster‐management, maritime security and regional security.
The security dialogue is part of a larger dialogue process that encompasses
defence‐to‐defense dialogue; military‐to‐military dialogue; security dialogue; and partnership
dialogue between Dhaka and Washington. This security dialogue has been taking
place annually since 2012. The first two‐day
meeting to bolster bilateral and regional cooperation between the two countries
under the Joint Declaration of the Bangladesh‐US
Partnership Dialogue took place in Washington, in September 2012. On the
economic front, the first meeting of Trade and
Investment Cooperation Forum Agreement (TICFA) between Bangladesh and the US
was held in April 2014. The TICFA seeks to further bolster the annual bilateral
trade – that exceeded $6 billion in 2013 – between the Dhaka and Washington.
Amid conflicting positions of Bangladesh and the US over several domestic,
bilateral and global issues, one may interpret these meetings as puzzling
developments. In the post‐election period, at the bilateral level, both the countries
have continued with old discords on issues such as labour rights, the Yunus
factor, the duty‐free, quota‐free market access, and the
suspension of Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) facilities to Bangladesh,
among others. From a Bangladeshi perspective, the US’ stance on domestic
political changes in the former is a major irritant to smooth bilateral
relations. The US’ insistence on holding credible and inclusive general
elections in Bangladesh afresh – after the January 2014 elections – has created
a diplomatic challenge for the incumbent Sheikh Hasina government. Globally,
the Kosovo and the Crimea questions clearly demonstrate Bangladesh’s different
foreign policy priorities.
However, despite the continuing discord, Bangladesh and the US have remained
engaged – as demonstrated via the dialogue process and the maiden meeting of
TICFA. A strong view prevails in the policy community that these meetings will
put US–Bangladesh relations on the path to recovery. Unlike in the past, the US
has made it clear that preventing the spread of global terrorism and strategic
understanding are its foremost agendas vis‐à‐vis Bangladesh. Both countries have developed three
structured fora for mutual engagement. They are: the US‐Bangladesh Dialogue on Security Issues; the Bangladesh‐US Partnership Dialogue; and the US–Bangladesh TICFA. The US
recognises that Bangladesh has a vital role in ensuring security and stability
regionally and globally. As the head of the US delegation to the Security
Dialogue, Tom Kelly, observed, “A strong bilateral partnership and improved
defense ties between Bangladesh and the United States are in both of our
interests.... In a broader perspective US values Bangladesh's geographical
location. It sees an important role for Bangladesh in the overall security
context of the Middle East, and Indian‐Pacific‐Oceans region. This is why US wants Bangladesh by its side
in its strategic pursuits.”
Thus, for the US, geostrategic developments in the South Asian and the Asia
Pacific regions have accorded Bangladesh a degree of importance. This is also
linked to the shift of the 2010 US defence strategy, that the US cannot go
solo, and in its attempt to address primary
security issues, countries like Bangladesh matter.
Interestingly, Bangladesh appeared to be shy of expressing much optimism and
enthusiasm, specifically regarding the outcomes of the meetings, and on
bilateral ties in general. The head of the Bangladesh delegation mentioned that
the dialogue was “very fruitful” and appreciated the US for the
institutionalisation of the process of talks for intensive bilateral
cooperation. The apparent lack of buoyant attitude on Bangladesh’s part
reflects frustration about the US for its continuing emphasis on holding fresh
elections in Bangladesh. It is also a reflection of Washington’s denial of the
GSP facilities and duty free‐quota free access.
However, in reality Bangladesh shows a degree of pragmatism while dealing with
the US in the current context. The benefits of Bangladesh‐US bilateral ties – from trade to investment, and from
culture to development – are substantive for both the nations. Although the
rules of engagement for Dhaka and Washington have been crafted in a new
regional environment in South Asia, the issue of the security dialogue may
generate disquiet among regional powers such as China and India. Simultaneously,
the US may also find it little troubling when Bangladesh joined the naval
exercise with China along with India and Pakistan. In April 2014, ships from
Bangladesh, Pakistan and India reached the Chinese port of Qingdao to partake
in a rare naval exercise
On the Sino‐Bangladesh naval cooperation, Tom Kelly asserts that the US
fully respects Bangladesh's sovereign right to establish cooperation with any
other country. Similarly, the Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh,
Pankaj Saran, maintains that “It is up to you [Bangladesh] to choose a
strategic partner. India has nothing to say in the matter.”
The first TICFA meeting may vindicate the critics that the US would use the
platform to create a new regime for protecting its economic interests in
Bangladesh, thereby undermining the latter’s development needs. Bangladesh’s
opposition to form a women’s economic empowerment committee and a labour
affairs committee in the first Meeting is an example. The TICFA and/or the
Security Dialogue may open new avenues of bilateral talks, but Dhaka and
Washington need to deal with major issues of mutual discord. Under the
Westphalian order, attempts to use domestic politics as a diplomatic instrument
may undermine gains of bilateral cooperation between the two.
Preventing an Afghan meltdown
Syed Mansur
Hashim
THAT the United States (US) has put
limitations on what actions the allied forces will perform in Afghanistan under
the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) leaves much to be desired, at least as
long as the new Afghan government is concerned. 12,500 troops on the ground
from January 1, 2015 with nearly 10,000 coming from the US alone, are supposed
to hold in check the Taleban and its allies. However, given the guidelines of
the BSA, this force will help transfer the bulk of the fighting to the
estimated 350,000 Afghan National Forces (ANF).
Voices are deeply divided as to
precisely how effective this new policy will be. The plan as it stands
envisages the ANF to head national security by 2017. The political climate is
altogether not too glum. The third democratically elected government is in
power. The billions of dollars invested in the country over the more than one
decade of western engagement in the country has helped improve Afghanistan's
“capacity for self-governance, improved national health care, expanded
schooling opportunities for Afghan youth, especially girls, and a better
connected Afghanistan to the outside world than ever before. Afghanistan also
began 2015 with a 350,000-member security force consisting of an army, a
limited air force, national police and border and customs forces.”(Source:
Foreign Policy Research Institute)
The flipside to this rosy picture is
that a large percentage of the Afghan populace still suffers from extreme
poverty. Being a landlocked country does not help the country in terms of trade
and the overt dependence on foreign aid remains the Achilles heel. There is
also a massive shortage of housing for nearly half the population. There is
simply no denying the fact that many of the “gains” Afghanistan has achieved
since 2002 were funded by multilateral agencies and these include both the
building of infrastructure and institutions. Salaries of both the bureaucracy
and the military are dependent on foreign aid. What is sad to see is that despite
sitting on some of significant deposits of precious minerals like copper,
lithium, uranium, iron ore, cobalt, natural gas and oil, foreign investment has
not been forthcoming primarily due to the fluid political situation on the
ground.
It is not without reason that the
Taleban refuse to go away. There is no doubt that the Taleban's principal
supporters in the Pakistan military and intelligence community continue to
patronise the group in an effort to influence the political discourse in
Afghanistan. The increased intelligence sharing between India and Afghanistan
and the growing cosy relationship between these two countries on military
matters make the Taleban dilemma a festering wound in Afghan politics. With
India now giving more direct military aid to ANF in terms of training and
equipping, the stage is set for the Taleban to remain very much present in
Afghanistan. Precisely how the US hopes to counter the growing fear that
Afghanistan will become the country of choice for militant organisations where they
train and use it as a base to counter Western interests in the region remain to
be seen; especially with a much reduced force of less than 10,000 personnel on
the ground.
Despite the impressive numbers, the
Afghan army has been less than effective in countering the Taleban in the
south, the east and in the capital city itself. This is so because the US-led
allied forces are no longer there. Indeed the Afghan forces have actually ceded
ground to the Taleban in areas in the south and east…gains that had come after
much fighting between the US-led allies and the Taleban in years gone by. Going
by numbers, ANF has sustained 4,600 deaths in October, 2014 alone. It has
serious deficiencies in intelligence support, in medical evacuation and / or
supporting fire in terms of artillery and air bombardment. The bottom line is
that 2014 has not been a good year to boost foreign investment confidence in
the country. Without foreign investment to replace donor-handouts, there is
serious doubt Afghanistan will be able to hold its own in the mid to long term.
The drastic pullout from Afghanistan without putting into place the challenges
of logistics, an intelligence backbone, without training and equipping air
support and counter-insurgency forces will all collude to a dramatic turn of
events in Afghanistan in the coming year, one that will hardly help in making
“the world a safer place from terrorism.”
So what can be done? It is
imperative that the US commit itself to build up a workable intelligence
gathering and sharing framework in Afghanistan and beyond. The ANF is still in
its infancy when it comes to combating militant outfits and requires direct
military support in its operations. There is also the need to comprehend that
there is no alternative to training and maintaining an “operational military
presence in Afghanistan.” These key elements need to be worked into a revised
BSA. The alternative is to let things lie as they are and watch as Afghanistan
descends into another Iraq-type situation. The only problem with that is that
the problems associated with militancy will spiral beyond the borders of
Afghanistan onto neighbouring countries and beyond.
Monday, March 7, 2016
China-US free trade talks suggested
Ding Qingfen, Zhang Yuwei and Chen Weihua
Wei's proposals come as the US
is aggressively expanding its influence in the Asia-Pacific region and expects
to grow its economy and create employment by taking advantage of the fast
economic growth in Asia .
The world's largest economy is advancing a trade agreement in Asia , known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, to remove
trade and investment barriers among the nations involved. Nine countries,
including Australia
and Vietnam ,
have agreed to join the pact and set a goal of reaching a final agreement by
the end of this year. China
is not included.
Last year, Japan ,
the world's third-largest economy, also announced its desire to join the
Trans-Pacific Partnership talks, but the matter is pending. China is trying
to transform from a big exporter to a great consumer, while the US pledges to
double its exports in five years.
"Any approach by China
to initiate discussions with the US on a free trade agreement should
be welcome," said Vikram Nehru, senior associate of Southeast Asian
Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington-based
think tank. But he stressed that "China should be aware that US concerns
extend well beyond trade barriers and are likely to include 'behind-the-border'
trade issues."
These trade issues could involve explicit budgetary subsidies and implicit
policy-related subsidies to state enterprises. Regulations that shield state
enterprises from competition in domestic markets, such as restrictions on
government procurement and barriers that inhibit new firms from entering key
manufacturing and services sectors, could also be a problem, Nehru claimed.
The protection of intellectual property rights of US companies by the
Chinese legal system is also a big concern, Nehru said.
"I think the time has come for a new and bolder approach," Maurice
Greenberg, former chief of AIG and now chairman and CEO of C.V. Starr and Co,
said in an article in the Wall Street Journal in January. "China and the US should open
negotiations for a free trade agreement between our two countries," he
said.
"The negotiations will not be easy. There will be numerous impasses,
and the negotiations will probably last for many years. But discussing problems
in the context of driving toward a potential agreement is far better than
lengthy dialogues without an end result," Greenberg said.
"Even if we fail to reach an agreement on many issues, progress should
be possible on some issues, and that will create a better trade climate. The
alternative is that we drift along constantly irritating each other in a
low-grade trade war that will leave businesses and consumers in both countries
losers."
Many are worried about a trade war between the world's top two economies as
the US
recently announced the establishment of an interagency trade-enforcement unit
to investigate whether nations, including China , play by trade rules.
The US House of Representatives recently passed a bill allowing the US
Commerce Department to continue to charge countervailing duties worth $5
billion on imports from China .
But a China-US FTA may not be established soon. "In the short term,
talks on a China-US FTA are highly unlikely," said Zhang Yunling, director
of the Division of International Studies under the Chinese Academy
of Social Sciences.
The US
is strongly committed to advancing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, setting up
trade rules in Asia based on its own wishes,
Zhang said.
There are many things that have to be addressed before the talks could
start, including the US recognising China's market economy status, an issue
that the two nations have long been arguing over.
© China Daily. All rights reserved.
Reprinted by arrangement with Asia News
Network.
The Daily Star, 18 March 2012
Sunday, March 6, 2016
US-BD economic ties deepening gradually
Nizam Ahmed
Economic ties between the United States
and Bangladesh
are deepening gradually as the entrepreneurs and traders of the former continue
to show their active interest in the latter as an attractive place for
investment and a competitive source, mostly for apparels, traders and officials
said on Tuesday.
Following the tragic fire incident at
a factory of the Tazreen Fashions Ltd at Ashulia that killed 111 workers late
last month, the rate of order for apparels from the US has turned normal after a few
days' slow pace, officials at the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and
Exporters Association (BGMEA) said.
The US investors are also among the
interested parties that have registered their investment proposals in different
sectors mainly in energy over the last couple of months, according to the Board
of Investment (BoI).
However, the diplomatic relations
between the two governments, according to some diplomats and analysts, are
somewhat less warm, particularly over the past couple of years, than before.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina did not
find a time to meet visiting US assistant secretary of state for South and
Central Asian Affairs Robert O Blake last week, they noted.
"We are not convinced that the
prime minister did not get time to meet the US assistant secretary of state for
her preoccupation," a former senior government official said requesting
not to be identified.
During the visit of Mr Blake, the
prime minister had given time for relatively less important events, he said.
It was for the first time that a US
State Department official of that rank concluded his/her visit to Bangladesh
without meeting the prime minister of the country, said officials at the
ministry of foreign affairs.
Earlier the US Ambassador
to Bangladesh Robert W Mozena also could not find a schedule to meet the Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina over the last couple of months, despite his request,
officials at the US
embassy in Dhaka said.
This is also unprecedented that a US ambassador
has to wait so long to have an interaction with the prime minister of Bangladesh.
Source: The Financial Express, 19 December 2012
Obama victory brings hopes for Bangladesh
Md Fazlur Rahman and Refayet Ullah Mirdha
The reelection of Barack Obama as the US president can enhance the
economic and political ties between Dhaka and
Washington, economists and experts said yesterday. Dr Zaid Bakht, a research director of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, hopes there would be progress in the issues pertaining to duty-free access for garment products and the Trade and Investment Cooperation Framework Agreement, which have been lingering for years.
"Lately, a political dimension has been added to the economic policies. We do not have the 'best of relationship' with the US at the moment for various reasons," he said.
The onus now lies with Bangladesh to improve relationship with the US, Bakht said.
He, however, is doubtful whether the relationship would have improved if there had been a change in leadership in Washington.
"Any Republican government would be more conservative in terms of opening up the economy. Bangladesh could benefit from outsourcing jobs in the near future, which would have been difficult if a Republican was in power."
Bangladesh's garment exporters have been seeking duty-free access to the US market for years now as they have to pay on average 15.30 percent duty, whereas some developed and developing countries pay below four percent.
America is the single largest garment export destination of Bangladesh.
Debapriya Bhattacharya, a distinguished fellow of the Centre for Policy Dialogue, a local think-tank, said the implementation of Obama's plans to revive the US economy is also linked with Bangladesh's interest.
"It is expected to enhance the American economy's growth rate, improve its employment record and investment scenario. As a result, there will be more income for the American citizens, which would expand the market for Bangladeshi garments and other items."
"Of note is the US president's planned tax cuts for the middle-class, which will give more purchasing power to the middle-class, who are, in fact, the major clients of Bangladeshi garment products," he said.
He also said the strengthening of the US economy would hopefully stabilise the global economy as a whole, including the now battered Eurozone.
The spill-over of the American economy on the Eurozone would also enhance Bangladesh's exports to the EU.
Bhattacharya said during his election campaign the US President also talked about the heightened co-operation in the field of development, which includes more support for investment and trade facilitation.
"Bangladesh should seek more avenues to get access to those initiatives," he told The Daily Star.
He said the US President has also committed to "Feed the Future" initiative, which could help ensure Bangladesh's food security and its capacity to respond to humanitarian crisis.
The economist, however, said Bangladesh would have to be mindful of the US concerns in areas of labour and human rights, political uncertainty and corruption, for a strengthened US-Bangla relationship.
"In order to take full advantage, we will have to do some homework ourselves and bring domestic reforms. Otherwise, many of the potentials may remain unattained."
He, however, is not too hopeful about the duty-free access.
"We should remember it is a reelection of the president, which means the new administration is a reelected one. There will be continuity on the part of the administration. So, we should not expect an overnight change in their attitude."
The duty-free access decision is not in the hands of the President, but in the hands of the Congress and the House of Representatives, he added.
"The US legislatures have already questioned why people are disappearing in Bangladesh. If you do not address the issue how will they extend their co-operation?"
"Only raising expectations and not doing anything on the home-front will not be helpful. Bangladesh and USA have a multifaceted and dynamic relationship and we should not oversimplify it."
Garment exporters also do not expect any big change from the new administration as their past attempts to avail duty-benefit went into vain, said Shafiul Islam Mohiuddin, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.
He said Bangladesh engaged lobbyist firms for getting the zero-duty benefit on export of garment items -- but the US government's stance remained unchanged.
Dr Amena Mohsin, a professor at the University of Dhaka's International Relations department, said Bangladesh has a lot to learn from the election.
"Both the leaders [Obama and the Republican contender Mitt Romney] showed they could rise above their parties, and demonstrated their statesmanship, which is very much lacking in Bangladesh."
"Our leaders cannot get above party politics; they fail to be a statesperson. Our leaders should learn from them," she told The Daily Star.
Humayun Kabir, a former ambassador to the US, who echoed Mohsin's views, by saying: "We should learn from the US election that one should be ready both for win and defeat, show respect to the public decision."
The former diplomat said the US-Bangladesh relation developed in a positive way during Obama's first term, with Bangladesh getting benefits from his different initiatives like Feed the Future, Global Health, Food Security Initiative.
"Bangladesh is also benefiting from the security co-operation with the US in the last few years," he said.
Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs adviser Gowher Rizvi said the relationship between Bangladesh and the US would continue to grow as the two countries share same values and democracy.
While the former Foreign Minister Morshed Khan said Obama's reelection would cast a positive impact on the immigrants and also help maintain the remittance flow from America to Bangladesh
Source: The Daily Star, 08 November 2012
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