By Bhaskar Roy
As China’s comprehensive power began to grow beyond Asia to a global power status, its international posture became increasingly demanding, aggressive and even threatening towards its neighbours. It became markedly so from 2008 when it hosted the summer Olympic games in all its glory winning medals far more than in the past, dwarfing all other nations except the USA. There were some fabrications which became evident as the games proceeded and post-games analyses revealed. The world let it pass. China’s economy was looked at as a stabilizing force when the global economy starting from the US began a meltdown. The virus quickly spread to Europe.
The Shanghai trade Expo in 2010 was another success, demonstrating economic power to the world. It has pipped Japan to the Nos. 2 position in economic power in terms of GDP, and projections say that China will overtake the USA in a matter of years.
Militarily, if Russia’s lethal strategic strike capability is set aside, China is the second most powerful military power in the world after the USA. Certainly, the military gap between China and the US is very wide and will continue to be so for some more decades. China is aware of this. The recent Chinese foreign policy track is very clear that they do not want to confront the USA, and have refused to be overly provoked by America’s Asia ‘pivot’ or “rebalance”.
For China’s Asian neighbours, especially the South East Asian nations, Beijing’s military and economic power are overwhelming. They are also not sure how far they can depend on the US in a military confrontation with China. The ASEAN countries are also not united. China’s military strategy vis-a-vis the US is to make it unacceptably costly for the US if it intervenes in China’s move to consolidate its territorial claims in the South China Sea and the Sea of Japan, as well as in the Taiwan issue.
Most, troubling is the trajectory of China’s rise accompanied by its actions which are making its neighbours increasingly uncomfortable Leading the aggressive decibel in China are senior retired PLA officers who are in research posts in institutions linked to the military, some experts linked to security think tanks and hard-line official media like the Global Times.
Read the full story at Eurasia Review