China doesn't want ties with India and US doesn't want to get involved
China's conduct in the South China Sea has serious implications for our own relations with Beijing. The manner in which it has staked its claims in the South China sea, the "historical" justification for them, the total rejection of the claims of others, the disregard for international law and the deliberate stoking of regional tensions.
Also, the tactics of bullying and intimidation, the self-confidence that others will have to accommodate a strong China, the defiance of the US on the assumption that its vast economic interests in China.
Finally, the erosion of its power will dissuade it from militarily confronting Beijing over disputed islands in the region and the summary repudiation of the UNCLOS arbitral award, are relevant for shaping our policies towards China.
Legacy
Chinese passports carry maps of the country's geographical frontiers that, besides the nine-dash line, also show Arunachal Pradesh and occupied parts of Ladakh as Chinese territory.
State councillor Yang Jiechi has stated apropos the UNCLOS arbitral award that "though China is large, we cannot lose one centimetre of inheritance left by ancestors".
He is not referring to China's rights under international law, he is talking of ancestral legacy denied to it, overlooking the fact that when China became a party to UNCLOS, it renounced this supposed legacy.
If a strong China believes that history and past empire building have given it rights that it can assert today, others could, in theory, claim such rights too, generating tensions worldwide.
If China is so uncompromising about its "ancestral legacy", should the Tibetans and the Uyghurs of East Turkestan be denied the restoration of their ancestral legacies snatched away by China's territorial aggrandisement at their expense?
Does China intend to recover its inheritance lost to Russia and the Central Asian republics, now that it has acquired muscle?
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| China is, moreover, making its strategic opposition to India more public. (Reuters) |
Even if one were to discount such rhetoric in reaction to a stinging legal defeat inflicted by an international tribunal, the level of China's defiance of the award, with President Xi Jinping asking the PLA to "prepare to make war", bodes ill for the future.
China's stature as a great power determined to have its way and others obliged to defer to it will receive a serious blow if it were to climb down and progressively align its posture in the South China Sea with the UNCLOS award, as some hope.
One can, therefore, expect some defiant gesture from it, knowing that the US has little stomach for a confrontation.
Yang Jiechi is China's special representative for resolving the border dispute with India, which is why the intransigence of his pronouncement on sovereignty and territorial issues cannot be ignored.
It actually darkens the prospects for a border settlement, as China cannot have a two-track approach to "historic rights", asserting them unabashedly in the western Pacific and relinquishing them in the Himalayas.
China is, moreover, making its strategic opposition to India more public. The decision to build the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor through territory acknowledged as not legally belonging to Pakistan in the 1963 border agreement with the latter shows its scant regard for India's "historical rights" over the whole of Jammu & Kashmir.
Decision
Its decision to publicly obstruct India's NSG membership indicates lack of interest in normalising relations with India for the time being. Actually, it signals a more open phase of strategic completion between the two.
India's NSG membership in no way undermines China's enlightened self-interest, yet it made it known that India's membership was contrary to its national interest.
Some Western quarters are cautioning against further humiliation of China following its loss of face after the arbitral award.
If loss of face is so important for China, its studied decision to inflict "loss of face" on India on the NSG issue shows not only its exaggerated self-esteem, but also the difference others make about Chinese sensitivities and those of India.
China has now begun to cautiously pronounce on India's internal affairs, as indicated by its statement asking all sides to show restraint in handling the current turmoil in Kashmir.
This opens the door to potential Indian advice to all sides to show restraint in dealing with the unrest in Tibet and East Turkestan.
Activity
China's reclamation activity, its militarisation of the South China Sea, its permanent destruction of the environment of the atolls are of a piece with its environmentally damaging activities in Tibet, the development of an extensive military infrastructure there, the ongoing construction of dams and the visualised water diversion projects, all of concern to India.
China's intimidatory tactics in the South China Sea also explain the border incidents on the LAC that it periodically instigates. The fiction of China's peaceful rise has been laid bare.
The UNCLOS award and China's petulant reaction will test the credibility of the US rebalance towards Asia. Already some US commentators are advocating prudence in handling China's expected bellicosity.
They are concerned that the Philippines may get encouraged to act on the award, drawing the US into an unwanted confrontation with China over islands and rocks that present no threat to US security.
If unhindered freedom of navigation and overflight is assured, the US should not get involved in local maritime disputes.
The future of US-India joint strategic vision for the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions will be tested by the course of US action in meeting China's defiance in the South China Sea.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)