China is in a tight spot as it faces a barrage of criticism from India, Bhutan, US, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea (Reuters)
Beijing has disputes with virtually every neighbouring country over territorial or maritime sovereignty
A raft of bad news followed Chinese President Xi Jinping as he returned to Beijing from Hong Kong where he was confronted by angry demonstrators seeking more democracy in the Chinese territory on the 20th anniversary of its handover from Britain.
While Xi was still in Hong Kong, the United States, to Beijing’s fury, announced arms sales of $1.42 billion to Taiwan, the breakaway island China claims sovereignty over. Meanwhile, the border dispute with India and Bhutan flared up, making Beijing look both bellicose and ineffectual. Bhutan, in an unusually aggressive move, issued a demarche to China through the Indian embassy in Delhi (Bhutan and China don’t maintain diplomatic relations).
Almost on cue, the US government imposed sanctions on China’s Bank of Dandong, accusing it of being “a conduit for illicit North Korean activity.” Alleging that the Chinese bank was engaged in “money laundering”, US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said it had been blacklisted, barring it from the US financial system through which most of the global finance operates.
For India, the diplomatic and financial rebuffs to China couldn’t have come at a better time. Close on the heels of his successful meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 6 completes his historic three-day visit to Israel, the first by an Indian PM. On July 7, Modi flies to Hamburg for the G20 summit where he will run into Xi. Their last meeting in Kazakhstan at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit was congenial with India deciding to tone down the rhetoric over Beijing blocking India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
Positions have hardened since. India has toughened its stand over China’s ongoing border incursions. In response, China’s jingoistic state-owned media has reminded India of the 1962 Sino-India war, drawing a sharp counter from Defence Minister Arun Jaitley.
Meanwhile, the Americans, increasingly upset over Beijing’s reluctance to rein in North Korea’s missile programme, have accused it of “disregard for international law.” US Defence Secretary James Mattis signalled Washington’s aggressive new stance during a visit to Sydney last month. He also condemned China’s construction of military bases on disputed islands in the South China Sea saying it showed “contempt for other nations’ interests.”
The slew of criticism will rankle with Beijing, considering it comes from a broad swathe of countries: the US, India, Bhutan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. China has disputes with virtually every neighbouring country over either territory or maritime sovereignty. Its closest allies now are Pakistan and North Korea which speaks for itself.
India has been right to highlight Pakistan’s illicit role in supplying nuclear weapons technology to North Korea whose nuclear-armed missile programme is regarded by Washington as a clear and present danger. US policy on both North Korea and Pakistan is currently under review. Islamabad’s role in nuclearising North Korea has resonated badly both on Capitol Hill and in the White House.
All of this presents an opportunity for India at the G20 summit in Hamburg beginning tomorrow. A planned Modi-Xi bilateral has been cancelled following rising border tension and Army Chief General Bipin Rawat’s remark that the Indian Army was ready to fight a two-and-a-half front war. The half referred to the Maoist insurgency.
A belligerent China needs to be constantly reminded of two events: one, its defeat by tiny Vietnam in a short, sharp border war in 1979; and two, the fact that as recently as 2007 its GDP ($2.6 trillion) was nearly the same as India’s today ($2.5 trillion). In ten years India’s economy, if it grows at a conservative annual average of 7 per cent, would double to $5 trillion — half of China’s current GDP even as China’s own economy slows and its population ages.
With the US, the European Union and much of Asia ranged against it, China could, meanwhile, feel increasingly isolated diplomatically. Its infrastructure investments in Africa are already drawing complaints from local workers of ill-treatment and racism. Having rogue nations like Pakistan and North Korea as its closest allies and much of the rest of the democratic world pitted against it is not the best way for China to seek the mantle of global leadership.
The writer is author of The New Clash of Civilizations: How The Contest Between America, China, India and Islam Will Shape Our Century
http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column-has-china-overplayed-its-hand-2493170
) The independence movement were brutally suppressed. Then the split of communist parties in Lithuania. Together with nationalist movement from Ukraine. Everything started at a coincidentally and unexpected time for the Communists. At the end they had a Gorbachev to sum it all up. 
