Tag: Opinion

Beijing should note
21Jun By Stuart WhiteNo Comments
Opinion

Beijing should note

In pushing India to a tipping point, China is close to losing the hard-won trust of the world’s second most populous nation and a large neighbor. Keeping India’s trust, however, might look like a trivial matter to the current Chinese Communist Party leadership. India might be the world’s fifth largest economy, but it is one-fifth the size of China’s and Beijing being acutely sensitive to power differentials, sees an India that is struggling to find an effective response to the Chinese manoeuvre in Ladakh. Of course, Communist China’s disdain is not exclusively for India. Beijing, which once benchmarked itself against Washington, is now contemptuous of the US and more broadly of the West that has found it hard to cope with the COVID crisis and seems at odds with itself.The Chinese Communist
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China shoots itself in the foot in the Himalayas
20Jun By Stuart WhiteNo Comments
Opinion

China shoots itself in the foot in the Himalayas

In China, quoting a supposedly independent scholar in a media outlet is a well-worn tactic used by top leaders to get their views across without stating them publicly.So when the official mouthpiece Global Times wrote in a June 17 commentary that India would “pay a heavy price” and “face military pressure on two or even three fronts” if it retaliated for China’s killing of at least 20 Indian soldiers in a Western Himalayan border altercation, the newspaper was speaking Beijing’s mind.The newspaper also wrote somewhat cryptically that “Pakistan is a reliable strategic partner of China and Nepal also has close ties with China, and both of them are key partners under the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative”, an insinuation that certain of India’s neighbors could be drawn into a conflict a
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As Xi Jinping takes on an offensive mode, let’s pray for China
19Jun By Stuart WhiteNo Comments
Opinion

As Xi Jinping takes on an offensive mode, let’s pray for China

What a difference a year makes! A year ago, on June 4, Xi Jinping – the boss of China and the unelected master of the country’s fate – was confident enough to brush off the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square atrocity, and was gearing up to push back against a rampaging US President who seemed to have the roughest of touches on the delicate issues of diplomacy.Today, after a complete year, Xi is besieged due to the outright lies and cover-up of the novel coronavirus since late 2019.As in any country, it is the domestic situation that tends to be a catalyst for foreign overtures, and so is the case with China.Millions of Chinese today believe even less the lies coming out from the leadership of the Communist Party of China. They know that their leaders kept mum when hundreds of thousan
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Killing 20 Indian soldiers, China provokes a nationalist tiger
18Jun By Stuart WhiteNo Comments
Opinion

Killing 20 Indian soldiers, China provokes a nationalist tiger

India is left enraged after China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) beat to death 20 Indian soldiers. The clash occurred after India said that PLA forces attempted to "change the status quo" along the two countries' disputed Line of Actual Control.The violence did not involve an armed engagement, instead, the PLA physically attacked a smaller number of Indian soldiers led by Colonel Santosh Babu. But if, the news reports and analysts are correct, and 20 soldiers, including a regiment commanding officer, were killed, Indian nationalist anger will be unleashed. Considering that both China and India possess nuclear weapons, this concern should not be underestimated.Nor should we forget that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's power flows from this nationalist base. Shaping a foreign policy vision o...
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