Unease over China grows - Gulf News
Beijing is flaunting its superpower ambitions and claws too
Since its "opening" to the outside world about three decades back, China religiously followed the advice of its paramount leader Deng Xiaoping that one should conceal ambitions and also the claws.
With its astounding economic and military ascent, China is today not only flaunting its superpower ambitions, but also sharpening its claws, creating uncertainty and angst amongst neighbours Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Asean states and India. The US is equally unnerved by China's growing economic and military might.
In 2010, the year of the tiger, China snarled not only at its neighbours, but also at the world's sole superpower, as witnessed during Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Washington last month, when he categorically rejected US criticism of currency manipulation, human rights, the fate of the missing human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng and the imprisoned Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo.
China also had its share of setbacks last year, the most glaring being its inability to move the international community to boycott the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo for Liu Xiaobo. Only a handful of countries like North Korea, Myanmar and Pakistan followed the boycott call.
The episode ended with a lot of egg on China's face.
However, China's assertiveness will become even more pronounced in the future when the power struggle amongst candidates jockeying for positions and power for next year's leadership changes intensifies. This assertiveness manifested itself when it recently tightened its grip on the internet and media and intensified its already repressive policies in Tibet and Xinjiang whose local populations distrust and resent Beijing's Han leadership.
China is also raking up thorny issues such as the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea or the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, riling its neighbours who are, obviously, not amused.
China, once fearful of being encircled by its neighbours at the West's behest, is now itself encircling its neighbours, forming strategic coalitions by offering economic, political and ideological support.
Resorting to doublespeak
Experts say that China increasingly resorts to doublespeak: its words do not match its actions. For weeks, China stopped its rare-earth exports to Japan but, in public utterances, kept insisting that this was not the case. During his visit to Delhi a few weeks back, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao almost denied the existence of the problem of stapled Chinese visas for Indian passport holders residing in Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh. Finally, it was agreed that a joint group would sort it out.
China has riled India in other ways too. It sent Chinese troops to Pakistan-administered Kashmir to build projects; China also occupies a chunk of Kashmir's real estate which, India says, Pakistan unlawfully gave away to China.
India is "taken for granted", as some strategists say, because Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's leadership is perceived as weak. They point out that George Fernandes, India's former defence minister in the cabinet of prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, sent shock waves to Beijing with his strong message that the Pokhran nuclear tests were a response to China's aggressive posturing against India. China was put on the defensive.
Many urge India to use Tibet and Taiwan as bargaining chips against China. By not blindly reciting the "one-China-policy" in the joint communique issued after Wen's visit, India demonstrated its capability of playing its trump card as well. The same goes for Tibet, which India can call a "disputed territory" just as China needles India by calling Kashmir a "disputed territory".
China's extensive modernisation of its armed forces is also causing unease among its Asian neighbours.
America is equally uneasy that China could challenge its air and sea dominance in the Pacific. Admiral Robert Willard, who heads the US Pacific Command, recently said that the Chinese "exceeded most of our intelligence estimates of their military capability".
While China says it is merely interested in a "peaceful rise", the aggressive modernisation of its armed forces is at variance with its official rhetoric. Some experts suggest that China started to bolster its defence because it was shocked by the ease with which US demolished the occupying Iraqi army of Saddam Hussain in Kuwait. Like the Iraqi army, which relied on Soviet military technology, China's army also has a lot of Soviet-styled hardware.
gulfnews : Unease over China grows
Beijing is flaunting its superpower ambitions and claws too
Since its "opening" to the outside world about three decades back, China religiously followed the advice of its paramount leader Deng Xiaoping that one should conceal ambitions and also the claws.
With its astounding economic and military ascent, China is today not only flaunting its superpower ambitions, but also sharpening its claws, creating uncertainty and angst amongst neighbours Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Asean states and India. The US is equally unnerved by China's growing economic and military might.
In 2010, the year of the tiger, China snarled not only at its neighbours, but also at the world's sole superpower, as witnessed during Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Washington last month, when he categorically rejected US criticism of currency manipulation, human rights, the fate of the missing human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng and the imprisoned Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo.
China also had its share of setbacks last year, the most glaring being its inability to move the international community to boycott the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo for Liu Xiaobo. Only a handful of countries like North Korea, Myanmar and Pakistan followed the boycott call.
The episode ended with a lot of egg on China's face.
However, China's assertiveness will become even more pronounced in the future when the power struggle amongst candidates jockeying for positions and power for next year's leadership changes intensifies. This assertiveness manifested itself when it recently tightened its grip on the internet and media and intensified its already repressive policies in Tibet and Xinjiang whose local populations distrust and resent Beijing's Han leadership.
China is also raking up thorny issues such as the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea or the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, riling its neighbours who are, obviously, not amused.
China, once fearful of being encircled by its neighbours at the West's behest, is now itself encircling its neighbours, forming strategic coalitions by offering economic, political and ideological support.
Resorting to doublespeak
Experts say that China increasingly resorts to doublespeak: its words do not match its actions. For weeks, China stopped its rare-earth exports to Japan but, in public utterances, kept insisting that this was not the case. During his visit to Delhi a few weeks back, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao almost denied the existence of the problem of stapled Chinese visas for Indian passport holders residing in Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh. Finally, it was agreed that a joint group would sort it out.
China has riled India in other ways too. It sent Chinese troops to Pakistan-administered Kashmir to build projects; China also occupies a chunk of Kashmir's real estate which, India says, Pakistan unlawfully gave away to China.
India is "taken for granted", as some strategists say, because Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's leadership is perceived as weak. They point out that George Fernandes, India's former defence minister in the cabinet of prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, sent shock waves to Beijing with his strong message that the Pokhran nuclear tests were a response to China's aggressive posturing against India. China was put on the defensive.
Many urge India to use Tibet and Taiwan as bargaining chips against China. By not blindly reciting the "one-China-policy" in the joint communique issued after Wen's visit, India demonstrated its capability of playing its trump card as well. The same goes for Tibet, which India can call a "disputed territory" just as China needles India by calling Kashmir a "disputed territory".
China's extensive modernisation of its armed forces is also causing unease among its Asian neighbours.
America is equally uneasy that China could challenge its air and sea dominance in the Pacific. Admiral Robert Willard, who heads the US Pacific Command, recently said that the Chinese "exceeded most of our intelligence estimates of their military capability".
While China says it is merely interested in a "peaceful rise", the aggressive modernisation of its armed forces is at variance with its official rhetoric. Some experts suggest that China started to bolster its defence because it was shocked by the ease with which US demolished the occupying Iraqi army of Saddam Hussain in Kuwait. Like the Iraqi army, which relied on Soviet military technology, China's army also has a lot of Soviet-styled hardware.
gulfnews : Unease over China grows
