China's new generation of leaders, led by Vice-President Xi Jinping, and popularly known as “Princelings,” will take charge within a year. They will inherit the mantle of ruling a country that has astounded the world by its path-breaking economic transformation. But, they will also have to reconcile the contradictions between an open economy on the one hand, and an authoritarian and rigid political system on the other.
MUSCLE-FLEXING
The Hu Jintao period has seen a distinct pattern of seeking to subsume democratic aspirations through resort to jingoism, reflecting what the Soviets described as “Great Han Chauvinism.” Military muscle was flexed and territorial claims on its neighbours, ranging from Japan and Vietnam, to the Philippines and India, asserted. Will the new leadership follow this line, or will it seek to address democratic aspirations by greater openness and transparency?Just prior to the East Asia Summit on November 19, the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece The People's Daily launched a broadside against India's plans to bolster its defences on its Eastern Borders, warning that China had “precision guided weapons” to “easily” eliminate any new forces India deploys. The article was critical of India's expanding defence ties with China's neighbours such as Japan and Vietnam.
China was, in effect, telling India that while it had the right to assist Pakistan to develop a new generation of Plutonium-based nuclear weapons and guided missiles, India shouldn't dare to develop defence ties with its neighbours, such as Japan and Vietnam. The Chinese diatribe against India continued even after the East Asia Summit. The official
Such Chinese rhetoric isn't confined to India. All Chinese neighbours that contest its irredentist claims of the entire South China Sea being an area of its “core interest,” have experienced similar behaviour and rhetoric. Incidents in the East China Sea across disputed maritime boundaries with Japan have led to Japanese vessels being rammed by Chinese ships, followed by a ban on exports of rare earth materials by China to Japan.
The Philippines has witnessed the Chinese using force to enforce maritime boundary claims and Vietnam has periodically been subject to Chinese military force on disputed boundaries. China adopts a similar approach to issues of maritime boundaries in relations with South Korea and Taiwan. The Chinese now openly boast of possessing missile power to target aircraft carriers of America's Pacific Fleet.
While China insisted that it would handle differences on its maritime boundaries with countries such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia bilaterally, India has made the point in the East Asia Summit in Bali, that issues involving maritime boundaries and freedom of navigation have to be settled in conformity with the provisions of the UN Convention on the Laws of the Seas.
Roughly 40 per cent of India's trade with the US traverses through the South China Sea. Moreover, its entire trade with Japan and South Korea traverses through waters claimed by Beijing to be areas of its “core interest”.
EAST ASIA SUMMIT
The East Asia Summit also saw another significant development. Despite Chinese reservations, five Asean member States — Singapore, Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam and Thailand, together with India, Australia and the US — raised the issue of maritime boundaries and freedom of navigation at the Bali Summit. Russia, Indonesia and five other members talked in general terms regarding maritime security. Only Myanmar and Cambodia avoided any reference to the issue.
Beijing also wouldn't have failed to notice that the Australian decision to review and change its policies regarding the sale of uranium to India was announced during President Obama's visit to Australia. To add to China's concerns, which have been reflected in the Chinese media, President Obama has announced that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will soon visit Myanmar, which the Chinese regard as their backyard. This, at a time when Myanmar's new dispensation is showing signs of wanting to get free of China's suffocating embrace.
AMBASSADOR'S BLUSTER
India's answer to Chinese diplomatic bluster was effectively given on November 22, when its candidate for a place in the UN's Joint Inspection Unit A. Gopinathan, India's Permanent Representative to UN offices in Geneva, trounced his Chinese rival Zhang Yan by 106 votes to 77. Zhang Yan, currently China's Ambassador to India, is best known for his arrogance. He recently told Indian reporters who asked him questions regarding Chinese maps depicting the whole of Jammu and Kashmir as Pakistani territory to “shut up”.
India is not a Chinese vassal State, forever ready to kowtow to the whims of the Middle Kingdom's Envoy, Mr Ambassador.
(The author is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan.)