The Hindu
17 June 2020
Stanly Johny
On Tuesday, the same day news broke about the violent clashes between
Indian and Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley of eastern Ladakh, in
which at last 20 Indian soldiers died,
a Chinese J-10 fighter briefly entered Taiwan’s air defence zone,
prompting the self-ruled island to scramble its aircraft in response.
This was the third Chinese incursion into Taiwan’s airspace within a
week. Two months ago, Chinese vessels had entered the waters of Malaysia
and Vietnam. Last month, Chinese Coast Guard ships pursued Japanese
fishing boats in waters claimed by both countries. All these incidents
point to a newfound aggressiveness in China’s approach towards its
already troubled neighbourhood, from the Himalayas to the South and East
China Seas.
Tensions in the neighbourhood are not new for China. The roughly 4,000
km-long India-China border, which is not clearly demarcated, has seen
occasional flare-ups. In 2017, troops from both countries were locked in
a face-off in the India-China-Bhutan tri-junction of Doklam for over
two months. China has claims over the South China Sea and
“reunification” with Taiwan is one of its self-declared goals. But what
makes the current stand-offs different is China’s readiness to use force
in addressing these challenges. This was the first time in 45 years
that blood was spilt on the India-China border. Last month, in an annual
policy blueprint, China dropped the word “peaceful” in referring to its
desire to “reunify” with Taiwan, ending a nearly 30-year-long
precedent.
This sharp turn marks China’s most major policy decisions post-COVID-19.
Relations with the U.S. are particularly bad, with the Trump
administration now openly targeting China for its handling of the
pandemic. China has already slammed the U.S.’s “Cold War mentality”,
referring to the period of the U.S.-Soviet contest. When Australia
pushed for investigation into the pandemic outbreak, Beijing punished
the country by imposing trade curbs. Earlier this week, an Australian
citizen was sentenced to death in China over drug trafficking,
complicating relations further. In Hong Kong, which has been seeing
anti-China protests for a year, Beijing has introduced a new national
security law, granting itself broader powers in the Special
Administrative Region. If Xi Jinping was facing one the biggest crises
of his Presidency early this year, in the middle of the COVID-19
outbreak, he now appears to be firmly in control, overseeing an
expansive foreign policy that pushes the boundaries.
“The ‘peaceful rise’ is now out of the question. They think they have
arrived,” said Alka Acharya, Professor of International Studies at
Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. President Hu Jintao, Mr. Xi’s
predecessor, had adopted the “peaceful rise” (or “peaceful development”,
as the the Chinese later called it) policy to assure other countries,
especially the U.S. and China’s Asian neighbours, that the country’s
rise did not pose any threat to others. China came out of it long ago,
Prof. Acharya told The Hindu. “The whole series of positions
China has taken with respect to Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong, national
sovereignty or whatever problems they have with the U.S. are nothing
new. The question is what are the elements in China’s behaviour today
which are different from what had happened in the past,” she pointed
out.
In Prof. Acharya’s view, COVID-19 has brought on a “sharper turn” to
China’s foreign policy because: “suddenly, it was quite obvious that
China was on the back foot. It was getting very bad press all around.
Other countries were speaking out against its handling of the outbreak.
The Americans are now open about building a coalition against China. So a
lot of China’s response is part of their way of tackling this crisis.
We are going to fight back is the message from Beijing.”
But China
has always contested such analysis. In its version, China is a rising,
responsible power and some tensions are part of its rise. The “China
Dream”, laid out by President Xi after he took power in 2012, seeks to
turn the country into wealthy, strong and modern global power by 2049,
the centenary of the Communist revolution.
“I would like to think of China’s diplomatic situation
as something a growing country has to meet and deal with day-to-day,”
said Qi Haotian, Assistant Professor, School of International Studies,
Peking University, Beijing. “It’s easy to get amplified. However, I
think what we have been seeing is not surprising or dishearteningly
alarming. As long as China takes it seriously that peaceful coexistence
and development serve her interests ultimately, tensions of any kind
should probably be taken as temporal processes,” he told The Hindu.
“I
personally do not see current tensions, clashes, disputes or conflicts
between China and other countries as existentially alarming for any
side, as long as we faithfully attempt to address the issues with
everything in our toolkit, bilaterally and institutionally. There will
be troubles. They are also good learning opportunities for every
stakeholder to better coexist and cooperate for the greater collective
good,” said Prof. Qi.
Prof.
Acharya, however, sees a clear shift. “This [aggressive] narrative is
being spelt out very systematically. Between India and China, they used
to say ‘don’t let differences become disputes’. What’s happening now is
that, across the spectrum, where differences which predate COVID-19,
that predate even the ‘peaceful rise’ policy, are now literally becoming
disputes. Let’s face it.”
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