Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

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ramana
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by ramana »

Interesting resource on China's Leadership:
Five Pillars model

https://chinese-leaders.org/chinese-leadership-chart/
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by Julian_Bashir »

Apologies if posted before, Well worth a read


Holy ****, China is even more ****** than I thought...


https://twitter.com/EricMertz_KC/status ... 4464962568


If you thought the food issue was bad in China, wait until you hear about how ****** up the water is.

https://twitter.com/EricMertz_KC/status ... 7648923650
Last edited by SSridhar on 23 Apr 2022 08:31, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: I know you quoted the tweet, but be mindful of words used. I just masked a word. Thanks
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by ramana »

XJP is closer to third term. Means troubles within will be less for him.


https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politic ... party-boss
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by SSridhar »

President Xi Jinping elected as delegate to CPC Congress, all set to get endorsement for rare third term
China's ruling Communist Party has set the ball rolling for a rare third term for President Xi Jinping as he was "unanimously elected" as a delegate for the once-in-five-year party Congress to be held in the next few months which was widely expected to put a seal of approval for his continuation.

Xi, 68, was elected delegate to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) at the party's Guangxi regional Congress by a unanimous vote on Friday, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Xi was nominated by the CPC Central Committee as a candidate for delegate to the 20th CPC National Congress, scheduled to be held in the second half of 2022, the report said.
Looks like that the 20th CPC Congress would be considerably advanced from its usual October/November time frame because of so many uncertainties facing China. The very early provincial-level Congress to elect delegates for the National Congress indicates that. XJP would want to play it safe and close the leadership issues before any unexpected situation overwhelms.

The 2300 delegates who represent the 95 million party cadres will select ~400 Central Committee (CC) members, out of which only 200 have full voting rights. The CC members, in turn, elect the Politburo, the Politburo Standing Committee and the Party’s General Secretary.

But, much before this happens the elites meet in Beideihe palace in the summer to determine the elections ! The 5-year Congress is a mere rubberstamp.

The question is whether the Beideihe camp has already taken place or when is it scheduled.
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by Ambar »

The government of India on Sunday announced “tourist visas issued to nationals of China are no longer valid.” The Times of India called it a “tit-for-tat move” in retaliation for China barring over 20,000 Indian students from returning to Chinese soil after they ventured abroad.

China denied re-entry to thousands of foreign students after March 2021, citing efforts to control the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus. India grew increasingly perturbed as China allowed students from other countries to return, including Pakistan, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and the Solomon Islands, but not India.

Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar spoke with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi last month about the lack of return visas for Indian students.

“I took up strongly the predicament of Indian students studying in China who have not been allowed to return, citing Covid restrictions. We hope that China will take a non-discriminatory approach since it involves the future of so many young people,” Jaishankar said.

According to the Times of India, Jaishankar never received a response from Wang, so the decision was made to invalidate Chinese tourist visas.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) informed member carriers about the suspension of Chinese tourist visas last week.

China’s state-run Global Times on Sunday boasted that India’s decision to “keep Chinese tourists out” would have “very little impact on either Chinese or Indian businesses.”

The Global Times quoted Yang Jinsong of the China Tourism Academy calling India’s move “meaningless” because “there are hardly any Chinese tourists going to India these days.”

Other Chinese industry analysts said India’s approval rate for Chinese business visa requests is rising, which is only natural because Chinese companies are “important sources of jobs and taxes for India.”
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by Cyrano »

Its pretty weird that Indians should go to China for studies despite the tough language barrier. I wonder if its not some Chinese ploy to create some young CCP moles in India.
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by ramana »

It is decent priced medical education. Have com across US students who graduate from there. Degrees not recognized n California and Texas. But degrees from Mexico are recognized.

Once medical colleges open up this drive should decrease.
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by g.sarkar »

https://www.firstpost.com/india/china-t ... 14861.html
China to permit Indian students to return: Chinese foreign ministry
The Indian Embassy has directed eligible Indian students to provide the necessary information by filling up a Google Form by 8 May, 2022
FP Staff, April 29, 2022

The Chinese side has expressed its willingness to consider facilitating the return of Indian students to China on a need-assessed basis, said the Indian Embassy in China on Friday.
This comes after the meeting of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar with the State Councilor and Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi on 25 March.
Notably, the Indian students pursuing medicine from Chinese Universities are unable to return to China to attend classes. In order to facilitate this, the Indian Embassy intends to prepare a list of such students which will be shared with the Chinese side for their consideration, said the Embassy in its statement.
The Embassy also directed the Indian students to provide the necessary information by filling up a Google Form by 8 May, 2022.
....
Gautam
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by ramana »

First lesson from the Nuclear Age is nuclear powers with borders will skirmish.
Eg. Soviet Union-China Ussuri River clashes (1969), India- Pakistan: Kashmir terrorism,(1988-2019) India-China: Ladakh (2020)

Second lesson is Nuclear Powers without common borders will fight proxy wars.
Eg. Korean War, the Soviet Union- USA Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), Vietnam(1964 to 1975), Afghanistan (1979-1988).
One can stretch this to India-Pakistan (1965) and India- Pakistan (1971)
Even Arab-Israeli wars in 1948, 1967, and 1973 are extensions of proxy wars.

Having said this where do we expect proxy wars in the future?

I think along LAC in both Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh after the post-2020 deployments are ruled out.
IOW skirmishes between India and China will be a low probability as the potential for losses is high for China.
That does not rule out proxy war.
Most likely it will be in Nepal and/or Myanmar.
Of the two Myanmar proxy wars will be a higher probability for it repeats Imperial Japan's drive in WWII.
Last edited by ramana on 04 May 2022 02:59, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Edited by ramana.
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by SSridhar »

ramana wrote:First lesson from the Nuclear Age is nuclear powers without borders will skirmish.
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by ramana »

Thanks corrected.
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by vijayk »

ramana
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by ramana »

Gives good rationale for China to step off the brink. XJP can retire with H&D intact.
Ukraine War has given Taiwan reprieve.

It will be quite messy and China is not like Russia with low population and high resources.
Nor does it have EU nearby dependant in energy.
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by vijayk »

Risk of armed confrontation': U.S intel on India-China conflict; Flags Pak s

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=600573657578863
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by vijayk »

China President Xi Jinping Reportedly Suffering From Cerebral Aneurysm
https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.abpli ... 530974/amp
Severe headache with or without stroke symptoms could be a sign of a cerebral aneurysm

After speculations were rife about deteriorating health of Chinese President Xi Jinping, it is now said that the President is suffering from 'cerebral aneurysm'. Xi Jinping had to be hospitalised at the end of 2021
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by ramana »

vijayk wrote:Risk of armed confrontation': U.S intel on India-China conflict; Flags Pak s

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=600573657578863
Really Sherlock! What's the rationale?
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by ramana »

Time is coming where we have to see Russia and China together and the US.
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by Pratyush »

If that is going to be the case then we can be sure that the US has succeeded in it's efforts to create a G2.

India has been careful until now. But the risk has just grown exponentially and we have to chart our own course.
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by ramana »

Should have linked this article earlier when it came out.

https://warontherocks.com/2019/02/jaw-j ... r-disease/

XJP placement analysis
Edward Luttwak: Well, I’m not a psychoanalyst but the outside factors are that Xi Jinping was the son of a very high party leader. He was brought up by one of the handful of people who were running the country, that was his father. It was his model, usually, I presume it was his model. Even when he was sent down to the countryside, he was supposed to learn from the peasants but apparently he was a strong will [sic] leader from the first time. Now he comes to power in a sequence that he didn’t control, because he was generated by the party, and as you know he was the designated successor. He was parked at the central party school for a while.

Then Hu Jintao did the right thing and put him on, and he happened to come to power after 2008. 2008 was the break. 2008 is when Chinese foreign policy abruptly changes. Until 2008, China’s declared foreign policy was peaceful rise. This was the title, then it was changed to peaceful development, but it was a title of a speech by a gentleman who is still alive today. Who we would pronounce as Zheng Bijian or Zheng Bijian who went to the Boao Forum in Hainan Island in 2004 and said look, China is growing, we are becoming richer. As part of being richer, we’ll have some attributes of power, we are going to build armed forces, but our rise is a peaceful rise. Consistent with Chinese rise in history which is land gets turned into patty rice, population increases and spreads. We are peaceful people. There is going to be a peaceful rise, we are making no claims against anyone’s territory. We are not going to invade Taiwan even though it is our province, et cetera, et cetera.

He declared that promise, he meant that. Zheng Bijian meant that, that was sincere, it was corresponding to China’s policy.
By 2010, very visibly, all of these had been revoked. China had started territorial quarrels, demanding territory from Japan, from the Philippines. From Indonesia to Sultan of Brunei, and Malaysian federation. All of these being maritime territories, all of them claimed at the same time between 2008, really 2009-2010. Same time, reviving the territorial demand on India. The entire state of Arunachal Pradesh, or provinces of Arunachal, which is basically when you look at a map of India, they’re the northeast corner.

So, Xi Jinping’s coming to power, maybe Mr. Xi Jinping, but he didn’t do it. He came to power after this transition was done....

What happened was, that the Chinese leadership in its autistic isolation, grossly overestimated the impact of the financial crisis. What the outside world calls the Lehman crisis. When it happened they said, “Ah ha, history has accelerated, we thought we would become number one in future years, no, it’s happening right now.” This was greatly reinforced by the Obama administration’s approach to China, because the Europeans’ proof when the crisis really hit, happened to be within days of when it became really acute was when Obama just became President.

So, the Americans reach out to the Europeans and say, “Fellas, we’re about to go into a classic downward spiral of capitalism and what we need to do is to take money, whether you have it or not, and dump it on the street so that people will go out and buy things and such.” European answer was, the French said, “What crisis? There’s no crisis” because it just hadn’t hit them yet.

The French say to the American delegation, don’t talk to the Italians, they always waste their time, and the Germans refused to do anything on the grounds that their concern is not deflation but inflation, as always.

So, in the meantime, the president goes to Europe. No president goes to China, they send the Treasury delegation. The Chinese immediately respond by printing huge amounts of money. ...
Maritime powers confronting a land power don’t just build ships to face this navy this land power sends out to sea. What they do is they remind the land power that it is a land power. By visiting India, Tajikistan, Kirghizia [Kyrgyzstan], Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and, of course, Russia and remind the Chinese that they are a land power. If you start a few things in Vietnam and India, Laos, Myanmar, you know China has so many borders then the People’s Armed Police has to get even bigger.
So that is why they needed the QUAD!
But Biden doesn't believe in India in QUAD.

Or else wouldn't do FONOPS or cut off vaccine supplies during a pandemic.

We can read the rest.
Basically, XJP is a privileged party apparatchik who came to power with a process already underway and built on it as we see.
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by ramana »

Brad: We end every episode of Jaw-Jaw by asking our guest to recommend some books on China or other subjects that people might be interested in reading themselves. What would you recommend if people asked you this kind of question?

Edward: Well I wrote a book about China, I refuse to give the name, title, or publisher, but people can rush out and buy it.

Brad: The Rise of China vs. the Logic of Strategy by Belknap.

Edward: But I will forgive them if they don’t buy the Rise of China book if they promise not to buy any contemporary book on China, and instead read Chinese history. Start and go and get something solid like the Cambridge History of China, take out any volume, stand there and flip the pages, see something you can … maybe the nineteenth century, the Qing dynasty, the response of the Qing dynasty to westernization which was an excellent response. First very bad, then wonderful, and then collapses. They were going a long way towards coping and then they decided to un-cope, not to cope. Very interesting regression.

And then read something about the Meiji Restoration in Japan because the Japanese response to the western challenge was to invent a whole new system of life which they successfully did and they did it even too much, to the point where it actually started wars. The Chinese response was different, I would read that kind of stuff, and then I would read contemporary stuff and in China studies, uniquely, my experience and no other region in the world has it, has a wonderful newsletter which is Sinocism.
Sinocism … newsletter, which is online, costs two dollars a month or something, totally worth it. I can’t name a worthwhile newsletter for the Middle East… India or Latin America, but I can for China.

Ancient history, nineteenth-century history at least, and then today’s newsletter. Nothing in between, the books on China all are being grossly, very quickly overtaken by events.
Actually, without knowing this I did my 15 books in 45 days reading spree.
And mostly ancient China, history, literature, painting, and the Qing Dynasty response.
I ignored modern books which were being churned out monthly.
These led me to think Communist China is another in a long line of China's dynasty
Another insight I got is the Chinese Communists are Chinese not foreign dynasties like some of the earlier dynasties.
Yes, Marxist ideology was foreign but the implementers are Chinese.
XJP doctrine of "Marxism with Sinic Characteristics" is inherently nationalistic.
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by ramana »

Rony wrote:China's Evolving Strategic Discourse on India - From Doklam to Galwan and Beyond
While situating the ongoing border crisis within the overarching framework of Chinese foreign policy and global strategy, this paper makes two key arguments: first, the border standoff in Ladakh is likely the outcome of an intensifying conflict between two Chinese strategies towards India— its Major Power Diplomacy (of wooing India to hedge against the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy and making it a key partner in the Belt and Road Initiative) and its Neighborhood Strategy (of securing a China-centered regional order with Beijing as the sole leader or rule-maker in the region). Second, the standoff reveals China’s policy dilemma over India — on the one hand, Beijing wants to effectively check a rising New Delhi by asserting its strength and psychological advantage in bilateral ties. But on the other hand, China is anxious about the impact of the current crisis on the realization of its various regional and global objectives in the Indian Ocean Region that necessitates cordial ties with India. In the end, the lesson for India is to look beyond the lens of the power differential between the two Asian giants when dealing with China. New Delhi should come to terms with the fact that it has leverage with China due to its increasing strategic value to Beijing, whether in the realm of China’s foreign policy or its development strategies, and utilize it to shape Beijing’s behavior and extract benefits from it.
Mercantile policy recommendation. India is aware of its capabilities. It's only China that is getting to be aware of it.
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by ramana »

A few articles on XJP and 20th Congress

1) China's Great Leap Backwards
https://openthemagazine.com/columns/chi ... -backward/

2) Trouble mount for XI
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/st ... ?_amp=true

3) Chinese SM buzz on XJP stepping down for Covid-19 mismanagement

https://www.aninews.in/news/world/asia/ ... 420/?amp=1

4) XJP to step down. Rumors of ill health.

https://www.indiatvnews.com/amp/news/wo ... -15-776711
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by ramana »

The sum total of these reports is that XJP third term is not a sure shot in October 2022 for
"troubles within and troubles without"
I still think XJP will get the third term and retire for health reasons after a short while.

Chinese Establishment throughout the centuries took care of truculent Emperors.
Sent them to monasteries or to palaces in provinces.
It is not yet time for a new dynasty.
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by vijayk »


op Secret Recording - War Mobilization Meeting of PLA & Guangdong Province-Full Version

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-ne ... 50647.html
1.40 lakh troops, 953 ships…:' Leaked audio clip ‘exposes’ Xi's Mission Taiwan
The YouTube channel has claimed that the recording was leaked by senior officials of Communist Party of China who want to expose Xi Jinping's military plan on Taiwan. The audio clip features purported conversations between the CPC and the PLA on implementing the roadmap of the 'normal to war transition' plan by the top leadership.
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by ramana »

The idea of China's Dynastic Change is slowly spreading in Indian think tanks.

https://www.gunnersshot.com/2022/05/chi ... e.html?m=1
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by vijayk »

Does anyone think that China has huge internal crisis of financial nature? Their banks may be in trouble due to NPAs, providing subsidies mostly to destroy competition. May be that's why Xi Ping is doing all the drama of COVID ZERO
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by sanjaykumar »

A very significant portion of the Chinese GDP is due to the arbitrary valuation of real estate.

The Chinese economy is less frightening as their paper lion dance.
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by ramana »

Troika virtual meeting on June 24th in Beijing alongside BRICS.

viewtopic.php?p=2551243#p2551243
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by ramana »

Think of this as second part after the Quad meeting n Tokyo.
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by ramana »

XJP urges ancient China studies.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202205/1266757.shtml

Chinese President Xi Jinping stressed the importance of deepening the study of Chinese civilization to enhance historical awareness and cultural confidence of the Party and society, while unswervingly following the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics to realize national rejuvenation.
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by ramana »

Lt. Gen.P. Ravi Shankar on
Continuity in China

https://www.gunnersshot.com/2022/05/dis ... s.html?m=1
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by ramana »

The Chinese "Century of Humiliation" started with the Opium Wars.

India under the colonial British had a role in it even though Independent India has no knowledge of that.
And was under colonial British while it happened.

The fall of the Qing dynasty, the brutal Chinese civil war from 1920to 1948, and the rise of tyrant Mao Zedong and the Communist dynasty all are a result of that.
The communists from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping made a recovery of sorts but a new threat is emerging.
It started with Mao Zedong's invasion of Tibet and the loss of civilizational buffer and to make matters worse he created a boundary problem with India which was not there for over four millennia.

We need to map that and the challenge is to resolve the matter peacefully.
However, it won't happen while the West is in East Asia.
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by ramana »

Right on cue, there is an article from Japan on how they plan to use QUAD for a new Opium War.

All for one, US enlists Asian Allies for Taiwan
TOKYO -- After the leaders of the Quad -- the U.S., Japan, Australia, and India -- met in Tokyo and distributed a joint statement on May 24, reporters quickly typed the terms "Russia" and "China" into the search function. Surely the Asia-Pacific region's four most prominent democracies would have something to say about their two biggest power rivals.

But the only hit was one "South China Sea," meaning U.S. President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and new Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had avoided any mention of their authoritarian counterparts.

"We discussed our respective responses to the conflict in Ukraine and the ongoing tragic humanitarian crisis, and assessed its implications for the Indo-Pacific," the statement says.

The statement pointed no fingers at Russia, did not condemn Moscow for the invasion, the shelling of hospitals or the deaths of innocent civilians.

The tepid language seemed to confirm the perception that the Quad is a lukewarm grouping unable to dig deep into crucial issues.



But the Japanese officials who had scrambled to prepare the joint statement were elated. "We got what we wanted from the Quad," one senior official said with conviction.

That gap -- between the uninspiring language of the joint statement and the sense of satisfaction beaming from the Japanese sherpas -- made clear the real intent of the talks: to appeal to potential allies and partners for another purpose altogether.




The U.S. is trying to build a reliable coalition that would face off against China if it attempted to take Taiwan by force. The time frame for such an invasion could be within five years, according to current and retired Pentagon officials. The avoidance of mentioning Russia makes it easier for India to stay at the table. The avoidance of China does the same for ASEAN nations.

The U.S. would prefer not to face China alone, due to Beijing's geographical advantages in the Taiwan Strait. But while the U.S. has five bilateral treaty allies and many partners in Asia, the idea of getting them to work united -- along the lines of NATO during the Ukraine war -- has so far proved elusive.

{The US has a treaty defending Taiwan and wants to create a posse of others to do its treaty obligations. Paul Kennedy says this is a declining great power}

War games conducted by Washington think tanks show that a U.S. response to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan becomes stronger and stronger with more allies on board.

The relief on the faces of the Japanese officials hint that the U.S. is preparing for a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Japan would be a crucial partner in any such operation. As the chair of this year's Quad summit, Japan was tasked with compiling a joint statement that keeps the heat on China, without naming it, and would be digestible for India and ASEAN. That mission was accomplished.

Second front

When historians look back at the Tokyo Quad summit of 2022, they might say it was the moment the U.S. and its allies enlisted India in the game plan against China.

Whether India joins in the international condemnation of Russia at this point is not a priority for the White House. What is more important is that India is committed to the Quad and that, when push comes to shove, India is able to contribute in its own way.

{They want to push India to end up in a new Opium war with China while wide awake!}


"I wouldn't expect India to contribute in the local battle over Taiwan," former Pentagon official Elbridge Colby told Nikkei Asia. "They don't have the capability."

What India could do, however, is draw China's attention to the Himalayan border.
{Basically want India to be like the Soviet Union and fight the Chinese while the sail ships and write histories!}

"What the United States and Japan need India to do is to be as strong as possible in South Asia and effectively draw Chinese attention so that they have a major second-front problem,"
said Colby, the principal author of the 2018 National Defense Strategy under former President Donald Trump. India, in the meantime, draws the same benefit from China's difficulties in facing a strong U.S.-Japan alliance.

{Not really. Both are maritime powers and the US is fickle power, especially with Biden in charge. Ukraine is getting shellacked for listening to his exhortation to go to war with Russia.}


On the night of the Quad summit, after Biden had left Japan, Kishida invited Modi but not Albanese, the other Quad leader who was still in town, for dinner at the Akasaka Palace State Guesthouse.

The courting of India is not limited to a Taiwan contingency; it is also meant to sway the Indo-Pacific's future balance of power.



India has long been seen as the key swing state in the Asia-Pacific region and as the heaviest counterweight to China.

Japanese officials have quietly been discussing this since the mid-2000s. Back then, diplomats from the Japanese Embassy in Washington frequently visited the third floor of the Pentagon. Their destination was a room facing the central courtyard of the Department of Defense, Room 3A932, or the Office of Net Assessment, which since 1973 has provided highly classified assessments of other countries for the U.S. secretaries of defense.

The office head was the legendary strategist Andrew Marshall, who served eight presidents, from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama. The Japanese Embassy asked Marshall and his team to assess the future rise of China and how Japan should respond.

"He told us to look at India," recalled Masafumi Ishii, who served as the embassy's head of political affairs and the government's liaison with Marshall.

"Marshall was always looking 20 years ahead," Ishii said. "So we started to prepare for a G-3 world -- not a G-2 between the U.S. and China, but a world in which the U.S., China and India would be the three major powers."

The discussions at the Tokyo Quad meeting were in line with what Marshall had advised Ishii and his colleagues nearly two decades earlier.

Mixed signals

Regarding Taiwan, Biden's every comment is watched around the world. Even his body language is subjected to intense scrutiny.

At a news conference with Kishida on May 23, Biden was asked if he was willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan.

"Yes," Biden replied. "That's the commitment we made," he repeated twice.



Technically, the U.S. has no treaty obligation to defend Taiwan militarily. The only commitment is the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, which stipulates that the U.S. provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character to allow Taiwan to maintain its self-defense capabilities.

Biden's unequivocal "yes" signaled a departure from the long-held "strategic ambiguity" policy, under which Taiwan could not be sure whether the U.S. would come to its defense in a Chinese invasion -- but the Chinese could not be sure that America would not either.

Koichi Isobe, a retired lieutenant general in the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, noted that the president dropped his eyes on a briefing book as he made the comments on Taiwan, suggesting that a statement was prepared on the subject.

Just before the question was asked, Biden had closed his briefing book, ready to step down from the podium. But when this additional question was posed, he reopened the book and seemed to read from it. "The idea that [Taiwan] can be taken by force is just not appropriate. It will dislocate the entire region and be another action similar to what happened in Ukraine," he said.

On May 26, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe welcomed Biden's comments on Taiwan and said he believed they were intentional.

"They must have discussed the topic and agreed beforehand how to answer such a question," Abe told fellow lawmakers at a gathering of his Liberal Democratic Party faction. "In some sense, he was adjusting the policy of strategic ambiguity, expressing his intent and checking China."

Abe himself recently penned an op-ed for Project Syndicate calling for the U.S. to switch from strategic ambiguity to strategic clarity, making clear that it would rush to the defense of Taiwan.

Fellow LDP heavyweight Taro Aso told his faction the same day that "a clear message has been sent." The former longtime finance minister noted that Biden answered the Taiwan question without hesitation. "When he was vice president, Mr. Biden had the nickname, 'Slow Joe.' Suddenly he has switched to 'Speedy Joe,'" Aso quipped.

In the crossfire

An accurate assessment of the American president's intentions is critical for countries in the region, especially Japan, because it will directly impact how they respond to a Taiwan contingency.

"The Chinese will try to move fast and they will try to blind and degrade and disable U.S. and allied forces early in the conflict," Colby, the former Pentagon official, said.




"Japan is critical" for any U.S. operation in the Taiwan Strait, Colby said. The U.S. military has over 56,000 active-duty personnel based in Japan, the largest overseas contingent in the world. On top of those service members heading to do battle with their Chinese counterparts, over time, there is more chance that Japan will directly contribute to a battle over the Taiwan Strait, Colby said. Those contributions could include base defense, anti-submarine warfare, anti-air capabilities and combat air patrols, he explained.


Colby thinks that, regardless of whether Biden's Taiwan comments were scripted, China likely assumes that the U.S. and Japan will be involved militarily.

The question will be whether Beijing opts for a quick, lightning invasion of Taiwan only, or conducts a simultaneous attack on U.S. assets in the region. Or is even more aggressive.

"The big choice for China will be how big to make its initial attack," Colby said. "With where things are heading now, China will probably be more inclined to have a large-scale initial attack -- not only U.S. bases in Japan but possibly Japanese bases in Japan to negate the defense," he said, predicting possible attacks on Self-Defense Forces facilities across Japan.



Nikkei recently reported that China has set up a dummy target in the Xinjiang desert modeled on an airborne warning and control system (AWACS) plane used by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force.

Other allies and partners, too, will be expected to play their respective roles. "Australia will make an important contribution in relatively focused ways, including as a more secure basing area, because it is within the range of some Chinese systems but relatively few," Colby said.

"South Korea needs to take responsibility for the conventional threat from North Korea essentially on its own," Colby said.

Avoiding ideology

For countries like the Philippines, a Taiwan contingency would have direct consequences. Chester Cabalza, president and founder of Manila-based think tank International Development and Security Cooperation, said the new administration of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has to seriously consider the Taiwan issue as an impediment to the country's national security given its strategic importance.



"Taiwan and the Philippines are situated in the first island chain," Cabalza said, pointing to the group of islands that stretches from mainland Japan to Okinawa and Taiwan and on to the Philippines, which China considers a potential barrier in preventing other navies from approaching their home waters.

"If Beijing reclaims Taiwan by force and Taiwan becomes part of mainland China, Manila automatically becomes a buffer zone for China," he said. If Chinese President Xi Jinping has ambitions like Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Philippines "will turn out as the next Ukraine."

China has already invested extensively in the Philippines and is widely expected to support the newly elected Marcos administration in infrastructure as part of a post-pandemic economic recovery. It is also likely that China will suggest that the Philippines stand for a less U.S.-reliant foreign policy.

This is ringing alarm bells in Washington. Yet, like many American administrations before it, the Biden White House might be in for an uphill climb if it tries to sell a good-guys-versus-the-bad narrative to allies like the Philippines.

The late political scientist Samuel Huntington used many pages in his 1996 book "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order" to warn the West about the illusion of there being a "universal civilization."

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion ... but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do," he wrote.

What the West sees as "universal," the non-West sees as "Western," Huntington said.


Yet, the basis of Biden's foreign policy is structured on "upholding our universal values" and "working in common cause with our closest allies and partners," as he noted in paragraph two of the Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, issued in March 2021.

Speaking at Nikkei's Future of Asia conference on May 27, Bilahari Kausikan, former permanent secretary of Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, echoed Huntington's ideas, saying the West would "not be well-served" to define the geopolitical shifts happening in the region in an overly ideological way.

"In Asia, there is a certain ambivalence," Bilahari said. "Not every country in this region finds every aspect of Western democracy universally attractive, nor does it find every aspect of Chinese authoritarianism universally abhorrent."

The West will find support from Asian countries to be "shaky and shallow," if it insists on using such simplistic categorization, he said.

"The world is a much more complex place," Bilahari said. "It is better to focus on the interests involved. That's easier to understand for everybody and easier to sustain over the long run."

History lessons

At last week's Quad meeting, President Biden was still using language that might make Huntington cringe. The American leader looked toward his Indian counterpart and said: "Prime Minister Modi ... I thank you for your continuing commitment to making sure democracies deliver, because that's what this is about: democracies versus autocracies." :shock:

But two days later, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken took a more nuanced approach in a speech outlining the administration's China policy. "We cannot rely on Beijing to change its trajectory," he said. "So we will shape the strategic environment around Beijing to advance our vision for an open, inclusive international system."



By bringing in allies and partners and "drawing on our reinforcing strengths in economics, in technology, and in diplomacy," the administration will seek to preserve peace through integrated deterrence, Blinken said.

Drawing one another's strengths, as opposed to dividing the world into two camps, represents a new tactic in Asian diplomacy from the U.S. It has not yet managed to unite Asia under one umbrella.

In 1954, in an attempt to create an international organization for collective defense in Southeast Asia, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was founded. Similar to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, it was part of the U.S.'s Truman Doctrine.

But within Southeast Asia, only Thailand and the Philippines actually joined. Most of SEATO's other members were located outside the region: Australia, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, the U.K. and the U.S.

{Pakistan was armed to the teeth under SEATO and had the nerve to attack India in 1965 due to this SEATO membership. And the US gave bogus assurances that Pakistan would not be allowed to use these weapons against India! How quickly they forget and claim the past is past! Tell that to all the war casualties.}


Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam had observer status in the early years.

SEATO's principal purpose was countering the perceived communist threat from the People's Republic of China, but the alliance was short-lived. Quoted in the book "Cold War Southeast Asia," edited by Malcolm H. Murfett, U.S. military historian Brian McAllister Linn summarized one line of analysis: "In short, SEATO was a paper tiger: [Its] ability to protect its members relied solely on the threat of United States atomic retaliation."

Long moribund, SEATO was finally dissolved in 1977, two years after the end of the Vietnam War and the fall of Indochina to communism. Thailand formally established relations with China on July 1, 1975, two months after the fall of Saigon.

Complicated friendships

Perhaps the most crucial question for the U.S. strategy in countering China is whether Japan is on board. Tokyo is increasingly seen in Washington as the most reliable ally in the Indo-Pacific. In a Nikkei poll conducted during May 27- 29, 91% of respondents in Japan said the nation needs to be prepared for a Taiwan crisis, including 41% saying they would accept legislative revisions to make this so.

But are American and Japanese interests fully aligned? Four decades ago, a senior Japanese lawmaker cautioned against such misconceptions. Motoo Shiina, a respected LDP lawmaker, stressed that it is wrong to assume that alliances share a "common destiny."

Alliances are but tools to maximize the national interests of their members, Shiina told a midcareer diplomat named Ryozo Kato.

Kato, who later went on to become the longest-serving Japanese ambassador to the U.S. in the post-World War II era, would frequently visit Shiina's office near the Japanese parliament building.

"Shiina was equivalent to Japan's Andy Marshall," Kato said in a recent interview with Nikkei. "He told me in our regular meetings that the notion that the U.S.-Japan alliance or the NATO alliance is perpetual is an illusion. It only looks that way because the Cold War lasted 40 years," Kato said. To maintain an alliance, both sides need tangible substance that makes clear that it is better for national interests to stick together, Shiina taught his disciple.

Likewise, the U.S. strategy that Colby envisions may not be embraced by Seoul. To expect South Korea to fend off North Korea, while U.S. forces based in South Korea move over to Taiwan, for instance, may be a hard pill for Seoul to swallow.

Cha Du-hyeogn, principal fellow at the Seoul-based think tank Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said the U.S. military's priority should be its treaty ally South Korea, not Taiwan.

"We are not like Ukraine," he said when asked about Colby's suggestion that Seoul will be expected to defend against North Korea on its own during a Taiwan contingency.

"Of course, the alliance has a priority," Cha said. "South Korea and the U.S. are allies, but Taiwan is not. The U.S. does not conduct joint military drills with Taiwan. There are no military bases" in Taiwan.

Convincing India to play a role in a Taiwan contingency might be even harder.

Srikanth Kondapalli, a professor of Chinese studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, said that unlike Japan, which has a security treaty with the U.S., India is alone when it comes to defending itself.



"The cost is going to be high if you say that China is your enemy or Russia is your enemy. That is a reason why India is not labeling anybody as a bad guy or a good guy," Kondapalli said.

India's focus is on its own national interest. "India needs the Russian arms to counter the Chinese," he added, referring to the clashes with China in the disputed Himalayan border area that killed 20 Indian soldiers in June 2020.

"The Americans are not able to supply what we want and sometimes they don't have what we require," Kondapalli said. "For example, the S-400 [Russian-supplied surface-to-air missile defense system] is not manufactured by the U.S. but we need it to counter Pakistan and China. So, there is no way we can ignore Russia."

Crunchtime

Jeffrey Hornung, a senior political scientist at Rand Corp., told Nikkei that while more and more countries are signing up to the concept of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific -- governed by the rule of law, democratic values, respect for one another's sovereignty and a commitment to a peaceful settlement of disputes -- what countries are prepared to do to defend it has not been spelled out.

"The U.S. and Japan say it's unacceptable to change the status quo by coercion," Hornung said. "But it has never been clarified what Japan will actually do about it," if, for instance, China attempted to change the status quo.

"If the Indo-Pacific turned into a wartime situation, and if your country was not involved, what are you willing to do about it?" he asked.

Hornung pointed to the Himalayan border clash as an example. "I don't recall any other country trying to help India. But that was clearly China trying to push its claims, using force to try to change the status quo."

Isobe, the former SDF lieutenant general, said Russia's invasion of Ukraine has created a major headache for Japan's national security.

"Ever since the Meiji era [1868-1912], Japan's strategy was to avoid a three-front crisis: Russia in the north, the Korean Peninsula in the east and China in the southwest," Isobe said. "Former Prime Minister Abe attempted diplomacy with Russia to ease the northern threat.

"But now Japan has to face all three threats. This is unprecedented, and Japan may have to triple its defense budget, let alone double it."

{The three front nightmare for Japan since the Czarist Russia.}

Sitting in his office in Tokyo's Akasaka district, former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda let out a similar sigh.

"If you look at Japan's geopolitics," he said, "our relations with China are bad, relations with Russia are bad, relations with North Korea are bad and relations with South Korea are bad. If we continue down this path, it will wear out our nerves and we will constantly have to increase our defense budget. Japan needs to think in a longer time frame.

"There are people who like to talk about China's coming demise, but Japan is going to decline even faster. Strategy cannot be based on the hope of somebody else's demise."


Additional reporting by Kiran Sharma in New Delhi, Dominic Faulder in Bangkok, Kim Jaewon in Seoul, and Cliff Venzon in Manila.
Jaishankar gave an Indian reposne to the miltarization of QUAD at the 6th Vice Adm KK Nayyar memorial address.
ramana
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by ramana »

Wealth and Power: China's Long March to the Twenty-first Century
Orville Schell, John Delury

Through a series of lively and absorbing portraits of iconic modern Chinese leaders and thinkers, two of today’s foremost specialists on China provide a panoramic narrative of this country’s rise to preeminence that is at once analytical and personal. How did a nation, after a long and painful period of dynastic decline, intellectual upheaval, foreign occupation, civil war, and revolution, manage to burst forth onto the world stage with such an impressive run of hyperdevelopment and wealth creation—culminating in the extraordinary dynamism of China today?

Wealth and Power answers this question by examining the lives of eleven influential officials, writers, activists, and leaders whose contributions helped create modern China. This fascinating survey begins in the lead-up to the first Opium War with Wei Yuan, the nineteenth-century scholar and reformer who was one of the first to urge China to borrow ideas from the West. It concludes in our time with human-rights advocate and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, an outspoken opponent of single-party rule. Along the way, we meet such titans of Chinese history as the Empress Dowager Cixi, public intellectuals Feng Guifen, Liang Qichao, and Chen Duxiu, Nationalist stalwarts Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek, and Communist Party leaders Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and Zhu Rongji.

The common goal that unites all of these disparate figures is their determined pursuit of fuqiang, “wealth and power.” This abiding quest for a restoration of national greatness in the face of a “century of humiliation” at the hands of the Great Powers came to define the modern Chinese character. It’s what drove both Mao and Deng to embark on root-and-branch transformations of Chinese society, first by means of Marxism-Leninism, then by authoritarian capitalism. And this determined quest remains the key to understanding many of China’s actions today.

By unwrapping the intellectual antecedents of today’s resurgent China, Orville Schell and John Delury supply much-needed insight into the country’s tortured progression from nineteenth-century decline to twenty-first-century boom. By looking backward into the past to understand forces at work for hundreds of years, they help us understand China today and the future that this singular country is helping shape for all of us.
Orville Schell is one of the foremost US scholars on China. He has written books since the late 1960s even as a graduate student that help understand China. With Frank Schurman, he wrote the China Reader which describes China in 18-19th centuries.
I will post in the New China thread also.
ramana
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

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Rise of China in a few words:

Opium Wars->Century of Humilation(CoH)
Response:
Loss of Mandate of Heaven for Qing Dynasty-> Rise of Mao->Rise of four Emerprors (Deng, Jiang, Hu, Xi)

Now we see the continuity in the XJP 19th Congress speech to undo the Century of Humiliation.
And his Marxism with Sinic Characteristics.

Basically, the farmers/peasants have overthrown the scholars who were at the center top of the Confucisian that led to the CoH.

Any Indian grouping with the West revives Opium Wars memory and the Chinese reaction is visceral.
Yet Mao Zedong removed the three millennia Tibet buffer and created two boundary disputes in far away non-Core Chinese lands.

These disputes are to punish India for its perceived role in CoH even though it was the East India Company that did the damage.


This is the Scylla and Charybdis of Sino-Indian relations.
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by Cyrano »

Its amazing that a country so stuck in the past lectures everyone not to.
Rudradev
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by Rudradev »

Few data points.

XJP has set out timelines with milestones ranging between 2030 and 2050. Will he live to see them fulfilled?

XJP is a 68-year old cigarette smoker. Per an epidemiology study (Tian 2011), the mean life expectancy for male smokers in China is 70.1 years. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3899437/

Not only that, but XJP suffered a cerebral aneurysm in 2021 and was hospitalized for it. He refused surgical treatment (likely because he's a high-risk candidate) and has chosen to attempt traditional Chinese medicine instead.

Per Pyysalo et al 2013 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl ... population. , an untreated and unruptured cerebral aneurysm adds 50% excess mortality burden independently of the baseline level. Moreover, if the aneurysm ruptures giving rise to subarachnoid hemorrhage, chances of death go up to 65% https://www.medscape.com/answers/116151 ... -aneurysms

In short, XJP is not likely to live much longer unless he gets extremely lucky over and over again. No chance of 2050, and 2030 is also doubtful. And the above risks are only for death/mortality-- loss of brain function is an independent hazard with ruptured aneurysm.

XJP has set himself up as an ideological/spiritual successor to Mao. He has, for the first time since Mao, hoarded for himself the three greatest positions of power in PRC: Presidency, General Secretaryship of CPC, and Chairmanship of CMC. The worst succession crisis in PRC's history so far happened after Mao's death, with the Gang of Four seizing control. This was because Mao's megalomania had completely disrupted the orderly sequence of institutional succession-- all potential rivals had been dispatched, so there were no clear "leaders in waiting" when he died. When one person seizes all the highest offices in the land and tries to keep them secure from any other claimants, this is an unavoidable risk.

So we are looking at the following:

1) A man who has nearly supreme control over the state but with only a few years, perhaps months, to live.

2) A man who, if he dies now, will leave a lacklustre legacy behind. He has presided over:
a) A systemic, and probably permanent downturn in China's economic growth story
b) A badly mismanaged COVID pandemic response
c) For all the tall claims, a failure to seriously or openly challenge US dominance of the Pacific rim (let alone the world)
d) Lack of progress on "integrating Taiwan"
e) Lack of resolving territorial disputes with Japan or India in China's favour through military means.

No matter the spin, there is a sky-to-earth difference between what Xi has been promising in exchange for elevating him to supreme leadership, and what he will leave undone if he dies or becomes incapacitated in the near future. And, he is likely to die or become incapacitated in the relatively near future.

3) A Communist Party of China that will engage in a chaotic free-for-all to succeed Xi Jinping after his death or incapacitation, because no clear line of succession has been established (as it was for every Premier after Deng Xiaoping).

What does this tell us about what Xi Jinping is likely to do in the time he has left?
Cyrano
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

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Negotiate US or UK passports for his close family and few protectors who will ensure they will benefit from the money he stashed away.
ramana
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

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A year ago I said XJP is probably the Last Emperor of the Communist Dynasty.
At same time Mona Soniaji has eternal cancer and now Covid despite Pfizer vaccines!

So what if the medical reports are to smoke out rats?
Rudradev
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Re: Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

Post by Rudradev »

False medical reports are always possible in a place like China! But it's a risky move to smoke out rats like that. Leaking news that the Son of Heaven is close to death may actually inspire the ambitions of more rats who were previously loyal, or fence-sitters.
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