Ms Clinton’s visit to India and her proclamations has put China into a tizzy since the events of recent recall indicates that the US is meaning business to not let China have a unhindered path to hegemonic triumph in Asia and in the Asia Pacific Rim.
Many may mistake Ms Clinton’s statement of “India should exert herself in Asia” (or words to that effect) to be Indian subcontinent centric. However, a closer analysis of the events would indicate that that is not so. It is a wakeup call to keep China caged within the limits of decency in the territorial grab hunt being pursued by China of late.
These statements and articles are the angry reactions to the US pulling the reins of a wayward and runaway horse called China.
It will be recalled that China, in her usual style, had lulled the world with her pious platitudes like the ‘Peaceful Rise’ of China. Apparently, having quietly within the ambit of this Peaceful Rise, China has mustered and completed her military rise, at least to exert her muscle within the neighbourhood. And it is for this reason that China released her military might (in a controlled manner) in the South China Sea, which she has been lasciviously eyeing for quite some time. Of course, China is trotting out historical antecedents, but then China forgets that Chinese claims are based on ‘unequal treaties’, the very defence she takes on all territorial matters when she is at the wrong end of the stick!
China has miscalculated the the US had become a 'paper tiger' and was under the financial blackmail of China because of the debt that the US has run up with China. China gambled that the US would not reassert herself anywhere in the world where it could hurt Chinese interests.
Apparently, the US has called China's bluff. The US has dared China to call in the US debt because if the US fails, it will lead to a massive international economic recession which will hurt the whole world including China. And to top it, if the West and its global allies and partners have a tacit understanding of not buying Chinese, China will be up ****-creek and decline, and kiss all her modernisation and catching up with the US dreams goodbye!
And the Chinese can hardly afford that since while other countries can absorb the political and social turmoil being a democracy, China's Communist regime greatest fear is political and social instability and that is why she goes hammer and tongs in controlling rebellions and dissent. The Chinese communist thus are a reluctant ally of the US in this case.
Ms Clinton’s statement is to challenge the perfidy China is attempting to perpetuate.
To this end, to end China’s victimisation and bullying of weaker neighbours, namely Philippines and Vietnam, the US, to China’s surprise came to their rescue and is carrying out naval exercises with Philippines (with which the US has a Mutual Defence Treaty) and with Vietnam too! While having a naval exercise with the Philippines is understandable, to do the same with Vietnam, which has a Communist regime and is hardly a ‘natural ally’ has jolted China immensely because it is a clear indication of the US exerting her presence and which was reiterated by Adm Mike Mullen at the Renim University in China where he reminded China that the US was a Pacific power and was alive and kicking!
China has been so unnerved that their Chief of the Armed Forces, Gen Chen Bingde furiously condemned the exercises as ‘totally inappropriate’ and even went to the ridiculous extent to advise the US ‘not to waste money and instead use it for the American people’, totally forgetting that the same is applicable for China too of not wasting money in modernising her military and instead using the money to control China’s alarmingly spiralling food prices, its desertification, its famine, it floods and such disasters, which Chinese economists blame on the ill thought out monstrosity in the form of the Three Gorges Dam.
There is no doubt that India alone can pose a counter balance and therefore, isn’t it obvious that it will be India which will be nudged and not Christmas Island?
It maybe noted that the Vietnam Naval Chief had visited India and had expressed a desire that India help Vietnam to modernise her Navy.
Obviously, new alignments are taking shape in the Asia Pacific Rim and China has good reasons to be spooked and be jittery.
