Sangam (India) (AFP) – When the Cricket World Cup opens in India next month several players will carry Kashmiri willow wood bats, but manufacturers say over-exploitation of trees means their craft faces ruin.

Unchecked logging without replanting has reduced swathes of woodland to scrub in the disputed Indian-administered Himalayan territory, and bat manufacturers face a bleak future.

“It’s a case of culling all the time and no sowing,” said Irfan Ali Shah, a senior official in the government’s forest service.

Willow grows far more slowly than the more commercially viable poplar, and bat-makers warn the entire industry — a major employer — is at risk.

“We have started searching far-off corners of the valley, but there is not much good willow to be found anywhere for making the best quality bats,” said Fawzul Kabiir, whose GR8 bats are International Cricket Council-approved and sold worldwide.

“If the government doesn’t help plant again soon on a large scale… we will run out of raw material in three to five years,” he told AFP.

Found from Europe to central Asia, water-loving white willows — scientific name Salix alba — are deciduous trees growing up to 30 metres (100 feet) tall.

Numbers expanded enormously during the 19th century under British colonial rule, when plantations were laid for firewood during the freezing mountain winter.

The ready supply of willow — the wood favoured by cricketers — also sparked a craft in bats.

Tendulkar, Kohli and Waugh

Willow has criss-crossing fibres that give it strength and tiny air pockets that reduce vibrations, making the wood light but powerful enough to smash a ball for six.

International big hitters have traditionally preferred willow from England, but the same tree grows in Kashmir and every year the region now produces three million “clefts” — the rough-cut blocks of wood ready for shaping.

It is the bulk of global supply and bat-maker Kabiir, 31, insists: “The best Kashmir willow bat is at least as good as English willow.”

GR8 says its customers include cricketing greats from Indian heroes Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli to Australia’s Steve Waugh and South Africa’s Graeme Smith and AB de Villiers.

Kashmir’s bat-makers prospered over the decades as cricket’s popularity grew — demand surged after India’s 1983 World Cup win and the sport now has more than a billion fans globally.

Today, the industry employs some 120,000 people across 400 workshops, according to manufacturers.

It is a key contributor to the economy of Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region claimed in full by both India and Pakistan but split between them, with the portion controlled by New Delhi roiled by a long-running insurgency.

– ‘Near extermination’ –

But supplies are vanishing fast.

Agricultural scientists at Sher-e-Kashmir University have warned female willow trees — the most suitable for bat-making — are facing “near extermination” in Kashmir.

Nearly a million trees were logged in the past decade as the government removed plantations sucking up water from the shrinking Wular lake, protected under the United Nations Ramsar convention.

Elsewhere, willows have been hacked down to make space for farmland and rice paddies.

Demand for timber from other industries, including plywood and pencils, has meant some have replaced willow with swifter-growing poplar.

“A willow tree matures in 30 years and poplar in half the time, and it fetches the same price,” said Feroz Ahmed Reshi, whose family has supplied willow wood to bat-makers for generations. “This year, we planted 300 poplars and about five willows.”

‘Our SOS’

The government banned cleft exports to the rest of India or overseas 25 years ago in a bid to control logging and boost industry in Kashmir.

But the law is repeatedly flouted with some 100,000 clefts illegally sent elsewhere annually, a bat-makers association official said.

“Smuggling of our precious raw material has not stopped,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the topic.

Authorities used to plant willow on state land to maintain firewood supplies but stopped decades ago as electricity and gas became available for heating.

Shah, the forestry official, believes bat-makers must “plant their own willow on their own land” to replace each tree felled.

But private land is scarce in Kashmir, and prices have surged since New Delhi suspended the region’s semi-autonomous status and imposed direct rule in 2019.

That allowed Indians from elsewhere to buy land in Kashmir for the first time, a policy denounced by critics as “settler colonialism”.

GR8’s factory and showroom are in the small town of Sangam, the centre of the bat industry, where tourists snap up bats from lines of stores, spending anything from $12 to $180.

“This is our SOS to the government,” owner Kabiir said. “We cannot do it alone.”

Source: France24

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Over the last decade or so, the tendency among China watchers has been to see China’s rise as an endless upward progression. The same thing happened during the Cold War when the Soviet Union actually had feet of clay, but was viewed as a global colossus.

China’s economic and diplomatic successes are significant, but have often been exaggerated while its weaknesses were ignored or underestimated. Only now, amid bad news for China’s economy, have observers awakened to certain realities.

The first reality is that China’s post-COVID economy is sputtering. It faces falling prices amidst stagnant domestic demand for goods, a collapsing real estate market, declining exports and imports, very high government debt.

For a regime relying on domestic strength as the foundation of its foreign policy success, this economic weakness has to be troubling.

Xi Jinping has made internal security the hallmark of his administration. If the economy isn’t delivering growth with equity, political trouble may lie ahead.

That may help explain efforts to reinforce Communist Party discipline in the military, double down on repression in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Tibet, and deal harshly with dissidence among lawyers and human-rights activists. In truth, there’s considerable unrest and uncertainty in the empire.

The second reality lies abroad.

China’s principal partners, Russia and North Korea, are liabilities as well as assets. Putin’s war on Ukraine undermines Chinese diplomacy in Europe and adds to China’s America problems, while North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats bring a dangerous instability to the Korean peninsula.

In Central Asia, China is competing with, and actually out-competing, Russia in relations with the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

In South and Southeast Asia, China inspires both fear and awe.

Most countries accept the need to accommodate China, which is their dominant trade partner. But while China has predominant political influence in Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar (formerly Burma), other nations in the region, including India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand, are looking to the U.S. for balance. In fact, polling of citizens and elites in Southeast Asia points to more positive feeling toward the U.S. than China.

Before the Ukraine war, even the closest U.S. allies — Japan, South Korea and Australia — were willing to accommodate China: Japan, by refusing to commit to defending Taiwan in case of war and restraining its military capabilities; South Korea, by forging a close trade relationship and not fully embracing THAAD, a missile defense system aimed at both North Korea and China.

But now, all three have re-committed to tight security ties with the U.S. and each other.

Japan and South Korea concluded their first summit in 12 years in March. Both also joined in the recent Asian summit hosted by President Biden at Camp David, in which participants agreed to respond as one to regional threats — meaning, of course, from North Korea and China.

Korea and Japan are now imposing export controls on high-end computer chips coveted by China. Japan has also embarked on a military buildup aimed directly at China. And Australia and India have followed suit, becoming part of the Quad security dialogue and the AUKUS group.

China’s chief calling card is money, specifically, its Belt and Road Initiative loan program, which has distributed hundreds of billions of dollars, mainly among developing countries. Most Asia-Pacific countries have, in fact, joined BRI.

Some analysts think BRI has proven a very successful effort to meet developing countries’ needs without imposing onerous conditions, in contrast with loans from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. But others see BRI as a debt trap that creates dependence on China, leading to sacrifices of sovereignty such as control of ports.

Serious studies of BRI show it is neither all one nor all the other. But it’s clear that BRI has become a Chinese debt burden, and given China’s economic woes, chances are good Beijing will not be nearly as generous going forward..

Meanwhile, some Chinese actions are undermining BRI appeal.

For example, Southeast Asian neighbors rely on the Mekong River for fishing. But Chinese dams are taking a large bite out of their fishing industry, arousing anger.

Mongolia, long economically dependent on China, is now reaching out to the U.S. for trade, and has just struck a major deal with Google for computer assistance.

Competing territorial claims in the South China Sea have put China at odds with Vietnam and the Philippines. Meanwhile, Vietnam and the U.S. have agreed to form a strategic partnership, and President Biden is scheduled to visit Vietnam Sept. 9.

The Philippines, which had accommodated China under Rodrigo Duterte, has reverted under Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to a strategic partnership with the U.S. in response to Chinese pressure in the South China Sea. Most recently, a heavily armed Chinese coast guard vessel tried to block a Philippines supply boat from reaching a beached ship that marks its claimed territory in Mischief Reef.

The Philippines is opening four additional military bases to the U.S. and resuming joint naval patrols with the U.S. It has rejected a joint patrol invitation from China, which is continuing to claim a vast swath of the South China Sea.

If you look at the world through the eyes of Chinese leaders, you see obstacles on the home front that demand attention and resources — this at the very time a new Cold War looms over Asia, with the U.S. massing allies to contain a presumed Chinese threat.

What Xi Jinping has found, just as Chairman Mao did before him, is that domestic weaknesses constrain Chinese actions abroad.

Chinese leaders will always give priority to security at home over priorities abroad. Xi Jinping’s concept of “comprehensive security” makes that plain.

That perspective should inform the analysis of China hawks in Washington.

Source: News Register

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