With Sweden finally joining NATO, the prospects of an early peace in Europe appear to have faded for the time being. Even an early ceasefire is being ruled out. It is hoped that due to the mounting pressure of the Russian forces, now occupying about 25 percent of Ukraine, may halt the unnecessary ongoing fratricide. It is also being stated Russia too is keen to end the war. It may not like to convert it into a perennial animosity in the region.
The US voters will be choosing a new president in coming November, whether they decide to renew a next term to the Democratic Party nominee, Joe Biden, or the irrepressible Donald Trump of the Republican Party allowing him to repeat his stormy presence in the Whitehouse. Next nine months are going to be crucial for world peace. Either of them, who will be holding the mighty office of the US presidency for next four years, do not offer any solace to the allies as well as strategic partners, including India. For the democratic world the year 2024 continues to be a mirthless bleak period as well as coming years too is expected to be equally challenging and controversial. With the domestic issue regarding illegal immigrants dominating during the election campaign, few expect any substantial American policy initiative in the challenging contemporary geo-political issues. The ongoing Russia-Ukraine War, Israel-Hamas conflict, and the security issues of India-Pacific have been relegated to the contemporary political debates in the USA.
President Joe Biden, 81, maybe in his effort to salvage the image of his administration suffering from perennial slow response to the growing Chinese threat, boldly mentions in his final State of the Union Address about US-India cooperation in a world increasingly facing China’s expansionist policies. Meanwhile, India quietly deploys her troops on India-Tibet borders amidst the reports that Dragon might invade Indian territories from the Tibet side. India has not stated anything about the troops movements, but the Chinese foreign ministry has criticized the replacement of Indian forces estimated to be 10,000 on the India-Tibet border. The Chinese spokesman has claimed that the troop movement is not “conducive to easing tensions’, but it did not say why it has not reduced its presence on the Ladakh-Tibet border despite agreements and why during the past four a large number of Chinese soldiers are being deployed in the region.
Amidst these developments in the world’s most powerful democracy, USA, perhaps, still the only Super Power on the earth, China appears to have been quietly and successfully expanding its influence in the regions of West Asia region, Arabian Sea as well in the Indo-Pacific. With Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif, having close ties with Beijing as well as the country’s army, now firmly saddled in Pakistan, China has become more assertive in the countries of Arabian Sea and the Gulf. Apart from having close ties with Iran and Pakistan, it has recently inked defence ties with the island nation, Male. The Chinese have succeeded in conspiring against India Male by successfully ousting the erstwhile pro-Indian government. Earlier, Beijing had played Good Samaritan by helping Saudi Arabia to renew its diplomatic ties with Iran. With this new ‘avatar’ of the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, as the ‘peace-keeper’ in West Asia, American influence has already started fading. Meanwhile, the US forces have so far failed to tackle the Houthi attacks on cargo ships. These terrorists supporting Hamas in the ongoing conflict with Israel are known to be getting both financial and military support from Iran, a close ally of China.
New Delhi Worried
It is not surprising that this walkover to Dragon in the world politics, especially in India’s neighbourhood, has dismayed the mandarins managing India’s vital strategic interests in the South Block, the headquarters of the two key ministries, Defence and External Affairs under the overall umbrella of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). The strategic affairs scholars in New Delhi do not expect any spectacular initiative from Washington in the ever challenging geo-politics, except for some noisy rhetoric in 2024.
The present lame-duck Biden administration, which is known for its perennial non-performance in geo-politics since its inauguration in 2020, is expected to remain non-functional during 2024, perhaps, insulated from the ongoing developments in world politics. It, however, may trumpet its achievement in Europe by enrolling Sweden to NATO, or giving an indirect entry to Ukraine to the defence alliance by signing 10-year agreements for extending military and financial support with other NATO partners to the war-ravaged country, but in reality, it has ceased to the peace-keeper on the earth.
With little hope of immediate end to the European conflict between Russia and Ukraine, peace continues to be elusive in West Asia. The possibility of any immediate cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hamas is being ruled out. The delay in initiating the peace process has triggered the apprehension that the US establishment is pursuing a 19th. century British agenda against the Russian empire. It is getting more and more pronounced with each passing day. Interestingly, Beijing is not directly involved in these two conflicts, yet it is quietly pursuing its global agenda worldwide. The conflicts in Europe and West Asia have reinvigorated its imperial agenda, especially when the leadership in Washington fails to pick up the gauntlet, the growing Chinese threat to world peace.
The War Agenda
Eleven years ago, an article published by a Chinese website, Sohu, in 2013, continues to remind India and other countries in South Asia about Dragon’s strategic designs in the region. The website, believed to be is sponsored by the Communist Party of China (CPC), talks about Beijing’s ambitious plans to re-conquer lost territories which include Taiwan and India’s border state, Arunachal. During the first week of March, the Houthi attack on a cargo ship in West Asia killing crews from the Philippines and Vietnam and the inability of the US-led western powers to restore peace in the region could be attributed to the secret support the terrorists got from China through Iran.
The Chinese foreign office has rejected the allegation that the website has any official support, but it may be noted that Sohu is a Beijing-based online media, search engine, and game service company that has promoted Chinese government propaganda for years. The tech company was chosen as the official sponsor of Internet Content Service for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
Apart from its ambitious plans to subjugate South Asia and the Gulf, Beijing is also directly hitting American interests in Southern and Central America. Much to the annoyance of Washington, China has recently signed long-term oil-purchase deals with Venezuela ignoring American sanctions. It has also rescheduled its loans estimated to be USD 10 billion. In 2023, it had also accorded a warm welcome to the Venezuelan ruler, President Nicolas Maduro during his visit to China.
A number of Indian strategic affairs experts such as Brahma Chellany are convinced that despite Beijing dismissing its war plans revealed in the website, India and Taiwan might face massive Chinese aggression anytime. India might have to face a major aggression from China; perhaps, much bigger than what she had faced during the 1962 and 1967 conflicts.
Chinese Propaganda
With huge investments from the US-led West during the past three decades, China has already become an economic Super Power. In spite of its huge trade ties with the West, it pumps billions of the US dollars in Iran and openly supports Russia in the ongoing European War. With the recent inability, if not its failure, the USA’s weakness is being exposed in ending the West Asian conflict; it has also enabled China to emerge as the most influential player of geo-politics in the region.
When Beijing says “Taiwan has always been an inalienable part of China” and calls this “an indisputable legal and historical fact,” it promotes a claim that has absolutely no basis in international law or history, but by aggressively stating that claim time and again over the years, it has made many in the world believe that fiction, especially when the dominant Western media outlets are reluctant to challenge the Chinese narrative. Earlier, Biden during his tenure as the Vice-President of the USA had abandoned Tibet and been to the disputed region to meet his then counter-part, Xi Jinping, now president. It will be a matter of little surprise that in the wake of the Chinese invasion, the USA may just be making statements and threatening with its “ineffective’ sanctions. Earlier, China’s unilateral abolition of the democratic system in Hong Kong was meekly accepted by the West.
The process of abandoning Taiwan appears to have already begun with the western media, including some international publications now use the phrase “reunify” without quotation marks while referring to Beijing’s Taiwan goal. It may be noted that Taiwan, for most of its history, had no relationship with China and has remained fully outside Chinese control for the last 129 years since 1895 when, following defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War, China’s Manchu-run Qing government signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki that ceded Taiwan to Japan. While Taiwan remained under Japanese colonial rule until 1945, Japan officially renounced its sovereignty over it only in the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, but without the transferee being identified. In recent years, between 2017 and 2023, Beijing has renamed a number of places in India’s northern state, Arunachal Pradesh, which is almost three times larger than Taiwan. Beijing has already ignored Indian protest, contending that Arunachal Pradesh is its own “territory” and Sinicizing names of places there is “China’s sovereign right.”
The Indian worries about the Chinese agenda have further increased due to the decline of the US interests in geo-politics and its leaders succumbing to Chinese rhetoric. China, under President Xi Jinping has been claiming territories in Asia on the basis of an ingenious principle — “what is ours is ours and what is yours is negotiable.”
In fact, as the mythical Middle Kingdom, China claims to be the mother of all civilizations, weaving legend with history to claim a dual historical entitlement — to recover “lost” lands and become a world power second to none. This helps to rationalize its muscular foreign policy, which seeks to make real the legend that drives the CCP’s revisionist history — China’s centrality in the world.
GopalMisra has been associated with national and international media. His books on journalism and geo-politics have been well-appreciated. Views are personal.
