International politics

The execution of Akmal Shaikh has brought China to our frontpages, and to the forefront of diplomatic thinking, as the New Year begins. The question is not just how to respond to this single and, in many regards, sad event – but how to deal with growing Chinese power more generally. How will we shape our relations with China for this decade and beyond? It would obviously be wrong to end all UK-China links over Akmal Shaikh’s execution. The Labour government's use of pique as a guiding principle of foreign policy had little effect on Russia and will not move China. Nor should anger over the excecution – however righteous or justified – occlude Britain's real interests in cordial Sino-Anglo relations.

As Melanie Phillips says in her article for this week's issue of the magazine, the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab highlights the role of other, less frequently discussed, countries in Islamist terror. One such country is Yemen, where Abdulmutallab is thought to have trained at an Al Qaeda camp. The US believes there may be a few hundred al Qaeda fighters in Yemen, centered on a group of key network leaders who are operating a number of camps.   Yemen has slowly been getting more international attention. A few weeks ago I was meant to go on Al Jazeera, but my appearance was cancelled at the last minute because, I was told, of other “breaking news”. Curious, I turned on BBC and searched the internet to find out what the headline-grabbing story could be.

If you're looking ahead to 2010, it's a safe bet that Iran is going to be an even bigger issue than it was this year.  The violence currently rocking the country is an echo of June's presidential election, and a reminder, too, of the continuing internal pressure that the Iranian regime faces.   The question now is whether that will be joined by external pressure of some form.  After provocation after procovation on Tehran's part, it's hard to envision the West keeping its "hand of friendship" outstretched much longer.  But it's also unlikely that  Barack Obama – his eyes on the domestic polls – will want to talk too tough after committing 30,000 more troops to the unpopular Afghan conflict.

I’m of the view that climate change is happening and that the evidence suggests that man’s actions are playing a significant role in this. I’m even in favour of a carbon tax to deal with the problem. But I’ll admit that this is a political issue as well as a scientific, and one that will become more politicised in the years to come. All of which makes me wonder if it is wise for Prince Charles to have gone to Copenhagen to warn that there are “only seven years before we lose the levers of control”. In his speech, the Prince proposed a series of measures designed to combat global warming and threw his name and position behind the International Investor Statement on Climate Change.

The President of the Maldives recently held a Cabinet meeting underwater, saying his islands may be submerged. In an open letter, taken from the climate change supplement in the latest issue of the The Spectator, Nils-Axel Mörner assures him his country is safe: Dear Mr President, You are obviously very concerned about the effect that sea level rises may have on the Maldives. Your Cabinet has been photographed meeting underwater, and you have even declared that ‘we are going to die’ if the climate change summit in Copenhagen fails. I am now writing with what I hope will be some good news. The scientific side of the situation is quite different to that which you imagine. You are, in fact, not going to die. Before I continue, I should perhaps state my credentials.

How seriously are we to take Lord Stern on the economics of climate change? At the LSE yesterday, he rather hysterically claimed that the Copenhagen summit will be "the most important international gathering since the Second World War". Crucially, he added that the cost of dealing with the problem may reach 5 percent of GDP. Even so, "it would still be a good deal," he said. Really? Losing world economic growth condemns millions in the Third World to poverty: the globalisation of the last 15 years has been the greatest anti-poverty tool ever invented. So we should not be blasé about sacrificing growth, as if all it means is smaller cars for the rich. Poverty kills, and so will forfeited economic growth. Stern would argue that climate change also kills.

The waiting will soon be over. Later today, the President Obama is expected to order around 34,000 troops into battle, including into Helmand province. This surge will be added to the additional 500 troops Gordon Brown committed yesterday and what sources tell me are cast-iron troop offers by another eight countries, including Turkey, Australia, Montenegro, and Georgia. If all these countries do sign up to send more troops, the credit must primarily go to Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the NATO Secretary-General, who has travelled far and wide in the attempt to drum up more military muscle.

Do we still have the will to win in Afghanistan? If so, the question the Iraq inquiry should be asking is not “how did we get into this war” - we have had a number of separate inquiries into that already – but “why were the military defeated on the ground in Basra?”. If the Chilcot Inquiry were to focus on that, it might actually serve a purpose: not just in unearthing new information (which it has signally failed to do so far) but drawing lessons that just might help the troops in Afghanistan. I make this point in my News of the World column today. I am in a tiny minority of people who a) supported the war in Iraq, and b) still admits it. People like me feel every bit as angry as the anti-war people about what happened next.

As President Obama continues to consider his options on Afghanistan, The New York Times has a good primer on what the military could do with the various levels of reinforcements being considered. This is what the military believes it could do with an extra 40,000 troops: "Should President Obama decide to send 40,000 additional American troops to Afghanistan, the most ambitious plan under consideration at the White House, the military would have enormous flexibility to deploy as many as 15,000 troops to the Taliban center of gravity in the south, 5,000 to the critical eastern border with Pakistan and 10,000 as trainers for the Afghan security forces.