Fast losing its grip on the Indian Ocean region, China is now resorting to blatant falsehood to shore up its image. Beijing had egg on its face when in late November 2022 Maldives and Australia denied in quick succession Beijing’s claim that they participated in a meeting of China – Indian Ocean Forum on Development Cooperation on November 21.
Beijing claimed on November 26 that representatives of 19 countries attended in Kunming in the Yunnan province of China the meeting of the Forum, an organization connected with the Foreign Ministry of China. These countries, according to Beijing, included Indonesia, Pakistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, Afghanistan, Iran, Oman, South Africa, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, Seychelles, Madagascar, Mauritius, Djibouti and Australia.
To the chagrin of Beijing, first Maldives denied having attended the meeting. Later Canberra, too, clarified that Australia stayed away from the meeting on November 21 despite an invitation. New Delhi, in any case, refrained from participating in the meeting.
“Contrary to media reporting, no Australian government official attended the Kunming China-India Ocean Forum on Development Cooperation,” Australian High Commissioner to India Barry O’Farrell has tweeted.
On November 26, the Maldives Ministry of Foreign Affairs too denied having participated in the China – Indian Ocean Forum on Development Cooperation. “The Ministry would like to clarify that the Government of the Maldives did not participate in the above-mentioned Forum and communicated its decision not to participate in the meeting to the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China to the Maldives on November 15, 2022,” the Maldives Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement said.
Interestingly, according to a report of the Sydney-based Lowy Institute, China’s financial support across the Pacific region is on the decline; from a peak of $287 million in 2016 to $187 million in 2020, the lowest level since 2008.
Clearly, in the face of shifting of attention by major world powers from other areas of conflict to the Indian and Pacific Oceans to meet the threat of Chinese belligerence in the South China Sea and attempts to establish its hegemony over the entire seawater, Beijing is unnerved. With Beijing defying the laid down U.N. conventions and international maritime laws, powerful nations are getting together to form the basis for a deeper integration in future and ensure equal access to global commons for all countries as a right under the international law.
The cause for the apprehension of Beijing is not difficult to understand. To check the aggressive moves by China and ensure a free and open Indo – Pacific, the USA and the European Union are putting their acts together. Anxious to defend democracy around the world, the USA has taken steps to prevent Beijing from imposing its own authoritarian model around the globe.
The USA in February 2022 announced its Indo – Pacific strategy, with focus on building collective capacity to deal with the challenges in the region. The strategy includes advancing U.S. relationship, a “Major Defence Partnership” with India and supporting its role a net security provider in the region.
Explaining the need for the strategy, a White House paper said: “This intensifying American focus is due in part to the challenges the Indo-Pacific faces from the PRC. The PRC’s coercion and aggression is the most acute in the Indo-Pacific. From the economic coercion of Australia to the conflict along the Line of Actual Control with India to the growing pressure on Taiwan and bullying of neighbours in the East and South China Seas, our allies and partners in the region bear much of the cost of the PRC’s harmful behaviour. PRC is also undermining human rights and international law, including freedom of navigation.”
The European Union has also come up with an Indo – Pacific strategy that aims to enhance its engagement across a wide spectrum. The EU sees itself and the Indo-Pacific as “natural partner regions.”
On October 12, 2022, Washington also rolled out its long delayed National Security Strategy that emphasized the importance of working with allies to tackle challenges confronting democratic nations and sought to contain China. “We will not leave our future vulnerable to the whims of those who do not share our vision for a world that is free, open, prosperous and secure,” U. S. President Joe Biden said in the preamble to the policy , as released by White House. Alerting the world against the danger posed by the rise China, President Biden said: “Autocrats are working overtime to undermine democracy and export a model of governance marked by repression at home and coercion abroad. These competitors mistakenly believe democracy is weaker than autocracy because they fail to understand that a nation’s power springs from its people.”
Detailing how America had reinvigorated its network of alliances and partnerships, the U. S. President said: “We have deepened our core alliances in Europe and the Indo-Pacific. NATO is stronger and more united than it has ever been,” with Finland and Sweden in the process of joining it. He also mentioned about the security partnership between Australia, the U.K. and the USA in the form of AUKUS, and Quad, an alliance in the Indo-Pacific region involving Japan, Australia, India and the USA, the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework and the American Partnership for Economic Prosperity.
Faced with such a stiff challenge from Washington to its designs in the Indo-Pacific region, Beijing is now trying to misguide the world by making false claims about the success of its initiatives in the Indo-Pacific region like the China – Indian Ocean Forum on Development Cooperation. Among the countries which attended a meeting of the Forum in late November 2022, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Kenya and Djibouti and Nepal are beholden to Beijing because of Belt and Road Initiative loans and the oppressive military junta in Myanmar and the obscurantist Taliban regime in Afghanistan are dependent on China’s support to stay in power.
Besides such attempts to misguide, Beijing is also plain alarmed, as revealed by a October 31, 2022, report from Canberra that China had accused the USA of undermining regional peace and stability by deciding to deploy up to six nuclear-capable B-52 bombers in northern Australia. Preparations are under way to build dedicated facilities for the long-range bombers at the Royal Australian Air Force Base Tindal. The U.S. Marines already have a presence in Australia.
To the discomfiture of Beijing, political parties of all hues in Australia have welcomed the U. S. move to place B-52 bombers in Australia. “It would be fantastic to have them cycling through more regularly,” an AP report on October 31 from Canberra quoted Australian opposition leader Peter Dutton. “To defend northern Australia and to deter anybody from taking action against us is absolutely essential. We have vulnerability and it’s important for us to have a very strong relationship with the United States and all of our allies.”
The U.S. Defence Department has been quoted by television channel ABC saying: “The Royal Australian Air Force’s ability to host USAF bombers, as well as train alongside them, demonstrates how integrated the two air forces are.”
With President Xi Jinping now destined to occupy the highest offices in China for his lifetime, concerns are growing in the USA that difficult days may be ahead, according to an AP report from Washington on October 30. 2022,. The consolidation of Xi’s power to a level unseen since Mao Zedong has come at a time when the USA has upgraded its defence and national security strategies. “Xi Jinping is not Mao. But we are definitely in new and unpredictable territory in terms of the stability and predictability of China’s political system,” the report quotes an American analyst.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U. S. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday have expressed concern that Beijing may make a bid to seize Taiwan. With unlimited power and ambition, President Xi may use Taiwan to distract the people of China from the internal problems of the country; the AP report quotes former Under Secretary of State Keith Krach of the previous Donald Trump administration. “I hope he has looked at the courage of the Ukrainians and reckoned that the people of Taiwan are just as courageous, perhaps even more so.”
Significantly, according to an AP report on December 29, the U.S. State Department has approved the sale of an anti-tank mine- laying system to Taiwan in the face of rising military threat from China.
The PTI quoted a senior Pentagon official on October 21, 2022, that Washington had also enlisted the support of India, the world’s largest democracy, to play a “broader stabilizing role” in the Indo-Pacific. The Joe Biden administration has taken several steps to strengthen the India – U.S. defence relationship. The areas of emphasis are modernization of Indian defence and tri-service exercises.
Author
