21 March 2021
Probably Western Civilisation has at the moment the best set of institutions, which is why it has managed to keep ahead of the Game through two world wars and the world’s first ever multidecadal strategic game of stare, where two sets of military systems stared down at each other with ballistic missiles, thermonuclear warheads and conventional masses of tanks, artillery, warships, in a vigil that culminated with the Soviet blink! It helped may be, that civilisationally the Russians who were leaders of the Soviet system, were until before the revolution an Imperial power much like the rest of Western Europe. ( The oft repeated set of facts is how Tsar of Russia, Kaiser of Germany and the King of England were cousins, and how World War I was more a reprisal of Mahabharata in that sense.)
This much is clear after the exchange of positions by Chinese and American top diplomatic delegations at Anchorage, Alaska, that China is now caught in between postures, trying to indulge in a variation of Wolf Diplomacy, which did not quite impress global watchers. While Chinese may have taken more time their bytes did not have quite the same bite as the one led by Secretary Blinken. Clearly there is a world of difference between Secretarys Pompeo and Blinken, which starts with perhaps which of them is sure that he had his President watching his back! From the Fox News-Sky News, NewsCorp world of RW revisionism, it was hilarious to see how anchors tried to portray the Anchorage events as a sign of American Weakness!
Does any one remember that as late as this New Year, America did not seem coherent, not capable of leadership, and in less than 100 days, Biden Administration has placed before us a clear foreign policy that hopes to place China on ‘civilisational notice’ even while cutting the Russians no slack. Yesterday US joined EU, UK and Australia is sanctions against CPC officials, for Uighur genocide which is such a shift in Western Democratic posture that we can call this only tectonic. Remember, just last year, UK did her Brexit successfully, Australia, Japan and ASEAN ganged up to join RCEP and EU voted to Invest in China (CIA) and be invested by China, despite all the mounting evidence placed on atrocities in Uighur Xinjiang!
Why this move is surprising for Chinese and unsurprising for folks who follow Western Deep State stratagems is simple. China feels that it has a right to an alternative system, just as once the Americans themselves had, for in comparative terms, what happened to the Native Americans when the White European Colonials arrived and settled in America is not comparable at all to what is happening with ethnic Tibetan, Mongolian and Uighur people amongst other ethnic minorities in Han China. It was worse, and even now, nearly a century after Western Civilisation embraced Liberalism as a counter to Communism, we can only see baby steps, a sort of tokenism from these ‘white settler countries’ as Canada, USA, Australia, New Zealand are, with only South Africa, Zimbabwe and Congo being clear examples where the White settler has handed over political power to native pre settler populations. We cannot even say that there is ‘power sharing’ for the foreseeable future. So may be the Chinese diatribe against racism and BLM movement is in their view a good opening, the only major difference is that ‘rules’ as they exist, do not lend any credence or authority to White Supremacists or neoconservatives to carry out their design, this including the flurry of voter suppression legislations being carried out in various Republican states in America.
So, while the roots of this kind of moral justification for the Western Alliance can be traced to ‘Dharma Yuddha’ concept, to how the colonial era wilted in the face of Gandhian moralism, we can see how, from earlier justifying their dominance based on White Man knows best, now the transition to a non racial, non prejudicial, rules based system was actually a clear gift of USA despite the dodgy credentials of the Monroe Doctrine and it certainly shaped public opinion not just in UK but across France, Belgium and Portugal, forcing these colonials to wind up their colonies across the world in the aftermath of World War II, when it became clear that the new global order was headed by the Americans. You can see glimpses of this actually written into the plot of ‘Gandhi’ the stellar movie on the Mahatma by Attenborough and it is indeed deeply satisfying that while Gandhi may be controversial abroad and criticised in India, Gandhian ideals will continue to control the narrative of power play in the global arena. That is why the frontal American assault on CCP China is on Human Rights, on Uighur, Hong Kong and Tibet.
If you can assess how quickly Biden Administration has moved on Quad and how it has now got the Japanese on board to defending US assets in the region as a quid pro quo, which skirts the Japanese legal frame work that bars Japan from deploying forces other than for Self Defence post WWII, it is now clear though unwritten as yet, that America will come to military defence of Taiwan and should such a situation arise, it will lead to Japanese SDF deploying in support of American assets without directly fighting the Chinese, but with full right to reply to any Chinese threats, perceived or overt. We can see how the Quad virtual meeting of Heads of Government was followed up by the Defense Secretary General Austin’s visit to New Delhi. The key word was ‘major Defense partnership’ and how this is part of deterrence against Chinese designs. So here is a new phase of US India engagement, continuing on the path that was started from the 1998 Jaswant Talbot talks, through Next Steps in Strategic Partnership, which underwrote the ‘Pivot to Asia’ policy of the Obama administration, which was taken up after a hiatus in the final year of the Trump Administration after the Pandemic broke out. Significantly we will see how Biden is able to get India on board in the NSG and whether he will given India the leverage to avoid sanctions under CAATSA 2017, one that was denied to NATO member Turkey for inducting the S400 Triumpf systems. The later is under US control while the former will be a Chinese veto.
So there will be limits to how the US can stage this against the Chinese, for the world is so interconnected and China remains everyone’s foreseeable future source for everything as the global factory, that incrementalism and military show of force are the only options at present with the Biden Administration. A new regime of Technology Denial may be brought about overtly by the US so as to signal a crucial victory over China in terms of key modern and futuristic economic activity and it could be from e vehicle battery and software to semi conductor chips to machine learning and AI, and while American intellectual property is the main target, there are other key technologies from EU which may not be placed under advisement by the Deep State. The one play from the Cold War 1.0 copybook that every stake holder will remember is ‘Star Wars’ which was how the US stole a clear technological lead over the Soviets, one which brought a knock of realism to Soviet leadership.
That is why it is germane to expect to see Chinese attacks on Indian power grid more often going forward and how US is able to upgrade Indian cyber security systems even as it integrates India with her Intelligence sharing systems. Deploying advanced drones on leash from US is a win win for Indian and American maritime intelligence gathering, and with American platforms being integrated to their global analytical farms, it is important that going forward, Indian military subscriptions must mate into the American intelligence systems which are a whole gamut from weapon platform based radars to radars stand alone to satellite based systems, especially when the current Eastern Ladakh standoff has shown how American remote sensing can help Indian military leadership fill gaps in their ground assessments. One of the key interactions with General Austin was a detailed briefing on the PLA deployment and state of border engagement in Ladakh.
So when US has declared her intent to be militarily and diplomatically keen to do heavy lifting against China so early in the Biden Administration, could it lead to a set of miscalculations and create an unintended flash point? Would PLA and CWC now directly controlled by President Xi feel desperate or in a ‘save face’ mode and launch hostile operations?
The earliest clue is from the Philippines littoral, where Julian Felipe reef was besieged by a flotilla of Chinese vessels, and after the protest by Philippines government the Chinese actually issued a very timid statement using words like ‘handled in a rational manner’ and denying the presence of Chinese maritime militia there! So it appears that Chinese PLAN have taken a pre Xi approach, placing emphasis on ‘inadvertence’ due to factors beyond Chinese control as in ‘stormy weather’ to justify anchoring on a reef, which to my mind is a real throw back to Deng era of ‘peaceful rise’ not the decade old belligerence and bluster in SCS that we are accustomed to!
It is early days. We are still waiting to see how Americans can get Australian and Canadian citizens freed from Chinese jails over spurious espionage and other charges for which they are under trial in China. Should that happen, we can see even greater supplication from American allies to the American drum beat against CCP China, even as it would signal the dawn of new realism on President Xi.
indiarubberman.com 