Agni Trials: By Threatening India over test-firing of ICBMs, China has revealed its Insecurity (R)

SOURCE:
http://www.firstpost.com/world/agni-trials-by-threatening-india-over-test-firing-of-icbms-china-has-revealed-its-insecurity-3193010.html

Agni Trials: By Threatening India over test-firing of ICBMs, China has revealed its Insecurity

 

#Agni IV   #AgniV   #China   #ConnectTheDots   #Defence   #Deng Xiaoping   #ICBM   #India   #LAC   #Pakistan   #Rafale fighter jets   #Shivshankar Menon   #Sukhoi-30MKI fighters   #T-72 tanks   #UN Security Council   #Xi Jinping  

Jan 7, 2017

 There is something curious about the latest round of confrontation between India and China on the former's final testing of an intercontinental ballistic missile. It's not as if that by testing one ICBM, albeit with a capacity to carry a nuclear warhead into Chinese mainland, India has caught up with China's military might and drew parity with their vastly superior strategic nuclear weaponry.

With a GDP five times that of India's and a defence budget that at $150 billion outstrips India's by four times, China is bent upon world domination and dreams of replacing US as the next global superpower.

It therefore sounded a little jarring when Chinese media on Thursday in.dulged in nakedly aggressive posturing over India's final test-firing of Agni-IV and played its Pakistan card rather openly, warning India that more missile testing will develop into an arms race in south Asia because it won't shy away from arming Islamabad to match India's arsenal

This represents an interesting new deviation in Chinese policy. Though this wasn't an "official response" to India's flight-testing of Agni-IV that carries a strike range of 4,000km, the country's state-run media is traditionally used to convey messages that are considered too incendiary for official conduits. The diplomatic reaction, transmitted through China's foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying, wasn't too staid either as Beijing accused India of breaking UNSC resolutions through the testing of ballistic missile.

Under President Xi Jinping, China has long given Deng Xiaoping's '24-character strategy' a quiet burial in favour of a muscular, assertive foreign policy but that geopolitical aggression is usually masked by plausible deniability or an exaggerated show of humility. Not exactly Gandhian principle of "true power speaks softly" but China rarely indulges in sabre-rattling even as under Jinping it goes about pursuing the 'Chinese Dream' and translating aggressively its might as world's second-largest economy into hard military power.

Its revisionist policies under the new "core leader" and leveraging of economic prowess into geostrategic depth and political weight-throwing has always gone hand in hand with a perverse modesty.

Not this time.

India's test-firing of DRDO-developed long-range weaponry that may carry nuclear weaponry deep into Chinese territory seems to have touched a raw nerve that prompted Beijing to launch an open threat and use the one card that it prefers to hide beneath its sleeves — Pakistan.

The Global Times editorial wrote: "In general, it is not difficult for India to produce intercontinental ballistic missiles which can cover the whole world. If the UN Security Council has no objection over this, let it be. The range of Pakistan's nuclear missiles will also see an increase."

Beijing's use of Pakistan to contain India is nothing new. It has exploited the animosity between the neighbours to great effect. Whereas on one hand, it has built strategic depth inside Pakistan by almost-colonising the economically bankrupt nation, it has also propped up the warmonger Rawalpindi generals by supplying arms and military technology so that they may remain up to scratch in an arms race and keep India within their crosshairs. But in every step of the way, China has maintained a façade of neutrality. 

What explains the departure?

In his book Choices, former national security adviser Shivshankar Menon provides some valuable insights. According to Menon, who served as India's foreign secretary and was instrumental in engineering the 1993 Border Peace Agreement with China during the Narasimha Rao regime, the balance of power between India and China is of great importance to the latter. Though Beijing never shies away from pointing out the difference between India and China in terms of economic and military might, it is perennially worried about India inching towards some sort of parity.

The shades of this were evident in the border dispute between the two countries. While China had vastly improved its military and civilian infrastructure along the Sino-Indian border in the 1980s and 1990s, it became — according to Menon who served as India's envoy to China from 2000-03 — extremely annoyed when New Delhi tried to close the infrastructure gap and enhance military deployments and capabilities along the LAC. The Chinese, says the author, has been pressing hard of late for an agreement that would "freeze the existing imbalance" along the border.

Not surprisingly, this has become the latest flashpoint of conflicting interests and Chinese irritation has been further exacerbated by Indian steps along the 120,000 square-mile long LAC. As a Times of India report points out, New Delhi has decided to base 

[A] the first squadron of Rafale fighter jets at Bengal's Hashimara base from 2019 as part of "conventional deterrence against China". 

[B] Other steps include

( i ) additional Sukhoi-30MKI fighters,
(ii) spy drones & helicopters in the North East,  (iii)deployment of T-72 tanks in eastern Ladakh and Sikkim,  (iv)new infantry divisions, Mountain Strike Corps, Super Hercules Aircraft and the works, according to the report.

The Chinese threats, therefore, are an expression of insecurity that should help India gain strategic leverage against the Dragon.

RELATED:

Eye on China, India to base first squadron of Rafale fighter jets in Bengal 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/eye-on-china-india-to-base-first-squadron-of-rafale-fighter-jets-in-bengal/articleshow/56384484.cms

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Deng Xiaoping’s "24-Character Strategy"

           SOURCE: [ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/china/24-character.htm&gws_rd=cr&ei=az5yWMm8IYPavAS8tLfABg]

Deng Xiaoping’s "24-Character Strategy" first emerged in 1990 in response both to the global backlash from the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown and to the CCP’s sense of alarm following the collapse of the communist states of Eastern Europe.49 The strategy provided basic principles on how China should protect its national interests while increasing its interactions with the world. The "24-Character Strategy’’ has been roughly translated as:

"Observe calmly; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; hide our capacities and bide our time; be good at maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership."

As stated in a 2010 essay posted on an official CCP website, "Hide our capabilities and bide our time, make some contributions" and related thoughts were put forward by Deng Xiaoping for the ‘special period’ of the late 1980s and early 1990s, in the midst of sudden changes in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the socialist camp. . . . Currently, there are people in other countries who have produced misunderstandings and distortions of ‘hide our capabilities and bide our time.’ These people believe that China’s foreign policy strategy has a long-term, undeclared content and purpose:

This is that China believes that its current strength is insufficient, and the time has not yet come to announce and implement this great strategy, and consequently must ‘Hide our capabilities and bide our time,’ concealing the true situation and waiting for the right time of opportunity. . . . However, this is . . . a serious misunderstanding and distortion of the ‘hide our capabilities and bide our time’ idea stated by Comrade Deng Xiaoping . . . the original idea of using the expression ‘hide our capabilities and bide our time’ was the strategy of ‘developing ourselves,’ and not at all to ‘seek revenge on others’ after we have developed."

CCP General Secretary Jiang Zemin continued this policy throughout the 1990s, making it a central tenet of Chinese foreign policy for more than ten years. The result was that China’s strategic orientation ‘‘demonstrate[d] unusual consistency from the 1980s through the 2000s,’’ with China’s leaders "insisting on the importance of sticking to Deng Xiaoping’s realist legacy."

The phrase tao guang yang hui, “keep a low profile” was used by Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s as part of a famous description of China’s foreign policy. Zhao Qizheng, dean of the School of Journalism of Renmin University of China and formal head of State Council Information Office, argues that some foreigners misunderstand the real meaning of Deng Xiaoping’s proposal.

But some foreigners read it as advocating deception about China’s true strength. Zhao maintains that “keep a low profile” is not a trick, but an expression of a particular approach. Yet other scholars point out that in a classical context, the phrase is used to indicate a strategic ruse. But the key problem is not in which dynasty or in which book the term first appeared or whether the ancients used it in reference to strategic trickery. The core is how to understand the context in which Deng used the term.

Chinese civilization is always developing and the context of the same word or idiom is changing, and our understanding of an idiom should follow its own development and changes. No matter how scholars of various dynasties understood the term “tao guang yang hui,” in the 1990s, Chinese used it to express the meaning of “maintaining a low profile,” focusing on developing China.

The Chinese people have traditionally valued “enduring humiliation in order to carry out an important task, self-reliance, hard work and plain living.” The Chinese like to believe they aren’t expansionist, colonial, or imperial, and don’t hit out in all directions to grab and keep territory.

The idiom tao guang yang hui could be translated as “to keep a low profile” in modern times and it could even be translated as “to be self-effacing.” However, it could never be translated as “to hide one’s ability and pretend to be weak” or “hide one’s capabilities and bide one’s time” in a modern context.

After 30 years of reforming and opening-up, China experienced rapid developments in all aspects and grew into the world’s second largest economy. The building up of national defense began to be modernized and the society is more diverse. A brief study of the background of Deng's 24-character principle will give people a better understand as to the meaning of "hide our capacities and bide our time". Deng made the remarks after the drastic changes in Eastern Europe, when people in foreign countries and in China hoped China to shoulder up the great banner of socialism.

In the 24-character principle, Deng stressed "never claim leadership". He said China will never claim the leadership, never seek hegemony, never seek sphere of influence, never practice group politics, and never interfere with internal affairs of other countries even if it becomes a strong nation one day. Understanding the sentence completely, one will see "never claim leadership" is the core of China's strategy for development. Based on the strategy, the Chinese leaders of new generation set forth the concept to build a harmonious world.