Donald Trump and Presidential Transitions

• After one of the most contentious elections and presidential transitions in recent history, it was a relatively scaled-back inauguration ceremony that finally placed 46th President of the U.S. Joe Biden in the Oval Office.
• The devastating human and economic toll of the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with deep partisan rancour and the bitter aftertaste of the Capitol building attack earlier this month, meant that Inauguration Day was less a flamboyant extravaganza than a quiet celebration of multicultural America reasserting itself.
• There could have been no greater symbol of that assertion than the swearing-in of Kamala Harris, his running mate of Indian and African descent, as Vice-President — the first woman ever to hold that position. Mr. Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, chose to not attend the event, making him only the fourth President to do so.

• Nevertheless, bipartisan goodwill was present on the dais before the Capitol building, as Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts administered the oath of office to Mr. Biden, including former Vice-President Mike Pence, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and former President George W. Bush.
• It was bipartisanship and societal healing that appeared to be the theme of Mr. Biden’s speech, as he vowed to unite all Americans to fight the foes they faced, of “Anger, resentment, hatred. Extremism, lawlessness, violence. Disease, joblessness, hopelessness”.
• To the world, he committed to lead “by the power of our example”.
• It was a demonstration of not only power but political intent when, on his first day in office, Mr. Biden expediently reversed a range of Trump-era actions by issuing 17 executive orders and directives to cancel the U.S.’s exit from the Paris Climate Agreement and WHO, include non-citizens in the census count, protect immigrants under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme from heightened risk of deportation, revoke the “Remain in Mexico” policy, halt construction of the infamous southern border wall and end the egregious “Muslim ban”.
• While these decisive actions may have felt like a balm to Democrats, he would do well to remember, as he goes about dismantling the Trump legacy, that 74 million people voted for his opponent, and Mr. Trump has encouraged them to believe that the election was stolen.
• If the Capitol building attack was an indication of the unhinged rage seething below the ostensibly peaceful transfer of power, it may not be long before the America of economically disenchanted white privilege again rears its head in a manner that today’s political victors find unsavoury.
• The fact that the White House, Senate and House of Representatives are now firmly in the grip of Democrats should not be cause for giving up on bipartisan moderation. Or else Mr. Biden’s search for a more perfect Union may take longer.

India – China Border dispute in Arunachal Pradesh

• China said its construction of a village across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Arunachal Pradesh was “beyond reproach” because it had “never recognised” Arunachal.
• India’s Ministry of External Affairs said earlier this week it was aware of the construction “along the LAC”.
• This followed a report showing satellite images of the village, built between November 2019 and November 2020 and located a couple of kilometres across the LAC, beyond what India sees as the border separating Arunachal Pradesh and Tibet, on the banks of the Tsari Chu river in Upper Subansiri district in Arunachal.
• Indian officials said this area has been under Chinese control since 1959. There are close to two dozen spots along the entire length of the LAC in all sectors where India and China do not agree on their alignment.
• Indian officials said China had earlier built permanent construction of military barracks in this area. The construction of the village has been seen by analysts as a move to bolster China’s claim to the area, and part of a broader recent push by China to build civilian settlements in disputed frontier areas, which it has also done with Bhutan.
• The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that China’s “position on Zangnan [or South Tibet, as China refers to Arunachal] region is consistent and clear”. “We never recognised the so-called Arunachal Pradesh,.
• “China’s development and construction activities within our own territory is normal. This is beyond reproach as it is in our territory.”
• The Communist Party-run Global Times newspaper, in a report earlier this week, said the area “has never been recognised by the Chinese government”.
• “China and India haven’t demarcated the borderline of this area yet. So they cannot accuse China of building a village on the Indian side,”.
• That is in large part because China has refused to exchange maps showing its LAC perception in the eastern sector, leaving unclear the extent of its claims on what is under its control. There is no doubt that the Tsari Chu basin is an inherent part of China’s territory” said the Chinese side.
• The site of the village is close to where China had attacked an Assam Rifles post in 1959, in what is known as the Longju incident, said south India-based Tibet scholar Claude Arpi. He said it is at least 2 km south of the McMahon Line, which China doesn’t recognise. After the 1962 war, India stopped patrolling the area.
• Mr. Arpi said the construction appeared to be part of a programme by China to build what it calls “poverty alleviation” villages. He estimates that under the initiative, launched after a Tibet economic work conference in 2015, some 600 villages have been built, of which around 100 are in border areas. “While the government calls them poverty alleviation villages, some of the villages in border areas are very remote with little economic activity there, so they appear to have a strategic purpose,” he said, adding that people had been moved to some of the new villages from other parts of Tibet, including families of herders, to occupy the newly built houses. Another village built last year, called Pangda, was built 2-3 km inside what Bhutan sees as its territory, in another disputed area.
• The new village in Arunachal is around 30 km from another well-known border village called Yumai, which made headlines in China in 2017 when President Xi Jinping sent a letter to its residents saying he hoped they “will motivate more herders to set down roots in the border area like gal sang flowers, and become guardians of Chinese territory”.
• In 2015, the Chinese National Geography magazine reported that “the Tibetan family’s residence there had helped China maintain control of the territory”, said a report in the South China Morning Post. “Yumai would be occupied by India already if the family had decided to leave,” the village’s head was quoted as saying.