1. Australia to host fourth QUAD foreign ministers meeting
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is visiting Australia with the aim of shoring up Indo- Pacific partnerships and countering China’s growing power, even as a crisis with Russia over Ukraine escalates.
Blinken, who landed in Melbourne on Wednesday, is expected to spend three days in Australia.
He will attend on Friday a meeting with the foreign ministers of the “Quad” grouping, a US- led bloc that includes Australia, Japan and India, and was set up to counter China’s military and economic clout.
Blinken will then head to Fiji to meet a number of Pacific island leaders, many of whom are being wooed by China.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Monday urged Russia to in dialogue amid tensions between Moscow and Kyiv.
“
▪ Speaking at a news conference following a meeting of the National Security Committee of
remain engaged
”
the Cabinet,
▪ He said that this week the foreign ministers of Quad, comprising the US, India, Japan, and Australia, are going to meet and they will also discuss the Ukraine crisis as well.
▪ "We would be urging Russia to remain engaged in the reciprocal dialogue. And any breach of Ukraine's territorial sovereignty is not a mark of peace, it is a mark of those
who would seek to take sovereignty from others for whom it should reside with,"
▪ Morrison reaffirmed his country
▪ "Australia supports Ukraine's sovereignty and their territorial integrity. And we will continue to stand with them on these issues and continue to engage with our
Morrison said they discussed the
“
deteriorating
”
situation in Ukraine.
he said.
’
s support to Ukraine.
partners on these very difficult issues as they continue to evolve,"
he said.
▪ Morrison has once again urged Australians still in Ukraine to leave the country. "All
Australians in Ukraine, we have
with a very clear message
to contact them all over the last few weeks,
-
endeavoured
now is the time to leave," he said.
“
will take with him on this trip is that
The key message that the secretary
our partnerships deliver,
”
said Assistant Secretary of State for East
Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel
Kritenbrink
.
“
foreign economic and security
The Quad is a key component of US
policy in the Indo
-
Pacific region
s through this partnership that
It
’
coercion.
...
we
environment in the region to push back against aggression and
’
re strengthening the security
”
Marise Payne, Australia’s minister for foreign affairs, said the Quad ministers will focus on vaccine distribution in the region, cyber- and critical technology, countering malicious disinformation, counterterrorism, security and climate change.
“As a network of liberal democracies we are committed to very practical cooperation and ensuring that all Indo-Pacific nations – large and small – are able to make their own strategic decisions and make those decisions free from coercion,” she told Australia’s ABC radio.
While China is expected to top Blinken’s agenda at the Quad, the growing relationship between Beijing and Moscow will also be a topic for discussion, according to US officials.
The issue is particularly pertinent for the US, with Chinese President Xi Jinping
and Russian leader Vladimir Putin
having declared a “no limits” strategic partnership during their recent meeting at the Winter Olympics in Beijing.
In their joint statement, the two leaders pledged mutual protection of core interests – an apparent reference to Russia and Ukraine as well as China and Taiwan, a self- ruled island that Beijing claims as its own.
The statement also denounced US moves to counter China through
AUKUS, a pact under which the US and UK will provide Australia with
nuclear-powered submarines.
US officials say they expect Blinken’s meeting with his Quad counterparts to help set the agenda for a summit of the group’s leaders in Japan, expected sometime mid-year.
After Australia and Fiji, Blinken is expected to travel to Hawaii to meet his Japanese and South Korean counterparts and discuss concerns over North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.
New Delhi’s greatest concerns are:
1. World War scenario: Any conflict- where the U.S. and its European allies are ranged against Russia will impact the whole world- economically and in terms of security, and India, as a partner to both Moscow and Washington will either have to take sides, or be prepared to deal with unhappiness from both sides.
2. S-400 delivery and US waiver: The crisis comes precisely as India’s purchase of the Russian S-400 missile system is under way- and New Delhi hopes for a waiver of U.S. sanctions on this. Conflict will complicate both the delivery of the system, and the possibility of a presidential waiver.
3. Moves focus from China: Just as U.S. and Europe had grown more focussed on their Indo-Pacific strategy that puts India centre-stage, and India grapples with Chinese aggression and land-grab at the Line of Actual Control, and 100,000 troops along the boundary on both sides, the world’s attention is diverted from China to Russia.
4. Brings Russia China closer- the Crisis will make Moscow more dependent on friends like China, and build a regional bloc of sorts that India is not a part of. In Beijing this week, the future seems evident- as India has announced a diplomatic and political boycott of the Olympic games- while Putin, Central Asian Presidents, and Pakistan PM Imran Khan are all in Beijing to stand in solidarity with Xi Jinping.
5. Energy crisis: In any conflict- Europe worries Russia will turn down gas and oil supplies- driving energy prices up. Already tensions have pushed oil prices up 14% in a month past $90 and analyst say they could hit $125 a barrel if the situation is not resolved.
6. Indians in Ukraine: As India’s UN envoy pointed out in his speech- India has more than 20,000 nationals in Ukraine, mostly medical students, as well as business professionals in the field of pharma, IT and engineering- and the government is concerned about their safety in the event of a crisis, although MEA says it is not at present evacuating citizens.
Why it is correct?
▪ US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is visiting Australia with the aim of shoring up Indo-Pacific partnerships and countering China’s growing power, even as a crisis with Russia over Ukraine escalates.
▪ He will attend on Friday a meeting with the foreign ministers of
the “Quad” grouping, a US-led bloc that includes Australia, Japan and India, and was set up to counter China’s military and economic clout.
▪ Blinken will then head to Fiji to meet a number of Pacific island leaders, many of whom are being wooed by China.
2. Kicking Russia out SWIFT payment system could backfire
As tensions exacerbate between Washington and Moscow over Ukraine, political commentators say that the United States could, as a last resort, exclude Russia
Society for Worldwide Interbank
Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT),
international network for banks worldwide to facilitate smooth money transactions globally.
The move could have serious repercussions on how Russian banks carry out international financial transactions.
Kylv to demand that Russia disconnect from SWIFT
What happens if one is excluded from SWIFT ?
If a country is excluded from the most participatory financial facilitating platform, its foreign funding would take a hit, making it entirely reliant on domestic investors.
This is particularly troublesome when institutional investors are constantly seeking new markets in newer territories.
Are any countries excluded from SWIFT? — Iran
SWIFT claims to be neutral. Its shareholders, consisting of 3,500 firms across the globe, elect the 25-member board, which is responsible for oversight and management of the company.
It is regulated by G-10 central banks from Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, Switzerland, and Sweden, alongside the European Central Bank.
The SWIFT oversight forum was established in 2012. The G-10 participants were joined by the central banks of India, Australia, Russia, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, the Republic of Turkey, and the People’s Republic of China.
Europe, Middle East, and Africa highest
contributors to SWIFT
In
2021, the SWIFT financial messaging platform
had recorded an average of 42 million FIN
messages per day, as per the data on its website.
The full
year
-year figure was an 11.4% growth on a
-over-year basis.
Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, combined,
sent approximately
with
4.42 billion interactions,
with the Asia Pacific
4.66
billion messages. The
Americas and the United Kingdom stood second
on third with an approximate
1.50
billion
messages.
The Size Of The Ukrainian Economy Is Only Slightly Smaller Than The EU’s Trade With Russia
With increasing talk in the United States and European Union about cutting off Russia from the global SWIFT network in what is seen as a military buildup threatening Ukraine, the question then turns to the alternative networks Russia can employ.
Perhaps in advance warning of further trouble ahead, Belarus, which borders both Russia and Ukraine, has begun the process of disconnecting its own financial systems from the SWIFT network and connecting them instead to Russia’s System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS) alternative.
While Russia’s SPFS can be three times cheaper than SWIFT, the network itself is only operational during weekday working hours and its messages are limited to 20kb in size. SWIFT, meanwhile, works 24/7 and allows 10mb to be transmitted across its network.
The SPFS is the Russian equivalent of SWIFT and was
since 2014, after the United States government threatened to disconnect Russia from the
developed by the
Central Bank of Russia
SWIFT system.
▪ The first transaction on the SPFS network involving a non-bank enterprise was executed in December 2017.
over Russian
network.
400 institutions (mostly banks) are part of the
As of March 2018,
▪ That means that the SPFS system supports intra-Russian transactions, however the problem with any SWIFT disconnection would be the absence of international connectivity.
▪ That then becomes a question as to how quickly Russia is able to integrate SPFS with other systems, and whether or not the United States would also place sanctions on countries connecting to SPFS.
▪ SWIFT is a messaging network used by banks and financial institutions globally for quick and faultless exchange of information pertaining to financial transactions
▪ As tensions exacerbate between Washington and Moscow over Ukraine, political commentators say that the United States could, as a last resort, exclude Russia from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), an international network for banks worldwide to facilitate smooth money transactions globally.
▪ The move could have serious repercussions on how Russian banks carry out international financial transactions.
Head Quarters: Belgium
Credit Ankit Avasti Sir
No comments:
Post a Comment