Media

The full text of this article is available here on ForeignPolicy.com. What in the world? No seriously, what the…? When it comes to Saudi Arabia these days, things could not get weirder or uglier. Last November, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman forced Lebanon’s Prime Minister to resign—from Riyadh in a television appearance that had all the characteristics of a hostage video. At the same time, Saudi authorities detained almost 400 people in the Ritz-Carlton over corruption charges, only to release them after they handed over significant sums of cash and assets in what appeared to be little more than a shakedown. This past spring and summer, the government began arresting women activists, some of whom had been at the forefront of the decades long fight to drive that ended with a lift on the ban in June, and declared them traitors. Then, in August, Saudi leaders lashed out at Canada over a tweet criticizing their treatment of oppositionists—canceling flights, preventing Saudi students on government scholarship from studying at Canadian universities, and transferring sick Saudis from Canada’s hospitals. All of this was going on against the backdrop of the ill-conceived war in Yemen. And now, a Saudi journalist named Jamal Khashoggi—a onetime confidant of senior Saudi officials and princes—has vanished. He disappeared into Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul consulate on Oct. 2 and has not been heard from since. The Turks say he is dead, killed in the consulate by a hit team, with his body removed in boxes. The Saudis have declared this grisly tale nonsense and insist Khashoggi left the consulate not long after he arrived.

This article first appeared here on ForeignPolicy.com on October 9, 2018. What in the world? No seriously, what the…? When it comes to Saudi Arabia these days, things could not get weirder or uglier. Last November, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman forced Lebanon’s Prime Minister to resign—from Riyadh in a television appearance that had all the characteristics of a hostage video. At the same time, Saudi authorities detained almost 400 people in the Ritz-Carlton over corruption charges, only to release them after they handed over significant sums of cash and assets in what appeared to be little more than a shakedown. This past spring and summer, the government began arresting women activists, some of whom had been at the forefront of the decades long fight to drive that ended with a lift on the ban in June, and declared them traitors. Then, in August, Saudi leaders lashed out at Canada over a tweet criticizing their treatment of oppositionists—canceling flights, preventing Saudi students on government scholarship from studying at Canadian universities, and transferring sick Saudis from Canada’s hospitals. All of this was going on against the backdrop of the ill-conceived war in Yemen. And now, a Saudi journalist named Jamal Khashoggi—a onetime confidant of senior Saudi officials and princes—has vanished. He disappeared into Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul consulate on Oct. 2 and has not been heard from since. The Turks say he is dead, killed in the consulate by a hit team, with his body removed in boxes. The Saudis have declared this grisly tale nonsense and insist Khashoggi left the consulate not long after he arrived. When the story broke on Saturday by way of a thinly sourced Reuters story followed by more substantial coverage from the Washington Post—where Khashoggi had become a columnist last year—a social media uproar ensued. Twitter was alight with frightened and outraged fellow journalists, analysts recounting a litany of alleged Saudi crimes, politicians demanding accountability, activists with maudlin paeans to a now apparently martyred critic, Saudis arguing that Khashoggi disappeared because he got cold feet over his impending marriage to a Turkish woman, and a few voices cautioning that the declarations of known Justice and Development Party (AKP) provocateurs and unnamed “Turkish security sources” should be taken with a grain of salt. It was a massive outpouring of bile and one-upmanship that was notable even by the notoriously low standards of Twitter. The most important question has been left unanswered, of course: What happened to Jamal Khashoggi? It seems abundantly clear that he never left the consulate, and the Saudi explanation that they cannot prove it because their security cameras weren’t working that day has a “dog ate my homework” quality to it.  If he is not dead and really is a runaway groom, then surely someone must have seen him somewhere—there must be a trail of credit card charges, ATM transactions, or grainy footage from the departure gates at the airport in Istanbul before he made his getaway. For their part, Turkish police sources claim it was premeditated murder, but thus far they have not offered any proof. The Turkish state’s Anadolu news agency, which has often had a problem with the truth, added to the story with ominous reports that 15 Saudis flew into Istanbul aboard two different private jets, that this apparent hit team was in the consulate at the time of Khashoggi’s disappearance, and they all left on Oct. 2. Still, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seemed to back away from these claims on Sunday, before taking a tougher stand the following day. Either he is being atypically diplomatic—the Saudis and Turks are wary of each other but have worked to remain cordial despite significant differences—or the Turks have suspicions, but little evidence of Saudi misdeeds. It also seems odd that Khashoggi, who was fearful enough for his well-being to leave Saudi Arabia and live in self-imposed exile in the United States, believed that visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul—twice—was safe. The press reports that Khashoggi went there to obtain paperwork attesting to the fact that he is not married—he is divorced—before tying the knot with a 36-year old Turkish woman named Hatice Cengiz. To make things weirder, the Saudi press claims that Khashoggi’s son, who is still in Saudi Arabia, knows nothing of Cengiz and his father’s engagement to her. Of course, given the response to Khashoggi’s disappearance, the son is almost certainly under significant pressure to stick with Riyadh’s version of events. One can imagine that the Saudi authorities, already paranoid about the Qataris and their allies, were suspicious of Khashoggi’s fiancee given her alleged connections to Qatar and someone in Erdogan’s inner circle named Yasin Aktay. He has been identified as a friend of Khashoggi’s and an “AKP advisor” in the press, but he is much more than that. Aktay is more like a troubleshooter and troublemaker on behalf of the Turkish president. Indeed, Cengiz’s Twitter feed reveals that she does follow people who are critics of Saudi Arabia, organizations known to enjoy Qatari funding, Muslim Brothers—to whom Khashoggi was sympathetic—and Turkey’s ruling party, but so do a lot of people, including myself. Everything that everyone has said about Jamal Khashoggi to date remains speculation. The only thing that has been confirmed is that no one has seen the man in over a week. He is presumed dead. Are there any lessons to be learned from this episode? A few. It is surprising that there are so many who seem all too willing to accept the version of events that are attributed to Turkish security sources. These claims were uncorroborated—and remain so—but were quickly accepted as fact. This does not mean that they are untrue, but Turkey is a country with a poor record of press freedom, and its leaders and their supporters have embraced disinformation as a political strategy and a tool of foreign policy. Even if the Turks have no incentive to lie, commentators should be cautious before engaging in public melodrama over Khashoggi’s fate based on Turkish leaks. Second, the Saudis need to ask themselves why they have even less credibility than the Turks. It is likely that they will blame everyone but themselves for this state of affairs, but the disappearance of Khashoggi is just the latest in a list of bizarre series of events for which the Saudis have offered a variety of explanations that have more often than not been met with collective disbelief. No doubt there are dedicated Saudi critics out there who would assail the Saudis no matter what they do, but even to fair-minded observers, they seem guilty because their stories rarely add up, leading one to conclude that they must be guilty. To many, the Saudis are now cold-blooded killers, and Mohammed bin Salman is not a benevolent despot—an image that he and his advisors have cultivated—but a despot in the mold of Saddam Hussein. Finally, and most poignantly, journalists, academics, dissidents, and oppositionists should fear for their lives. Governments have long targeted these groups, but now seems to be a particularly dangerous moment, especially for journalists. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been ordering the killing people he does not like at will—on St. Petersburg streets, at Washington hotels, in small British cities, and elsewhere. Turkey, the leading jailer of journalists in the world, has kidnapped followers of the exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen in Asia and Europe—and just before the Khashoggi disappearance, one of Erdogan’s closest advisors warned that Turkey’s dragnet would extend across the globe. Egypt is also a notorious jailer of reporters, holds countless other who oppose the regime, is responsible for the brutal death of an Italian graduate student, and killed at least 800 people in a Cairo neighborhood in a single morning in August 2013. China recently disappeared the Chinese head of Interpol and has interned a million people in concentration camps. Now, the Saudis stand accused of murder. If they did it, they will likely get away with it—not on Twitter or the editorial pages of the Washington Post and the New York Times, but where it counts: in the White House. Ours is an era of international thuggishness combined with a total absence of norms. That makes everyone a target.  

The Nigerian formal judicial system, based on colonial precedent, is notoriously slow and often expensive. In effect, accessibility to justice is limited, and some would say its non-existent for the majority of Nigerians that are poor. Hence the popularity of courts conducted by traditional and religious rulers (many times the same individuals). These are often of colonial or pre-colonial origin. Islamic courts based on Sharia, or Islamic law, are especially popular in the predominately-Muslim parts of the country. Such courts have credibility with the people, especially in rural areas, and, as a practical matter, government officials usually accept their decisions. (Appeals to the formal judicial system from traditional courts are possible, but very expensive.)  Unable to rely on the state, urban Nigerians are also finding alternative ways to address their grievances. Some are turning to a radio show, “The Bakete Family,” hosted by Ahman Isah and broadcast by Human Rights Radio six days a week from Abuja. Participants reportedly present themselves at the studio or call in. Those selected present the alleged injustices they have suffered, ranging from unjustified firings to domestic disputes. The show names and shames government officials and unresponsive departments and also tries to mediate disputes, especially domestic ones. On occasion, it publicizes the phone numbers of government officials, urging listeners to call them to demand they take action. There is anecdotal evidence that the method works—at least sometimes. There are no listener figures, but media reports that there are large crowds that gather outside the show’s studio each morning.  “Shaming” would appear to be especially effective in a profoundly religious country, such as Nigeria. Ahman Isah says, “The laws are there, but the enforcement is nothing.” According to Isah, “It is as good as not being there. The laws only favor the rich and the mighty in the country, ordinary Nigerians are not being protected by law.” But, he also says, “One who has nothing has God, and one who has God has everything.” Most Nigerians would probably agree. For more on Nigeria, Matthew Page and I provide an overview of its politics, history, and culture, including the threat of Boko Haram and religious conflicts in our new book, Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know, which was published by Oxford University Press in July.

In this edition: the effects of internet censorship in China, the malicious uses of artificial intelligence, and U.S. Cyber Command's strategy to achieve domain superiority.

Each year, Reporters Without Borders (RWB) publishes a list of 180 countries rank-ordered according to the degree of freedom the media enjoys. RWB uses objective criteria, which it outlines on its website. It cautions that it is measuring media freedom, not media quality. Its list is divided into five bands, from best to worst.  The top band consists of seventeen countries, mostly in Europe but none from the African continent. The second band consists of thirty countries, five of which are African. For comparison’s sake, it includes countries like Canada (no. 18), France (33), the United Kingdom (40), and the United States (45). The African countries are as follows: Ghana (23), Namibia (26), South Africa (28), Cape Verde (29), and Burkina Faso (41). In these African countries, freedom of the media is roughly equivalent to that of the United States and big NATO allies. In fact, they all actually rank higher than the United States and, with the exception of Burkina Faso, the United Kingdom.  The third band runs from Botswana (48) to Bolivia (110). There are twenty-one African countries, including Senegal (50), Liberia (89), and Kenya (96). Others in this band include Hong Kong (70), Mongolia (71), and Israel (87).  The fourth band runs from Bulgaria (111) to Kazakhstan (158). This band includes seventeen African countries, including most of the large ones: Uganda (117), Nigeria (119), Angola (121), Ethiopia (150), and the Democratic Republic of Congo (154). This band also includes India (138), Russia (148), and Turkey (157).   The fifth and final band, representing the countries with the worst media freedom, runs from Burundi (159) to North Korea (180). It includes five African countries in addition to Burundi: Somalia (168), Equatorial Guinea (171), Djibouti (173), Sudan (174), and Eritrea (179). This band also includes Cuba (172), China (176), and Syria (177). The bad news is that the twenty-eight African countries in the bottom half of the list outnumber the twenty-one in the top half. Further, Africa’s largest states by population are in the bottom half: Nigeria, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The good news is that the top half includes almost all of the states of the southern cone (Namibia, South Africa, Botswana, and Lesotho), Ghana, and several francophone states around the continent, such as Senegal, Madagascar, Niger, and Ivory Coast. Other good news is that the five African states comparable in media freedom to the United States include two large, important ones: Ghana and South Africa. The RWB index provides a useful tool for comparing media freedom around the continent. It also provides yet another example of the diversity of the African continent. With respect to media freedom, Ghana and South Africa, for example, are far removed from Sudan and Eritrea.   

The 2017 Taco Kuiper Award for Investigative Journalism went to a group of three media outlets that investigated and reported on the Gupta brothers, cronies of Jacob Zuma and widely accused of exercising improper influence or “state capture.” The three were News24, The Daily Maverick, and the amaBhungane Center for Investigative Journalism. News24 is an online news publication company, the Daily Maverick is a daily online newspaper, and amaBhungame is a non-profit. Even under the assaults of the Jacob Zuma administration, South Africa was characterized by constitutionalism, an independent judiciary, and the rule of law. Strong civil society, a free media, a sophisticated parliamentary opposition, and judges who regularly ruled against the government played interdependent roles in protecting South Africa’s democratic institutions. The media publicized corruption to the general public, civil society did not hesitate to sue the administration in the courts, and the formal parliamentary opposition was able to delay or block unfavorable parliamentary initiatives put forth by Zuma. Taco Kuiper, a wealthy publisher and businessman, established the Valley Trust before he died in 2004. Its purpose is to develop investigative journalism. South African media estimates that it is worth more than 70 million rand. The trust is closely associated with the School of Journalism at the University of the Witwatersrand (“Wits”) where it funds a chair of investigative journalism. It makes available up to 350,000 rand annually for print journalists or print publications seeking help to investigate and report on issues of public interest and awards the Taco Kuiper award each year. The award is an example of the close relationship between civil society and the media. The Valley Trust and amaBhungame are in some way both civic and media organizations. News24 and the Daily Maverick are for-profit media outfits. The Taco Kuiper Award statement focused on the close collaboration among the three organizations in their investigation of and reporting on the Guptas and their influence on the South African government.  

China is believed to spend billions of dollars to boost its international image, but it has yet to see a marked return on its investment in soft power.

The recent spate of articles and books on rising Chinese influence in the Australian and New Zealand political systems has prompted U.S. officials, journalists, and others to take a harder look at how Beijing is shaping U.S. policy toward China. Already there have been articles in the press suggesting that university and think tank scholars are likely targets for Chinese influence. Yet before any steps are taken to counter this perceived influence, we need to spend time understanding the nature and implications of what the Chinese government is doing to ensure not only that we get the response right but also that we protect against a witch hunt in which American scholars and analysts are attacked with innuendo instead of real evidence. My personal observations suggest that there are some fairly straightforward challenges that Chinese influence presents to U.S. political integrity and, in some cases, equally straightforward measures that the United States government as well as private institutions and actors can undertake to respond. Market Access Some channels of Chinese influence over U.S. political and social discourse are obvious. Beijing has more than one hundred Confucius Institutes located throughout the United States. (The United States has only three somewhat equivalent American Centers in China.) The Chinese government sponsors a 24-hour English language news channel, radio stations, and multiple newspapers in the United States. No American media outlet has an equivalent opportunity to provide its content directly to the Chinese people. Rectifying this imbalance will likely require adopting reciprocity—doing to China what China does to the United States. There are many areas in which reciprocity could be initiated, but as a first step, the United States should consider prohibiting the establishment of additional Confucius Institutes unless Beijing reciprocates by permitting more American Corners. The Exchange Business The most potent weapon Beijing wields over American China analysts is the power to grant and deny visas for travel to China. Some U.S. scholars who are critical of China or tackle particularly sensitive political topics have been banned from the country for decades; others sometimes receive visas and sometimes do not; still others are made to wait until the last minute, are hauled in for discussions at the Embassy or local Consulate, or are granted a visa but denied meetings with Chinese officials. Visas allow the Chinese government to subject U.S. scholars to the same implicit threat that its own scholars face—if you cross the invisible line, you will face serious consequences, so best to remain far away from the line to begin with. Less frequently, but more intrusively, some Chinese authorities also try to influence the make-up of U.S. delegations by proposing specific U.S. participants. The objective here is to ensure that in any bilateral discussion there are voices on the American side sympathetic to the Chinese perspective. While the U.S. government can play a role in restricting visas for Chinese scholars and officials, the real power rests with American universities, think tanks, and scholars—acting both collectively and as individuals. No organization—whether a think tank, university, or other cultural institution—should agree to move forward with a project if one of its participants is denied entry to China. Beyond that, universities should ensure that all their faculty are permitted to travel to Beijing before agreeing to significant exchanges and partnerships or the establishment of centers and institutes in China. Universities have significant political leverage through these collaborative efforts: they should use their influence to ensure that all their scholars have access. In addition, organizations should not allow Chinese authorities to place specific U.S. scholars on U.S. delegations. Unless both sides are jointly determining the make-up of a conference or dialogue, there is no reason that the Chinese side should be allowed to influence the choice of who participates on the American side. The Censorship Dilemma The Chinese government also tries to shape the narrative provided by U.S. think tank and university scholars by censoring their appearances on Chinese television, interviews in Chinese newspapers, and books. In one case, a well-known Chinese publishing house not only eliminated significant sections of a book on American foreign policy but also placed its own content into the book—creating entirely new passages. Apparently the publisher believed that the American author would not check the Chinese translation. The opportunity to speak directly to one billion Chinese through interviews or books is a tempting one, and it is easy to think that “saying something is better than saying nothing.” But censorship is a slippery slope. At every juncture, an American scholar should decide whether to accept any censorship, and if the answer is yes, how much censorship is too much censorship. Unless an American scholar has a guarantee of an unadulterated view, a wiser course is to deny Chinese government media outlets the opportunity to feature opinions from American analysts. In any case, many Chinese are adept at circumventing Internet controls and accessing the ideas of western scholars through western media outlets and publications.   The Stranger in our Midst Beijing is now also actively supporting the establishment of Chinese think tanks in the United States. For example, in Washington, D.C., the Institute for China-America Studies (ICAS) is supported by the Hainan Nanhai Research Foundation, which, in turn, is backed by the government-affiliated National Institute for South China Sea studies. A perusal of the website of this institute indicates that it presents unexceptional and largely unobjectionable reporting and analysis. Yet, its commentary is nonetheless skewed: while there is some critical analysis of U.S. policy, there is none on China. In this way, ICAS is not a think tank but a channel for propaganda. If such Chinese think tanks proliferate, it is plausible that more positive assessments of China will begin to shape the broader U.S.-China debate, lending more weight to the Chinese government position while attempting to maintain a veneer of independence. Given the restrictive nature of the recent Chinese law on the management of foreign NGOs, Beijing’s desire to support Chinese think tanks on U.S. soil should provide an opportunity for the U.S. government to push for greater leeway in activities for U.S. think tanks with operations in China. Otherwise, Washington could consider what types of reciprocal measures might be appropriate. Pay to Play Chinese money—tens of millions of dollars—is now entering into the world of U.S. think tanks and university centers and institutes through private Chinese foundations and individuals. Much of this money is dedicated to promoting work on U.S.-China relations. It is too early to determine the effect of such money on the substance of the research. However, even if the funding does not directly affect research findings, it may well affect the research agenda. For example, a research project funded by Chinese money is more likely to focus on “How the United States and China can cooperate” than “Challenges the United States faces from growing Chinese power.” U.S. money for China-related policy analysis is scarce, and there is significant competition for the funds provided by foundations such as Luce, Starr, Smith-Richardson, and the Carnegie Corporation, among others. If Chinese money is utilized, institutions and scholars should be transparent and ensure that there is no opportunity for the Chinese funder to affect the research agenda or outcome. In this regard, the decision by the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies to accept money from a sitting Chinese official for a chair on China, with the proviso that this chair direct a program in conjunction with, and serve as liaison to, the funder’s own foundation/think tank, was clearly a mistake. The American Obligation While the United States seeks to understand and curtail opportunities for the Chinese government to influence U.S. political discourse through think tank and university scholars, it should ensure that facts trump rumors and avoid overreacting. In the current divisive and amped-up U.S. political environment, there is significant danger that educational institutions, think tanks, and scholars will be caught up in a rush to root out Chinese influence. There is an added danger, as well, that these investigations are merely the tip of the iceberg—that the United States will soon be embroiled in a witch hunt that will ensnare unsuspecting and innocent Chinese students and scholars, as well as the larger community of Chinese-Americans. The United States has experienced many waves of anti-foreign hysteria, only to be followed by a deep sense of shame once cooler heads prevail. We have seen this movie before and it does not end well; there is no need to play it again.     

One of the world’s most-watched news networks is at the center of a geopolitical rift between a Saudi-led bloc and the broadcaster’s funder, Qatar.

Last week, the Council on Foreign Relations hosted the fifth annual Conference on Diversity in International Affairs in collaboration with the Global Access Pipeline (GAP) and the International Career Advancement Program (ICAP) and with the generous support of the Robina Foundation. The conference, which is part of CFR's broader and longstanding initiative to help make the American foreign policy community more representative of American society as a whole, aims to connect professionals and students from underrepresented backgrounds with career opportunities in international affairs. Like in past years, the discussion were lively and informative. The opening discussion featured Calvin Sims, president and chief executive officer of International House and a former reporter for the New York Times. Mira Patel, former senior advisor at the Small Business Administration and former advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Policy Planning Staff, facilitated a great conversation about how the lack of diversity in the news media and in the foreign policy community "means that you're not having a product that is as informative" as it should be. The conference featured two other on-the-record sessions. The first was a fascinating discussion about the changing role of the media with Margaret Talev, senior White House reporter at Bloomberg News, and Vivian Salama, White House reporter for the Associated Press. You can watch their conversation, which Beverly Kirk moderated below:  The other on-the-record discussion looked at today's global hotspots. My CFR colleagues Elliott Abrams and Sheila Smith shared their thoughts, as did Alina Polyakova of the Atlantic Council. Tiffany McGriff, a foreign service officer on leave from the State Department this year at CFR as an International Affairs Fellow, moderated that wide ranging discussion.   I highly recommend all three videos. And you can find links to videos from past Diversity in International Affairs conferences, which have featured speakers such as Susan Rice and Kalpen Modi, here. Corey Cooper assisted in the preparation of this post.