Xiism and China's crimes against humanity

Global silence on China’s gulag
By Brahma Chellaney

For more than two years, China has waged a campaign of unparalleled repression against its Islamic minorities, incarcerating an estimated one-sixth of the adult Muslim population of the East Turkestan colony at one point or another. 

Yet, with the exception of a recent tweet from US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calling on China to ‘end its repression’, the international community has remained largely mute.
In its reliance on mass detention, the Chinese Communist Party has followed the Soviet Union’s example. 

But China’s concentration camps are far larger and more technologically advanced than their Soviet precursors, and their purpose is to indoctrinate not just political dissidents, but an entire community of faith.
Although independent researchers and human-rights groups have raised awareness of practices such as force-feeding Muslims alcohol and pork, the Chinese authorities have been able to continue their assault on Islam with impunity. 

Even as China’s security agencies pursue Uyghurs and other Muslims as far afield as Turkey, Chinese leaders and companies involved in the persecution have not faced international sanctions or incurred any other costs.
Chief among the culprits, of course, is Chinese dictator Xi Jinping, who in 2014 ordered the policy change that set the stage for today’s repression of ethnic Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Hui and members of other Muslim groups. 

The forcible assimilation of Muslims into the country’s dominant Han culture is apparently a cornerstone of Xiism—or ‘Xi Jinping Thought’—the grand ‘ism’ that Xi has introduced to overshadow the influence of Marxism and Maoism in China.
To oversee this large-scale deprogramming of Islamic identities, Xi, who has amassed more power than any Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, reassigned the notorious CCP enforcer Chen Quanguo from Tibet to East Turkestan and elevated him to the all-powerful Central Politburo. 

Though Chen’s record of overseeing human-rights abuses is well known, the Trump administration has yet to act on a bipartisan commission’s 2018 recommendation that he and other Chinese officials managing the gulag policy be sanctioned. 

In general, financial and trade interests, not to mention the threat of Chinese retribution, have deterred most countries from condemning China’s anti-Muslim policies.
With the exception of Turkey, even predominantly Muslim countries that were quick to condemn Myanmar for its treatment of Rohingya Muslims have remained conspicuously silent on China. 

Pakistan’s military-backed prime minister, Imran Khan, has feigned ignorance about the East Turkestan crackdown, and Saudi Arabia’s powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has gone so far as to defend China’s right to police ‘terrorism’.
Emboldened by the muted international response, China has stepped up its drive to Sinicise East Turkestan by demolishing Muslim neighbourhoods. 

In Urumqi and other cities, once-bustling Uyghur districts have been replaced with heavily policed zones purged of Islamic culture.
The irony is that while China justifies its ‘re-education camps’ as necessary to cleanse Muslim minds at home of extremist thoughts, it is effectively supporting Islamist terrorism abroad. 

For example, China has repeatedly blocked UN sanctions against Masood Azhar, the head of the Pakistan-based, UN-designated terrorist group responsible for carrying out serial attacks in India, including on parliament and, most recently, on a paramilitary police convoy. 

As Pompeo tweeted, ‘The world cannot afford China’s shameful hypocrisy toward Muslims. 

On one hand, China abuses more than a million Muslims at home, but on the other it protects violent Islamic terrorist groups from sanctions at the UN.’
An added irony is that while China still harps on about its ‘century of humiliation’ at the hands of foreign imperial powers, it has for decades presided over the mass humiliation of minorities in East Turkestan and Tibet. 

Ominously, by systematically degrading Muslim populations, it could be inspiring white supremacists and other Islamaphobes around the world. 

For example, Brenton Tarrant, the Australian extremist arrested for the recent twin mosque massacres in Christchurch, New Zealand, declared an affinity for China’s political and social values.

There has been a good deal of reporting about how China has turned East Turkestan into a laboratory for Xi’s Orwellian surveillance ambitions. 

Less known is how Xi’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative is being used as a catalyst for the crackdown. 

According to Chinese authorities, the establishment of a surveillance state is necessary to prevent unrest in the province at the heart of the BRI’s overland route.
Like Marxism–Leninism, Nazism, Stalinism and Maoism, which left millions of people dead, Xiism promises to impose significant long-term costs on untold numbers of innocent people. 

It is the impetus behind China’s ruthless targeting of minority cultures and communities, as well as its aggressive expansion into international waters and introduction of digital totalitarianism.
Thanks to Xiism, the world’s largest, strongest and oldest autocracy finds itself at a crossroads. 

As the People’s Republic of China approaches its 70th birthday, its economy is slowing amid escalating capital flight, trade disruptions and the emigration of wealthy Chinese. 

The Chinese technology champion Huawei’s international travails augur difficult times ahead.
The last thing China needs right now is more enemies. 

Yet Xi has used his unbridled power to expand China’s global footprint and lay bare his imperial ambitions. 

His repression of Muslim minorities may or may not lead to international action against China. 

But it will almost certainly spawn a new generation of Islamist terrorists, compounding China’s internal security challenges. 

China’s domestic security budget is already larger than its bloated defence budget, which makes it second only to the United States in terms of military spending. 

The Soviet Union once held the same position—until it collapsed.

China's State Terrorism

Masood Azhar Is China’s Favorite Terrorist
BY MICHAEL KUGELMAN

Indian Muslims hold a scratched photo of Masood Azhar as they shout slogans against Pakistan during a protest in Mumbai on Feb. 15. 

On March 13, China placed a “technical hold” on a resolution calling on the United Nations Security Council to designate Masood Azhar, the leader of the Pakistani militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), as a terrorist. 

Beijing’s intervention effectively torpedoed the measure. 

This marked the fourth time that China has prevented Azhar, who enjoys long-standing ties to the Pakistani security establishment, from being officially designated a terrorist by the United Nations.
There had been good reason to believe that this time might be different, and that Beijing would step back and let the resolution get approved. 

The fact that the fourth time wasn’t the charm speaks volumes about how deep the partnership between China and Pakistan still runs, and how far Beijing is willing to go to defend its “iron brother.”
So important is the China-Pakistan partnership that Beijing was willing to stick its neck out in support of a key terrorist asset of the Pakistani state who garners little sympathy outside Pakistan. 

At home, Beijing has sent hundreds of thousands of innocent Chinese Muslims to detention centers under the guise of counterterrorism, but it has bent over backwards to protect an actual Islamist terrorist abroad.
The move came even though global pressure has intensified on Pakistan to crack down harder on India-focused terrorists on its soil. 

The trigger was a February 14 attack on Indian security forces, claimed by JeM, in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir. 

The assault, which killed more than 40 paramilitary troops, was the deadliest attack on Indian security forces, and in Kashmir on the whole, in years. 

Nearly 50 countries, including all five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (even China), issued statements condemning the tragedy, and many called on Pakistan to crack down on JeM. 

Soon after the attack, the United States, with support from fellow Security Council members France and the United Kingdom, proposed the resolution. 

The Trump administration, according to Indian press accounts, tried to convince Beijing to support it.
And yet China defied all the pressure and refused.
That’s especially strange given that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) gives Beijing a major incentive to take a stronger stand on terror in South Asia. 

Despite mounting financing concerns, Beijing continues to build the mammoth transport corridor that the BRI, now a much more expansive project, was originally conceived as, and South Asia figures prominently in its plans. 

Two key pathways—the China-Central Asia-West Asia Economic Corridor and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)—pass directly through the region.
The BRI needs stability to succeed, and terror groups like JeM are inherently destabilizing. 

While most JeM attacks have been carried out in the Indian-administered portion of Kashmir, where the BRI doesn’t have a footprint, the group has previously been implicated in at least one attack in Pakistan. 

According to the U.S. government and independent analysts, it has also maintained a presence in Afghanistan. 

Additionally, JeM has ties to al Qaeda.
But Beijing refused to sanction the leader of one of South Asia’s most destabilizing entities. 

This is striking, given that Beijing frequently uses the rhetoric of terror to demonize and delegitimize lesser threats, especially the Uighurs. 

Some years back, as Richard Bernstein recently described in The Atlantic, Beijing went so far as to convince the United States to detain 22 Uighurs—none of whom had any apparent links to terror—in Guantánamo Bay. 

And yet when it comes to Masood Azhar, who heads a potent terror group linked to al Qaeda with regional reach, China all but legitimized a terrorist by refusing to have him officially designated as such.
Perhaps the biggest reason to have believed China would let Azhar be designated a terrorist is that it would have been a low-risk move for Beijing. 

Pakistan’s close friendship with and deep dependence on China—which increased after the United States suspended its security assistance to Pakistan last year—means Islamabad would have been in no position to express displeasure, much less retaliate. 

So there would have been no deleterious consequences for bilateral relations. 

In fact, allowing the resolution to pass would have benefited Beijing: It would have brought China some international goodwill at a moment when its global image has been marred by its cruel and repressive policies toward the Uighur community.
In effect, Beijing declined to make a relatively cost-free move that could have helped advance its interests in South Asia and given a much-needed boost to its reputation. 

It’s a decision that can largely be attributed to the strength of the China-Pakistan relationship.
This partnership, motivated by shared rivalry with India, isn’t as ironclad as the heady official rhetoric (“sweeter than honey,” “higher than the Himalayas”) might suggest. 

But it’s still warmer, deeper, and more strategically vital than just about any other bilateral relationship in Asia.
And yet Beijing’s decision to block Azhar’s designation should be read not only as a show of support for Pakistan, but also as an effort to reaffirm China’s continued commitment to the country—at a moment when Islamabad may fear Beijing is wobbling.
Over the last year, as the U.S.-India defense partnership continued to gain speed, Beijing sought a rapprochement of sorts with New Delhi. 

In March 2018, amid efforts to move beyond their tense standoff on the Doklam Plateau in the summer of 2017, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made a strong pitch to end confrontation and initiate conciliation. 

“The Chinese dragon and Indian elephant must not fight each other but dance with each other,” Wang declared in a press conference.
Then, in April 2018, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping held an informal summit in Wuhan, China, that led to a commitment to cooperate on joint training programs for Afghan diplomats. 

Later that year, there was talk, mainly from the Chinese side, of potential India-China cooperation on connectivity projects in Afghanistan—and even in Pakistan.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Beijing has declined to defend Pakistan in global forums on several occasions over the past year.
In February 2018, it refused to oppose a measure at the Financial Action Task Force to put Pakistan on its so-called gray list for failing to curb terrorist financing.
In July, Beijing signed on to a public statement issued by the Heart of Asia initiative (a 14-nation collective focused on promoting stability in Afghanistan) that condemned JeM and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)—another major Pakistan-based, India-focused terror group—by name.
This came less than a year after China did the same with a statement issued at a BRICS summit.
And then came the recent India-Pakistan crisis, when India and Pakistan launched air strikes on each other’s soil and brought the subcontinent to the brink of war.
Beijing was quiet throughout the crisis and never expressed public support for Islamabad.
Instead, it called for restraint.
In reality, Pakistan shouldn’t need reminding that China is still on its side.
The India-China rivalry remains strong and fraught, and it’s destined to deepen in the coming years as the two Asian giants ramp up competition for markets, mineral resources, and influence.
And a bitter territorial dispute—the cause of a 1962 war—remains unresolved.
Still, signaling is important in international relations, and Beijing’s obstructionism at the U.N. sent a strong message.
To be sure, other factors may have prompted China’s move as well.
With Pakistan facing mounting debt to Beijing from CPEC, and with several Belt and Road countries having backed out of projects over the past year due to financing concerns, Beijing may have wanted to make a gesture of goodwill to get Islamabad to shake off any emerging discontent over CPEC. Additionally, Beijing may have wanted to offer a sop to Pakistan to preclude any chance of Islamabad calling China out for its Uighur policy.
While Pakistan, like every other government of a Muslim-majority country (except Turkey), has maintained a deafening silence on the matter, one can’t rule out the possibility, however remote, of Prime Minister Imran Khan—a bold leader with a populist streak—speaking out at some point.
If Khan doesn’t take it up, the opposition may.
All this said, one gets the impression that Beijing didn’t block Azhar’s listing with glee, and that it did so somewhat grudgingly.
The official Chinese justification for its technical hold—it needed more time to think the matter through—suggests a level of indecision.
Also, on March 17, Luo Zhaohui, China’s ambassador to India, struck a conciliatory tone, saying, “We understand India’s concerns and are optimistic this matter will be resolved.”
At the very least, Beijing appears to be trying to soften the blow of the move for Indian audiences, indicating a desire not to antagonize New Delhi.
As for New Delhi, it has handled this whole episode quite well.
Even amid shrill calls from some hawkish quarters for retaliation—including a social media campaign to boycott Chinese goods—India has reacted quite calmly.
The government released a fairly anodyne statement that spoke of being “disappointed by this outcome” and vowed to “continue to pursue all available avenues to ensure that terrorist leaders who are involved in heinous attacks on our citizens are brought to justice.”
This was the right move.
At the end of the day, China’s move doesn’t amount to much.
It’s symbolic at best.
Had Azhar been sanctioned, he would have faced an assets freeze, an arms embargo, and a travel ban. However, according to multiple Indian media reports as well as Pakistan’s own foreign minister, Azhar is very ill and hardly likely to move about.
However, based on past precedent, even if we assume Azhar is still actively driving JeM’s operations and strategy, listing him would have had a minimal impact—especially in the context of Pakistan. Hafiz Saeed, the leader of LeT, was listed in December 2008 (a move China did not prevent) just days after his group carried out the Mumbai terror attacks.
Over the past decade, Saeed has largely lived unencumbered and led the life of a law-abiding thought leader: He has moved about freely, delivered fiery public lectures, and given media interviews.
This year, he even filed (unsuccessfully) a formal request for his U.N. terror designation to be repealed.
Ultimately, India wants to be seen as a responsible rising power.
Rather than fixating on the symbolic pass China gave to an infirm militant, New Delhi is better off tapping into the growing resolve within the international community to combat Pakistan-based terrorism, and working multilaterally in other forums to curb a threat that is of great global concern.

Welcome to an emerging Asia: India and China stop feigning friendship while Russia plays all sides

By Harsh V Pant

In a hard place.

After a few timid signs of warming, Sino-Indian relations seem to be headed for the freezer. 

While Beijing refuses to take Indian security concerns seriously, New Delhi may have decided to take the Chinese challenge head-on. 

To complicate matters for India, its erstwhile ally Russia, which has become a close friend of China, is showing interest in establishing closer ties with Pakistan.
The latest move that clenches teeth in India is China refusing to lift a hold on Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar, accused of plotting multiple acts of terrorism against India, and blocking him in December from being listed as a terrorist by the United Nations. 

Since March, China has blocked India’s attempts to put a ban on Azhar, under the sanctions committee of the UN Security Council, despite support from other members of the 15-nation body. 

In response, India has gone beyond expressing dismay by testing its long-range ballistic missiles—Agni IV and Agni V—in recent weeks. 

Pakistan, aided by China, has also jumped in by testing its first sea cruise missile that could be eventually launched from a Pakistani submarine.
China has upped the ante, indicating a willingness to help Pakistan increase the range of its nuclear missiles. 

China’s official mouthpiece, Global Times, contended in an editorial: “if the Western countries accept India as a nuclear country and are indifferent to the nuclear race between India and Pakistan, China will not stand out and stick rigidly to those nuclear rules as necessary. At this time, Pakistan should have those privileges in nuclear development that India has.”

China’s $46 billion investment in the so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, also troubles India as the land corridor extends through the contested territory in Kashmir which India claims as its own. 

India views CPEC as an insidious attempt by China to create new realities on the ground and a brazen breach of India’s sovereignty and territory. 

The Chinese media have suggested that India should join CPEC to “boost its export and slash its trade deficit with China” and “the northern part of India bordering Pakistan and Jammu & Kashmir will gain more economic growth momentum.”
New Delhi has questioned if China would accept an identical situation in Tibet or Taiwan, or if this is a new phase in Chinese policy with China accepting Pakistan’s claims as opposed to the previous stance of viewing Kashmir as disputed territory.

Faced with an intransigent China, India under the centre-right government led by Narendra Modi is busy reevaluating its China policy. 

Modi’s initial outreach to China soon after coming to office in May 2014 failed to produce any substantive outcome and he has since decided to take a more hard-nosed approach. 

New Delhi has strengthened partnerships with like-minded countries, including the United States, Japan, Australia, and Vietnam. 

India has bolstered its capabilities along the troubled border with China and the Indian military is operationally gearing up for a two-front war. 

India is also ramping up its nuclear and conventional deterrence against China by testing long-range missiles, raising a mountain strike corps for the border with China, enhancing submarine capabilities, and basing its first squadron of French-made Rafale fighter jets near that border.
More interesting is a significant shift in India’s Tibet policy with the Modi government deciding to bring the issue back into the Sino-Indian bilateral equation. 

India will openly welcome the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader who has lived in exile in India since 1959, at an international conference on Buddhism to be held in Rajgir-Nalanda, Bihar, in March. 

And ignoring Beijing’s protests, the Dalai Lama will also visit the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh which China claims as part of its own territory.
After initially ceding ground to Chinese sensitivities on Tibet and refusing to explicitly acknowledge official interactions with the Dalai Lama, a more public role for the monk is now presented as an essential part of the Indian response to China. 

In the first meeting in decades between a serving Indian head of state and the Dalai Lama, Indian President Pranab Mukherjee hosted the Buddhist leader at the inaugural session of the first Laureates and Leaders for Children Summit, held at the president’s official residence in New Delhi in December.

Pawn for giants: China strives to curb the influence of the Dalai Lama, who lives in India. The religion emerged in India during 5th century BC and has numerous sects.

China has not taken kindly to these moves by India and vehemently opposes any attempt to boost the image or credibility of the Dalai Lama.
China has been relentless in seeking isolation for the Dalai Lama and often succeeds in bullying weaker states to bar the monk. 

After the Dalai Lama’s November visit to the predominantly Buddhist Mongolia, where he is revered as a spiritual leader, the nation incurred China’s wrath and soon apologised, promising that the Dalai Lama would no longer be allowed to enter the country.
But India is not Mongolia. 

There is growing disenchantment with Chinese behaviour in New Delhi. 

Appeasing China by sacrificing the interests of the Tibetan people has not yielded any benefits for India, nor has there been tranquility in the Himalayas in recent decades. 

As China’s aggressiveness has grown, Indian policymakers are no longer content to play by rules set by China. 

Although India has formally acknowledged Tibet as a part of China, there is a new push to support the legitimate rights of the Tibetan people so as to negotiate with China from a position of strength.
This Sino-Indian geopolitical jostling is also being shaped by the broader shift in global and regional strategic equations. 

Delhi long took Russian support for granted. 

Yet, much to India’s discomfiture, China has found a new ally in Russia which is keen to side with it, even as a junior partner, to scuttle western interests. 

Historically sound Indo-Russian ties have become a casualty of this trend and to garner Chinese support for its anti-West posturing, Russia has refrained from supporting Indian positions.
Worried about India’s growing proximity to the United States, Russia is also warming up to Pakistan. 

The two held their first joint military exercise in September and their first bilateral consultation on regional issues in December. 

After officially lifting an arms embargo against Pakistan in 2014, Russia will deliver four Russian-made Mi-35M attack helicopters in 2017 to Pakistan’s military. 

It is also likely that the China-backed CPEC might be merged with the Russia-backed Eurasian Economic Union. 

Jettisoning its traditional antipathy to the Taliban, Russia indicates a readiness to negotiate with the Taliban against the backdrop of the growing threat of the Islamic State in Afghanistan. 

Towards that end, Russia is already working with China and Pakistan, thereby marginalising India in the regional process.
As the Trump administration takes office in Washington on Jan. 20, it will be rushing into headwinds generated by growing Sino-Indian tensions and a budding Sino-Russian entente. 

Trump’s own pro-Russia and anti-China inclinations could further complicate geopolitical alignments in Asia. 

Growing tension in the Indian subcontinent promises to add to the volatility.

China's Strategic Encirclement Of India’s Core Interests

By Bhaskar Roy

Having failed to constrict India within South Asia with its “String of Pearls” Strategy, China has now embarked on a new initiative to trip India’s growing comprehensive national power (CNP) and influence beyond South Asia.
India’s neighbours swam with China periodically, depending on the government in those countries. For example, the Mahinda Rajapksa government in Sri Lanka jumped into China’s lap for their own political reasons. 

The Mathiripala Sirisena government has restored the balance.
The BNP led four party alliance government (2001-2006) in Bangladesh brought relations with India to the lowest ebb. 

The alliance had parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami which were beholden to Pakistan and actively complicit in the savage rape and attempted extermination of the pro-liberation Bengalees in 1971. They were natural allies of not only Pakistan but also China which supported Pakistan. 

The return of the Awami League to power changed this policy drastically. 

The Awami League government, due to practical necessity and real politics, crafted a friendly relationship with China, but not at the expense of their relationship with India. 

China, however, is trying to entice Dhaka, but this does not worry India because India-Bangladesh relationship has more than political market imperatives. 

There is a cultural and historical conjunction.
Nepal has been vacillating between India and China. 

Lodged between the two giant countries, they are trying to get the best out of the two. 

China recognises India’s influence in Nepal, but has been consistently trying to weaken the India-Nepal relationship.
Pakistan has emerged as China’s mainstay in the region and extends to the Gulf, the Central Asian region, and now they are trying to draw in Russia in this ambit. 

Weakening India-Russia relations is one of its aims. 

With its promised 46 billion investment in Pakistan for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Control of the Gwadar Port (a military project), primary arms and defence equipment supplier and recent acquisition of 40 percent of the Pakistan stock market by a Chinese conglomerate, Pakistan is fast emerging as a country under Chinese suzerainty. 

Evidence suggests Pakistan may soon become a platform for the projection of both soft and hard power for being along the route envisaged for the “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) project. 

China is unlikely to declare Pakistan as one of its “core” interests, but it is already acting as such.
Lately, China has been expressing concerns about achieving the full potential of the CPEC. 

In an article in the Communist Party affiliated newspaper Global Times (Dec. 28, 2016), Wang Dehua, Director of the Institute of Southern and Central Asian Studies, Shanghai Municipal Center for Internal Studies, wrote that the CEPC was facing challenges. 

He went on to describe the project as having “significant economic, political and strategic implications for both China and Pakistan”.
Wang wrote this in the context of a spat between the Chinese Chargé d'Affaires in Islamabad Zhao Lijian and a journalist of the Pakistani newspaper Dawn. 

The concerned journalist asked Zhao some uncomfortable questions including use of Chinese prisoners as labour. 

The senior Chinese diplomat lost his cool in a public place, which is very uncharacteristic of the Chinese.
Wang Dehua revealed that Chinese investment was raised to $51 billion from the initial $46 billion. The Chinese party media have extolled the virtue of the CPEC not only for China and Pakistan but other countries of the region including India, Iran, Afghanistan and Russia. 

The emphasis has been more on India, suggesting that India joining the project could help reduce tensions between India and Pakistan. 

Simultaneously, there is a suggestion to link Gwadar and Chabahar ports as sister ports and sister cities.
The CPEC is the flagship project of the larger OBOR strategic conception of extending China’s circulatory system far and wide. 

It has political and strategic penetration as significant benefits. 

Most important is the fact that it is Xi Jinping’s prestige project. It cannot be allowed to fail at any cost. 

It is also part of China’s great power signature.
At the same time, Beijing is ramping up pressure on India in a shower, trying to destabilise India’s emerging foreign policy. 

Beijing’s stand will have serious negative implications especially on the biggest threat to the world at this moment, terrorism. 

In the last week of December, China vetoed India’s move to designate Masood Azhar, head of Pakistan-based terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammad as a “terrorist” at the UN Committee 2167 on terrorism. 

This, when the organisation itself is designated as a terrorist organisation by the same committee.
This one move by China has hit at the very roots of the global movement against extremism and terrorism. 

Read plainly, China will use terrorism as a political weapon against perceived enemies, in this case India.

It also encourages Pakistan to use terrorism with impunity against India, Afghanistan and even, perhaps Bangladesh.
India is determined to continue its efforts to bring other Pakistani-based and backed terrorists in front of the 2167 committee. 

China is the only member of their 15 member committee to oppose the move against Azhar. 

In a manner China stands isolated.
China took umbrage and accused India of interfering in China’s internal affairs after the Indian President met His Holiness the Dalai Lama at a function which was totally non-political. 

Their official media threatened India of retaliation of the kind they subjected the tiny country of Mongolia after Dalai Lama’s visit to Mongolia that was a purely religious one. 

Mongolia is a Buddhist Country, mostly of the Gelugpa sect of Buddhism which the Dalai Lama heads spiritually. 

This is a stupid threat. 

Mongolia a tiny land locked country, with a population of around two million, is dependent on China for outside access. 

Such threats do not impress the Indian government and the Indian people. 

The Chinese threat appears to be an act of frustration.
Nevertheless, Tibet is a declared core interest of China, hence the Dalai Lama. 

The 80 year spiritual leader has withdrawn himself from politics, but his influence and reverence among Tibetans inside China and outside is palpable. 

The Chinese have not been able to come to a firm conclusion whether the living 14th Dalai Lama or deceased 14th Dalai Lama will be to their interest.
The Chinese leadership has tried to denigrate the Dalai Lama in all possible ways, calling him a ‘splittist’ (separatist), ‘devil’, ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing among other things, but these have not impressed anyone. 

Beijing suspects India is using Dalai Lama as a ‘card’ against China.
India has accepted Tibet Autonomous Region as a sovereign part of China (2003). 

The Tibetan refugees in India are not allowed political activities. 

Successive governments in New Delhi have bent over backwards to accommodate China’s concerns. But if China continues to attack India on this issue, India will be forced to fight back: Allow the Dalai Lama and the generally accepted Kargyupa head Ughen Thinley Dorjee freedom to move around India including Tawang and the rest of Arunachal Pradesh.

China is trying to push the OBOR to and through Nepal and Bangladesh. 

They hope that through persuasion from these two countries India may succumb and agree to join the OBOR in the interest of its good neighbourhood policy. 

If India does not relent China may seek alternative policies in India’s neighbourhood to constrict India. 

The Global Times has already hinted at this.
Beijing remains determined to keep India out of the Nuclear Supplies Group (NSG). 

It has now objected to India’s successful testing (Dec. 16, 2016) of the 5000 kms nuclear capable ballistic missile Agni V. 

In a sharply worded statement Chinese foreign ministry spokespersons threatened to take this issue to the UN Security Council resolution 1172 after the 1998 nuclear tests by India and Pakistan. 

The resolution passed at the heat of the moment and engineered by China and the US calling on the two countries to stop further nuclear tests, cap their nuclear weapon programmes, cease all fissile material production, and end development of ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons. The resolution, however is non-binding. 

China’s threat falls through the floor.
Since then, India has come a long way on the nuclear issue. 

It issued a moratorium on nuclear testing, announced no first use of nuclear weapons policy and signed the India-US nuclear deal. 

India, however, will have to counter Chinese pressures in several such areas in the future.
The Chinese spokesperson also said that “China maintains that preserving the strategic balance and stability in South Asia is conducive to peace and prosperity of regional countries ‘and beyond’. Basically, the statement implied that India may have disturbed the strategic balance in South Asia and beyond, without counting its own intercontinental nuclear capable ballistic missiles and other weapons. 

As China its military development is defensive and not aimed at any country, so is the official India position.
But things between India and China may get worse if the CPEC and OBOR falter seriously. 

This is closely linked to Xi Jinping’s politics and stature of “core” leader of the Chinese Communist Party. 

The 19th Congress to the party will be held in autumn this year and major leadership changes will take place. 

Xi cannot have any chinks in his armour.

Things don’t look good for China

By Balbir Punj

The US Congress has come up with a fresh report saying that China is intent on using Pakistan to thwart India at every turn. 

This is to obtain a unhindered path in the world, especially in the Asian context, adds the report. 

The report has come at a time when a new American president is taking over — one who will have a nononsense policy towards China and has pledged to assert American leadership globally. 

Donald Trump has said that the very first day he assumes office as the 45th President of the United States (on January 20), he will scrap the American membership of the Trans Pacific Partnership. 

TPP was signed in February in view of protecting America’s interests in global trade.
The deal also proposed to work with China in cooperation with countries in the Pacific rim, in the backdrop of the South China Sea divide. 

But those very countries including Japan, Philippines, Vietnam etc. were apprehensive of China’s ambitions as it sought to assert its claims on the Pacific islands. 

These islands are claimed by as many as seven other countries in Asia. 

Not many in the US were happy with TPP either. 

Trump during his election campaign itself had pledged that the US would leave the partnership. 

China had even proposed a partnership with America, but Obama rejected it. 

In his eight years in office, Obama sought to limit China’s ambitions by working with it. 

He strengthened US ties with the countries in Pacific and Indian oceans. 

Obama struck an alliance with Japan, India and Australia to keep the maritime trade corridors free, even as China was pursuing the “One Belt, One Road” initiative. 

Thus the Congress report on US-China relations comes at a time when Trump is setting up a team to take over the US administration.
The report has warned that in the last ten years, Chinese influence has spread in and around South Asia — traditionally seen as India’s sphere of influence. 

Beijing has also sought to build a secure push for itself in the Indian Ocean and block India’s play in that region. 

This is why it is using a ‘wholly willing’ Pakistan to thwart India’s rise as a challenger to China’s ambitions. 

It wants to cement its place as the sole leader of Asia. 

The report, however, also points out that the rise of terrorism is a major threat to China’s security, thus prompting a shift in the country’s strategic calculations. 

In China’s western provinces, there has been a significant rise in radicalisation of Muslim minorities. For decades, authoritarian regimes in several Muslim majority states bordering China in Central Asia have kept restive regions under control.
The US report terms, “checking India’s rise, primarily exploiting India-Pakistan rivalry” as an important agenda for China. 

New Delhi clearly sees that Beijing supports Pakistan on all major regional issues. 

“The overall balance of power between China and India currently is in China’s favour, and Beijing intends to keep it that way. China’s primary mechanism in this regard is its support for Pakistan.” 

For India, it is no news. 

New Delhi has seen Beijing backing Pakistan on crucial issues like declaring Masood Azhar as a globally designated terrorist and blocking India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group. 

It has harassed Indian businessmen seeking to expand Indian exports to China and has been showing evident hostility to Indian diplomacy in Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. 

In addition, China is pushing a $51 billion investment in Pakistan. 

The Chinese Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is an initiative to build a rail, road and industrial corridor from its southern provinces through Pakistan occupied Kashmir.
It creates a corridor between the new port that China is building at Gwadar in Balochistan and Kashgar in Xinjiang. 

China is also seeking to oust regimes in Nepal, Maldives, Myanmar and Sri Lanka — governments it thinks could be friendly to India. 

No doubt, the US Congressional report seeks to show that the threat of terrorism to China is forcing certain changes in Beijing’s South Asian policy that is centred on favouring Pakistan to thwart India. “Counter terrorism has become an increasingly important facet of Beijing’s engagement with South Asia,” the US report claims. 

The response from India to these developments would be watched keenly. 

But the Modi government, with its numerous initiatives, has already built strong bonds with all the Southeast Asian nations. 

Under Prime Minister Modi, India now has a friendly regime in Nepal and Sri Lanka, close relations with Bangladesh and a partnership with Bhutan and Afghanistan.
As a counter to CPEC, India is building a port in Iran. 

Chabahar is being built by India linking Afghanistan, central Asian nations with rich oil and gas fields. 

The port has a huge development potential. 

Whether the Trump administration will join India in all these ventures is to be watched. 

Right now, the expected protectionist trade moves by the incoming Trump administration could further weaken China which has built a huge fortune by exporting globally, mainly to the US. 

This is also a time when the growth rate of China has sunk to six per cent. 

The country’s devalued currency has threatened economic growth thus forcing its migrant population to return to rural areas amidst growing distress. 

Xi Jinping is certainly not riding the silk road without any challenges.

Thucydides Trap in Asia: The Sino-Indian conflict

By Abir Chattaraj

At the battle of Pylos (Seventh year of the Peloponnesian War), the Athenians won a major victory over Sparta. 

In consequence of their loss, Sparta sent envoys to Athens to offer a peace treaty. 

The Spartan envoys enjoined the Athenians to “treat their gains as precarious,” and advised that “if great enmities are ever to be really settled, we think it will be, not by the system of revenge and military success… but when the more fortunate combatant waives his privileges and, guided by gentler feelings, conquers his rival in generosity and accords peace on more moderate conditions than expected.”

Unfortunately this age old wisdom pervades the Chinese in Asia.
The Greek historian Thucydides theorised that when an established power encountered a rising power, a conflict between them was inevitable. 

Today China, Asia’s established power and India, a rising power are heading towards this very own Thucydides trap.
China today perceives India as an adversary. 

Its very actions are geared towards this objective. 

One-third of Chinese naval power is being deployed to the Indian Ocean Region. 

The Chinese are building a ring of alliances under the “String of Pearls” doctrine with countries around India’s periphery: from Myanmar to Pakistan. 

It has interposed itself in India’s land disputes in Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan; accused India of propagating the Tibetan movement, covert attacks and espionage and human rights violations; excluded India from the China-sponsored Maritime Silk Road and the Quadrilateral Dialogue with US on Afghanistan, blocked India’s NSG bid and openly supported terrorist Masood Azhar in the Security Council.
Chinese military moves to contain India has become more robust and overt in recent months.
These include: support for Pakistan’s militarization; the constant irritant stationing of Chinese naval forces in the Sri Lanka; Gwadar in Pakistan occupied Balochistan; aggressive naval patrolling in the Indian Ocean Region; ever closer defense cooperation with and supplies to Pakistan, Bangladesh; joint naval and military exercises with Pakistan, Sri-Lanka, Bangladesh; an agreement with most Indian neighbours for Billions of Dollars worth of soft loans.
The recent ex-parte award against China on the South China Sea islands dispute by The Hague Arbitration Tribunal ,could bring the growing Sino-Indian tensions to a climax. 

China vehemently opposes any assistance given to Vietnam in any form whatsoever, contests Indian drilling of offshore oil reserves by ONGC in legitimate Vietnamese waters and holds maritime naval exercises on South China to reassert its territorial claims.
The invidious actions of China are likely to result in more heartburn in Indian diplomatic circles.
Beijing’s stance towards India-Japanese co-operation is also likely to harden. 

The US-Japan-India military exercises could be countered by joint China-Russia naval operations in the North China Sea.
The escalating Sino-US rivalry will compel Pakistan to align itself even more closely with China. Consequently, Pakistan will face even greater US pressure and coercion, including on Afghanistan, terrorism, nuclear and missile issues.
The impact of a Sino-Indian confrontation would be global. 

Russia-China defense and economic cooperation would intensify which is most likely to include huge fundings for the ailing Russian oil sector. 

The One Belt, One Road project will link China with Europe through Russia, greatly hampering the choke points in the Straits of Malacca. 

Africa could divide between Western, Indian and Chinese blocs. 

In Latin America, some other states may be open to closer relations with China to counter India’s growing reputation. 

The Sino-Indian economic relationship which currently is geared vehemently favorably towards China, would decline sharply, slowing growth in both countries and the world economy and possibly igniting another global economic crisis.
Of the nearly 15 historical cases reviewed by Dr Kissinger of established powers encountering rising rivals, 10 resulted in conflict. 

Both China and India could yet back away from the Thucydides trap. 

The onus for doing so rests with Beijing. 

Unfortunately, the anti-India populism reflected in the current Chinese diplomatic moves does not augur well for the triumph of restraint and reason.

Why is a Pakistani terrorist so important to China?

China was the only country among the 15-member UNSC to have opposed the ban on Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar
By Elizabeth Roche

A file photo of Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar.

New Delhi -- This year, China has twice blocked India’s bid to get Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar declared as a UN-designated terrorist. 

The first instance was in April and the second earlier this month.
India holds Azhar responsible for many terrorist acts in India including the 13 December 2001 attack on India’s parliament as well the 2 January 2016 attack on the Pathankot airbase. 

On the record, Beijing says it stands against all forms of terrorism, but it has refused to end its “technical hold” on the ban on Azhar. 

China was the only country among the 15-member UN Security Council (UNSC) to oppose the ban on Azhar, with countries such as Saudi Arabia backing India.
Replying to a question on criticism about China’s move to stall India’s bid for a UN ban on Azhar, China’s vice foreign minister Li Baodong last week sought to justify Beijing’s position. 

In a veiled reference to India, which is pressing for the UN ban against Azhar over his role in the Pathankot terror attack, he said: “China is opposed to all forms of terrorism. There should be no double standards on counter-terrorism. Nor should one pursue own political gains in the name of counter-terrorism.”
So, why is China supporting Mazood Azhar and why is he so important to China?
There are several possible explanations.
One, given that China and Pakistan are “all-weather friends” Beijing’s efforts are aimed at keeping its ally in South Asia happy. 

India is seen as a competitor and a threat by China and needling India in this way keeps India “boxed in” by problems in South Asia, leaving it with little leeway to focus on issues away from its immediate neighbourhood. 

Any breakthrough in South Asia in terms of peace with Pakistan or penalising Pakistan with support from other countries would mean India being free to concentrate further afield. 

Officially though, China says that its veto on Azhar “will allow more time for the committee to deliberate on the matter and for relevant parties to have further consultations” given the different views among UN Security Council members on the matter.
Pakistan’s support for China within groupings like the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and others like the Non-Aligned Movement where China has no representation could be another reason for Beijing extending support to Pakistan through the UNSC, where it is a powerful veto-wielding member. 

In the past, Pakistan has reportedly shielded China in the OIC against caustic remarks on Beijing’s crackdowns on its Muslim Uyghur community in its restive Xinjiang province. 

Islamabad has also stood up against any inclusion of sharp language against Beijing at the Non Aligned Movement’s meetings on its conduct in the South China Sea. 

Beijing claims almost all of the South China Sea, disputing claims by countries like the Philippines and Vietnam.
A third reason could be India’s growing proximity to the US that China definitely sees as a major challenge. 

India’s warming relations with the US in the past decade, the high water mark of which was the 2008 civil nuclear deal, has been variously debated and discussed as moves by the US to find a counterweight to China in Asia. 

These moves have fuelled Chinese suspicions and needling India using Masood Azhar could be one way of keeping India on tenterhooks. 

In the past, China has also opposed India’s membership into the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group and the UN Security Council. 

According to analysts, it is also part of power politics – keeping power concentrated within the hands of a few and keeping others out.
Another reason could be China’s pique with India for sheltering the Dalai Lama who Beijing considers a “subversive” and a “splittist.” 

The Dalai Lama is the temporal head of Tibetan Buddhists. 

He was made head of state at age 15 in 1950, the same year that Chinese troops occupied Tibet. 

In 1959, the Dalai Lama fled Tibet for exile in India after a failed uprising against Chinese rule. 

That New Delhi has given the Tibetan spiritual leader asylum is a sore point vis-a-vis Beijing. 

“For the Chinese, the Dalai Lama is sort of the equivalent of (Lashkar e Toiba terrorist group leader) Hafeez Saeed for India,” remarked an Indian diplomat who was posted in Beijing recently.
Last but not the least is the key role played by Pakistan in China’s One Belt One Road plans. 

China has pledged $51 billion in projects and investments in an economic corridor that literally runs across the length of Pakistan – connecting China’s Xinjiang region to the Arabian Sea port of Gwadar. 

The port is important for China which sees it as an alternative to sea routes from Africa and West Asia through the South China Sea. 

The project is projected as bringing development to some of Pakistan’s most backward regions like Baluchistan where Islamabad has been trying to quell an insurgency for decades.