Free Run
China turned a page in its historical evolution in the 1980s when a socialist-communist country started opening up to take a capitalist avatar. The progress that followed was brisk and awesome. Development and sky-high aspirations were fuelling each other. China entered a phase of transition in the 1990s when its GDP growth averaged almost 10 per cent a year. Thanks to China’s good fortune it did not have to handle too many challenges, and when a few did come, they were dealt with completely authoritarian way. While problems appeared genuine, the Chinese response to them was shockingly outrageous. That China could absorb such actions is another story.
A solution to the massive population was a draconian one-child policy, including putting stiff fines for non-compliance. For opposing a democratic movement by student protestors, China declared martial law and moved Army Tanks to Tiananmen Square massacring thousands on 4th June 1989. Feeling ashamed of beggars on the streets of Beijing, overnight this entire class of people was flushed out of city limits. To address the perceived threat of radicalisation among Uyghur Muslims, millions were illegally arrested and tortured. Each of the Chinese methods was more terrifying than the previous one, dangling way below the bare acceptable international laws of human freedom.
Manufactured Leadership
China’s evolution and continued regressive ways were horrific, wherein human rights agencies incessantly flagged serious abuses. But China being China, will have none of them. Slowly by the beginning of the 21st century, as China continued its astronomical rise, the noises against China’s human rights records became muted. What came next was a perilous development, the incarnation of Xi Jinping in March 2013 as the 7th President of China, which firmly set China onto a path of confrontation across its neighbourhood. Xi Jinping never hid his intent to mark himself in the history books on the lines of Mao Zedong or Deng Xiaoping. The National People’s Congress, its highest state organ and decision-making body, or a Chinese equivalent of the Indian Parliament, took a string of decisions that would seal the place of ultimate authority for him.
Xi swiftly transformed himself from General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party & Chairman of the Central Military Commission in 2012 to its President in 2013, and then as the potential lifelong ruler in 2018. Xi was now an undisputed leader in China having unquestionable authority. Xi effectively manipulated places of power and people of choice. Before anyone could fathom this high-speed development, Xi already authorised himself with ultimate powers, which would put many a dictator to shame. Having sealed his authority within China, Xi now wanted glory for himself in the modern history of the world.
Emergence of Quad
The rise of Xi and the waywardness of China has been intricately correlated. As early as November 2013, barely eight months after Xi took over as the President, China declared an expansive air defence identification zone over the East China Sea. That initiated Chinese military assertiveness followed by a string of audacious claims of sovereign space by Chinese patrol craft and PLAAF. The actions were not strayed one, these were taking place under express authorisation by President Xi. The actual extent was to be orchestrated as a well-rehearsed symphony years later. So maritime violations transformed to ingress into territorial waters, patrol craft gave way to naval vessels, and monitoring of airspace was followed up with airspace breaches. The trajectory of absurd persisted with its escalatory moves.
China made equally absurd claims over the Senkaku island of Japan and expanded EEZ by integrating Paracel island as part of Chinese territory. The claims of extended EEZ based on interpretation of nine-dash lines were swiftly negated by the International Court of Justice in a 2016 verdict. But then again, China being China, it simply refused to acknowledge the verdict, let alone abide by it. As if these were not enough, China decided to expand westward directly challenging India and Galwan intrusion was executed. It was an unexpected and impudent moment when the world skipped a breath; what followed was something even China never factored. China received a graphical bloody response from gallant Indian soldiers and pushed on the back foot with tit-for-tat ingress.
What shook the world’s consciousness was China’s unabashed belligerent behaviour and its scant regard for a rules-based order. These developments reenergised Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (or Quad) comprising India, the US, Japan & Australia in March 2021, almost more than a decade from its actual emergence in 2007. The Quad reaffirmed “a shared vision for a Free and Open Indo-Pacific,” and a “rules-based order in the East and South China seas”. The mandate of Quad was kept purposefully vague with a strategy to maintain high operational flexibility while not pitching it directly against any one country. However, the defining contours laid bare its clear agenda to force China towards better mannerisms and conduct.
Nightmarish Scenario
In spite of China’s provocative statements targeting Quad and its intentions, Quad would not define its clear objectives. It continues using diplomatic jargon, which actually amounts to nothing, but then that is how the strategies are designed to deceive the adversary. However, Quad would not say if China is an adversary either. One may get tempted to ask that if Quad is not an adversary to China then what Quad is here for? Certainly, no one is here for wasting time. Each of the Quad members has very serious differences with China ranging from hegemony to existential threat. As China continues aggressively to redefine rules of international engagement, the impact will be felt first in the Indo-Pacific region.
If China does not mend its ways, the impact will be devastating; akin to the fall of once all-powerful Germany under Hitler. The similarities are too obvious to be ignored!
Quad appears to establish itself as an in-your-face challenge to whatever China does and that is a nightmarish scenario for China. China fully knows the combined capabilities of Quad, which far outwits its own. Take the case of net worth, Quad is 43 per cent higher than China in terms of GDP, it has 70 per cent larger annual military spending, its cumulative annual trade is 30 per cent greater, and its population is 23 per cent bigger.
But Quad’s real counter to China is the execution of an elaborate web of resistance and it is already in motion as we speak. Quad has laid out action plans from military intervention to developmental projects, aids to countries in the Indo-Pacific region, and various measures to further enhance its influence through an expanding soft power. The aim is to squeeze out strategic space for China to do anything positive and offer an attractive alternative that is more transparent, more tempting and much more reassuring. A critical aspect where China is all on a slippery slope.
Fuelling The Fears
The Quad’s sudden re-emergence post-Galwan has sent shockwaves in China. In a September 2021 op-ed, the Global Times equated Quad as a ‘sinister gang’ aiming to ‘encircle China’. While Chinese policymakers have termed Quad as a long-term threat, its foreign office spared no effort to discredit it in the same breath. China appears in shallow waters as it complains like a school kid. How on earth can China expect no resistance to its ludicrous actions. They should have known that is not how geopolitics works. The steps undertaken by Quad are only fuelling their fears further. It is just the beginning, among multi-layered counteractions; the military counter is being led by the US. It is aggressively patrolling the South China Sea, sending reassurances to Taiwan, and aiding with advance intelligence on Chinese air and naval manoeuvres as well as reinvesting militarily in the region.
On socio-economics, Quad has pledged to increase access to safe vaccines; high-standards infrastructure; combat the climate crisis, and collaborate on emerging technologies. While investments are led by Japan and Australia, India is leveraging its expansive capacities by being the centerpiece of Quad’s infrastructure development model. India also remains the only Quad nation that shares a land boundary with China, its resolute response to Galwan has not gone unnoticed either.
These are Quad’s current subtle responses to China, which will graduate to laying down outright Red Lines and later to aggressive interventions. China’s policymakers are huddling to measure the Quad’s projected impact in the Indo-Pacific power calculus and they must. There is much more at stake, a failing of this magnitude could just initiate change of system for good and the change is what China fears most. If China does not mend its ways, the impact will be devastating; akin to the fall of once all-powerful Germany under Hitler, the similarities are just too obvious to be ignored!
–The writer has varied experience in security paradigm and is a keen follower of international geopolitics. He is also the author of popular blog site (geostrat.in) on geo-strategic affairs. The views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda.
-The writer has varied experience in the security paradigm and is a keen follower of global geopolitics. His work has been regularly featured in national publications. Visit newsanalytics.in to access more articles from the author. The views expressed are of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
