11 August 2020
Many months back, when the world was still discovering Covid19, I wrote a piece in which I envisioned the Chinese trying to make a case for their acceptance at the Apex of the Global Order. I had commended the restraint with which China had handled the Hong Kong agitation the previous year( 2019 over a security law by Hong Kong which allowed the repatriation of Hong Kong Residents to the Mainland) and I also thought that how China reacted to the Wuhan Virus outbreak was an exemplary piece of scientific and public health administrative management. So in the global pandemic scenario, I visualised a much greater access and opportunity China would have to collaborate and expand its foot print in technology and medical sciences to make her an acceptable STEM power globally, buttressing the Huawei case for the 5G roll out.
I also wrote another piece about India, the natural leader for humanity, with her rich heritage of cosmic and cosmopolitan liberal values, including the Pookundranar quoted by Mr Modi himself in international fora, about how every Indian is automatically a global citizen, and I was sanguine that J&K would see political manoeuvres by the State after bifurcation into UTs, and the first anniversary of the historic move to alter the ground conditions through legislative alteration, would be how India would win recognition for reconciliation and reorganisation of regional aspirations, a process that she has been undergoing from inception with Naga, Mizo, Assam, Punjab and Telangana movements which also counted with Kashmir. I had hoped that when the world grew increasingly suspicious of China, over the virus and the way she handled the Pandemic, India would step into that breach, forging a bridge of trust, for the comity of nations.
Of course, the peaceful rise of China was looking increasingly suspect with her pretentious declaration of new provinces in SCS island territories which now she had sand barred and created small strips on which she housed a small population and started routinely undertaking sorties by aircraft to the strips that were converted into runways. The International Tribunal award which did not recognise Chinese claims as the 10 dash lines, or the efforts to convert some reefs into islands by extreme engineering, had not deterred China, and the lack of US interest in this case and the lack of Philippines Government to go forward with that Tribunal Award with proceedings in the General Assembly of the UN, like how Mauritius did with the Diego Garcia judicial ordershttps://www.un.org/press/en/2019/ga12146.doc.htm, was also construed as lack of appetite for follow up. I did anticipate though that China would trouble India, just to keep India in check, for she would want India to desist from joining the chorus of countries that could ally with the Western Compact and become inimical to China.
After the Australian PM Morrison first raised the ante, which was like a gauntlet thrown, readily picked up by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, China’s Wolf Diplomacy has now appeared to hit the ceiling of Diminishing Returns. Suddenly Chinese Ambassadors are falling over media in their host nations, like China’s Ambassador to India did, by denying flatly that China was aggressive or cause for concern, in the recent Webinar hosted by Diplomatic circles. Just when it appeared that China was making military, diplomatic and trade based bids to declare its arrival as the Super Power of the 21st Century, its orchestration has been halted by a series of counter moves emerging from Europe, from Trans Atlantic and Indo Pacific global alliances.
If today, Subic Bay is going to be reactivated, if Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam is going to be a major logistic hub, if Okinawa is going to see a modified Marine Corps battle order, if US and Australian Navies are patrolling with higher intensity in FONOPS in SCS, and USMC has inducted modified landing craft with F35B aboard with ‘hot bombing’ options and Japan is scrambling fighters every time a Chinese aircraft takes off over the East China Sea boardhttps://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/japan-air-assault-chinese-bombers-flying-towards-airspace-up-to-twice-a-day/news-story/b7cb4b4748a8aa55c989768bb4144155. Suddenly the chatter on first island chain including Japanese held Okinawa, Senkaku, Taiwan, Philippines, and Malaysia and the second island chain of Guam, to Papua New Guinea has increased, as analysts are trying to visualise the contours of a future conflict between US and China, which Aussie PM has said as ‘very likely in the climate of strategic uncertainty.’
This principle of strategy is also the reason why Indian government was from the late 1990s working on a plan to arm itself for a possible two front confrontation and altered China’s status to Enemy No 1! ( A decision attributed to late George Fernandes, India’s mercurial Defence Minister in NDA government under Mr Vajpayee) So if today India has a postural difference, in how she handles a Chinese incursion, it is visibly different from Operation Checkerboard of the 80s when she handled the Somdorung Chu valley episode. It is more in the face, it is direct. Dokhlam 2017 and now Eastern Ladakh 2020, has seen Indian Military in a counter aggressive posture face to face with PLA deployments. For the first time in recent memory, India has lifted lightly armoured APCs as well as its MBT T-90s to the Ladakh region, besides its entire fleet of tactical lift helicopters newly inducted from USA. It is now clear that Indian military is deployed for the long haul, even as India is using Russia, its ally in all times, to weigh in on China through BRIC and SCO channels, even to the extent that Russia has delayed the delivery of Triumpf S400 Anti Aircraft systems to China while promising to expedite the same to India. For some time now, Russia has been playing a walk the tight rope, globally, like allying with Turkey in Syria and opposing her in Libya, offering advanced systems to Turkey and China to upset the US applecart, and not to mention the nexus with Israel to upgrade Soviet era systems with new technology from the global military high tech powerhouse. Russia recently thwarted an attempt from China to buy a Ukrainian engineering firm, https://www.defenseworld.net/news/25136/#.XzH4qS3uGhBwhich manufactures engines for the world’s largest cargo air carrier An-225, which was looking like going through to Skyrizon Aircraft Holdings as late as last July, by collaborating with not just Ukraine but also USA to try and keep Motor Sich Ukrainian!https://ukranews.com/en/news/719339-official-statement-oleksandr-yaroslavskyi-called-on-authorities-to-protect-the-rule-of-law-and-save
So are the undercurrents indicative of a Chinese gambit undertaken prematurely, which has now been halted in its tracks by a concert of Global Status Quoits? If one looks at how India is acting, she is preserving her vital national interests in Eastern Ladakh. Her ocean going Naval exercises with USA or the Malabar Exercises with Japan, USA and now possibly including Australia are part of her military posture to counter balance China including the growing presence of the Chinese PLAN in the Indian Ocean Region and part of her military strategy to apply choke holds on Chinese merchantmen along the arc from Hormuz to Malacca, should the situation so demand. If one looks at how USA is acting, it is to preserve the American interests globally, for which the roll back of 5G from Huawei by Canada, UK, Australia besides other moves like the Presidential Order https://www.cnet.com/news/heres-how-chinas-internet-is-reacting-to-trumps-treatment-of-tiktok/placing restrictions of Tencent and ByteDance which are holding companies for WeChat and TikTok is taking the adversarial posture further into cyber terrain, one where India’s decision to ban 59 Chinese Apps had opened.
If I were to view this from Beijing’s shoes, India’s not so open counters, cannot dissuade China from thinking of treating India differently than ASEAN in the SCS littoral. Or for that matter not take on India as a Quad member and a ‘not so Allied but still an Ally’ with any nuance. For from 2019 to 2020, it is clear that the global order has turned inimical to China overtly. I doubt if Chinese analysts are not possessed of how their own moves like the new Security Law for Hong Kong passed unilaterally by Beijing, or the PLA presence in Eastern Ladakh inside what India considers its side of LAC, or the killing of Indonesian fisher folk on board Chinese vessels are not provoking this clamour to contain China.
Legislatively the swiftness with which the US, UK, Australia and other countries are altering their treatment of Hong Kong, and militarily how Vietnam, Singapore, Philippines, Japan are increasingly open to increased US presence and cooperation and are no longer trying to be wary of being openly seen against China, economically the sudden question mark over Chinese BRI investments across the globe and the 5G roll out by Huawei and push back against Chinese technology in sensitive sectors are such ‘worst case scenarios’ that China should have calculated for when she opened her gambit.
How will China retaliate next? Will Mr Modi use his chemistry with President Xi to prevent the situation from spiralling out of control? Even now India’s handling of China will show the world if it is possible to do business with China, and prevent this current posturing from concretising into Cold War II!
indiarubberman.com 