The world knows that China is avenging the world for the century of humiliation that it had suffered from mid-19th to mid-20th Century. It is on its warpath of retribution and continues to have border disagreements or conflicts with Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and Vietnam. Its maritime boundaries are disputed and conflicts with all littoral countries of East China and South China Seas; Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei. The entire South China Sea has been annexed by a process of creeping invasion in the last three decades. The latest imagery of 20 Feb 2021 has revealed that China has further reclaimed land of about 7 acres in Subi Reef in the Spratly Islands, claimed by Vietnam and The Philippines. Again, in Mar 2021, China has sent over 200 vessels of maritime militia to Whitsun Reef which is the Philippines’s territory and the latter sent its Fighter aircraft to fly over this massive intrusion. China is just spoiling for a conflict, probably losing its sense of propriety and rectitude?
China Seizing Geo-Political Opportunities for Expansionism
In 1991 both the US Airforce Clark Base in Luzon and the Naval Base at Subic Bay were vacated as the Philippines did not extend the stay of the US Forces. Note, it was about the same time, the Soviet Union dismembered and vacated its Cam Ranh Bay base in Vietnam. A geostrategic vacuum occurred. It gave a golden opportunity for China to start its aggression. The Creeping Invasion of the South China Sea had started in earnest from Johnson’s Reef, Fiery Cross Reef, Mischief Reef and Scarborough Shoal. Many small conflicts with Vietnam and the Philippines took place and China literally rough-shod over the claims of littoral countries. After this, China started reclaiming land from the Sea to construct airports, harbours, missile bases and built infrastructure to station Chinese troops and consolidate its invasion. Three island airports were also constructed on artificial islands in Meiji Reef, Zhubi (Subi) Reef and Yongshu Reef. It was basically to manufacture sovereignty over the sea; throwing to winds the provisions of UNCLOS; even though the Laws were ratified by China.
China always awaits geo-strategic opportunities to project its powers. In 1962, China launched its offensive against India when the US and Soviet Union were embroiled in a possible nuclear conflict? Did you get me? On the eve of the Missile Crisis in Cuba, the world was at the brink of nuclear war, waiting with bated breath; who will press the nuclear button? Kennedy or Khrushchev? Indeed; it was an opportune time for China to attack India: A smart move! A narrative had already been built that India had occupied large tracts of Chinese territory and the self-defence forces of PLA had no option but to defend its motherland. Again, a splendid storyline!
The recent Ladakh incursions were timed in the last six months of President Trump’s stint at the Whitehouse and also when the world at large was mired in the deadly pandemic. No country had the stomach to worry about geopolitics and border skirmishes between two traditional rivals when its own countrymen were dying like fireflies. It was indeed an opportunistic move made by China but backfired as the script went awry.
China had always awaited strategic opportunities to time its expansion. A possible exception is a Chinese offensive against Vietnam in Feb 1979? Mao had died three years earlier and Deng had practically taken over the reins of China. An ideal opportunity to showcase China to the world; as Vietnam had made an unacceptable blunder by supporting the horrific Khmer Rouge that had committed genocide of two million Cambodians. Frankly, for both the US and Soviet Union, it was really difficult to support Vietnam. The US had just got out of the Vietnam quagmire after a bitter 19 years of war and was really not inclined to get involved in support of its former adversary. As also, the US had supported Khmer Rouge to keep it alive during the tumultuous seventies and later in the eighties. Russian advisers though were present on the Vietnamese soil during the Chinese offensive but had got a tacit assurance from Deng that the war would not be escalated. Again, the Chinese calculations had gone wrong and managed to extricate from Vietnam with scarred ego and bruised prestige. However, Deng made it look like a victory with pompous optics: Two years later, he carried out North China Military Exercise, the biggest exercise to spur the modernisation of PLA after his perceived disappointment at its performance against Vietnam.
Holding China Accountable
China has been a source of SARS in 2002 and the world braced through the epidemic for two years which spread to 29 countries. Again in 2019, China has again sourced ‘COVID-19’. This has become a pandemic spread to 223 countries and killed over 2.9 million across the world and is still counting. Why China has become a repeated source of novel and deadly infections which are spreading across the world? What remedial measures have been adopted by China so that such acts of omission or commission are not repeated? The world community cannot let China off the hook for its biological experimentations causing mutations and unleashing weird organisms and killing millions across the world. The Director-General of WHO has not yet absolved China of a possible laboratory leak of COVID-19, from a Wuhan lab? India has seconded his contention.
China’s incarceration of over a million Uyghurs in detention camps, its illegal abrogation of the status of Hong Kong and imposition of new security laws and amendment of its Constitution, its daily intrusion of air space and waters of Taiwan and many other measures with scant regard for international laws have driven the world to an edge. It is just a matter of time when China would be isolated by the combined actions of the international community.
Biden Administration has taken steps to make China accountable. Secretary of State, Tony Blinken has gone around the world and has garnered support from the EU, South Korea, Japan and India. Biden has vowed that he will not allow China to steal a march over the US. He is determined to hold China accountable: Quad has been strengthened and the first-ever summit of Quad countries was held virtually in mid-Mar 2021 followed by a Joint Statement on ‘The Spirit of the Quad’. Currently, its combined Navy can disrupt the trade of China across the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. Again, in Mar 2021, the Wolf Warrior Diplomacy adopted by China in the meeting in Alaska with the US officials is a case in point. As also, the Chinese ambassador to France insulting the lawmakers of France and delaying to honour the summons from the Foreign Ministry are various actions of China revealing its ‘Narcissistic Personality Disorder’. Obviously; the arrogance of Chinese worldwide has been taken note of, and it is provoking the world at large to act against it?
Will Russia Play Second Fiddle to China for Long?
In the past two decades, China has become more and more aggressive and has committed unbridled expansionism. Its four-modernisation drive launched in the late seventies has come of age and is currently poised to compete with the US? Russia has been driven to third place among the hierarchy of nations. Now, is the time for smart geopolitics for India. Russia has willy-nilly become an ally of China. Russia is not happy with this arrangement as it has been driven by the US into the Chinese fold. The belligerence of the US towards Russia for its indiscretion in annexing the Crimean Peninsula has become the bone of contention. Never mind, it was the US that was expanding NATO even after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The very raison d’être of NATO had ended with the dismantling of the Soviet Union; however, sadly the US exploited a defeated Russia and heightened its insecurity by expanding the NATO by including those countries of Eastern Europe who have been traditional allies of the erstwhile Soviet Union. Further, the US started including those new republics, born out of the dismembered Soviet Union. The US was asking for it and Russia was waiting for an opportunity to spring its geostrategic ambush on the US. It was just a matter of time and in less than a decade and a half the new Russia was posing the same threat, if not more, to Europe and the US, as the erstwhile Soviet Union. A golden opportunity to take Russia into their fold in the early nineties was lost by both George HW Bush and Bill Clinton? They ensured that Russia always remained an adversary; paving way for a strong Sino-Russian Axis: An avoidable, strategic blunder!
Countering China and Pakistan by Smart Geopolitics
What are India’s security imperatives? Let us not mince words; we have two major adversaries who are most likely to collude if a conflict brews against India. The best way to tackle our adversaries is to ensure that we open new fronts for them in addition to the front in which we are facing them. Strategically we should ensure that China is facing two or more fronts while engaging India. We should activate Taiwan Front with Japan, the US, Vietnam, Philippines and Australia threatening the Eastern Front of China. Next, the border dispute between China and Russia has not been resolved. Though some understanding has been reached on the Ussuri and Amur Front, the Far Eastern Front at Vladivostok has not been resolved. China has laid unofficial claims to it and has called it ‘Haishenwai’. We know the Chinese well; their first step is to give a Chinese name to a place in the neighbouring country and academics write a paper claiming it as a part of China. Sooner than later, Russia should not be surprised when the Chinese will lay claim to it.
I don’t know whether you have read about a paper written last year by Cho Yao Lu, a Chinese historian that was published in the official websites of PRC, where he contended that the ‘Land of Lost Mountains (Pamir Region)’ once belonged to China and the need for it to be handed over to China at some point in time. The region covers 40 per cent of the total territory of Tajikistan. As also, China has already under a coercive border agreement, a decade ago, has taken over 1158 Sq. KMs of the territory of Tajikistan. Further, a Chinese website sohu.com has published a paper ‘Why Kazakhstan is eager to return to China?’ China’s intimidation of CARs and its treatment of Uyghurs who have spilt over to Xinjiang has already alienated them.
We have a similar experience with China in Arunachal Pradesh that has been named Southern Tibet? In 2017, China gave new names to six places within Arunachal Pradesh; Wo’gyainling, Mila Ri, Qoidêngarbo Ri, Mainquka, Bümo La and Namkapub Ri. Please do not break your heads over them; it is a ploy by China to intimidate neighbours and lay claim to their territory in line with its practice of national doctrine of expansionism.
Strategically, we should bottle up China from the West by India, East by Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Philippines, the US and Australia and North and Northwest (CAR) by Russia. Keeping all these threats bristling and sizzling is in the interest of India. The sine qua non of this strategy is to bring about a rapprochement between the US and Russia. If Pakistan could bring together the warring US and China in 1971, why should India not do it now, using its good offices with both the US and Russia? This would be a masterstroke and China would be completely isolated, save for Cambodia, Pakistan, North Korea and perhaps Iran?
Next, we turn toward Pakistan: We need to open two more fronts for Pakistan. Its Eastern Front is well-taken care of by India. Its North-western Front should be engaged by a hostile Afghanistan. We should modify our Afghan Strategy and carry both Taliban and the present government with us and fulminate the border dispute between the two countries on the contentious Durand Line. Next, the border with Iran is a semi-hostile border. A Sunni terrorist organisation ‘Jaish ul Adi’ based in Pakistan is mounting attacks against Iranian troops stationed across the borders. In Feb 2021, Iran launched a surgical strike against the terrorist organisation on the soil of Pakistan and freed its kidnapped soldiers. There is no doubt it is a tenuous border and will be a scene of Sunni-Shia powerplay. Now that Pakistan has joined Turkey and Malaysia in the vertical split of the Sunni Muslim World; Turkey is likely to influence Pakistan’s actions on Iran-Pak border. Afghanistan and Iran should pose threats to Pakistan thus forcing it to fight on three fronts. The two corps of Pakistan which have been deployed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan should be tied down and should not be available to be used on its Eastern Front against India. We would have strategically neutralised Pakistan even before a war.
India needs to cultivate the US, Russia, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, CARs, Afghanistan and Iran to rein in both China and Pakistan. These countries can dissipate the military resources of our adversaries by opening-up additional fronts. Even if they do not actively threaten but pose a threat in being, would be adequate to tie down troops, which otherwise would have been directly deployed against India.
Identification of National Goal
All we have to do is to integrate the interests of the nation and pursue our national goal diplomatically. As we still do not have a ‘National Security Strategy’; different ministries are deriving their own goals esoterically without visualising an Integrated National Goal. The subgoals of different ministries should cumulatively result in the achievement of the integrated national goal. I have written umpteen number of times of the urgent need of framing the National Security Strategy. It will enable all to work in sync to pursue our National Interest to achieve the National Goal.
Identification of National Goal is only possible if the Foreign Minister, NSA and CDS work together and get its approval by the CCS. The CDS has to be elevated to the level of a cabinet minister as the complexities of National Strategy cannot be comprehended by his civilian counterparts. We have no time to be lost and we need to set the geopolitical stage to deter wars and if inevitable win them at all costs.
Disclaimer :- Views expressed here are Author’s own .They do not necessarily represent the views of IIRF .
