Essay Example on Iran's Illiberal Democracy and Internal Power Play

Introduction

There has been internal power play between moderates' and the radicals in Iran, leading to folly aggression between leaders. In 2019, the Iran Foreign Minister Zarif's attempted to resign due to existing divisions between moderates" and hardliners. This happening sheds light on the illiberal democracy in Iran. Iran's style of government is democratic in nature as Iranians go to the ballot box to elect their president and parliamentarians, but the elected representatives are not the real leaders of the government (Ansari, 2019). Iran's government is an example of illiberal democracy in the twenty-first century as despite depicting a democratic nature, there exists a government supreme leader who holds lifetime tenure and is the most important figure in the government.

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The president of Iran Hassan Rouhani elected in a majority win in 2013 is the countries Chief executive and mandated to the running of the countries day-to-day activities of the Country. The president and the elected parliamentarians who are the representatives of the Iranian population together with the Judicial system headed by Ebrahim Raisi form the National Government. The national government is answerable to the country's non-elected supreme leader Ali Khamenei who has held the Supreme Leader position since 1989. The supreme leader is the only one who has control over the countries domestic and foreign policy and is the commander in chief of the army and all other security organs.

Since the 1979 constitution, which was amended in 1989, the countries authority lies in the hands of the Supreme Leader and not the elected president. The supreme leader closely monitors the national government operations to ensure they are aligned to the "clerical commissars" interests since they are known to be the supreme leader's long arms. For the stability of such a nation with illiberal democracy, the need for co-operation between the national government and the supreme leaders is paramount. All elected presidents in Iran have shown total co-operation to the supreme leader leading to the question, will Iran ever attain total and real democracy?

China Effort to Take Control over the North Korea Conundrum

After the second meeting between Trump and Kim in Hanoi, there were many countries that offered to be powerbrokers in the high profile international negotiation. Trump and Kim vowed to be at the forefront to ensure there is peace in North Korea amid its nuclear weapon aggression and testing. China, as one of the economic and political power in North-East Asia, was at the forefront of charting a way forward towards the denuclearization of North Korea. However, China was to face the challenge of the broader security and political orders of North Korea to effectively have control in the North Korea Conundrum. Thus in the pursuit of the power control goal, it was paramount for China as an economic and political power in the region to establish whether North Korea would be an asset to China or a strategic liability?

Accoerding to Easley and Park (2016) based on the aggressive behavior of Pyongyang, there was a possibility that North Korea would be a strategic liability. Pyongyang would spark chaos and wars over China borders hence attract fury from Washington and other world security leaders. It also appears that North Korea was dragging China to enter into a strategic situation but which China analysts could see as disastrous and detrimental to China; hence out rightly taking power control in North Korea was a strategic liability. The existing rift between China and South Korea over THAAD anti-missile systems would affect China's security interests. China, as a member of the global nuclear powers club, North Korea nuclearization, would lead to other countries like South Korea and Japan to develop their own nuclear weapons, a concept China as a government could not support.

Thus China would suffer economically and politically if it opted to move ahead and seek to take control over the North Korea conundrum.

The US and China Government Trade War

The US government has long raised concerns over US trade with China. Since the year 2017 to early 2020, US President Donald Trump has accused China of intellectual property theft and unfair trade practices. Currently, the US and China are among the global largest economies, and trade between the countries also impacts the economies of all other countries globally. According to Carpenter (2015) as the US accuses China of unfair trading in the international trade arena, China feels that the US is concern that China may grow to become a global economic power hence trying to curb the move silently.

As at the beginning of 2020, there was a bitter trade rivalry and battle between the two global economic giants. The US had imposed tariffs on Chinas goods worth hundreds of billions of dollars so as to discourage China's goods imports into the country. China, on the other hand, had imposed tariffs on the US produced imports to the country worth $110bn. Beijing's retaliation to US trade rivalry led to imposing a tariff ranging from five to twenty-five percent on all American goods. American exports were greatly affected as China opted for new import markets leading to an imbalance in trade in Washington.

For the US, the trade war protected the US local industry but impacted the country's economy. For China, it had lost one of its largest global importers, thus impacting its economy too. The two governments decided to enter a trade deal that would easy the existing trade war between the countries. The deal was in phases, and the first phase was signed by President Donald Trump and the China Government Vice Premier Lui He. It was agreed that the US would halve all the new tariffs it had imposed on China goods while China would boost US imports and strengthen the existing intellectual property rules.

References

Ansari, A. M. (2019). Iran, Islam and democracy: The politics of managing change. Gingko Library.

Carpenter, T. G. (2015). America's coming war with China: A collision course over Taiwan. St. Martin's Press.

Easley, L. E., & Park, I. Y. (2016). China's norms in its near abroad: Understanding Beijing's North Korea policy. Journal of Contemporary China, 25(101), 651-668.