Vietnam: Go to Vo
Also: Ireland, Yemen, Israel, Somalia, India, and Pakistan.
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VIETNAM. Go to Vo
The Communist Party sacks its president.
Hanoi ousted its second president in little over a year Wednesday amid a major anti-graft campaign. Prosecutors demanded the death penalty be given to a developer who had been accused of fraud worth 4% of Vietnam's GDP.
INTELLIGENCE. Vo Van Thuong was charged with undefined "shortcomings". Unlike his predecessor, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, who left after a COVID-19 testing scandal, Thuong was seen as close to General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, who came before Phuc as president. Vo Thi Anh Xuan, one of the National Congress's few women, is now acting president. Though it’s a role she's held before, she's not a member of the Politburo, so is unlikely to succeed Thuong.
FOR BUSINESS. The political intrigue, amidst a series of corporate and real estate scandals, echoes events in China. Some have speculated this could lead to Trong – a Marxist hardliner – assuming a more centralising role in the style of Xi Jinping. Yet power in Vietnam is more diffuse. And Vietnam is also too reliant on foreign capital, much of it having left China, to risk an abrupt Leninist turn. That, at least, is the hope of businesses inside the country.
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IRELAND. Leo descendant
Varadkar’s resignation is a reckoning for the liberal centre.
Leo Varadkar said Wednesday he would step down as Taoiseach, or prime minister, once his Fine Gael party chose a successor, saying his decision was "personal and political". Members of his coalition cabinet ruled out an early election.
INTELLIGENCE. If an election were held today, the Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Green Party coalition would be trounced. The left-wing populist Sinn Féin is no longer polling at 2022’s near 15-point lead, but together with a sharp swing to independents, polls show it would defeat the centre, with a potential backer in the Irish republican but traditionalist Aontú, which alone among the big parties supported the no vote in this month's referenda on constitutional change.
FOR BUSINESS. Without elections until 2025, Varadkar’s resignation means little to Ireland. But for the EU, where parliamentary elections are held in June, it’s an alert. An otherwise prosperous and socially liberal Ireland is seething over high migration, the issue that has most galvanised opposition to Varadkar and is most closely tied to Brussels. For the UK, it’s also a reminder that the Tories’ hard border gambit may be the one thing that saves them from oblivion.
YEMEN. ISRAEL. Cruising for a bruising
A missile attack on Eliat represents a dangerous escalation.
A Houthi cruise missile hit Israel Tuesday for the first time since October. Eliat Port, near to where the missile landed, was at risk of sacking half its workers, unions said. Hundreds of Houthi troops entered the town of Rada’a Wednesday.
INTELLIGENCE. The Eliat strike reminded many of the Houthis’ claimed 2019 cruise missile attacks on Saudi oil facilities, which cut 5.7 million barrels per day of production, about 5% of the global total. Eliat doesn’t have the same significance (and was already lying empty due to the Houthis' campaign in the Red Sea), but having evaded Israel’s Iron Dome, the strike was a shock not just to the IDF, but the US-led fleet supposed to be protecting it in between.
FOR BUSINESS. The strike may provoke Israeli retaliation, though if anything this may help the Houthis, who are now facing a domestic backlash as hunger worsens in Yemen. Unrest in Rada’a, in the south of the militia’s territory, has been brewing since a family of nine were killed by a Houthi rocket, allegedly sent as a warning to the locals. A renewed civil war in Yemen would be a nightmare not just for its beleaguered residents, but neighbouring Saudi Arabia.
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SOMALIA. INDIA. Doing the needful
Delhi shows just who rules the Indian Ocean.
Indian officials said Wednesday they would prosecute 35 Somali pirates, captured in a ship rescue in the Arabian Sea. Indian commandos released the MV Ruen on Saturday, the first merchant ship hijacked by Somali pirates since 2017.
INTELLIGENCE. India has not just upstaged the US, busy fending off the Houthis in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, but it has sent a message to China, which also has a nearby base and has replaced India as the security partner of the strategically important Maldives. A message may have also been sent to Turkey, which recently signed a naval patrol deal with Somalia, and is thought to have been behind a drone strike on Monday that killed 40 al-Shabab militants.
FOR BUSINESS. Turkey is also courting the new government in the Maldives, not to mention India’s perennial foe Pakistan. The players are joining the UAE and others to fill a void in Somalia, particularly as Ethiopia – whom India is said to be finalising a defence pact with – toys with recognising the breakaway state of Somaliland in exchange for some coastline. The regional scramble adds uncertainty to the conflict’s trajectory, and wider strategic balancing.
PAKISTAN. Within and without
Islamabad’s reconstituted government grapples with familiar foes.
Security forces Wednesday killed eight militants who attacked the Chinese-funded port of Gwadar in Balochistan. The IMF reached a $1.1 billion staff-level agreement with Islamabad. Beijing last month agreed to roll over a $2 billion loan.
INTELLIGENCE. The Gwadar attack wasn’t unusually violent – just this week Pakistan has suffered through suicide attacks in the north and has bombed militants in neighbouring Afghanistan – but it does strike at the centrepiece of the $65 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which connects Xinjiang to the Indian Ocean. Fresh from a rigged election, Pakistan can’t afford to alienate any of its international partners, on whom its damaged economy depends.
FOR BUSINESS.The Balochistan insurgency has raged since 1948 and has slowed the growth of Gwadar, the world's biggest deep-water port. More recently, it has complicated ties with Iran, which is facing an insurgency in its own Balochi province, and is expanding a mega port in nearby Chabahar, with funds from India and connectivity to Russia. Even dirt-poor Afghanistan has recently committed $35 million to Chabahar; an attempt to circumvent Pakistan.