Sudershan Kumar
The present unprecedented situation with the prevailing menace of corona pandemic has grappled the whole world adversely affecting various countries both economically and medically leading to loss of human lives. But in the context of the south Asian region, this pandemic has paved the way to a new hostile narrative between India and China. This can be attributed to the global alienation faced by China amidst this pandemic. Hence forth the Dragon, which over the years had resorted to colonial extension and establishing supremacy has suddenly undergone a paradigm shift in its diplomatic engagements with India. This new more robust policy adopted by China, is the “Wolf Warrior Diplomacy” .The term wolf war diplomacy has emerged from a popular Chinese movie of the same name premixed on soldiers going out and teaching enemy of China a lesson. Even Chinese ambassador in Sweden during his interview had said: we treat our friends with fine wine and enemies with a shotgun. Therefore the question which comes forth is that, what promoted China to shift its policy from a soft rising economic power to a more aggressive robust “Wolf Warrior Diplomacy” aimed and directed towards not only its neighbours but the whole world. To seek these answers, one will have to turn the pages of Chinese history right from the time it gained independence on 1st October 1949. From history, it emerges that the Chinese leaderships adopted different strategies acclimatizing to different circumstances thus facilitating and fostering Chinese growth economically and militarily over as short span of time. Mao Zedong took over a leader of the Chinese Communist party (CCP) in the year 1935 and remained its leader until his death in the year 1976.He was also the chairman of People Republic of China from 1949 to 1959. Mao Zedong during his tenure, emerged as a strong leader of the People’s Republic of China. His main contributions, encompasses, leading the communist party to victory in 1949, adopting of the Cultural Revolution for China with an aim to purge the country’s impure elements and revive the revolutionary spirit. Besides, his campaign to eliminate prostitution, overcome opium addiction, mass literacy and infectious diseases are commendable. As a result, the average life expectancy in China increased from 35 years to 65 years. He followed Independent foreign policy for China and also made attempts to build bridges, with the United States, Japan and Europe. After his death, Deng Xiaoping took over the reign of China and advocated for duel dimension reform and opening up. The former meant boosting competition by shaking up inefficient domestic and economic administration system, while the latter was for allowing foreigners to access the Chinese’s market in return for foreign direct investment (FDI) and technology. He also shared Mao’s vision of transforming China into a rich and powerful nation and backed up some of Mao’s disastrous campaigns, including Anti Rightest movement and the Great Leap. Deng, the future architect of China’s transition, was appreciatively described by Mao as “Needle rapped in Cotton”. He proposed a new benchmark cat theory for testing whether the system actually functions. According to Deng, it does not matter if the cat is black or white so long as it catches the mice. His, this theory worked very well and played a key role in china’s transformation. Deng also opened up the coastal areas by setting up the special economic zones (SEZs) to take up the advantage of foreign markets.
As a result, in a short span of time, the Chinese economy increased 60 fold even more impressively. This is evident from the fact that Chinese share in the global market, which was only 3% in the late eighties has grown more than 25% in the year 2018. China has also emerged as the largest trading partner in seventy years. The goods trade value, which was around 1.13 billion in the year 1950, has now grown up to 4.6 trillion. Xi Jinping became the president of China on 14th March
2013 after replacing Hu Jintao, who retired after serving two terms. Thus ushering an era of increased assertiveness and authoritarianism. His vision of one belt one road mega dream project came as a boon to the smaller, and cash strapped nations, who were seeking funds for infrastructure developments. Getting funds from other International monetary agencies was a cumbersome process as it involves intense scrutiny procedures. But Chinese overcame this also with their tempting offers and easy loan giving procedures involving least queries but actually was a trap for these nations who easily fell prey. They accepted Chinese terms and conditions for the loan even for the projects which had very little revenue generation. In the event of non-payment of instalments with high-interest rates led to take over of their strategic assets by Chinese. Taking over of Sri Lankan Port (Hambantota) by China for 99 years lease is a glaring example of their game plan of occupying other countries’ territories. As on date, nearly 130 countries are part of Xi Jinping’s one of the most ambitious One belt One road dream Project. Parallelly the vision of Chinese leadership is also to increase the strength of China’s military. This according to Chinese leadership is of utmost significance as they are well acquainted of the fact that without a strong military, the country can neither be safe nor strong. Hence the Chinese felt that long term modernization plan is absolutely imperative to establish their supremacy around the globe. They made use of their soft economic power approach to acquire technologies required for modernization of their military. Chinese conducted the first nuclear test on16th October 1964 and also tested a hydrogen bomb (thermonuclear device) 17th June 1967 and piled around 300 warheads. Chinese also build a robust lethal force with capabilities spanning air, maritime space information warfare, ballistic missile defence and hypersonic technologies.
The Chinese leadership has a belief that ultra-modern PLA will enable them to impose its will in the region and also have a greater voice in global interaction. With military and economic growth in mind, Xi Jinping intends to be a leader of the second hundred just as Mao Zedong was regarded as a leader of the first hundred. Hence the constitutional changes were passed by the national people congress which paved the way for the election of Xi Jinping as the lifetime President of PRC. His shift from soft economic power to Wolf Warrior diplomacy not only towards neighbors but towards all the countries around the globe basically is to alter the world dynamics from polar to bipolar. He has chosen to adopt this diplomacy at the most appropriate time when the whole world is struggling to combat COVID-19 pandemic. This deadly virus which originated from Wuhan city of Hubei province of China and has engulfed the whole world. As on date, there are nearly 20.9 M confirmed cases with 756000 deaths. This deadly virus has exhausted the economy of most of the countries in Europe. Through this approach, Xi Jinping wants to fulfil the Chinese dream of emerging as world superpower parallel to the United States by 2049.
Dragon’s unilateral action of changing status quo at LAC, occupying a border village of Nepal and laying claim on the territory of Bhutan, Myanmar, Pancheer Mountains in Kazakhstan and a large part of South China Sea has set an alarming bell ringing for nations around the globe especially those who are not toeing Chinese line. Although the Chinese leaders right from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping followed independent foreign policy but their blow hot, blow cold, approach towards India has been dicey feeding their selfish self-goals. Right from the beginning, Chinese leaders view India as their rival, competitor and foe. Their inherent psychological fear that a strong and stable India will act as a deterrence in becoming a world power constantly reverberates. Therefore, one of the major reasons of the 1962 conflict was their insecurity of ruling Tibet and also securing their western border. It was also viewed as an attempt to send a signal to the world that China is an emerging power in Asia. Subsequently, leadership in China, including Xi Jinping’s foreign policy towards India is controlled by all these above factors. At one side Chinese view India ass a huge export market, on the other hand, there is a constant endeavor to marginalize India by raking up off the border issues and also supporting terrorism through its proxy Pakistan. Therefore the present standoff at LAC is just a tip of the iceberg of their larger game plan. PLA has captured certain heights and key positions in eastern Ladakh mainly to secure their CPEC corridor which passes through Karakoram ranges. PLA will not vacate these strategically important locations so easily. Their strategy is to indulge India into prolonged negotiations as per their terms and conditions after intervals to gain time and to further consolidate their position. Thus, till date, even the six rounds of talks between the senior commanders of two armies remain inconclusive. The author is of the opinion that the defeatist policy and timid approach adopted by earlier regimes at different occasions to appease China will not work anymore. This will embolden Dragon to occupy more and more territory through one pretext or the other in the name of the Line of Actual Control. It is high time for the Indian Government to evolve bold, tough, harsh, aggressive and multi-prong innovative strategy against China so that Dragon feels the brunt for its misdeeds against India.
(The author is former Director General & Special Secretary DRDO, MoD GoI)
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