China in 2021 finds itself in the unenviable position of facing at her dorsteps an intensely polarised Indo Pacific security environment ranged against China. China has itself to blame for generating this polarisation with its own acts of wanton disreagrd of its neigbours sovereignties and China's imperialistic impulses of a 'Revisionist Power'.
China as I always have maintained in my writins for last two decades has no 'Natural Allies' to boast of, with exception of North Korea and Pakistan, whose authoritarian regimes have been beholden to China for assisting them in creation of their Nuclear Weapons arsenal and Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles arrsenal.
China in 2021 is visibly in open confrontation with the United States as the reigning Superpower with legitimate vital security interests in th Western Pacific which provide the Outer Perimeter of defence and security of Homeland United States.
Chinna has tried over the last decade to perpetuate a myth in Indo Pacific that the United States is a "Declining Power' and incapable of being a Nett Provider of security of Indo Pacific.
China succeeded in this direction for some time as the United States stood strategically distracted by its military interventions in Iraq earlier and Afghanistan thereafter.
With the advent of Chinese President Xi Jinping in power in 2013, China emerged markedly as a Major Power intent on two aims of attaining 'Strategic Equivalence' with United States and emerge as the Second Pole in the global security calculus and in the proces also ensure that the United States exits the Western Pacific.
The Uited States belatedly woke up to the above strategic realities and US President Trump set the American ball rolling in terms of US-China Tad Wars and revamping the US Forward Military Presnce in Indo Pacific.
President Biden too has also opted to pursue United States 'Hard Line' policies against China belying Chinese expectations to the contray
Tangentially, India which has had a conflictual history with China and was not openly inclined to be seen in any containment mode of China has since 2017 veered arond to join the QUAD grouping of United States, Japan,and Australia.
Similarly ASEAN which had amjor fence-sitters watching the evolving US-China Great Game in Indo Pacific and dithered when China illegally occupied Vietnam's and Philippines' Islands are awakening up to the harsh reality that China afterall is not a benign stakeholder in regional security.
More notably, China's military expansionism and scant regard for international norms and conventions while scrambling to emerge as a Sperpower has raised strategic hackles as far as NATO and the Euopean Union.
NATO and European Union's Major Powers have not only expressed security concerns on China's miliary brinkmanship in Indo Pacific but have asserted that their Navies will make a presence in the South China Sea along with QUAD Navies,
Significantly therefore, in mid-2021 the security environment of the Indo Pacific stands marked by an intense polarisation of Indo Pacific nations ranged against China in which NATO and European Union nations are also joining-in.
China does not seem to be far perurbed by this polarisation at the moment but this polarisation carries serious implications for China in terms of a major armed conflict i Indo Pacific, in which China cannot hope to come out as a victor.
No comments:
Post a Comment