30 Jun 2023. White House. Washington.

Director CIA, William Burns asked for a most urgent meeting with President Joe Biden on 30 Jun 23. Director CIA pointed out that the Ukrainian counter-offensive had stalled badly and they had taken heavy losses.

“But you already told me that”, the president interjected. The Director CIA took a deep breath. “But what I’m about to tell you is far worse, Mr President. In fact, it is explosive.” The president looked at him in surprise.

“Mr President, we have received very hard intelligence that China has preponed its time line for attack on Taiwan. We understand that this will go in now in Apr 2024.”

“What? The president was genuinely alarmed. “How do we know this?”

The Director CIA pursed his lips. How much could he reveal now, he wondered to himself. “Mr President, firstly, these are the clear battle indications:-

• The Chinese are rapidly reducing their holdings of US treasury bonds and securities. They are trying to cut down dollar holdings of their forex reserves. They have drawn lessons from how we simply seized 300 billion dollars worth of Russian forex reserves.

• They are building up their gold reserves.

• They are building up stocks of fuel and food. In fact, even during Covid, they refused to touch their food reserve stocks.

• They are building up their blood banks for military hospitals.

• The PLA has been carrying out increasingly more realistic exercises. They have already practised enforcing a blockade and gaining air and maritime control over and around Taiwan. Next year, they are planning a full-fledged joint island landing campaign exercise which could easily be turned to actuals.”

“All of that still doesn’t give us an exact timeline” said the president impatiently.

“Exactly, Mr President. I took this time to come to you because we wanted to be very certain. But we now have solid human intelligence that the CMC has decided to attack in Apr 2024.”

“How solid?” asked the president.

“I would say rock solid, Mr President.” The President got up in agitation.

“I say we call an immediate meeting with the Chairman JCS and Secretary of State.”

“Mr President, can’t we delay that a bit. It would endanger those very highly-placed sources who have risked their necks to share this.”

“You have given me this explosive bit of intelligence and expect me to sit on it? Talking about a two-front war is one thing, fighting a two-front war is quite another. No, we can’t afford this. We need to head this off preferably. We need to de-escalate right away. Go on a charm offensive,” the president said in considerable agitation.

Consequent to this exchange, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, made two efforts to resume talks with Beijing. This was followed up by Secretary of Treasury Janet Yallen, who went to Beijing and virtually pleaded with the Chinese not to get rid of their US treasury bonds. The way she kow-towed in Beijing had to be seen. Finally, the 100-year old former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, the author of the US–China reproachment in the 1970s, himself made a visit to Beijing to placate the Chinese leadership.

18 Aug 2023. On board the presidential plane of XI Jinping. Over Nanjing.

President Xi Jinping made a sudden unannounced visit to HQ Eastern Command Nanjing. On the return flight, Director of China’s State Security Bureau (SSB) boarded the plane. He asked for an absolutely one-on-one meeting with the president on the plane. He had some top-class intelligence to share. The president was surprised. Director SSB apologised, “I’m sorry Comrade President. What I have to tell you is so sensitive that I had to arrange this special flight, just in case your office was bugged.”

“What is it,” asked President Xi, nervously.

“Comrade President, we have been betrayed. Our plans to invade Taiwan have been leaked to the Americans.”

“Leaked? By whom?” the president said as his face clouded with anger.

“Comrade president, I don’t know how to say this but your defence minister and foreign minister, no less, have done this treachery.”

“Li Shang Fu and Quiqiang?” The President was amazed. Both were his proteges and he had promoted them out of turn.

“Are you certain?” he asked in shock.

“Sir, before we came to you, we checked and double-checked. This is the sad truth,” the Director SSB said. “It was Li Shang Fu who told the foreign minister and also shared this decision with the Chief and Deputy Chief of the Rocket Forces.”

“This Li Shang Fu!” the President got up from his seat in rage. He immediately sent for Gen Zhang, Vice Chief of CMC. “Put plans for Taiwan on hold immediately, till we clean up this stinking system,” he was almost spluttering in rage. The system was duly cleaned up. The department for Discipline Inspection went into overdrive. First the foreign minister and then the defence minister simply disappeared from public view. The foreign minister, had a torrid affair with a tele- journalist when he was ambassador in USA. He had even fathered a child with her. The defence minister was involved in huge corruption in defence deals and had been compromised. Terse announcements followed weeks of speculation. Both had been sacked.

30 Oct 2023. Top Secret Meeting CMC. Shenyang.

On 7 Oct 2023, the Hamas struck Israel viciously and achieved complete surprise. Some 1,200 Israeli citizens were killed, 3,700 wounded and 250 taken hostage. Israel mobilised 3,00,000 reservists and reacted in rage. They bombed Gaza to rubble and then launched a brutal ground invasion spearheaded by Merkava tanks. In eight weeks, over 11,000 Palestinians were killed and some 23,000 wounded. US despatched two carrier battle groups to the Middle East and rushed in arms and munitions to Israel. On 30 Oct, Xi Jinping called for another top-secret CMC meeting. This time it was held in Shenyang in northern China. The Director of SSB was in attendance to ensure there was no leakage.

The President began with the Director SSB, “Comrade have we managed to clean up our system?

“Comrade Xi, we have purged the system thoroughly. With your support, the traitors at the highest levels have been dealt with,” he said grimly.

Xi just nodded curtly. He turned to Gen Zhang Youxian. “Comrade Zhang, in view of the Israel-Hamas conflict, what is your assessment of the global situation? Does it create a good window of opportunity for our Taiwan contingency?”

Gen Zhang said, “Comrade President, the situation is excellent. America is bogged down now in two wars, not just one. They have sent in two carrier battle groups to the Middle East and a large number of their army reserves are locked up in Europe. Both conflicts will drag on for a long time. 12% of Israel’s population were orthodox Jews who are extreme and don’t want a two state solution. This will likely go up to 32%. Both these conflicts will drag on. I say it is now or never. The correlation of forces will never be as favourable.”

Xi turned to Gen Hi Wei Dong, “Comrade?” he said briefly.

Gen Hi cleared his throat and said, “I agree entirely with Gen Zhang. The Americans know that we know, they know. In this situation they will least expect us to go ahead with the plan. We now need a good deception plan. Let us mount a good charm offensive to soothe American nerves and go right ahead in Apr 2024. We won’t get a more favourable global situation.”

“So what will it be? A full-scale Amphibious invasion, seizing some middle-sized island or a Blockade?”

Gen Hi said promptly, “The Americans are expecting a full scale invasion. So let us start with a joint fire strike on key targets in Taiwan, follow it up with the PLA Air Force and PLA Navy establishing air and maritime superiority. Concurrently, we announce a maritime blockade and if necessary, enforce it for months, till the renegades in Taiwan cave in. Let us learn from Ukraine. Defence today is far more powerful that attack. So, we put in blockade and, thereby, put the onus of attack on the Americans. Let them attack first. It will be best for our information and cognitive warfare theme – “We showed restraint, it is the Americans who were the aggressors.” This will be far less risky option than full scale invasion.”

Adimiral Miao Hua said excitedly, “I do not agree. The Americans will use submarines to break the blockade. If we do not pre-emptively strike their bases in Guam and Okinawa, they will use them to bomb our fleet and our cities on the east coast. Let us not make the same mistake the Russians did at start of Ukraine war. Either we go full on or not at all. Let’s not go to war with mental brakes full on.”

Gen Hi countered, “The amphibious landing phase will be very risky. They will focus on destroying maximum number of our ships as we come in. With US and Taiwanese air power, cruise and anti-ship missiles and drones they could do very great damage. Besides, do we have the full lift capability for carrying four if not all six of our amphibious brigades to make at least two major beach-heads on the western coast of Taiwan?

Adm Miao interjected, “We have been practising with civilian roll–on roll–off (Ro- Ro) with floating causeways. We have 64 of these that have trained for such assaults. Besides we have the largest merchant marine in the world. Even USA cannot lift as many troops as we can.”

“But these huge ships will be sitting ducks for US and Taiwanese anti–ship and cruise missiles. We could win or lose all. Are we prepared to lose all? And don’t forget, even if you do land successfully, you still have to fight through a very mountainous country with lots of built up areas,” Gen Hi countered.

The palpable tension was showing on President Xi’s face. He took a sip of water.

“So, if we blockade Taiwan, how will the Americans react,” he asked.

Gen Zhang Youxia replied, “The US will react first with his nuclear submarines to torpedo our blockading ships. Then, he will surge forward two or three carrier battle groups, maybe even five.”

“Then what do we do?” asked the President.

Gen Zhang replied, “Comrade President, our guided missile Renhai-class cruisers and Luyang-class destroyers have good anti-submarine warfare and anti-air capabilities. Besides, we have our nuclear powered hunter-killer submarines. In addition, our entire PLA Air Force and Marine Aviation will be up in the air. To take care of US carrier battle groups, we will fire salvos of Dong Feng-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles of 2000 km range. The Americans can’t accept casualties. Even if they lose one or two carriers, their ardour to intervene will evaporate quickly.”

There was a total silence in the room. You could cut the air with a knife. President Xi licked his lips to moisten them. His mouth had gone dry with the tension.

“OK, let’s go for the blockade,” he said finally. “But, what will be our pretext?”

“Oh, that is easy, Comrade President. Firstly, presidential elections in Taiwan are on 13 Jan next year. We can always take advantage of any pro-Independence sentiments expressed in the presidential campaign. If that does not work, we have an opposition candidate in our pay – a good agent provocateur. Next year, in March, he will make an impassioned speech denouncing President of Taiwan, ask for her impeachment and demand full Independence now,” said the Director SSB.

President Xi nodded grimly, saying, “Well, if a pro-Independence candidate wins in January elections, we will have very real reason to go in. Comrades, we plan for a blockade next year in Apr 2024. It will give us much better escalation control and lower any risk of catastrophic failure. If the first phase of the blockade goes well, maybe we could still go for full-scale amphibious assault. Let us see how that goes. We have a golden opportunity with the US already bogged down on two fronts. We can’t afford to let this pass. Meanwhile, let’s go on a charm offensive for full scale deception. I’ll go for the summit meeting with President Biden in California as planned on 15 Nov and try to be as nice as possible.” He then concluded the meet.

The post Chinese Leadership Discusses Strategy appeared first on IMR.

China

“The PRC is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it. Beijing has ambitions to create an enhanced sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific and to become the world’s leading power. It is using its technological capacity and increasing influence over international institutions to create more permissive conditions for its own authoritarian model, and to mold global technology use and norms to privilege its interests and values. Beijing frequently uses its economic power to coerce countries. It benefits from the openness of the international economy while limiting access to its domestic market, and it seeks to make the world more dependent on the PRC while reducing its own dependence on the world. The PRC is also investing in a military that is rapidly modernizing, increasingly capable in the Indo-Pacific, and growing in strength and reach globally – all while seeking to erode U.S. alliances in the region and around the world.

“At the same time, the PRC is also central to the global economy and has a significant impact on shared challenges, particularly climate change and global public health. It is possible for the United States and the PRC to coexist peacefully, and share in and contribute to human progress together.

“Our strategy toward the PRC is threefold: 1) to invest in the foundations of our strength at home – our competitiveness, our innovation, our resilience, our democracy, 2) to align our efforts with our network of allies and partners, acting with common purpose and in common cause, and 3) compete responsibly with the PRC to defend our interests and build our vision for the future. The first two elements— invest and align— are described in the previous section and are essential to out-competing the PRC in the technological, economic, political, military, intelligence, and global governance domains.

“Competition with the PRC is most pronounced in the Indo-Pacific, but it is also increasingly global. Around the world, the contest to write the rules of the road and shape the relationships that govern global affairs is playing out in every region and across economics, technology, diplomacy, development, security, and global governance.

“In the competition with the PRC, as in other arenas, it is clear that the next ten years will be the decisive decade. We stand now at the inflection point, where the choices we make and the priorities we pursue today will set us on a course that determines our competitive position long into the future.

“Many of our allies and partners, especially in the Indo-Pacific, stand on the frontlines of the PRC’s coercion and are rightly determined to seek to ensure their own autonomy, security, and prosperity. We will support their ability to make sovereign decisions in line with their interests and values, free from external pressure, and work to provide high-standard and scaled investment, development assistance, and markets.

“Our strategy will require us to partner with, support, and meet the economic and development needs of partner countries, not for the sake of competition, but for their own sake. We will act in common purpose to address a range of issues – from untrusted digital infrastructure and forced labor in supply chains and illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. We will hold Beijing accountable for abuses – genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, human rights violations in Tibet, and the dismantling of Hong Kong’s autonomy and freedoms – even as it seeks to pressure countries and communities into silence. We will continue prioritizing investments in a combat credible military that deters aggression against our allies and partners in the region, and can help those allies and partners defend themselves.

“We have an abiding interest in maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, which is critical to regional and global security and prosperity and a matter of international concern and attention. We oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side, and do not support Taiwan independence. We remain committed to our one China policy, which is guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the Three Joint Communiques, and the Six Assurances. And we will uphold our commitments under the Taiwan Relations Act to support Taiwan’s self-defense and to maintain our capacity to resist any resort to force or coercion against Taiwan.

“Though allies and partners may have distinct perspectives on the PRC, our diplomatic approach, and the PRC’s own behavior, has produced significant and growing opportunities to align approaches and deliver results. Across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, countries are clear-eyed about the nature of the challenges that the PRC poses. Governments want sustainable public finances. Workers want to be treated with dignity and respect. Innovators want to be rewarded for their ingenuity, risk-taking, and persistent efforts. And enterprising businesses want open and free waters through which their products can be traded.

“While we compete vigorously, we will manage the competition responsibly. We will seek greater strategic stability through measures that reduce the risk of unintended military escalation, enhance crisis communications, build mutual transparency, and ultimately engage Beijing on more formal arms control efforts. We will always be willing to work with the PRC where our interests align. We can’t let the disagreements that divide us stop us from moving forward on the priorities that demand that we work together, for the good of our people and for the good of the world. That includes on climate, pandemic threats, nonproliferation, countering illicit and illegal narcotics, the global food crisis, and macroeconomic issues. In short, we’ll engage constructively with the PRC wherever we can, not as a favor to us or anyone else, and never in exchange for walking away from our principles, but because working together to solve great challenges is what the world expects from great powers, and because it’s directly in our interest. No country should withhold progress on existential transnational issues like the climate crisis because of bilateral differences.

The post US Strategy to Out-compete China and Restrain Russia appeared first on IMR.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the Biden administration’s top economic diplomat, delivered that message in person on 11 November during a visit to the Indian capital at a moment of intense global economic uncertainty. Soaring food and energy prices stemming from Russia’s war and heightened concerns about America’s reliance on Chinese products have pushed the United States to try to reshape the global economic order so that allies depend on one another for the goods and services that power their economies.

India is often in the middle of geopolitical jostling between the United States, China and Russia. But as the Biden administration promotes what it calls “friend-shoring,” it is making clear that it wants India to be in America’s orbit of economic allies.

After a tour of Microsoft’s research and development campus on the outskirts of New Delhi on Friday, Yellen outlined the case for shifting away from nations that could destabilise America’s supply chains and from manufacturers that show little regard for human life. It was evident that China and Russia were top of mind.

“The United States is pursuing an approach called ‘friend-shoring’ to diversify away from countries that present geopolitical and security risks to our supply chain,” Yellen said. “To do so, we are proactively deepening economic integration with trusted trading partners like India.”

Microsoft’s growing operations in India are an example of the integration that the United States wants to see. Yellen noted that America’s development finance agency was providing a US solar manufacturer with $500 million in financing to build a facility in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. That is part of the administration’s effort to help the world’s solar industry move away from China, which Yellen said produces solar panels using forced labour in its Xinjiang region.

And she highlighted Apple’s recent switch to move iPhone manufacturing from China to India.

“We are also addressing our reliance on manufacturers whose approaches clash with our human rights values,” added Yellen, who travelled to India before attending the Group of 20 leaders’ summit in Indonesia next week.

The importance of America’s bond with India has grown in recent months. The country is a rare ally that maintains strong diplomatic ties with Russia, which has become its top supplier of oil, and wields influence with President Vladimir Putin. At the same time, India’s large English-speaking population has the potential to make it an international production hub for US companies. The United States is India’s biggest trading partner overall.

But the trade relationship has not always been easy. US officials say their Indian counterparts are among the toughest negotiators, known for clinging to protectionist impulses at international meetings. And given the challenges of doing business in India, including a lack of infrastructure and government red tape, it’s not clear how many manufacturers will make the jump from China.

Sadanand Dhume, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said India faced several challenges in becoming a hub for international manufacturing, including government reforms that had not yet “appreciably” made India a more attractive destination for companies. And compared with China, India’s domestic consumer market is smaller and therefore less attractive for companies that manufacture there.

India emerged as a significant obstacle when members of the World Trade Organisation tried to reach a suite of agreements at a meeting this year. It has also declined to join negotiations over the trade pillar of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity, an Asia-Pacific economic pact proposed by the Biden administration.

In the past few months, India’s long economic relationship with Russia has become increasingly problematic for the United States. India is the world’s largest buyer of Russian munitions — a relationship that is difficult to sever, particularly given India’s tensions with neighbouring China and Pakistan. India has refused to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And since the war began in February, it has become a major buyer of Russian oil, which it is able to purchase on international markets at a discount.

India’s imports from Russia have risen 430% since the war in Ukraine began, as tankers of Russian crude oil flock to Indian ports. India, which imports a significant amount of energy and is the world’s second-most populous country, has said it is merely focused on buying oil at the lowest price.

Eswar Prasad, a trade policy professor at Cornell University who speaks to American and Indian officials, said that although India wanted to forge a stronger economic relationship with the United States, it was unlikely to distance itself from Russia.

“India has very deep-seated economic interests in maintaining a reliable and relatively cheap supply of oil from Russia,” said Prasad, a former official with the International Monetary Fund.

The US’ embrace of India comes as the United States and its European allies are racing to complete the terms of a plan to cap the price of Russian oil. The initiative must be in place by Dec. 5, when a European embargo and maritime insurance ban goes into effect, potentially disrupting the flow of Russian oil around the world.

The price cap would essentially create an exception to Western sanctions, allowing Russian oil to be sold and shipped as long as it remained below a certain price, a level that has yet to be determined.

India has been circumspect about the proposal, but Treasury Department officials say the United States is not trying to push it to formally join its coalition. Instead, they are hopeful that India will use the price cap as leverage to negotiate lower prices with Russia, depriving Putin of revenue but keeping the nation’s oil flowing.

However, Yellen emphasised in her speech that relying on Russian oil came with risks.

 “Russia has long presented itself as a reliable energy partner,” Yellen said. “But for the better part of this year, Putin has weaponised Russia’s natural gas supply against the people of Europe.”

Yellen added, “It’s an example of how malicious actors can use their market positions to try to gain geopolitical leverage or disrupt trade for their own gain.”

Mindful of India’s economic ties to Russia, the United States has been focused on other areas where they can cooperate. India has thriving agricultural and services sectors, but the United States believes that it has substantial room to broaden its manufacturing capacity.

Atul Keshap, president of the US-India Business Council, said there were many opportunities for economic partnership between the United States and India, especially in setting up secure supply chains for strategic technologies such as semiconductors, electric vehicle batteries, artificial intelligence, quantum computing and drones.

“You look at the headlines. You look at the risks to the supply chain,” Keshap said. “You look at the uncertainties of the last two or three years, and countries like India have an opportunity.”

But business leaders and trade experts say the US and Indian governments have thus far failed to realise those opportunities. Talks for a trade deal with India briefly flourished during the Trump administration, but a series of persistent economic issues — ranging from India’s barriers for US agricultural goods and medical devices to its lack of protection for US intellectual property — have made any agreement difficult to reach.

A US program that lowered tariffs on imports from poorer countries, including India, lapsed in 2020, and there has not been enough support in Congress to reinstate it. At a 2021 trade meeting in New Delhi, the sides made some headway on opening trade for American pork, cherries and alfalfa hay, and Indian mangoes and pomegranates.

A US-India trade policy forum eyed for Nov. 8 in Washington was pushed back to give officials more time to achieve more substantive outcomes, a representative from the Office of the U Trade Representative said.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of her meetings Friday, Yellen said that reducing tariffs was not currently part of the discussions with India but that the two sides had been talking about other “trade facilitation” measures to reduce non-tariff barriers.

According to Prasad, there is lingering scepticism in India about the durability of America’s good intentions in the aftermath of the tariffs that then-President Donald Trump enacted.

“There is a layer of apprehension if not outright mistrust in Delhi,” Prasad said.

Yellen came to India to show that, despite their differences, the United States can be a trusted partner. On Friday, she also met with Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

“Our strong trade, investment and people-to-people ties make the bilateral economic and financial relationship a critical element of that partnership,” Yellen said with Sitharaman by her side.

Sitharaman said the strength of the relationship between the two countries rested on understanding each other’s necessities and “respecting the differences.”

Speaking to Indian business leaders at the meeting, Yellen said big democracies such as India and the United States must stick together in a volatile global economy.

 “In a world where supply chain vulnerabilities can impose heavy costs, we believe it’s important to strengthen our trade ties with India and the large number of countries that share our approach to economic relations,” she said.

The post US seeks closer ties with India as tension with China and Russia builds appeared first on IMR.

The National Defense Strategy of the United States of America, released late 27 October by defence secretary Llyod Austin, directed the Department of Defense “to act urgently” to sustain and strengthen U.S. deterrence, with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the department’s “pacing challenge”.

However, it noted that “conflict with the PRC is neither inevitable nor desirable”.

It also identified Russia as an “acute threat” and said that the United States and its allies and partners will increasingly face the challenge of deterring two major powers with modern and diverse nuclear capabilities — the PRC and Russia — creating new stresses on strategic stability.

Making a clear shift from the terror angle to homeland threat, the defence strategy paper, which acts as the guiding principles for the US defence department, said the scope and scale of threats to the homeland (US) have fundamentally changed.

The PRC and Russia now pose more dangerous challenges to safety and security at home, even as terrorist threats persist, it said.

India and its tensions with China along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) figured thrice in the 80-page document which said that the department will advance “our Major Defense Partnership with India to enhance its ability to deter PRC aggression and ensure free and open access to the Indian Ocean region”.

It also noted that the department will also support ally and partner efforts, in accordance with U.S. policy and international law, to address acute forms of gray zone coercion from the PRC’s campaigns to establish control over the East China Sea, Taiwan Strait, South China Sea, and disputed land borders, such as with India.

At the same time, the department will continue to prioritise maintaining open lines of communication with China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and managing competition responsibly, it said.

Noting that the US 2022 National Security Strategy released earlier this month observes that the PRC is “the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order, and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do so”, Austin said China remains our most consequential strategic competitor for the coming decades.

“I have reached this conclusion based on the PRC’s increasingly coercive actions to reshape the Indo-Pacific region and the international system to fit its authoritarian preferences, alongside a keen awareness of the PRC’s clearly stated intentions and the rapid modernisation and expansion of its military,” Austin said.

‘Part of broader destabilising, coercive PRC behavior’

The PRC seeks to undermine U.S. alliances and security partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region, and leverage its growing capabilities, including its economic influence and the the PLA’s growing strength and military footprint, to coerce its neighbors and threaten their interests, stated the defence strategy document.

The PRC’s increasingly provocative rhetoric and coercive activity towards Taiwan are destabilising, risk miscalculation, and threaten the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait, it added.

“This is part of a broader pattern of destabilizing and coercive PRC behavior that stretches across the East China Sea, the South China Sea, and along the Line of Actual Control,” said the document.

Noting that the PRC has expanded and modernised nearly every aspect of the PLA, with a focus on offsetting U.S. military advantages, the document concluded that PRC is therefore the “pacing challenge” for the department.

It added that in addition to expanding its conventional forces, the PLA is rapidly advancing and integrating its space, counterspace, cyber, electronic, and informational warfare capabilities to support its holistic approach to joint warfare.

“The PLA seeks to target the ability of the (US) Joint Force to project power to defend vital U.S. interests and aid our Allies in a crisis or conflict,” said the document.

It added: “The PRC is also expanding the PLA’s global footprint and working to establish a more robust overseas and basing infrastructure to allow it to project military power at greater distances. In parallel, the PRC is accelerating the modernization and expansion of its nuclear capabilities.”

The post China, Russia and ‘India partnership’ focus of US Defense Strategy appeared first on IMR.

China sees democratic Taiwan as a breakaway province, but Taiwan sees itself as a sovereign state, with its own constitution, military, and elected leaders.

Taiwan’s status is a red line for Beijing, a part of what it regards as its unimpeachable territorial integrity. Under Xi Jinping’s leadership, China has repeatedly said that it would use military force to prevent any move towards formal independence by Taiwan, which it regards as a renegade province.

The US has called China’s latest warning “unfortunate”, adding that tensions did not need to lead to “anything like confrontation”.

What’s behind the China-Taiwan divide?

Analysts say Beijing is becoming increasingly concerned that Taiwan’s government is moving the island towards a formal declaration of independence and it wants to warn President Tsai Ing-wen against taking steps in that direction.

President Tsai, however, has repeatedly said that Taiwan is already a independent state, making any formal declaration unnecessary.

On 28 January, Chinese defence ministry spokesman Wu Qian defended the recent military activities near Taiwan, saying they were “necessary actions to address the current security situation in the Taiwan Strait and to safeguard national sovereignty and security”.

“They are a solemn response to external interference and provocations by ‘Taiwan independence’ forces,” he added. “We warn those ‘Taiwan independence’ elements – those who play with fire will burn themselves, and Taiwan independence means war.”

China and Taiwan: The Basics

China and Taiwan have had separate governments since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. Beijing has long tried to limit Taiwan’s international activities and both have vied for influence in the Pacific region. Tensions have increased in recent years and Beijing has not ruled out the use of force to take the island back.

Although Taiwan is officially recognised by only a handful of nations, its democratically elected government has strong commercial and informal links with many countries.

Like most nations, the US has no official diplomatic ties with Taiwan, but a US law does require it to provide the island with the means to defend itself.

The new US administration is expected to maintain pressure on China over a wide range of issues including human rights, trade disputes, Hong Kong and Taiwan, amid the deteriorating relationship between the two powers.

Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, meanwhile, said China should “not underestimate” the island’s determination to defend its sovereignty and uphold freedom and democracy.

What is the history and source of this tension?

The first known settlers in Taiwan are Austronesian tribal people thought to have come from modern day southern China. The island first appears in Chinese records in AD239, when China sent an expeditionary force to explore – a fact Beijing uses to back its territorial claim. After a brief spell as a Dutch colony (1624-1661) Taiwan was administered by China’s Qing dynasty from 1683 to 1895.

From the 17th Century, significant numbers of migrants started arriving from China, often fleeing turmoil or hardship. Most were Hoklo Chinese from Fujian (Fukien) province or Hakka Chinese, largely from Guangdong. The descendants of these two migrations now make up by far the largest population group.

In 1895, following Japan’s victory in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Qing government had to cede Taiwan to Japan. After World War Two, the Republic of China – one of the victors – began ruling Taiwan with the consent of its allies the US and UK, after Japan surrendered and relinquished control of territory it had taken from China.

However in the next few years, a civil war broke out in China and the leader at the time Chiang Kai-shek’s troops were beaten back by the Communist armies under Mao Zedong.

Chiang and the remnants of his Kuomintang (KMT) government fled to Taiwan in 1949. This group, referred to as Mainland Chinese and then making up 1.5mn people, dominated Taiwan’s politics for many years, even though they only account for 14% of the population.

Having inherited an effective dictatorship, facing resistance from local people resentful of authoritarian rule, and under pressure from a growing democracy movement, Chiang’s son, Chiang Ching-kuo, began allowing a process of democratisation, which eventually led to the 2000 election of the island’s first non-KMT president, Chen Shui-bian.

Where are things at now?

Relations between China and Taiwan started improving in the 1980s. China put forward a formula, known as “one country, two systems”, under which Taiwan would be given significant autonomy if it accepted Chinese reunification.

This system was established in Hong Kong to be used as something of a showcase to entice Taiwanese people back to the mainland but over the last year it has come under massive pressure with many analysts already questioning whether it still exists in the city.

In Taiwan, the offer was rejected, but Taipei did relax rules on visits to and investment in China. It also, in 1991, proclaimed the war with the People’s Republic of China on the mainland to be over.

There were also limited talks between the two sides’ unofficial representatives, though Beijing’s insistence that Taiwan’s Republic of China (ROC) government is illegitimate prevented government-to-government contact.

Alarm in Beijing

Beijing became alarmed in 2000, when Taiwan elected as president Chen Shui-bian, who had openly backed “independence”.

Chen was re-elected in 2004, prompting China to pass a so-called anti-secession law in 2005, stating China’s right to use “non-peaceful means” against Taiwan if it tried to “secede” from China.

In 2008, Ma Ying-jeou was elected president. He sought to improve relations with China, mainly through economic agreements.

In elections in January 2016, Tsai Ing-wen defeated Kuomintang party candidate Eric Chu. She leads the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which leans towards eventual official independence from China.

After Donald Trump won the 2016 US election, she spoke to the president-elect in a phone call, in what was a break with US policy set in 1979 when formal relations were cut. Despite the lack of formal relations, the US has an agreement to supply Taiwan with defensive weapons and has stressed any attack by China would cause “grave concern”.

Throughout 2018, China stepped up pressure on international companies forcing them to list Taiwan as a part of China on their websites and threatening to block them for doing business in China if they failed to comply.

In 2020, Tsai won a second term. By that time, Hong Kong had seen months of unrest with protesters demonstrating against the mainland’s increasing influence – a trend that had many in Taiwan worried Beijing would next set its eyes on Taiwan.

Later that year, China’s implementation of a national security law in Hong Kong was seen by many as a yet another sign that Beijing was becoming significantly more assertive in the region.

In the meantime, the US has been intensifying its outreach to Taiwan, reassuring Taipei of its continued support. In September 2020, Washington sent its highest-ranking politician to hold meetings on the island for decades. Beijing strongly criticised the meeting, warning “not to send any wrong signals to ‘Taiwan independence’ elements to avoid severe damage to China-US relations”. During the controversial visit, China conducted a live-fire military exercise in the waterway that separates the island from the mainland.

President Joe Biden’s administration has said its commitment to Taiwan is “rock solid”. In the first few days of Biden’s presidency, Taiwan reported a “large incursion” by Chinese warplanes over two days. Taiwan’s air force moved to warn away the Chinese aircraft and deployed air defence missile systems to monitor the planes. Analysts said China was testing Biden’s support for Taiwan.

How much of an issue is independence in Taiwan?

While political progress has been slow, links between the two peoples and economies have grown sharply. Taiwanese companies have invested about $60bn in China, and up to one million Taiwanese now live there, many running Taiwanese factories.

Some Taiwanese worry their economy is now dependent on China. Others point out that closer business ties makes Chinese military action less likely, because of the cost to China’s own economy.

A controversial trade agreement sparked the “Sunflower Movement” in 2014 where students and activists occupied Taiwan’s parliament protesting against what they call China’s growing influence over Taiwan.

Some Taiwanese vocally support formal independence but most favour the middle ground. Officially, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) still favours eventual formal independence for Taiwan, while the KMT favours eventual re-unification. Opinion polls show only a small minority of Taiwanese support pursuing one or the other at the moment, with most preferring to stick with the current middle ground.

Yet more and more people say they feel Taiwanese rather than Chinese. Support for the DPP increased at the January 2016 election. This was partly because of dissatisfaction with the KMT’s handling of economic matters, from the wealth gap to high housing prices, and partly because of worries that Mr Ma’s administration was making Taiwan too dependent on Beijing.

Comments

The Biden’s administration needs to deter China from greater military coercion of Taiwan. The issue of Taiwan was a war and peace issue for China and a conflict was certainly possible, but both sides have a variety of incentives for the situation not to escalate.

The whole world needed to get serious about what a long term strategic competition between the US and China looked like.

The post China Warns Taiwan – Independence ‘Means War’ appeared first on IMR.

The Biden presidency will have to deal with the most important strategic challenge of the times – the belligerence of China. The appointment of an Indo-Pacific coordinator signals the continued commitment of the new administration to managing China’s ambitions and investing in regional partnerships in Asia – including with India. But this will be accompanied by Washington’s need to keep up a working relationship with Beijing. Given the relatively bipartisan support for the relationship with India, New Delhi should not be overly concerned about the tactical ebbs and flows in Washington’s policy – for the strategic convergence between the two is unmistakable.

Despite concerns that may be expressed about what has come to be seen as India’s democratic backsliding, Biden is likely to invest in the India partnership across the realm of defence, economy, technology, and climate – and perhaps even make a trip to India in the first half of his term.

Biden’s Core Team

While Biden’s nominees to head the state and defence departments and the CIA are all well-known individuals, their depositions before Senate committees a day before the inauguration give an insight into the new administration’s thinking.

Secretary of State nominee Anthony Blinken listed the most pressing challenges as rising nationalism, receding democracy, growing rivalry from “China, and Russia and other authoritarian states, mounting a threat to a stable and open international system”. He also noted “a technological revolution” was reshaping our lives. If the US doesn’t lead, he said, “there can be only two outcomes: another nation will step in or none will, and chaos shall ensue”.

On specifics, Blinken argued the US must defeat Covid-19, out-compete China and take the lead in tackling climate change.

Blinken also singled out democracy and human rights as central to the Biden administration’s global outreach. Thus overall, while India would be happy with the tone and tenor on China, though what the new China containment strategy will be is still unclear.

The defence secretary-designate, Gen. Lloyd Austin (Retd), talked about India’s near western neighbourhood. While he reiterated the US resolve to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, he qualified it, as Trump avoided doing, by saying safeguarding the gains in women’s rights, etc, must be a precondition to a final settlement. On Pakistan, he seemed to regress to old formulations like underscoring its importance to Afghan peace and regional stability.

The new approach to foreign policy was articulated most consistently over the last year and more by Jake Sullivan, one of Biden’s closest associates, who has been designated as the new national security adviser. A report issued by Washington’s Carnegie Endowment for International Peace last fall, which was co-authored by Sullivan, gives some insights into the new thinking.

The report points to the overreach of American foreign policy in recent decades and proposes a “less ambitious” foreign policy. The Carnegie report notes that “There is no evidence America’s middle class will rally behind efforts aimed at restoring US primacy in a unipolar world, escalating a new Cold War with China, or waging a cosmic struggle between the world’s democracies and authoritarian governments.”

Biden’s team took charge with the recognition that the expansive globalist ambitions of the American foreign policy establishment have lost much domestic political support.

Biden’s Immediate Actions

For a start, Biden’s priorities were focused on managing the raging COVID-19 pandemic which has claimed 400,000 lives in the US, an economic crisis and a deeply polarised society and politics as was witnessed during the siege of the US Capitol in January.

President Biden’s 17 acts of rolling back prominent Trump policies on the very first day could send some awkward signals about the way the new administration may view the outcome of the last four years of US policies.

Biden’s first actions as president were sharply aimed at sweeping aside former President Donald Trump’s pandemic response, reversing his environmental agenda, tearing down his anti-immigration policies, bolstering the teetering economic recovery and restoring federal efforts to promote diversity.

Immediately after taking over, Biden executive order that will eventually provide relief and citizenship to migrants who have no legal documents would benefit five lakh Indian beneficiaries.

Most expect a return to the pre-Trump era with the US playing a more active role in world dynamics. Secretary of State nominee Anthony Blinken said that India had been a “bipartisan success story” of successive administrations, and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has also been batting for stronger Indo-US ties. Biden himself is a vocal proponent of friendly ties with India and has been a familiar face in New Delhi since his days as the Vice-President under Barack Obama.

India will continue to keep a close watch on Biden and his State Department nominees who might raise human rights concerns, after the comparatively less intrusive Trump administration.

China Policy

Social dynamics of the American society and the weakening US economy could prevent Biden from playing any hard options against China on issues such as Taiwan and Hong Kong. The Biden administration has displayed a bold intent by refusing to be intimidated by China over Taiwan – the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt was sent to the South China Sea to promote ‘freedom of the seas’.

It is unlikely that Biden will dilute the high status that Trump accorded to India in his strategic calculus for the Indo Pacific in the containment of China. Convergence of Indo-US interests has not been disturbed by Trump’s exit.

Indo-Pacific Policy

On its way out of power, the Trump administration, on 13 January, declassified a Indo-Pacific policy it evolved and shaped during its time in office to reveal broad and tough measures to contain China, including “accelerating India’s rise,” through diplomatic, military, and intelligence support.

Broad outlines of the policy were always known, but the decision to reveal it in detail in the turbulent waning days of the Trump dispensation even though the declassification was scheduled for 2042, came as a surprise even amid the toxic pathology between Washington and Beijing over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

Public disclosure of the policy will put pressure on the incoming Biden dispensation to stay on course with an evolving US-China-India policy that has progressively gotten tougher on Beijing.

The ten-page document, revealed during heightened tensions between India and China amid a continuing border stand-off, states that enhanced US assistance and intelligence sharing should aid New Delhi in key areas of conflict with Beijing, including over border disputes and water rights.

It outlines the US decision to “offer support to #India – through diplomatic, military and intelligence channels to help address continental challenges such as border dispute with China and access to water, including the Brahmaputra and other rivers facing diversion by China.”

“A strong India, in cooperation with like-minded countries, would act as a counter-balance to China,” the document states.

Outlining Washington’s desired outcomes, that policy seeks that “India’s preferred partner in security issues is the United States” and “India maintains the capacity to counter border provocations by China,” and “India remains pre-eminent in South Asia and takes the leading role in maintaining Indian Ocean Security.”

During its four years in office, the Trump administration’s engagement in the Indo-Pacific theater was vigorous, and the pandemic, which the Trump administration blames on China, appears to have accelerated it beyond its initial moves in 2018, when it renamed US Pacific Command as the Indo-Pacific Command in a signal it was bringing New Delhi into the security loop.

The US is fully aware of this and of India’s significance in the Indo Pacific strategy. Biden is unlikely to slow down the momentum that the Quadrilateral of nations involving Japan, Australia, India and the US, has gathered towards realisation of shared concerns and formulation of strategic intent against an aggressive China.

Pakistan

During the Trump era, de-hyphenation of Pakistan from India became a reality. Ties between the US and Pakistan may take off once again. The new US defence secretary, in his confirmation hearing with the American Senate Foreign Relations Committee, expressed the need for engaging with the Pakistan military. Pakistan’s geostrategic location gives it out-of-proportion strategic stakes. Pakistan has moved closer to China but US-Pak mutual interests have not changed. The US needs Pakistan for its Afghanistan policy, which will contribute towards an eventual final withdrawal. On the other hand, Pakistan needs US support for its economy.

Middle East

The Middle East and Asia are the two foreign policy theatres which will test Biden. Biden has shown signs of reviving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran and reconsidering sanctions. Bringing back Iran to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) will involve a number of steps, including rebuilding the trust with the Iranian leadership that got severely hit after the decision taken by the Trump administration to withdraw from the nuclear deal which was followed by the 2020 assassination of Qasem Soleimani.

Though there is little scope for a complete revision in the overall Middle East strategy, a withdrawal of support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen is expected as the situation has caused a humanitarian crisis and embarrassment to the US. Facilitated by the Trump administration, the accords between Israel and Bahrain, and Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) carry some weight, but there is little expectation of a major breakthrough on thorny issues like Israel-Palestine.

India’s interests are primarily the opening of Iran’s energy supplies, the rights on development and usage of Chabahar, stability of the Gulf nations where the large Indian diaspora resides and a general absence of violence.

Russia

India’s immediate concern is to see that the S-400 air defence system deal with Russia goes through. It remains contentious in US eyes with no certainty about application of sanctions under Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). The US imposed sanctions on Turkey recently under the CAATSA for the purchase of S-400 missile defences from Russia.

Top American officials have been taking a “pragmatic view” on the issue. India cannot wish away overnight the fact that it has huge dependency on Russia. So whether the Biden administration imposes sanctions or not India has to build its capability. Ultimately India will take decisions based on its own strategic interests.

Delhi’s Expectations

New Delhi is looking at “five baskets” of engagement: Strategic, environment, energy and climate change, digital and IT, education and health care.

According to Evan Osnos’s biography of Biden, he was one of the key advocates of strengthening the Indo-US partnership, especially in strategic areas.

With about 2 lakh Indian students in the US and the Trump administration’s progressively hardening line on visas, Delhi will look towards easing of norms for those aspiring to study and work there.

The US and India see each other as key strategic partners and analysts expect the Indo-US relations to grow closer and become less strained. With the coalition against China likely to persist, America’s ties with India and other Pacific nations, including Japan and Australia, may experience a further boost.

The major policy changes India is hoping for are in terms of software exports, H1 visa policy, minimum compensation for engineers (via which Trump tried discouraging hiring Indian IT professionals). Bilateral trade between the two countries was at $88.75 billion in 2019-20. In 2019, the US was the largest goods export market (17% share) for India and, in terms of goods import supplier, it was the third largest. In April-September 2020, the US was the second biggest source of FDI for India. It’s likely that higher portfolio investments influenced by federal rates will flow into India.

With India focusing on becoming a manufacturing hub, there might be a rise in US funding influx and India would hopefully become the alternative choice.

Defence Cooperation

A day after US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke for the first time with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, on 29 January, Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby told reporters at a news conference, “The Secretary made it very clear that we’re going to remain committed to a strong US-India bilateral relationship.”  During his conversation with Singh on Wednesday, Austin pledged to work collaboratively with India to sustain the progress in the bilateral defence relationship, the Pentagon said earlier.

“During the call, Secretary Austin emphasised the Department’s commitment to the US-India Major Defence Partnership, observing that it is built upon shared values and a common interest in ensuring the Indo-Pacific region remains free and open,” Kirby said.

The Indo-US defence ties have been on an upswing in the last few years and in June 2016, the US had designated India a “Major Defence Partner”.

The two countries have also inked key defence and security pacts over the past few years, including the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) in 2016 that allows their militaries use each other’s bases for repair and replenishment of supplies as well as provides for deeper cooperation.

The two sides have also signed COMCASA (Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement) in 2018 that provides for interoperability between the two militaries and provides for sale of high end technology from the US to India.

Comments

The Trump years have seen two important developments in India-US relations. One is the sharpening tensions on trade and the other is the deepening defence and security cooperation. The Biden moment offers the opportunity for Delhi to overcome the bilateral differences on trade and elevate defence cooperation to a higher level.

The need to take the Indo-US security-defence relationship to the next level is apparent to sober thinkers in both nations but the obstacles to it are not insignificant. There is no guarantee that the US-India positive trajectory will continue.

An essay published earlier this month by Joshua T. White, a leading scholar with the Brookings Institution, details the concerns on the American side. President Joe Biden will have to deal with apprehensions about India’s fiscal limitations, its ties with Russia, its “ponderous response” to Chinese provocations on its border, and its “drift toward illiberal majoritarian politics”. In addition, writes White, the Biden administration will likely seek, for good reason, to rebalance the bilateral relationship away from a disproportionate focus on security issues in order to address a wider array of topics including global health, energy and climate change, and technology cooperation.

On the Indian domestic front, prime minister Narendra Modi will have to contend with the long-held view that Democratic administrations are prone to hyphenating India and Pakistan, do not walk the tough talk on China, indulge in rank identity politics which they expect other nations including their allies to emulate, and lecture New Delhi on human rights, liberalism and the environment without accounting for an Indian exceptionalism, which has been in the forefront of pushing back against communitarian discourses. These are the challenges that both countries have to overcome, respectively, if they are serious about containing the rise and rise of China.

The post INDIA-U.S. – US Policy Toward India Under Biden appeared first on IMR.

The US-China rivalry has shifted into new and unpredictable areas ever since the US administration claimed China intentionally covered up the leak of coronavirus and the extent of the COVID-19 pandemic to hoard medical supplies for themselves.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, announced at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California, on 23 July, in no uncertain terms, what the Trump administration wanted to do and how it planned to go about it.

America now wants regime change in China. The secretary of state said the US had ditched five decades of “engagement” policy. Pompeo said there would be a new form of engagement. “We must also engage and empower the Chinese people—a dynamic, freedom-loving people who are completely distinct from the Chinese Communist Party,” he said. “That begins with in-person diplomacy.”

To many, atleast in Chinese Communist Party (CCP) circles this would sound like a cry for war. It would appear that the Americans have realized the danger of the Communist Party’s challenge to America.

Chinese president Xi Jinping has not only shown China’s hegemony but also efforts to resurrect the imperial-era concept that China’s ruler has both the right and responsibility to rule tianxia, or all under Heaven.

This change in policy can be attributed to Beijing’s disinformation campaigns against the United States, in relation to the coronavirus epidemic. The US Administration also feels that following the death of George Floyd at the hands of police brutality, on 25 May, Beijing had gone all out, surreptitiously propagating a story, through text messages and social media feeds, to cause turmoil in America.

The US believes that it can no longer handle Beijing with traditional diplomacy. China presents a very complicated challenge. In the limited time since the coronavirus outbreak, the US Administration showed a tough attitude and a lot of provocative measures that did not yield results.

Chinese Frightening Actions

China’s militancy has since manifest itself in many way and many locations. On June 15 Chinese troops, in a premeditated action, killed 20 Indian soldiers south of the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh.

Beijing has engaged in “Wolf Warrior diplomacy” across the world.

Call For Democracy

“It’s time,” Pompeo said on 23 Jul. “It’s time for free nations to act.”

Pompeo called for the free world to “induce” change in China, making an overt appeal for a new coalition of democratic nations to force the Chinese Communist Party change direction or face isolation. “The free world must triumph over this new tyranny,” he said in speech to an invited audience that included exiled Chinese dissidents.

China has roundly rejected the administration’s accusations and taken particular aim at Pompeo, who it has accused of fomenting anti-Chinese sentiment around the world. China maintains that it is only seeking to develop its economy and society for the benefit of its own people and the world.

U.S. Belligerent Posturing

On 19 July, U.S. authorities ordered the shuttering of the Chinese Consulate in Houston on the grounds that it was an espionage hub for Beijing. The Justice Department also said a fugitive Chinese scientist with ties to the People’s Liberation Army, China’s military, has been given sanctuary in the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco. In response the Chinese ordered the US consulate in Chengdu shut.

Separately, the Commerce Department announced sanctions on a new group of Chinese companies for their alleged involvement in China’s “campaign of repression” against Uighurs and other ethnic minorities, including the use of forced labor.

Pompeo met self-exiled Hong Kong student leader Nathan Law Kwun-chung, on 21 July, is seeking to harness growing global consternation with Beijing.

With some nationalist commentators inside China openly discussing the idea of an invasion of Taiwan, the United States has expanded arms sales to the island democracy that Beijing views as its own.

The State Department has curtailed visas for Chinese and Communist Party officials involved in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong, and limited the number of Chinese students and journalists allowed to come to the United States.

In addition, the Commerce and Treasury departments have both announced new sanctions against China. They have warned private US and foreign firms of potential penalties and reputational risk if they start or continue business with Chinese entities implicated by the US in human rights abuses or clamping down on freedoms in Hong Kong.

Following India’s actions to ban Chinese apps, citing security concerns, President Trump said, early July, he was considering banning Chinese video app TikTok, WeChat and some of other applications that the Chinese government was allegedly using to obtain personal and private data of Americans. Facebook, Google and Twitter are all blocked in the mainland and are at risk of the same fate in Hong Kong.

Some of his top advisers want the US to undermine the Hong Kong dollar’s peg to the US dollar to punish China for recent moves to chip away at the former British colony’s political freedoms.

Earlier, on 22 June, the US State Department designated four Chinese news outlets as “foreign missions”, months after it had given five other Chinese entities the same lable – China Central Television, China News Service, the People’s Daily, and the Global Times – are now part of a list that includes Xinhua News Agency, China Global Television Network, China Radio International, China Daily Distribution Corporation, and Hai Tian Development USA that were designated on February 18 under the Foreign Missions Act.

Entities designated as foreign missions must adhere to certain administrative requirements that also apply to foreign embassies and consulates in the United States. This designation recognises PRC propaganda outlets as foreign missions and increases transparency relating to the CCP and PRC government’s media activities in the United States.

A day earlier, the U.S. administration’s announced visa bans on Chinese officials deemed responsible for barring foreigners’ access to Tibet. The new ban hit more senior levels of leadership, targeting Chen Quanguo, Xinjiang’s ranking leader and a member of the party’s Politburo, along with regional security officials Zhu Hailun and Wang Mingshan. They and their immediate family members are banned from entering the United States. The sanctions were announced after a press investigation showed forced population control of the Uighurs and other largely Muslim minorities, one of the reasons cited by the State Department for the sanctions.

The U.S. Senate approved a bill, in mid-June, that would impose mandatory sanctions on people or companies that back efforts to restrict Hong Kong’s autonomy. It includes secondary sanctions on banks that do business with anyone backing any crackdown on the territory’s autonomy.

President Trump also ruled out, for the time being, a second phase trade deal with China, saying the relationship between the two countries had been severely damaged with Beijing’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

China’s Counter-actions

China, meanwhile, has embarked on its own effort to build alliances with infrastructure and financial assistance packages to developing nations. It has established a bloc of nations that vote with it at various   and other international institutions, some of which the Trump administration has withdrawn from.

China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said that China would retaliate against US officials and institutions following Washington’s imposition of sanctions on local officials of the ruling Communist Party over human rights abuses in the northwestern region of Xinjiang. Zhao said China “strongly opposes and condemns” the decision as relations deteriorated over the coronavirus pandemic, human rights, Hong Kong and trade.

US Elections

It is possible that Beijing has bared its fangs and given a preview of it might because of the power vacuum left by the United States with its America first and inward looking policies. China has also taken advantage of the world’s pre-occupation with the Covid-19 pandemic to demonstrate that it is unqualified for a position of sole global leadership.

Should Trump’s Democratic opponent Joe Biden emerge victorious in November 2020, the US will have to take a relook at its strategy. But by then the landscape may have changed completely.

The expectations are that threats and counter threats will only ratchet up further ahead of the U.S presidential election in November, with little prospect of a near-term reset.

There is a fast evolving realignment of forces happening. The spiraling threat will remain at least until the US election.

China is not just a foreign policy issue in the November election. It’s an issue that runs deeply through the troubles with the virus, which tanked the U.S. economy. Voters also will be asking themselves whether Trump or Biden can best defend the U.S. against China’s unfair trade practices, theft of intellectual property rights, rising aggression across the globe and human rights abuses.

See also ” US Rejects China’s ‘Historical’ Claim Over South China Sea.”

The post U.S.–CHINA: U.S.’s Belligerent Posturing Against China appeared first on IMR.

The “interesting times” continued for a couple of decades after his passing and they included two world wars, hundreds of millions of casualties and a completely new social system, whose inefficiency to a large degree contributed to the casualties. Following that was a very quiet period, which, however, marked the time of the greatest gains and advances in science and technology that humankind has known. The doctrine of the open economies advanced extensively the existing fragile commercial relationships and that was one of the major factors, which allowed for growth in many economies across the globe.

Fast forward to recent times and we see a very different picture. Local conflicts are waged by traditional warfare, while competition among superpowers is far more strategic and involves economic measures to influence the trade of each market agent, which would then affect its economy and the likelihood to alter its diplomatic and military policy. The economic wars are nothing new and they involve any kind of government interference in the market, which would change the equilibrium price and consumed quantity.

Most often, it is achieved via tariffs or quotas, but sometimes they could be disguised as regulation, such as health standards, where the targeted side would have to incur time and effort, effectively increasing the average cost, to reach compliance. Of all, tariffs are the most straightforward and easy to implement as they require just a decision to impose tax on the imports from a specified destination. They effectively either increase the price for the local consumers or the cost of the importers if they can shift costs back down the supply chain.

Quotas are harder to implement, because they allow imports up to a specified amount. Easier said than done, this requires careful analysis to establish the amounts and later monitor and enforce it. Government bureaucracy in any country throughout history has proved that it is far less effective than markets in determining the consumed amounts and appropriate prices and the most obvious examples are all the communist countries in history.

Even though these instruments are part of protectionist policies, where the aim is to support the local economy, their use usually yields negative results. These markets get higher prices, less consumption and in the case of quotas – far stronger local monopolistic structures. One thing is certain though – when the imports structure is changed, opportunities are created for additional outside market agents.

According to data from the World Bank, the total imports of the US for 2018 were $2.41T (trillion) and China’s share of them was $499B (billion) or 20.7%. India’s share of that was nearly $52B or 2.16%. It is obvious that countries with the same population and comparatively equally open to the largest import market in the world share two very different fates. Strikingly, even though China is ideologically far more distant to the US, compared to India, it is enjoying 10 times greater market for its surplus than India. The benefits of this surplus could then be used to increase their military and diplomatic influence in the long term.

The composition of the US imports from both trading partners shows very interesting patterns and we can estimate relative dependence on each side, which is a crucial factor in trade and diplomatic influence. The USA’s share of exports for both countries is relatively similar – 16% for India and 19.3% for China. Out of India’s, three categories make up for a third of the total amount and 37 categories for 2/3rd. China, on the other hand, has seven categories that make up a third of its exports to the US and 50 for 2/3rd of them. This shows that China has noticeably better diversification in sectors and is less dependent. Out of US imports, China’s share is 20.7%, while India’s is just 2.16%.

The area of striking difference and source of greatest influence, however, is elsewhere. When we analyse the 15 largest categories of trade for both countries, we see that they have practically no overlap (competing only in vehicle parts, where China’s share is again 10x India’s, but their overall share is minimal). However, the imports from China are within the top categories for the US and their share is on average over 54%, while India’s dispersion is towards the middle and they make up on average less than 14% of each category.

This is easily illustrated in Figure 1. Column X (first column) shows the number of the category in terms of size from all US imports. For example Valves is the 22nd largest import category for the US, where India’s share of that is 2.73%. India’s rows are in blue, while China’s are in gray. The last column shows concentration based on 25% benchmark, i.e., a share of above 25% is considered high and important for the importer.

If we take a more qualitative look in the categories, we can see that those that China has concentrated in, have far greater importance for the US economy, thus, creating more systemic risk opportunities. Even though India’s largest export to the US is diamonds and it makes for 43.62% of the total imports in that category, it has zero importance towards future scientific advancement, information flow, R&D, allows for data collection or anything that pushes the boundaries of knowledge. This cannot be said for broadcasting equipment (networks), computers, office machine parts for a service based economy, video displays, electrical transformers and other electrical machinery.

The trade war so far has had detrimental effects on the US-China trade, but other countries benefitted from the vacuum created. India’s benefits so far were in the range of $1.2B and it might sound significant, but when we bring the other players in the picture, we see that there are, perhaps, many missed opportunities. Markets look for inefficiencies and alternatives are sought almost immediately. As a result Vietnam’s surplus was $2.8B, Taiwan’s $4.5B practically almost everything due to the disrupted supply chains in computers and network equipment, European Union $7B, Mexico $6.8B, Korea $4B, Japan $2.3B and Canada $2.5B.

The overview shows that China has positioned itself significantly better from a strategic point of view and can exert greater influence. The US has no choice at this point but to cater for it’s largest trading partner. After years of leniency and looking to the side from the Clinton, GW Bush and Obama administrations, this risk has finally been acknowledged by the Trump administration and the US took steps for future diversification and decrease of its dependency on China. The trade wars and the aftermath of the Huawei ban directly address many of the issues.

Significant change, however, requires long term effort. The good news for India is that it can start taking steps to become a preferred trading partner in the future in some of the affected categories. The US is taking not only economic steps to change the status quo. On 25 June 2020, while speaking at the Virtual Brussels Forum, Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, said that US troops are being moved to face Chinese threats to India and South-East Asia countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and the South China Sea. He further stated that the US military was “postured appropriately” to meet these “challenges of our time.” Bear in mind that Germany has the largest US base in Europe and is fundamental for its influence in the region.

Additional indication about the direction of the future US policy is his former statement of the formation of a US-European dialogue on China so that the Atlantic alliance (NATO) could have a “common understanding of the threat posed by China”.

It is clear that the US is shifting its policy and it is up to India to utilise the upcoming opportunities. It is in the US’s best interest to support everybody besides China in the South China Sea conflict. It is important for the supply chains feeding the US economy and they will be looking for allies on the economic and diplomatic fronts. India can adjust its foreign and economic policy for that. The diverted amounts from the China trade could increase significantly India’s macroeconomic policy, thus, affecting its entire economy. However, it has to concentrate in sectors requiring larger amounts of R&D and technological advances, because those sectors, in the long run, have significantly higher added value.

Ideologically and even culturally, India is closer to the US. It does not have such an expansionary doctrine and its economy, far more open to market principles, rather than lead by central planning by populist nationalists, and based on population twice that of the US and EU combined, can become far more appealing to the White House administrations in the future.

We live in interesting times and the economic, diplomatic and military relationships between the key powers of the world are changing. Whether the words by Joseph Chamberlain turn out to be a curse or a blessing is yet to be seen and it is up to the policymakers to use the created opportunities.

The post GEOPOLITICS: Opportunities Ahead For India in US-China Trade War appeared first on IMR.

Even as the world watched as two of the world’s most populous and powerful nations engaged in a scuffle  at its border, news about official death count was hard to come by.

The People’s Republic of China is notorious in not revealing its casualty figures and the worst India-China clashes in over five decades didn’t even feature on any of its state-run papers.

Interestingly, one report on a US media website pegged the death count for China at 35.

Later on, news agency PTI also said that ’35 dead and injured on the Chinese side.

As M. Taylor Fravel, a China expert from MIT noted: “I can think of no armed conflict involving China where it has released casualty figures publicly at the time of the conflict. Usually, they are published years or decades later. Casualties from 1962 war only published in 1994 internal history.”

Interestingly, US News and World Report, known mostly for University Rankings, published a piece by Paul D Shinkman which cited US intel to claim that China’s count could be up to 35 Chinese troops.

Shinkman wrote in usnews.com: “American intelligence believes 35 Chinese troops died, including one senior officer, a source familiar with that assessment tells U.S. News. The incident took place during a meeting in the mountainous region between the two sides – both of which had agreed to disarm – to determine how the two militaries would safely withdraw their presences from the region.”

The piece further claims that all casualties were from the use of ‘batons and knives’ and from falls of steep topography. It further adds that Beijing considers the casualties as a ‘humiliation of its armed forces’.

The trigger-happy POTUS Donald Trump hasn’t tweeted about it yet.

On Tuesday, news agency ANI, known to be close to the current dispensation, pegged the casualties plus death figures at 43.

A day later ANI, citing sources, which is euphemism for messages from officials which no one wants to take credit or blame for, claimed that the Commanding Officer of the PLA was killed.

ANI also wrote earlier citing sources: “It is assessed that the Chinese suffered a significant number of casualties in the violent face off on the night of June 15-16. The assessment is based on the number of Chinese soldiers evacuated from the face-off location on stretchers and subsequently by ambulance vehicles on the track along the Galwan river, as also the increased Chinese helicopter movement.”

The world media has been agog with the escalation between the two neighbouring superpowers amid a pandemic.

The left-leaning UK paper The Guardian wrote: “Twenty members of India’s armed forces have been killed in a “violent face-off” with Chinese soldiers on their disputed Himalayan border in the worst military crisis between the two countries in nearly 60 years.”

The NYT, which was in the news for deciding not give room to opposing voices called it the ‘worst clash in decades on India-China Border’.

Meanwhile, in a graphic report in News 18, defence veteran journalist Praveen Swami noted that ‘unarmed men who fled into the hillsides were hunted down and killed’ adding that the dead include men who jumped into the Galwan river to escape.

Information Asymmetry

It’s important to note the information asymmetry that exists between Beijing and New Delhi. Most media reports completely disavow the fact. Even if the current regime is tight-lipped about events, several Indian publications including the Times of India, Economic Times, The Hindu, News 18, The Indian Express and Hindustan Times have detailed reports on the skirmishes.

It was the front page on several publications, including The Telegraph which had its customary pun in bad taste to mock the current dispensation.

On the other hand, China’s official media buried it deep. The Hindu’s Ananth Krishan noted that the People’s Daily and PLA Daily hadn’t even mentioned the worst clashes between the two nations in 50 years while Global Times carried on Page 16.

Source link

The post American Intelligence Believes 35 Chinese Soldiers Killed appeared first on IMR.

China has capitalized on the world’s distraction to claim sovereignty over disputed islands in the South China Sea, intimidate Taiwan and assert more authority over Hong Kong in an attempt to quash the pro-democracy movement there.

It has taken advantage of vulnerable countries dependent on it for medical supplies, investments in the Belt & Road Initiative activities and those suffering from the adverse economic impact of the virus.

After the US suspended funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) the Chinese government pledged millions of dollars in additional support for the organization, giving China even more influence in the global health agency and allowing the country to portray itself as the new champion of multilateralism.

The incompetence of many countries around the world in preparing for and responding to COVID-19 provided China with relative gains. In many quarters, China’s initial failures have been overshadowed by the challenges faced in Europe and the incompetence of the Trump administration.

China believes that it has faced humiliations over the past century and the time is right for China to take revenge with ‘America and the West in decline’. The conflict has intensified with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic to the rest of the world. Beijing feels confident that it has handled the outbreak better than Western democracies.

Hong Kong

Xi used the distraction of the coronavirus pandemic to exert more authority in Hong Kong and crack down on the pro-democracy movement there. On April 18, more than a dozen pro-democracy activists and lawmakers were arrested in Hong Kong, marking the largest single-day roundup in years.

In mid-April, the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, the Chinese state agency that closely oversees Hong Kong, criticized some of the city’s lawmakers for filibustering debates, which it said has led to a backlog of legislation.

Taken together, experts say Beijing is using the coronavirus as a cover to cement its authoritarian rule over Hong Kong and stamp out the pro-democracy movement once and for all.

South China Sea

Beijing has long laid claim to disputed islands in the South China Sea. To stake its claim, Chinese naval vessels have pushed other claimants, like the Philippines and Vietnam, out of the area so it can have full control of the islands and the oil and natural gas resources around them.

That practice has not stopped during the pandemic and amounts to sending a message to other countries involved in the South China Sea that China will not back down under any circumstances. Earlier this month, for example, a Chinese ship sank a Vietnamese fishing boat in the South China Sea and claimed other regional islands for itself.

Taiwan

China’s military continues to place pressure on Taiwan, including regular flights by fighter jets near Taiwanese airspace and sending flotillas close to the island. The US clearly sees an extra layer of threat in these times. US warships, which usually sail by Taiwan about once a month, have been in the area at least twice in April.

Africa

China has flexed its muscles on other continents, especially in Africa. Many African governments struggling to respond to the coronavirus asked for debt relief so they could invest more in health care, sanitation, food, and social programs to keep millions of people safe during the pandemic.

Chinese leaders asked officials from Zambia, to provide collateral, in their case Zambian copper-mining assets, sending a signal that it was not for debt forgiveness.

China foreign policy is based on give and take. It expects return on investments made even if it means acting the bully in the time of need and ignoring the racism against Africans back in China during the coronavirus crisis, when many Africans were barred from hotels, restaurants and shops.

Domination of International Bodies

Over the past several years, Beijing has systematically positioned Chinese nationals at the head of a wide range of U.N. agencies. Since 2019, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Agency has been led by Qu Dongyu, formerly China’s vice minister of agriculture. This followed the 2018 reinstatement of Zhao Houlin, who began his career in China’s Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, for a second four-year term as the secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, a crucial body that sets technical standards for communications networks; Zhao has used his position to advance Huawei’s standing as a vendor of 5G telecommunications equipment worldwide. The previous year, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres appointed Liu Zhenmin, formerly China’s vice minister for foreign affairs, to a key position in the U.N.’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs – a body tasked with advancing the U.N.’s hallmark program to promote development, combat climate change and reduce inequality.

In part, this dominance of Chinese nationals in key U.N. agencies reflects Beijing’s savvy diplomatic maneuvering as a rising power, and its position as the world’s second-largest economy. But it’s also possible because of a void left by the United States, which under Trump has repudiated its previous leadership role in international organizations.

And as Chinese technology proliferates across the reaches of the organization, China has joined hands with Russia to institutionalize international norms around surveillance and censorship, including through the passage of a joint U.N. cybercrime resolution in November 2019 that equips authoritarian governments with broad-based authority to repress and censor political dissent online.

In March, just weeks before Trump began talking about curbing funding to the agency, China announced a $20 million donation to the WHO to fight Covid-19.

Diplomatic Offensive

Cheng Jingye, China’s ambassador to Australia, questioned whether Australia was “the best place to send” Chinese students for education, or whether Chinese consumers would want to buy Australian wine and beef, after Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for an independent review of the spread of the virus.

Vice-foreign minister Le Yucheng accused the U.S. of “political manipulation to a level beyond anyone’s imagination” in response to White House pressure over the virus.

In France, Lu Shaye, who previously served as ambassador to Canada, released a series of attacks on the “malevolence” of the French media, calling them lapdogs of the U.S.

In the Netherlands, the Chinese embassy called De Volkskrant newspaper “full of prejudice, discrimination and malice.”

Policy experts in China have explained Beijing aggressiveness was a result of Donald Trump administration manipulating the emotions of other countries to join the U.S. in strategically constraining China.

Pakistan

China exerted quiet pressure on Islamabad to flow against the global current and not blame China. It also prevailed upon Pakistan not to evacuate its nationals from Wuhan even when India offered to air lift when it evacuated its own nationals from China.

In fact, in March, just a week after the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, Pakistani President Arif Alvi met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. Alvi expressed Pakistan’s solidarity at a time when China’s global reputation was at a low point. A week later, the favour was returned when a planeload of Chinese medical face masks landed in Karachi.

In Pakistan’s media, there was a clear push to deflect blame for the pandemic away from China and to trumpet the fact that initial infections came by way of Pakistani pilgrims returning from Iran rather than from Chinese workers and goods or Pakistanis studying in China. Pakistan’s news outlets emphasized the generosity of Chinese aid, including medical supplies, technical experts and cash.

Expectations for China are clearly higher among Pakistan’s leaders and the public at large. Pakistan has appealed to Beijing directly for relief, both for debt repayment and for power purchases. Whether Beijing is actually ready or willing to deliver a truly generous dose of aid that would enable Pakistanis to better weather the storm is a moot question.

Southeast Asia

China is the most influential regional economic and politically strategic power, but large majorities worry about this influence.

China-Southeast Asia relations are unlikely to be significantly damaged by the pandemic. Southeast Asian governments have avoided pointing fingers and instead shown solidarity with China in fighting the virus. Some, like the Cambodian government, have bent over backward; Prime Minister Hun Sen visited China during the peak of the outbreak and declared that “the disease of Cambodian citizens is not a disease caused by the virus ‘corona’ but a disease of fear.” The Chinese government thanked Southeast Asian countries and reciprocated with aid. Chinese narratives portray Southeast Asia as standing with China.

On 1 February, Singapore closed its borders to all travelers from China, the first country in Southeast Asia to do so. The Singaporean government took pains to avoid offending the Chinese government with this decision. On 2 February prime minister Lee Hsien Loong said he knew “that China is doing all it can to contain the spread of the virus. … Even though the virus started in Wuhan, it doesn’t respect nationality or race. It does not check your passport before it goes into your body.”

The Chinese embassy and Chinese foundations and firms have made huge donations of medical supplies not only to Malaysian hospitals and government agencies but also to various social and cultural groups of different ethnic backgrounds. The diplomatic mileage, however, was undermined by a Chinese survey ship Haiyang Dizhi-8 spotted tagging a Malaysian exploration vessel off the coasts of Brunei and eastern Malaysia. China’s activities in the South China Sea left the impression that Beijing was taking advantage of the COVID-19 situation to advance its territorial interests in the disputed waters.

China assisted Indonesia with essential medical supplies flown back from Shanghai by the Indonesian Air Force. Meanwhile, a new ASEAN-China COVID-19 Response Fund has been established in collaboration with the ASEAN Plus Three (APT) states (China, Japan, and South Korea). Beijing has also committed to providing financial and material support through the more established ASEAN-China Cooperation and APT Cooperation Funds.

Affect on Belt and Road Initiative

The nature, pace and scope of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has also been affected, and will continue to do so in the longer-term. Despite the downturn in manufacturing and supply chain activity, the pace of digital BRI activity has ramped up..

BRI has investments across more than 100 countries and multiple sectors per country (power, railways, ports, roads and industrial parks).

All previous forecasts have been altered in the wake of COVID-19 and ongoing commercial tensions between China and the US.

Chinese state companies have turned their focus to investments in ports, power and industrial parks across Southeast Asia.

ICT companies and e-commerce platforms are seeing new opportunities for full digital value-chain under digital BRI activity opening up new avenues for companies such as Alibaba’s DingTalk, Tencent’s WeChat Work and Huawei’s WeLink to bid for market share outside of China, especially in the BRI region.

Chinese state banks are facing greater greater capital constraints, and non-performing loans are likely to rise at home, owing to COVID-19 related financial weakness. With focus turning towards the most commercially profitable supply chain related investments, BRI projects will increasingly focus on profitable supply chain related opportunities in Southeast Asia where the private sector and private capital play a greater role.

Whatever the lasting impact of COVID-19 on the economy, BRI will remain a priority for China. The financial challenges may, though, divert official attention and resources away from BRI over the next year or two.

Health Silk Road

Instead of being the irresponsible government whose failures unleashed a deadly pandemic on the world, China tried to look like the world’s savior, graciously providing critical supplies to countries in need.

China is advancing its Health Silk Road to assert global leadership, conducting diplomatic overtures to leaders across Europe, Latin America and Africa as it deploys medical equipment and aid to hard-hit countries such as Italy.

China sent medical equipment and physicians to countries in Europe that were struggling to deal with coronavirus outbreaks. It has also sent supplies and resources to Serbia, the Netherlands, and Spain. In some cases, China’s benevolence backfired. Some of the test-kits Beijing gave to European nations did not work. Spanish scientists found that testing devices from China correctly identify a positive case only 30 per cent of the time.

China’s aim is to expand its economic reach in Europe and to weaken US alliances in the region. Italy was the first major European country to sign on to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. But some countries have got fed up with Beijing’s pressure tactics and posturing.

Some 200 Italian business are now controlled by Chinese owners (not including the ones owned by Chinese living in Italy), while China’s central bank holds stakes in several Italian blue chips like Fiat, Telecom Italia, Generali and Eni, among others.

Comments

Amid the ongoing pandemic, we can expect regional international relations to be increasingly contentious over the distribution of power, the strength of bilateral relationships, choices of rules and institutions, and Chinese versus U.S. narratives of blame and culpability.

Few believe in China’s altruistic moves. Most see them as opportunistic. The US left a leadership void, and China quickly stepped in to fill it. With just a small donation, Beijing gets to look like a staunch advocate of global cooperation and a responsible partner in the public health response to the coronavirus, in contrast to the US.

Experts say this is all part of Xi’s broader strategy to dislodge America as the world’s sole superpower and expand China’s reach around the world. In other words, he’s merely exploiting the coronavirus crisis to achieve his aims even faster.

China’s aggressive attempts to exploit the pandemic for its own benefit have made it harder for governments – especially the United States – to trust and work with the country.

It is far from certain who will win the international diplomatic fight sparked by the crisis-if anyone. But if China comes out on top, it will be a public diplomacy battle that the world’s leading liberal democracies have lost, not one that China has won. The beneficiary of this race to the bottom may be the only superpower left standing: China.

===================

In early May 2017, Chinese police officers in their national uniforms started patrolling streets in Milan and Rome alongside Italian cops.

Masks and other items do not need Chinese regulatory approval before export. Many Chinese testing kits exported were found unfit.

==============

Sino-Indian Relations in Covid Times

Indians have been skeptical of China’s role in handling the coronavirus pandemic. Indian rhetoric has been measured, due primarily to its dependence on China to procure medical supplies and its desire to keep the relationship stable. But India has been concerned with the economic fallout. Many sectors in India, like pharmaceutical, are primarily dependent on China for industrial inputs and ingredients.

India has also been concerned with the pace of Chinese investment in India and Chinese entities’ taking taking advantage of the crisis to acquire vulnerable Indian companies, increase its influence in India’s neighborhood, and exerting a more assertive regional leadership role.

To circumvent hostile Chinese takeovers the government has announced restrictions on foreign direct investment from countries that share a land boundary with India-a move clearly directed against China.

In a bid to keep Chinese influence at bay, India was also active with diplomatic outreach, economic aid, technical assistance, and the provision of medical supplies to Maldives, Mauritius, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.

India also actively engaged other countries in their fight with COVID-19. As the largest producer of anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, initially it banned exports of the drug on March 25 and further tightened rules on April 4 to bar exports from special economic zones (SEZs). Leter, it approved the supply of the hydroxychloroquine and paracetamol, either as commercial sales or as grants, to 55 countries including US, Brazil, Israel and UAE.

India also engaged other countries in the Indo-Pacific, bilaterally and through a Quad Plus mechanism.

In the public sphere, anti-China sentiment went mainstream in a way usually reserved for India’s other rival, Pakistan. Indians largely blame China for the origin of the virus and criticize its lack of disclosure, its influence on WHO, its sidelining of Taiwan, the quality of its medical supplies, and what are seen as its efforts to take diplomatic or commercial advantage of the crisis.

The post Pandemic Ruthlessly Exploited by China appeared first on IMR.