Paper No. 6357
Dated 20-Mar-2018
China in the 21st Century may have a mighty military
machine and a threatening missiles arsenal capable of hitting Continental
United States but the Great Wall of China on land and the Great Sea Wall of
artificially constructed & fortified islands in South China Sea still have
not made China unassailable
China may have a 21st Century Emperor President Xi
Jinping presiding over a formidable military machine and since 2013 got away
with its military adventurism but China’s very pursuit of the Great Chinese
Dream enunciated by its now life-long President have added increasingly to its
strategic vulnerabilities.
The Indian policy establishment and its associated intelligence
agencies should focus on study of China’s strategic vulnerabilities and keep
them under close scrutiny as such China vulnerabilities can be suitably be
exploited to off-set China’s preponderant military power.
China in 2018 as a ‘revisionist power’ on an impatient
trajectory to gain trappings of a Superpower has generated a strategic
polarisation within Asia and a similar reaction at the global level. What the
United States could not achieve through diplomacy for decades, China by its
threatening moves and military brinkmanship has handed it over on a plate to
the United States.
China’s strategic and military might have been overblown both on
scale and magnitude I suspect by the US Pentagon to persuade US Congress to
release greater amounts of defence spending sequestered for long by
Congressional restraints.
Admittedly, China as compared to a decade back has a mighty
military force capable of exerting political and military blackmail and
coercion on its peripheral borders but it still lacks both force projection and
force configurations to mount operations even upto the Gulf Region or on the
scale that the United States and Russia can do.
Objective assessment of Chinese military power in simplistic
terms rather than the complex formulas devised by China to measure
Comprehensive Military Power of is adversaries should necessarily take into
account China’s geopolitical and strategic vulnerably imposed by China’s
security environment. It is not a simple derivation of its military
capabilities and its aggressive impulses.
In terms of geopolitical vulnerabilities, China stands located
between two mighty nations of United States and Russia. Also to add to this
complexity is China’s underbelly of China Occupied Tibet facing a
Subcontinental power like India.
China and the United States are in a Cold War confrontation in
2018 and the same could be stated of China and India. Russia may be in a
strategic nexus with China, but it is only a tactical expedient.
China’s maritime flank on the Pacific littoral is studded with
nations in varying stages of military alliance with the United States. Maritime
polarisation against China has emerged strongly against China after its South
China Sea military aggression. Japan is an Emerged Power strongly allied with
United States and its security architecture in Asia Pacific.
In terms of geopolitical sub regions of Asia, China is
friendless.. In East Asia, other than North Korea, the rest of the region is
not favourably disposed towards China. In South East Asia, China may have
succeeded in dividing ASEAN but overall other than Cambodia and to some extent
Thailand, China cannot count on anyone after its military imperialism in South
China Sea.
South Asia presents a serious geopolitical challenge to China
despite the emergence of the China-Pakistan Axis and foisting a “Two Front
Military Threat” to India as an arch rival of China. China perceptibly may seem
to have gained ground in Nepal, a toehold in Sri Lanka and a tight grip over
the Maldives. It is targeting a Chinese embrace of Bhutan and Bangladesh.
Other than Pakistan, China cannot sustain its influence on its
gains in South Asia by economic doles to poor economies. The fabric stitched by
China in South Asia is fraying, including Pakistan where the average Pakistani
is questioning Pakistan Army’s furthering China’s gains at the expense of
China’s ‘colonisation’ of Pakistan.
China is not the dominating power in South Asia. It has to
contend with an India engaged in reducing power differential with China. China
however has been able to achieve two major geopolitical objectives placing it
at an advantage in South Asia, namely:
- China
till lately was able to limit India geopolitically within South Asian
confines. But with PM Modi coming into power in mid-2014, India has broken
out on the larger Asian and global stage.
- China by
its concubinage relationship with Pakistan and forging a China-Pakistan
Axis has imposed a Tw o–Front War military threat on India. Here again
under PM Modi and his Government to put India’s war preparedness on a war
footing after abject neglect during the previous Government 2004-2014,
India is confident to battle a Two Front War from the China-Pakistan Axis.
In the Middle East, China is no game-changer with a power tussle
in the region ongoing between the United States and Russia.
Overall, in Asia, despite China’s exponential military expansion
the balance of power geopolitically is stacked against China with the US
military alliances and US strategic partnerships with countries like Japan,
South Korea, India and Australia.
In the strategic domains, China stands greatly limited against
the geopolitical and military coalitions opposing it. China in the absence of
major countervailing power on its side is unable to bring ‘Force Multipliers”
on its side. Russia is considered by China as its satellite nation and with the
Russians claiming that the so-called Russia-China strategic nexus was only
quasi-strategic in nature and content.
China’s internal security and domestic political environment
cannot be said to ideally imparting comprehensive strengths to China against a
virtually isolated China and where China-generated military turbulences on its
peripheries can haunt and challenge its internal cohesion.
China’s border regions like Xinjiang and Tibet are in a state of
unrest evidenced by China’s larger outlays on internal security budget
outweighing its external security expenditures for the last two years.
With the slowing down of the Chinese economy and reduction in
China’s manufacturing exports, domestic discontent is bound to grow with
reduced incomes and unemployment. Added to this is the danger lurking of violent
disturbances likely to be generated by thousands of senior Party officials,
Army Generals and others convicted on false charges of corruption to remove
those opposing President Xi Jinping’s ascendancy to unprecedented hold on
China’s political and military power.
On balance therefore, one finds an explosive mix of internal
security and domestic unrest waiting to be ignited by a solitary incendiary
spark originating externally or internally, or both.
Each of these strategic vulnerabilities outlined in brief but
when amplified in detail wold indicate assessments that China despite its
over-rated military power for various reasons has under-rated strategic
vulnerabilities which limit its space and freedom for unrestrained political
and military adventurism. But then has not the world witnessed that in the
situation in which China is moving as visible in 2018 has resulted in Hitlerian
aggression when thwarted in the “revisionist impulses” and in this case
President Xi Jinping’s “Great China Dream.”
India which is the most prominent target in Chia’s strategic and
military cross-hairs has to be most seriously concerned as what stands
in-between Chinese President’s “Great China Dream” realisation is India as the
most serious contender.
India’s war-preparedness against a China-Pakistan imposed “Two
Front War” scenarios must be placed on a fast-track mode and the Indian policy
establishment not lulled into complacency of an under-emphasised or
de-emphasised ‘China Threat’ by certain sections in the Indian policy establishment.
Concurrently, the Indian policy establishment should minutely
scrutinise China’s strategic vulnerabilities so that these could be exploited
by India to off-set the power asymmetry with China.
In a brief conclusion, what needs to be reiterated is that China
is not as unassailable as made out to be by strategic analysts. China has
equally prominent strategic vulnerabilities which sap its mighty machine in the
ultimate analysis. As far as India is concerned, it should shed its 1962
Syndrome and with a national political unanimity that China has to be
comprehensively be “Stood Upto” without seeking escapist routes of easy
options---- a noticeable propensity in the civilian element managing India’s
security.
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