https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news ... g-disquiet
Xi Jinping examines military options to offset rising disquiet
Madhav Nalapat, July 2, 2022
Central Military Commission may calculate that if they move in force across the Himalayas, reassurances from Washington to Delhi notwithstanding, India would be on its own in facing a country far bigger in economic size than the Russian Federation.
New Delhi: In common with Mao Zedong, PRC supremo Xi Jinping has been more closely involved with military matters than his predecessors Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. It may be mentioned that Xi Jinping’s father, Xi Zhongxun had extensive connections with the military, as still does the First Lady of China, Peng Liyuan. It was not Xi but his rival Bo Xilai who sought support through the banner of upholding “Mao Zedong Thought”, the very factor that doomed his chances of succeeding Hu Jintao. Given the experience of the top rungs of the CCP leadership during the period in power of Mao, there was no appetite among them for a repeat performance. This smoothed the way for the outwardly emollient and accessible Xi to ascend to the top of the CCP. Unlike his predecessor Hu who allowed Jiang Zemin to remain Central Military Commission (CMC) Chairman for a couple of years after the General Secretaryship of the party had been transferred from him, from the very start of his tenure as General Secretary, Xi Jinping took formal charge of the Central Military Commission as well as taking on the protocol-heavy (while visiting foreign countries) job of President of the PRC. More than the party secretariat or the civilian side of the central government, it is the military that has the most influence in the thinking of the present CCP General Secretary. As a consequence, the three “active” fronts of the PLA have witnessed an acceleration of attention and activity since Xi took charge of the PRC in 2012. These are the South China Sea, the Himalayan massif and Taiwan.
EMULATING MAO
Mao took the decision to intervene in Korea in 1950 as a consequence of his belief that General Douglas MacArthur was planning to cross into the PRC from North Korea to set up a base area for operations by the KMT. In contrast, the PLA invasion across the Himalayan massif into India in 1962 worked as a diversion drawing attention away from the economic woes (including famine) that were sweeping across China at the time. Instead of growth and a rising standard of living for the Chinese people, the opposite was taking place during the years prior to the 1962 war with India. The conflict gave a respite to Mao in the context of efforts by some CCP leaders to whittle down his powers before removing him altogether, an interval that Mao used to strengthen his position (with the help of the Army) sufficient to clear the top and middle rungs of the CCP of all those suspected of being unhappy with the CCP Chairman’s stewardship of the state and party. This was accomplished through the brutal “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” that began in 1966 and lasted almost until Mao’s death a decade later.
In the case of “Mao’s heir” Xi, although almost all such activity remains hidden from the outside world, criticism of the functioning of the Office of the General Secretary (OGS) has been growing inside the higher ranks of the CCP. Since Xi took charge in 2012, the OGS and the CMC have far more influence over policy than the Central Committee or even the Standing Committee of the CCP, not to mention the Prime Minister of the PRC. In the past, the PRC PM used to be in charge of economic policy, but that responsibility was transferred by Xi to him and the Office of the General Secretary (OGS). This secretariat serves as the enforcer of what has been officially proclaimed to be “Xi Jinping Thought”.
PRC HAPPY WITH BIDEN’S RUSSIA FOCUS
Xi has been fortunate in the Europeanist policy of the Biden White House and its obsession with “teaching Putin a lesson”. This has greatly increased the degrees of freedom available to the PLA in the three “active” theatres mentioned earlier, the South China Sea, the Himalayan massif and Taiwan. An example of the Euro-focus of the Biden administration is the fact that weapons on an almost daily basis are being gifted to Ukraine, a country much less significant for overall US interests than India.
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Gautam