13 July 2021
The ancient concept of Chakravartikshetram uses a judicious mix of economic, social, cultural and military powers as attributes of one who desires to establish a chakravartam, which Sanskrit allows us to describe as sphere of influence. The concept of overlordship is actually more geopolitical in the Tamil concept of ‘mudi venthan’ with the ‘mummudi’ or triplaited turbaned representing the Triumvirate of Tamil Country, a coveted title of overlordship held by Chera, Chola and Pandya kings, and even briefly by the Pallava. In Egypt, contemporaneous to this, unfolded the concept of ‘Two Kingdoms’ with a Pharaoh holder of overlordship holding representation of both upper and lower Nile territories, as cobra and vulture heads on the Double Crown, with the crook and flail in each hand, symbolising foremost this overlordship. The Rajasuya yagya of the Vedic period was a rare sacrifice involving actually a Aswamedha ( horse sacrifice) in which the sacrificial horse was allowed to wander in the 8 directions and carrying the colours of the sacrificial yajaman. ( The current corrupted understanding of owner that is Yajaman comes from Yagna + Manah, as the person who was mentally and physically committed to performing a sacrifice)
There were many yardsticks to measure the power of kingdoms, yet, it was always about resources, about regenerative capacities, about sustenance.
In post World War world our understanding of superpowerdom placed initially Russia and USA on equal footing, before Cold War ended the symmetry in favour of USA, which was as much a battle of resources, STEM capabilities and popular culture, where the US stole a march over the Soviet system. Remember that on STEM both were evenly matched, with moon landing seen as a pyrrhic space victory over the more dividend yielding Space Station Mir! The Soyuz and Energia rocket systems that launch Russia missions have proven their reliability far more than the Space Shuttles, on parameters of not just launch successes, but mission payloads and more.
So China took the initiative by trying to harness the internet of things, the need for newer communications technology, and the race for natural resources such as rare earths. We know that China is fairly successful, rather, the only other country to have a indigenous online retailing platform as Ali Baba group has, which is also backing retailing ventures in India. China is also the world’s best example of HSR networks, with more miles of tracks and across far greater distances than Japan, France and Germany all put together. We also know that 5G from Huawei is at a relatively advanced stage, even as Ericsson and other companies including India’s Jio plan a roll out of this next level technology in near future. A concerted effort from the final months of the Trump administration against Huawei have somewhat scuppered the acceptance of its 5G across the EU and other western countries and it remains to be seen where all this finds actual fruition on ground, delayed by the ongoing pandemic. If Huawei is China’s chosen race horse, Ericsson has shown the lead from Western Countries, and the US is clearly backing Ericsson for now, including moving from spectrums to cognitions in networks by collaborating with MIT. There is also significant interest in newer network technology and medical sciences even as newer networks are expected to actually be ‘energy neutral’ device population. Now China is building her own space station even as she has launched missions to the moon and Mars successfully, making her the natural successor to the Soviets who challenged America in this final frontier!
Before the Soviet collapse, under Gorbochev, Russia settled her borders with China, with her Central Asian and Caucasian parts, conceding at one stretch and taking over another, in a broad effort that was to aim at settled land borders. One key lesson, modern nation states have taken for national progress, is the way their borders are. For USA, the border is not about insurgents but immigrants, and has been so for most of her existence as she expanded to become what we acknowledge as the USA. With the Monroe Doctrine, the USA ensured that there was no rival power perch on her Continent. Today Russia is considerably weakened with her posture in Ukraine and her recent annexation of Crimea, a vulnerability she acknowledges when the Black Sea witnessed confrontation with naval patrols of the Royal Navy and the Royal Dutch Navy recently. Like a blast from the past, the Royal Navy was seen in a concerted hunt for a Russian submarine that was shadowing the Aircraft Carrier HMS Elizabeth in the Mediterranean! So when Ukraine conducts military drills with American troops or NATO contingents in eastern Ukraine, or when NATO watches nervously over Russian deployments in that part, this is a cat and mouse, that is from the Cold War copybook. It is of militaries that are technologically and doctrinally evenly matched and who have decades of experience staring each other down.
The Russia example is cased only to show how different it is with China. China has unsettled not just her maritime borders but her land borders in the Himalayas, in the last several years. Matters have come to head in the last one year, with increasingly confrontationist postures in Philippines over Whitsun Reef, in Taiwan Straits over Taiwanese airspace and territorial waters in SCS, as well as of course, Eastern Ladakh in the Himalayas. If China had planned as per its PLA documents for an ‘arrival on the global stage by 2020’, it is the biggest argument against an orchestration of the current pandemic from Wuhan by Beijing, because the Pandemic of 2020 has not only upset the calendar for China internally, but has worked to her disadvantage externally, from her trade war with Australia over pandemic origins, to declaration of Climate of Strategic Uncertainty by PM Morrison, in the first half of 2020, which was used by the Trump administration as a broad sword against China toward the second half of 2020, from banning Chinese companies to denying technology and discussing decoupling of the global supply chains from China! It also shows clearly that China’s heralding her arrival for the global arena is a tad premature, because, unlike Russian naval action with months of stepping up patrolling by Western navies in SCS, including French, British, Australian vessels, not just the US Indo Pacific Fleet, we have not seen any ‘event’ surface in mainstream media of the type seen Black Sea or Mediterranean!
Like wise on the borders, we are aware that while China initially held the advantage of clear surprise over India, Indian Army’s subsequent redeployments have now left lesser room, though vacation of the Kailash Range as a concession for Pangong Tso defiles is viewed as a drawback. The IAF’s America sourced strategic lift capabilities both fixed and rotary, have definitely offered India an edge over the current stalemate, since such deployment can be concentrated in the scenario of a steady buildup. As of now, in a hot war, force levels of PLA are far superior to what the Indian military can bring up, however, the military morale which does end up being an arbiter in battle, currently is loaded in India’s favour, with more battle hardened and more mountain terrain capable troops. Nothing signals the PLA situation more than the change of leadership, thrice in last 20 months, with current change in WTC of PLA coming from within the theatre itself.
So if one goes by matrices that allow superpower status, China’s abandoning of her peaceful rise, appears premature. It has led to consolidation against China, even though China is trying to counter these, her countermeasures are illustratively not against USA her purported competitor, but against India in South Asia, against Taiwan and ASEAN in South East Asia. In Superpower play, you cannot set sights on the horizon and end up focusing on the next hillock. More critically, the failures of India to supply vaccines to South Asian neighbours have not permitted the Chinese to walk in, rather, a concerted QUAD effort has ensured that Americans have stepped in in a major way.
Culturally, I don’t think the Chinese are even on the drawing board, with their own historical drawback as an insular culture even in their own backyard, their strenuous efforts at ‘Han’isation of territories they claim as integral to the mainland, which includes Inner Mongolia, Uighur Xinjiang and Tibet. In last one year, China has been under intense pressure and scrutiny over language in Mongolian territories, over culture and religion in Uighur, and now over doctrinarian efforts and the outrage over Dalai Lama in Tibet and Himalayan Buddhist belt.
So I feel strongly that there is no reason for speculations over this 21st century geopolitics. Pax Americana will remain, only domestic American politics remains a clear arbiter, as four Trump years demonstrated, of how America will continue to dominate the global scene. Per me, China has got bogged down even before she started in this race!
indiarubberman.com 